Responses of Economic News on Asset Prices: A Study of Indian Stock Index Futures

The study examines the role of economic news surprises on the volatility of the returns of the Indian Index futures market. Theoretical literature posits that news arrivals influence price discovery. In similar lines, we investigated the relationship between economic news releases, trading activity variables, and returns volatility. We find that economic news surprises and trading activity variables significantly affect returns volatility. However, among volume and news surprises, economic news surprises are much stronger informational signals, and the news surprises effects are found seemingly asymmetric in the index futures contract

Caecal perforation with faecal peritonitis – unusual presentation of Bochdalek hernia in an adult: a case report and review of literature

The improper fusion of the postero-lateral foramen of the diaphragm was first described by Bochdalek in 1848. The incidence of congenital diaphragmatic hernia varies from1:2000 to 1:5000 live births and Bochdalek hernias (BH) account for 75 to 85% of these. Although it is a well-known entity in neonates, it is occasionally discovered incidentally in adult patients. Until now, a total of around 100 cases of occult asymptomatic Bochdalek hernia have been reported. The symptomatic cases are encountered more rarely. Colon necrosis among the symptomatic cases was reported in some reports. We discuss the present case since we believe it to be, to the best of our knowledge, the first case of a Bochdalek hernia in an adult presenting with caecal perforation and faecal peritonitis and review the published literature about this rare condition

Needle stick injuries--risk and preventive factors: a study among health care workers in tertiary care hospitals in Pakistan.

BACKGROUND: Health care workers (HCWs) are at substantial risk of acquiring blood borne infections such as HIV, Hepatitis-B and Hepatitis-C through needle stick injuries (NSIs). This study aimed to assess the proportion of NSIs and their associated factors among HCWs and also to identify the areas in which preventive efforts might be directed to protect against this occupational hazard. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was conducted in two tertiary care hospitals of Pakistan representing both private and public health sector. A total of 497 HCWs (doctors and nurses) were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Data was collected from January to May 2008. RESULTS: Overall, 64% of the HCWs were exposed to at least one NSI during their career; among them 73% reported NSIs for two or more times. Factors found to be highly associated with NSIs were those practicing this occupation for more than five years (p \u3c 0.001: OR = 5.92; 95% CI = 3.45-10.16) and working as nurse than doctor (p 0.001: OR = 2.12; 95% CI = 1.35-3.32). Having received booster dose of hepatitis B vaccine (p 0.02: OR = 1.85; 95% CI = 1.10-3.11), working in surgical specialty (p \u3c 0.01: OR = 1.6; 95% CI = 1.09-2.51) and being a female (p 0.03: OR = 1.52; 95% CI = 1.04-2.22) were also found to be associated with NSIs. Most commonly reported reason for NSIs was injecting medicine and drawing blood (42%) followed by two-handed recapping of needle (37%). Only, 34% of study subjects were vaccinated against hepatitis B infection. Overall, HCWs had inadequate practices regarding standard precautions such as availability of gloves/protective cloths (40%) and infection control guidelines/protocols (10%) respectively in their working places. CONCLUSION: In addition to very high rates of NSIs, low safety practices including inadequate vaccination coverage, unavailability of infection control guidelines and other preventive facilities were reported in this study. Prevention of occupational infections among HCWs should be a priority. Formal training, by health authorities in the local area, about safe practices and availability of preventive facilities should be ensured regarding NSIs among HCWs

Does green improve portfolio optimisation?

Our study uses the GARCH-EVT-copula model to develop out-of-sample forecasts for diverse asset classes, including a green asset. To construct optimal portfolios, we apply four different portfolio allocation techniques: equal weighting, minimum variance, global minimum variance (GMV), and certainty equivalence tangency (CET) criteria. The results demonstrate that the GMV portfolio outperforms other portfolios in risk measures. Further, backtesting evidence shows that the portfolio containing a green asset performs better than the benchmark for short horizons. The results have implications for fund managers and policymakers since green asset provides valuable diversification benefits and further the cause of sustainable development

