Evaluating the 2013 Euro CAC Experiment

On January 1, 2013, it became mandatory that every new sovereign bond issued by a member of the European Monetary Union include a new contract clause called a Collective Action Clause or CAC. This, we believe, constituted the biggest one-time change to the terms of sovereign debt contracts in history, impacting a market of many trillions of euros. And it was not just that the change was big in terms of the size of the market it impacted; it was big in terms of its impact on the documentation of each individual Euro area sovereign bond contract. To illustrate, prior to January 1, 2013, all of the terms of a local-law Irish sovereign bond fitted on about a page and a half; the full document was about three pages long. After January 1, 2013, the document was twenty pages long; almost all of that space taken by the new CAC term. In terms of words on the page, it was a big change. But did it do anything meaningful? And, more importantly, did it do what it was intended to do

The Price of Law: The Case of the Eurozone\u27s Collective Action Clauses

Do markets value contract protections? And does the quality of a legal system affect such valuations? To answer these questions we exploit a unique experiment whereby, after January 1, 2013, newly issued sovereign bonds of Eurozone countries under domestic law had to include Collective Action Clauses (CACs) specifying the minimum vote needed to modify payment terms. We find that CAC bonds trade at lower yields than otherwise similar no-CAC bonds; and that the quality of the legal system matters for this differential. Hence, markets appear to see CACs as providing protection against the legal risk embedded in domestic-law sovereign bonds

Biostimulant Effects of Seed-Applied Sedaxane Fungicide: Morphological and Physiological Changes in Maize Seedlings

Most crops are routinely protected against seed-born and soil-borne fungal pathogens through seed-applied fungicides. The recently released succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI), sedaxane\uae, is a broad-spectrum fungicide, used particularly to control Rhizoctonia spp., but also has documented growth-enhancement effects on wheat. This study investigates the potential biostimulant effects of sedaxane and related physiological changes in disease-free maize seedlings (3-leaf stage) at increasing application doses (25, 75 and 150 \u3bcg a.i. seed-1) under controlled sterilized conditions. We show sedaxane to have significant auxin-like and gibberellin-like effects, which effect marked morphological and physiological changes according to an approximate saturation dose-response model. Maximum benefits were attained at the intermediate dose, which significantly increased root length (+60%), area (+45%) and forks (+51%), and reduced root diameter as compared to untreated controls. Sedaxane enhanced leaf and root glutamine synthetase (GS) activity resulting in greater protein accumulation, particularly in the above-ground compartment, while glutamate synthase (GOGAT) activity remained almost unchanged. Sedaxane also improved leaf phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) activity, which may be responsible for the increase in shoot antioxidant activity (phenolic acids), mainly represented by p-coumaric and caffeic acids. We conclude that, in addition to its protective effect, sedaxane can facilitate root establishment and intensify nitrogen and phenylpropanoid metabolism in young maize plants, and may be beneficial in overcoming biotic and abiotic stresses in early growth stages

Dissolved humic substances supplied as potential enhancers of Cu, Cd, and Pb adsorption by two different mangrove sediments

Purpose The external supply of humic substances has been recently suggested for the remediation of metal-polluted sediments; however, little is known about how to supply them and their effects on metal mobility. The study sought to investigate the sediment\u2014metals\u2014humic substance interaction in mangrove forest sediments. We aimed to evaluate the sediment adsorption potential in the case of large and rapid metal loads, as recently occurred in the Doce River (Brazil). Materials and methods In each mangrove forest sampling point of the Benevente River (RB) and Vitoria bay (MO), sediments were collected randomly along the river banks at a depth of 0\u201310 cm. Samples were characterized in terms of pH, CEC, organic carbon, texture, specific surface area, and elemental composition. The heavy metal content was measured by mass absorption spectrophotometry. Humic substances were extracted from the sediments according to the International Humic Substances Society (IHSS) method, avoiding separation of fulvic and humic acids. Original sediments were supplemented with humic substances and six Cu, Cd, or Pb concentrations. Freundlich and Langmuir equations were employed to create adsorption isotherms. Results and discussion The two sediments are significantly different, specifically with regard to organic carbon and Fe content, texture, and specific surface area. External humic substances increased the Cu adsorption capacity in both sediments but without an important change in Cu adsorption dynamics. Humic substances slightly increased the sediment adsorption capacity of Pb in RB sediment while they decreased in MO sediment, characterized by lower specific surface area, probably due to coverage of the active adsorption sites. Cd isotherms showed that the different characteristics of sediments alone do not affect Cd adsorption, but coupled with humic substances; Cd affinity for the soil surface increased five times in RB sediments confirming sediment-metal- humic substance interactions. Conclusions Humic substances affect soil metal retention mainly by altering the ion affinity for sediment surface, leading to contrasting results. The Fe concentration could be important depending on specific surface area and humic substance percentage, due to its capacity to form spheroids linked to molecules of humic substances on the clay surface. Several works have been carried out on this research area, but due to the many variables and different metal ions, we recommend further studies

Biostimulant Effects of Seed-Applied Sedaxane Fungicide: Morphological and Physiological Changes in Maize Seedlings

