An investigation of abnormal returns in distress exchange : a Norwegian case

The main objective of this research is to investigate whether distress firm creditors get better or worse recoveries during the financial restructuring process in Norwegian Bond market. To investigate that question we have created a sample using Norsk Tillitsmann database. For the criterion we needed firms in the data sample that went through financial restructuring due to financial distress or financial. We managed to get hold of ninety seven bonds using the above criterion. The sample was composed of different classes of bonds according to their seniority, but majority was senior secured and senior unsecured bonds. We have also divided the sample into five broader industry classifications and the majority of the sample firms were oil and gas related. During the literature review process we came up with a few hypotheses and tried to find evidence of them in the sample. For this purpose we conducted a layman analysis, i.e. descriptive analysis in which we came to conclusion that creditors are better off if the borrower is in oil and gas industry and if they hold senior secured or senior unsecured securities. We also found descriptive evidence that debt exchange produce higher “abnormal” return for distress firm’s creditors than debt to equity swap. Finally we conducted statistical tests on the sample to find the evidence of stated hypotheses to see if the results are statistical significant or not. The results were not significant to the hypothesis that seniority and collateral leads to higher abnormal returns; however there are strong indications that the industry as well as debt exchange or equity swap are relevant factors for higher abnormal returns. Also examined was if bondholders recoveries are being affected by the gearing (leverage) of the distress firm and also by the time to maturity (settlement date) of the bonds. In regression analysis we did not find both of these to be significant affecting bondholders’ returns however we did notice that almost all of the firms had 66% to 80% debt in their capital structure. As well we believed that high leverage is the reason for them to be in distress. In our sample of there is one financial restructuring (Sevan Marine ASA) that stands out with the clear violation of Absolute Priority Rule (APR), and there were other minor APR violation in not so strict sense. The final conclusion we drew from analyzing the sample is that a creditor’s or investor’s in the Norwegian bond market should place themselves in the Oil & Gas industry and negotiate for debt exchanges during restructurings process to get higher abnormal returns

Leaking pseudoaneurysm of hepatic artery: A potentially life-threatening complication of a common procedure

We report a case of leaking pseudoaneurysm of right hepatic artery in a 54-year old female after laparoscopic cholecystectomy who presented with massive gastrointestinal haemorrhage and was successfully managed with angiography and coil embolization

Interfacial Tailoring of Polyether Sulfone-Modified Silica Mixed Matrix Membranes for CO2 Separation

In this work, in situ polymerization of modified sol-gel silica in a polyether sulfone matrix is presented to control the interfacial defects in organic-inorganic composite membranes. Polyether sulfone polymer and modified silica are used as organic and inorganic components of mixed matrix membranes (MMM). The membranes were prepared with different loadings (2, 4, 6, and 8 wt.%) of modified and unmodified silica. The synthesized membranes were characterized using Field emission electron scanning microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analyzer, and differential scanning calorimetry. The performance of the membranes was evaluated using a permeation cell set up at a relatively higher-pressure range (5–30 bar). The membranes appear to display ideal morphology with uniform distribution of particles, defect-free structure, and absence of interfacial defects such as voids and particle accumulations. Additionally, the CO(2)/CH(4) selectivity of the membrane increased with the increase in the modified silica content. Further comparison of the performance indicates that PES/modified silica MMMs show a promising feature of commercially attractive membranes. Therefore, tailoring the interfacial morphology of the membrane results in enhanced properties and improved CO(2) separation performance

Enhanced Energy Savings with Adaptive Watchful Sleep Mode for Next Generation Passive Optical Network

A single watchful sleep mode (WSM) combines the features of both cyclic sleep mode (CSM) and cyclic doze mode (CDM) in a single process by periodically turning ON and OFF the optical receiver (RX) of the optical network terminal (ONT) in a symmetric manner. This results in almost the same energy savings for the ONTs as achieved by the CSM process while significantly reducing the upstream delays. However, in this study we argue that the periodic ON and OFF periods of the ONT RX is not an energy efficient approach, as it reduces the ONT Asleep (AS) state time. Instead, this study proposes an adaptive watchful sleep mode (AWSM) in which the RX ON time of ONT is minimized during ONT Watch state by choosing it according to the length of the traffic queue of the type 1 (T1) traffic class. The performance of AWSM is compared with standard WSM and CSM schemes. The investigation reveals that by minimizing the RX ON time, the AWSM scheme achieves up to 71% average energy saving per ONT at low traffic loads. The comparative study results show that the ONT energy savings achieved by AWSM are 9% higher than the symmetric WSM with almost the same delay and delay variance performance

FFRP: Dynamic firefly mating optimization inspired energy efficient routing protocol for internet of underwater wireless sensor networks

Energy-efficient and reliable data gathering using highly stable links in underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) is challenging because of time and location-dependent communication characteristics of the acoustic channel. In this paper, we propose a novel dynamic firefly mating optimization inspired routing scheme called FFRP for the internet of UWSNs-based events monitoring applications. The proposed FFRP scheme during the events data gathering employs a self-learning based dynamic firefly mating optimization intelligence to find the highly stable and reliable routing paths to route packets around connectivity voids and shadow zones in UWSNs. The proposed scheme during conveying information minimizes the high energy consumption and latency issues by balancing the data traffic load evenly in a large-scale network. In additions, the data transmission over highly stable links between acoustic nodes increases the overall packets delivery ratio and network throughput in UWSNs. Several simulation experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme against the existing schemes through NS2 and AquaSim 2.0 in UWSNs. The experimental outcomes show the better performance of the developed protocol in terms of high packets delivery ratio (PDR) and network throughput (NT) with low latency and energy consumption (EC) compared to existing routing protocols in UWSNs

