The effect of funding strategy on the lending patterns of banks in Ghana

This article examines the effect of funding strategy on the lending patterns of banks in Ghana. We employ a panel dataset of banks from 2005 to 2011, to analyse the impact of funding sources on three sets of lending patterns employed by banks: Primary, secondary and tertiary economic sectors. The result shows that banks in Ghana use internally generated funds to finance loans to the primary and secondary sectors of the economy. In addition, our findings suggest that bank lending to the tertiary sector of the economy is significantly more sensitive to wholesale funding than to deposit and internally generated funds. The overall implication of this finding is that the bank funding structure needs to be considered in addition to the traditional bank-specific indicators when assessing banks’ ability to finance economic activities.Keywords: Africa, developing country, funding sources, Ghana, lending pattern

Full-wave invisibility of active devices at all frequencies

There has recently been considerable interest in the possibility, both theoretical and practical, of invisibility (or "cloaking") from observation by electromagnetic (EM) waves. Here, we prove invisibility, with respect to solutions of the Helmholtz and Maxwell's equations, for several constructions of cloaking devices. Previous results have either been on the level of ray tracing [Le,PSS] or at zero frequency [GLU2,GLU3], but recent numerical [CPSSP] and experimental [SMJCPSS] work has provided evidence for invisibility at frequency $k\ne 0$. We give two basic constructions for cloaking a region $D$ contained in a domain $\Omega$ from measurements of Cauchy data of waves at \p \Omega; we pay particular attention to cloaking not just a passive object, but an active device within $D$, interpreted as a collection of sources and sinks or an internal current.Comment: Final revision; to appear in Commun. in Math. Physic

Optical Cloaking with Non-Magnetic Metamaterials

Artificially structured metamaterials have enabled unprecedented flexibility in manipulating electromagnetic waves and producing new functionalities, including the cloak of invisibility based on coordinate transformation. Here we present the design of a non-magnetic cloak operating at optical frequencies. The principle and structure of the proposed cylindrical cloak are analyzed, and the general recipe for the implementation of such a device is provided. The cloaking performance is verified using full-wave finite-element simulations.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Prosthesis-patient mismatch after aortic valve replacement in the PARTNER 2 trial and registry

Objectives This study aimed to compare incidence and impact of measured prosthesis-patient mismatch (PPMM) versus predicted PPM (PPMP) after surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) and transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Background TAVR studies have used measured effective orifice area indexed (EOAi) to body surface area (BSA) to define PPM, but most SAVR series have used predicted EOAi. This difference may contribute to discrepancies in incidence and outcomes of PPM between series. Methods The study analyzed SAVR patients from the PARTNER (Placement of Aortic Transcatheter Valves) 2A trial and TAVR patients from the PARTNER 2 SAPIEN 3 Intermediate Risk registry. PPM was classified as moderate if EOAi ≤0.85 cm2/m2 (≤0.70 if obese: body mass index ≥30 kg/m2) and severe if EOAi ≤0.65 cm2/m2 (≤0.55 if obese). PPMM was determined by the core lab–measured EOAi on 30-day echocardiogram. PPMP was determined by 2 methods: 1) using normal EOA reference values previously reported for each valve model and size (PPMP1; n = 929 SAVR, 1,069 TAVR) indexed to BSA; and 2) using normal reference EOA predicted from aortic annulus size measured by computed tomography (PPMP2; n = 864 TAVR only) indexed to BSA. Primary endpoint was the composite of 5-year all-cause death and rehospitalization. Results The incidence of moderate and severe PPMP was much lower than PPMM in both SAVR (PPMP1: 28.4% and 1.2% vs. PPMM: 31.0% and 23.6%) and TAVR (PPMP1: 21.0% and 0.1% and PPMP2: 17.0% and 0% vs. PPMM: 27.9% and 5.7%). The incidence of severe PPMM and severe PPMP1 was lower in TAVR versus SAVR (P < 0.001). The presence of PPM by any method was associated with higher transprosthetic gradient. Severe PPMP1 was independently associated with events in SAVR after adjustment for sex and Society of Thoracic Surgeons score (hazard ratio: 3.18;95% CI: 1.69-5.96; P < 0.001), whereas no association was observed between PPM by any method and outcomes in TAVR. Conclusions EOAi measured by echocardiography results in a higher incidence of PPM following SAVR or TAVR than PPM based on predicted EOAi. Severe PPMP is rare (<1.5%), but is associated with increased all-cause death and rehospitalization after SAVR, whereas it is absent following TAVR

Tricuspid Valve Academic Research Consortium Definitions for Tricuspid Regurgitation and Trial Endpoints.