Distraction-free Embeddings for Robust VQA

The generation of effective latent representations and their subsequent refinement to incorporate precise information is an essential prerequisite for Vision-Language Understanding (VLU) tasks such as Video Question Answering (VQA). However, most existing methods for VLU focus on sparsely sampling or fine-graining the input information (e.g., sampling a sparse set of frames or text tokens), or adding external knowledge. We present a novel "DRAX: Distraction Removal and Attended Cross-Alignment" method to rid our cross-modal representations of distractors in the latent space. We do not exclusively confine the perception of any input information from various modalities but instead use an attention-guided distraction removal method to increase focus on task-relevant information in latent embeddings. DRAX also ensures semantic alignment of embeddings during cross-modal fusions. We evaluate our approach on a challenging benchmark (SUTD-TrafficQA dataset), testing the framework's abilities for feature and event queries, temporal relation understanding, forecasting, hypothesis, and causal analysis through extensive experiments

Um estudo da relação causal de autonomia no trabalho, apoio social e intenção de rotatividade

Boredom at workplace is a negative well-being displayed by both blue and white collar employees who had lost their passion and value towards jobs under non stimulating working environment. Yet, there are limited studies in this area. Scholars had constantly associated boredom with negative working performance such as job dissatisfaction, high absenteeism, poor health condition and low organizational commitment. However, the association with turnover intention remains debatable. In Pakistan, the turnover intention among academicians of universities are in critical stage ever since year 2015. Although the Higher Education Commission Pakistan recognize the potential of private universities in supporting Pakistan to improve education in the countries, this issue remains unsolved which may jeopardize the success. Therefore, this study put forward the antecedents and consequence of boredom at workplace under a single model which includes the investigation of job autonomy, social support, and turnover intention among academicians. A quantitative study was conducted by obtaining data from 279 academicians working for 25 private universities in Lahore an Islamabad. The results showed that job autonomy was not significantly associated with turnover intention because job autonomy has no association with boredom at the first place. In contrast, social support was negatively associated with boredom which led to positive association with turnover intention. Moreover, the result confirmed the presence of boredom as mediator upon bootstrapping. It is suggested that private universities shall motivate academicians to actively participate in trainings, conferences, and seminars as the opportune time can be used to build good rapport among them.El aburrimiento en el lugar de trabajo es un bienestar negativo que muestran tanto los empleados de cuello azul como los de clase blanca que han perdido su pasión y valor hacia los empleos en un entorno laboral no estimulante. Sin embargo, hay estudios limitados en esta área. Los académicos han asociado constantemente el aburrimiento con el desempeño laboral negativo, como la insatisfacción laboral, el alto ausentismo, la mala condición de salud y el bajo compromiso organizacional. Sin embargo, la asociación con la intención de rotación sigue siendo discutible. En Pakistán, la intención de rotación entre los académicos de las universidades se encuentra en una etapa crítica desde el año 2015. Aunque la Comisión de Educación Superior de Pakistán reconoce el potencial de las universidades privadas para ayudar a Pakistán a mejorar la educación en los países, este problema sigue sin resolverse, lo que puede poner en peligro el éxito.. Por lo tanto, este estudio expuso los antecedentes y las consecuencias del aburrimiento en el lugar de trabajo bajo un modelo único que incluye la investigación de la autonomía laboral, el apoyo social y la intención de cambio entre los académicos. Se realizó un estudio cuantitativo mediante la obtención de datos de 279 académicos que trabajan en 25 universidades privadas en Lahore y Islamabad. Los resultados mostraron que la autonomía laboral no se asoció significativamente con la intención de la rotación, ya que la autonomía laboral no tiene ninguna asociación con el aburrimiento en primer lugar. En contraste, el apoyo social se asoció negativamente con el aburrimiento, lo que llevó a una asociación positiva con la intención de la rotación. Además, el resultado confirmó la presencia de aburrimiento como mediador en el arranque. Se sugiere que las universidades privadas motiven a los académicos a participar activamente en capacitaciones, conferencias y seminarios, ya que el momento oportuno se puede utilizar para establecer una buena relación entre ellos.O tédio no local de trabalho é um bem-estar negativo exibido por funcionários de colarinho azul e branco que perderam a paixão e o valor para empregos em ambiente de trabalho não estimulante. No entanto, existem estudos limitados nesta área. Os acadêmicos associaram constantemente o tédio ao desempenho negativo do trabalho, como insatisfação no trabalho, alto absenteísmo, condições de saúde precárias e baixo comprometimento organizacional. No entanto, a associação com a intenção de rotatividade continua a ser discutível. No Paquistão, a intenção de rotatividade entre acadêmicos de universidades está em fase crítica desde 2015. Embora a Comissão de Educação Superior do Paquistão reconheça o potencial das universidades privadas em apoiar o Paquistão para melhorar a educação nos países, esta questão permanece sem solução, o que pode comprometer o sucesso. Portanto, este estudo apresenta os antecedentes e conseqüências do tédio no local de trabalho sob um único modelo que inclui a investigação da autonomia do trabalho, apoio social e intenção de rotatividade entre os acadêmicos. Um estudo quantitativo foi realizado através da obtenção de dados de 279 acadêmicos que trabalham para 25 universidades privadas em Lahore e Islamabad. Os resultados mostraram que a autonomia do trabalho não estava significativamente associada à intenção de rotatividade, porque a autonomia do trabalho não tem nenhuma associação com o tédio em primeiro lugar. Em contraste, o apoio social foi negativamente associado ao tédio, o que levou a uma associação positiva com a intenção de rotatividade. Além disso, o resultado confirmou a presença do tédio como mediador no bootstrapping. Sugere-se que as universidades privadas motivem os acadêmicos a participar ativamente de treinamentos, conferências e seminários, já que o momento oportuno pode ser usado para construir um bom relacionamento entre eles