Most crops are routinely protected against seed-born and soil-borne fungal pathogens through seed-applied fungicides. The recently released succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI), sedaxane®, is a broad-spectrum fungicide, used particularly to control Rhizoctonia spp., but also has documented growth-enhancement effects on wheat. This study investigates the potential biostimulant effects of sedaxane and related physiological changes in disease-free maize seedlings (3-leaf stage) at increasing application doses (25, 75 and 150 μg a.i. seed-1) under controlled sterilized conditions. We show sedaxane to have significant auxin-like and gibberellin-like effects, which effect marked morphological and physiological changes according to an approximate saturation dose-response model. Maximum benefits were attained at the intermediate dose, which significantly increased root length (+60%), area (+45%) and forks (+51%), and reduced root diameter as compared to untreated controls. Sedaxane enhanced leaf and root glutamine synthetase (GS) activity resulting in greater protein accumulation, particularly in the above-ground compartment, while glutamate synthase (GOGAT) activity remained almost unchanged. Sedaxane also improved leaf phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) activity, which may be responsible for the increase in shoot antioxidant activity (phenolic acids), mainly represented by p-coumaric and caffeic acids. We conclude that, in addition to its protective effect, sedaxane can facilitate root establishment and intensify nitrogen and phenylpropanoid metabolism in young maize plants, and may be beneficial in overcoming biotic and abiotic stresses in early growth stages

The Importance of Worst-Case Memory Contention Analysis for Heterogeneous SoCs

Memory interference may heavily inflate task execution times in Heterogeneous Systems-on-Chips (HeSoCs). Knowing worst-case interference is consequently fundamental for supporting the correct execution of time-sensitive applications. In most of the literature, worst-case interference is assumed to be generated by, and therefore is estimated through read-intensive synthetic workloads with no caching. Yet these workloads do not always generate worst-case interference. This is the consequence of the general results reported in this work. By testing on multiple architectures, we determined that the highest interference generation traffic pattern is actually hardware dependant, and that making assumptions could lead to a severe underestimation of the worst-case (in our case, of more than 9x).Comment: Accepted for presentation at the CPS workshop 2023 (http://www.cpsschool.eu/cps-workshop

An ontology-based consultation system to support medical care on board seagoing vessels

Background: A realistic possibility to obtain medical care for patients located in remote sites such as seagoing vessels, in which health professionals are not available, is to contact a doctor via telecommunication systems. In general, the medical knowledge of who on board ships is in charge of medical care is quite limited and therefore, in a first level telemedical consultation, the flow of information should be correct and its efficiency should be maximised. This paper describes an application conceived to improve requests of medical assistance from sailing ships. The ultimate objective of this system is a) to standardise as much as possible the requests of medical advice at a distance, b) to overcome language barriers and jammed-related troubles that could make difficult or not understandable a telephone conversation. Materials and methods: The application is based on a software engine extracting data from an ontological knowledgebase built ad hoc using Protégé. Results: Compared to the conventional consultation systems based on telephone and e-mail, the proposed device is more accurate and complete in terms of information contained in the request of assistance. Moreover, data received by the medical centre can be more easily managed, as they can be standardised. Conclusions: The system described here allows people responsible of medical care on board ships to forward detailed requests of assistance containing symptom-guided information on patient clinical conditions. This may represent an innovative tool for medical consultations at distance allowing the remote centre to provide more precise and quicker medical advice.

Protein Profiling of Arabidopsis Roots Treated With Humic Substances: Insights Into the Metabolic and Interactome Networks

Background and Aim: Humic substances (HSs) influence the chemical and physical properties of the soil, and are also known to affect plant physiology and nutrient uptake. This study aimed to elucidate plant metabolic pathways and physiological processes influenced by HS activity. Methods: Arabidopsis roots were treated with HS for 8 h. Quantitative mass spectrometry-based proteomics analysis of root proteins was performed using the iTRAQ (Isobaric Tag for Relative and Absolute Quantification) technique. Out of 902 protein families identified and quantified for HS treated vs. untreated roots, 92 proteins had different relative content. Bioinformatic tools such as STRING, KEGG, IIS and Cytoscape were used to interpret the biological function, pathway analysis and visualization of network amongst the identified proteins. Results: From this analysis it was possible to evaluate that all of the identified proteins were functionally classified into several categories, mainly redox homeostasis, response to inorganic substances, energy metabolism, protein synthesis, cell trafficking, and division. Conclusion: In the present study an overview of the metabolic pathways most modified by HS biological activity is provided. Activation of enzymes of the glycolytic pathway and up regulation of ribosomal protein indicated a stimulation in energy metabolism and protein synthesis. Regulation of the enzymes involved in redox homeostasis suggest a pivotal role of reactive oxygen species in the signaling and modulation of HS-induced responses

Recognition self-awareness for active object recognition on depth images

We propose an active object recognition framework that introduces the recognition self-awareness, which is an intermediate level of reasoning to decide which views to cover during the object exploration. This is built first by learning a multi-view deep 3D object classifier; subsequently, a 3D dense saliency volume is generated by fusing together single-view visualization maps, these latter obtained by computing the gradient map of the class label on different image planes. The saliency volume indicates which object parts the classifier considers more important for deciding a class. Finally, the volume is injected in the observation model of a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP). In practice, the robot decides which views to cover, depending on the expected ability of the classifier to discriminate an object class by observing a specific part. For example, the robot will look for the engine to discriminate between a bicycle and a motorbike, since the classifier has found that part as highly discriminative. Experiments are carried out on depth images with both simulated and real data, showing that our framework predicts the object class with higher accuracy and lower energy consumption than a set of alternatives