Interest in the pathophysiology, etiology, management, and outcomes of patients with tricuspid regurgitation (TR) has grown in the wake of multiple natural history studies showing progressively worse outcomes associated with increasing TR severity, even after adjusting for multiple comorbidities. Historically, isolated tricuspid valve surgery has been associated with high in-hospital mortality rates, leading to the development of transcatheter treatment options. The aim of this first Tricuspid Valve Academic Research Consortium document is to standardize definitions of disease etiology and severity, as well as endpoints for trials that aim to address the gaps in our knowledge related to identification and management of patients with TR. Standardizing endpoints for trials should provide consistency and enable meaningful comparisons between clinical trials. A second Tricuspid Valve Academic Research Consortium document will focus on further defining trial endpoints and will discuss trial design options

Tricuspid Valve Academic Research Consortium Definitions for Tricuspid Regurgitation and Trial Endpoints.

Interest in the pathophysiology, etiology, management, and outcomes of patients with tricuspid regurgitation (TR) has grown in the wake of multiple natural history studies showing progressively worse outcomes associated with increasing TR severity, even after adjusting for multiple comorbidities. Historically, isolated tricuspid valve surgery has been associated with high in-hospital mortality rates, leading to the development of transcatheter treatment options. The aim of this first Tricuspid Valve Academic Research Consortium document is to standardize definitions of disease etiology and severity, as well as endpoints for trials that aim to address the gaps in our knowledge related to identification and management of patients with TR. Standardizing endpoints for trials should provide consistency and enable meaningful comparisons between clinical trials. A second Tricuspid Valve Academic Research Consortium document will focus on further defining trial endpoints and will discuss trial design options

Transcatheter or surgical aortic-valve replacement in intermediate-risk patients

BACKGROUND: Previous trials have shown that among high-risk patients with aortic stenosis, survival rates are similar with transcatheter aortic-valve replacement (TAVR) and surgical aorticvalve replacement. We evaluated the two procedures in a randomized trial involving intermediate-risk patients. METHODS: We randomly assigned 2032 intermediate-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis, at 57 centers, to undergo either TAVR or surgical replacement. The primary end point was death from any cause or disabling stroke at 2 years. The primary hypothesis was that TAVR would not be inferior to surgical replacement. Before randomization, patients were entered into one of two cohorts on the basis of clinical and imaging findings; 76.3% of the patients were included in the transfemoral-access cohort and 23.7% in the transthoracic-access cohort. RESULTS: The rate of death from any cause or disabling stroke was similar in the TAVR group and the surgery group (P=0.001 for noninferiority). At 2 years, the Kaplan–Meier event rates were 19.3% in the TAVR group and 21.1% in the surgery group (hazard ratio in the TAVR group, 0.89; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.73 to 1.09; P=0.25). In the transfemoralaccess cohort, TAVR resulted in a lower rate of death or disabling stroke than surgery (hazard ratio, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.62 to 1.00; P=0.05), whereas in the transthoracic-access cohort, outcomes were similar in the two groups. TAVR resulted in larger aortic-valve areas than did surgery and also resulted in lower rates of acute kidney injury, severe bleeding, and new-onset atrial fibrillation; surgery resulted in fewer major vascular complications and less paravalvular aortic regurgitation. CONCLUSIONS: In intermediate-risk patients, TAVR was similar to surgical aortic-valve replacement with respect to the primary end point of death or disabling stroke. (Funded by Edwards Lifesciences; PARTNER 2 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01314313