Screening of hepatitis B and C among people visiting general practice clinics in a rural district of Sindh, Pakistan.

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis B (HB), Hepatitis C (HC) and their risk factors are amongst the major health problems in developing countries including Pakistan. This study aimed to screen for HB and HC among people who visited General Practice clinics and also to identify the differences of screening positive cases by age and sex. METHODS: This was a retrospective study conducted in Tando Muhammad Khan city, one of the rural districts of Sindh. All together we reviewed 5989 laboratory reports of people for hepatitis B and C on consecutive basis from two laboratories. A pre-designed and structured perform was used to collect the required information. Chi-squared test and univariate analysis was calculated to assess the difference in HB and HC proportion by age groups and sex. RESULTS: One-fourth of reports were positive for at least one entity whereas 8% and 17% of reviewed reports of adults (\u3e 18 years and above) were screened positive for HB and HC respectively. Positive screened tests were higher among older age group compared to young age group (HB: older age group = 56.6% vs. younger age group = 43.4%; OR = 1.07) and (HC: older age group = 58.3% vs. younger age group = 41.7%; OR = 1.08). In the same way, positive screened tests were higher among men compared to women (HB: men = 67.0% vs. women = 33.0%; OR = 1.2) and (HC: men = 62.0% vs. women = 38.0%; OR = 1.3), CONCLUSION: A large proportion of people were screened positive for HB and HC inthis study. Prevention and screening are suggested at larger scale for urgent planning and implementation of intervention strategies in this regard. Further research is also recommended to explore this important health issue at large scale

Anatomy of sovereign yield behaviour using textual news

While the relationship between the information content of macroeconomic news and the behavior of asset prices has been studied extensively in the finance literature, this study provides a new perspective by examining the impact of textual news on sovereign bond yield spreads in an emerging country. This study used bond market news published in newspapers to develop the sentiment scores using a modified word dictionary to unravel news characteristics. A nonlinear regime-shifting regression model of Markov Regime Shifting (MRS) is used to understand the impact of news on sovereign bond yield spreads. The paper results show that textual news sentiment may explain both steepening and flattening of the yield curve, with monetary and fiscal policy news having the most significant impact on yield spread behaviour. The results hold key implications for policymakers, debt fund managers and other market participants

Is greenness an optimal hedge for sectoral stock indices?

The paper examines the role of green bonds in hedging the risk against industry portfolios and other major asset classes. It mainly focuses on how the greenness of the portfolio reduces the risk of green portfolios containing green bonds and 11 industrial sectors and major financial assets from October 2014 to November 2021. The results show that the risk of green portfolios is lower than that of unhedged (non-green) portfolios. Furthermore, our study provides evidence that the hedging effectiveness of green portfolios improves during the COVID–19 pandemic. Finally, the results show that investors across the risk aversion spectrum gain higher utility after considering the transaction costs while investing in green portfolios. These results are new additions to prior literature that can interest investors, fund managers, and policymakers