Loan and bond finance in Argentina, 1985-2005

Loan and bond finance during 1985-2005 can be divided into three sub-periods. After the 1982 debt crisis, which mainly involved domestic and foreign bank loans to both the corporate and government sectors, there was practically no credit. This situation of lack of credit persisted until the domestic economy was stabilized in 1991 with the Convertibility Plan, and foreign debt renegotiation was completed in 1993 with the Brady Plan. Loan finance recovered to unprecedented levels since the 1950s, and bond finance became for the first time an important financing vehicle for both the national government and large firms in the corporate sector. Credit came to a sudden stop in 2001, with widespread default on both corporate and government bonds. The 2001 debt crisis was not followed by runaway domestic inflation, and by 2005 Argentina was able to return to foreign capital markets.bank loans, sovereign bonds, provincial bonds, central bank bonds, corporate bonds, pension funds, yields, liquidity

Bootstrap testing for cross-correlation under low firing activity

A new cross-correlation synchrony index for neural activity is proposed. The index is based on the integration of the kernel estimation of the cross-correlation function. It is used to test for the dynamic synchronization levels of spontaneous neural activity under two induced brain states: sleep-like and awake-like. Two bootstrap resampling plans are proposed to approximate the distribution of the test statistics. The results of the first bootstrap method indicate that it is useful to discern significant differences in the synchronization dynamics of brain states characterized by a neural activity with low firing rate. The second bootstrap method is useful to unveil subtle differences in the synchronization levels of the awake-like state, depending on the activation pathway.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure

Corporate bonds, asset-backed securities and deferred checks in Argentina

We describe the evolution of three types of corporate securities in Argentina, namely, corporate bonds, asset-backed securities and deferred checks. Corporate bonds (obligaciones negociables) were legally authorized in 1988, and after a tax reform in 1991 they became an important financing vehicle. Asset backed securities (fideicomisos), legally created in 1995, have been issued since 1996. They typically bundle together small credits of a similar category. Deferred checks (cheques de pago diferido) exist since 1993, alongside standard checks. They can be negotiated on the exchange since 2003, and are akin to commercial paper. Corporate bonds have been overwhelmingly issued by large firms and banks, with an average issue size of 53 million dollars. Asset backed securities have an average value of 9 million dollars. Deferred checks are typically used by smaller firms, and those traded on the exchange of the Buenos Aires board of trade have an average value of 9 thousand dollars.private securities, corporate bonds, asset-backed securities, deferred checks

Genetic diversity and population structure of the rockpool shrimp "Palaemon elegans" based on microsatellites: evidence for a cryptic species and differentiation across the Atlantic–Mediterranean transition

[Abstract] The rockpool shrimp Palaemon elegans is an ecologically important crustacean species within the European coastline fauna. In the present study, genetic diversity and population structure and connectivity were assessed by examining 21 polymorphic microsatellite loci at 13 sampling sites located along the natural distribution range. All localities showed similar levels of genetic variability. Significant deficits of heterozygosity were recorded, most likely due to the presence of null alleles. Genetic structure analyses revealed two clearly genetically distinct groups within P. elegans but without following any geographical or oceanographic basis. Thus, our results provided nuclear evidence for the existence of a Mediterranean cryptic species within P. elegans, highlighting the need to revise its taxonomic status. Regarding P. elegans sensu stricto, population structuring was reported across the Atlantic–Mediterranean transition area, where the Almería-Orán Front restricts the gene flow between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean population. Moreover, while population connectivity was suggested between all Mediterranean localities, some substructure was found within the Atlantic group. Canary Islands exhibited a weak but significant genetic differentiation from all Atlantic mainland localities, consistent with the isolation-by-distance pattern detected throughout the Atlantic population. Overall, all these findings provided new insights into the population biology of P. elegans complex.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; CTM2014-53838-RXunta de Galicia; ED431C 2018/S7Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte; FPU15/0526

Automatic plankton quantification using deep features

The study of marine plankton data is vital to monitor the health of the world’s oceans. In recent decades, automatic plankton recognition systems have proved useful to address the vast amount of data collected by specially engineered in situ digital imaging systems. At the beginning, these systems were developed and put into operation using traditional automatic classification techniques, which were fed with handdesigned local image descriptors (such as Fourier features), obtaining quite successful results. In the past few years, there have been many advances in the computer vision community with the rebirth of neural networks. In this paper, we leverage how descriptors computed using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) trained with out-of-domain data are useful to replace hand-designed descriptors in the task of estimating the prevalence of each plankton class in a water sample. To achieve this goal, we have designed a broad set of experiments that show how effective these deep features are when working in combination with state-of-the-art quantification algorithms

Phenotypic and genotypic characterization of lactic acid bacteria isolated from cow, ewe and goat dairy artisanal farmhouses

Lactic acid bacteria collected from artisanal farmhouses were characterized using a polyphasic approach. Phenotypic methods including biochemical assays, ribosomal DNA restriction analysis and 16S rDNA sequence analysis were performed. This approach provides accuracy for identification, and helps to avoid the loss of natural biodiversity including potentially valuable strains

Two-way layout factorial experiments of spatial point pattern responses in mineral flotation

Factorial experiments are well-understood when the given observations are outcomes of random variables. However, when we observe spatial point patterns in each combination of factors cells, the methodology is much less developed. Motivated by a real problem of locations of bubbles in a mineral flotation experiment where the interest is analysing if the spatial distribution might be affected by frother concentrations and volumetric airflow rates, we develop an approach for statistical testing of two-way factorial experiments for spatial point patterns.We describe the point patterns through the K-function, a second-order summary statistic, and develop a set of new Fisherbased statistics using weighted means. For inference by Monte Carlo, we use random permutations of weighted residuals depending on the null hypothesis. We conduct simulation experiments to demonstrate the performance of the new test statistics and present the results of the real problem

Stress compensation by gap monolayers for stacked InAs/GaAs quantum dots solar cells

In this work we report the stacking of 10 and 50 InAs quantum dots layers using 2 monolayers of GaP for stress compensation and a stack period of 18 nm on GaAs (001) substrates. Very good structural and optical quality is found in both samples. Vertical alignment of the dots is observed by transmission electron microscopy suggesting the existence of residual stress around them. Photocurrent measurements show light absorption up to 1.2 μm in the nanostructures together with a reduction in the blue response of the device. As a result of the phosphorus incorporation in the barriers, a very high thermal activation energy (431 meV) has also been obtained for the quantum dot emission

Further econometric evidence on the extent and sources of cost savings in competitively tendered contracts

By estimating a flexible nonlinear regression model of savings on an original dataset of service procurements conducted by the Spanish Armed Forces, this paper provides robust and precise novel econometric evidence on the extent and sources of cost savings in public procurement. The net effect on savings of the policy-amenable and economically advantageous variables that we estimate, such as the size of the procured function, the importance of price in the contract award criteria, and the number of bidders who participate in the tendering, may help contracting agencies to select management practices and to forecast the price paid out. We find that savings increase proportionally to the size of the procured function, that an increase of 10 percentage points in the importance of price increases savings by approximately 2% of the function’s size, and that savings are generally reduced by restricting the number of bidders. A comparison with estimates reported in previous studies is also made