QoSRP: A cross-layer QoS channel-aware routing protocol for the internet of underwater acoustic sensor networks

Quality of service (QoS)-aware data gathering in static-channel based underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) is severely limited due to location and time-dependent acoustic channel communication characteristics. This paper proposes a novel cross-layer QoS-aware multichannel routing protocol called QoSRP for the internet of UWSNs-based time-critical marine monitoring applications. The proposed QoSRP scheme considers the unique characteristics of the acoustic communication in highly dynamic network topology during gathering and relaying events data towards the sink. The proposed QoSRP scheme during the time-critical events data-gathering process employs three basic mechanisms, namely underwater channel detection (UWCD), underwater channel assignment (UWCA) and underwater packets forwarding (UWPF). The UWCD mechanism finds the vacant channels with a high probability of detection and low probability of missed detection and false alarms. The UWCA scheme assigns high data rates channels to acoustic sensor nodes (ASNs) with longer idle probability in a robust manner. Lastly, the UWPF mechanism during conveying information avoids congestion, data path loops and balances the data traffic load in UWSNs. The QoSRP scheme is validated through extensive simulations conducted by NS2 and AquaSim 2.0 in underwater environments (UWEs). The simulation results reveal that the QoSRP protocol performs better compared to existing routing schemes in UWSNs

Diagnostic Efficacy of MRCP and Ultrasound on Obstructive Jaundice-A Prospective Study

Background: Obstructive jaundice is a common pathological problem that occurs when there is an obstruction to the passage of conjugated bilirubin from liver cells to intestine. Bile, a digestive fluid secreted and produce by the liver. Most common cause of obstructive jaundice is due to gallstones. Objective: The aim of our study was to evaluate the diagnostic Efficacy of MRCP and Ultrasound on obstructive jaundice. Study design: A cross-sectional prospective study was performed. Material & Method: A cross-sectional prospective study was performed in 50 patients who came with the provisional diagnosis of obstructive jaundice were referred to ultrasound for primitive diagnosis and were then shifted to MRCP for a detailed diagnosis. The data was collected from the outpatient department facility of Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute   Hospital, Lahore. After informed consent, data was collected from MRI GE 1.5 Tesla, Ultrasound Canon Xanio. Results: The results revealed that there are 50 patients of obstructive jaundice. 20 were females’ patients and 30 were males’ patients, with age raging from 20-40 years. There were 17 patients out of  50 in our study which ultrasound showed negative results that were positive on MRCP there were 28 patients that were positive on both ultrasound and MRCP. There were 3 patients that were positive on ultrasound but negative on MRCP and 2 patients that were negative on both modalities Conclusion: Our study concluded that higher ratio of males then females in our sample size, RHC was positive in all the patients with dominant cause of jaundice was stone with in biliary channel. We found that MRCP has better efficiency comparative to ultrasound to detect jaundice and its etiology i.e., 90% true positive. Keywords: Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography, Ultrasonography, Obstructive jaundice DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/91-03 Publication date:July 31st 202

An investigation of abnormal returns in distress exchange : a Norwegian case

The main objective of this research is to investigate whether distress firm creditors get better or worse recoveries during the financial restructuring process in Norwegian Bond market. To investigate that question we have created a sample using Norsk Tillitsmann database. For the criterion we needed firms in the data sample that went through financial restructuring due to financial distress or financial. We managed to get hold of ninety seven bonds using the above criterion. The sample was composed of different classes of bonds according to their seniority, but majority was senior secured and senior unsecured bonds. We have also divided the sample into five broader industry classifications and the majority of the sample firms were oil and gas related. During the literature review process we came up with a few hypotheses and tried to find evidence of them in the sample. For this purpose we conducted a layman analysis, i.e. descriptive analysis in which we came to conclusion that creditors are better off if the borrower is in oil and gas industry and if they hold senior secured or senior unsecured securities. We also found descriptive evidence that debt exchange produce higher “abnormal” return for distress firm’s creditors than debt to equity swap. Finally we conducted statistical tests on the sample to find the evidence of stated hypotheses to see if the results are statistical significant or not. The results were not significant to the hypothesis that seniority and collateral leads to higher abnormal returns; however there are strong indications that the industry as well as debt exchange or equity swap are relevant factors for higher abnormal returns. Also examined was if bondholders recoveries are being affected by the gearing (leverage) of the distress firm and also by the time to maturity (settlement date) of the bonds. In regression analysis we did not find both of these to be significant affecting bondholders’ returns however we did notice that almost all of the firms had 66% to 80% debt in their capital structure. As well we believed that high leverage is the reason for them to be in distress. In our sample of there is one financial restructuring (Sevan Marine ASA) that stands out with the clear violation of Absolute Priority Rule (APR), and there were other minor APR violation in not so strict sense. The final conclusion we drew from analyzing the sample is that a creditor’s or investor’s in the Norwegian bond market should place themselves in the Oil & Gas industry and negotiate for debt exchanges during restructurings process to get higher abnormal returns

Experimental Investigation of Fracture Toughness, Hardness and Load-Indentation Depth Response of Ti-64 using Vickers Indentation Technique

Titanium alloys display the matchless blend of physical and mechanical properties which have made them appropriate for aerospace, chemical, and biomedical industries services. Preeminent strength-to-density ratio, reduced density, incomparable corrosion resistance and tremendous properties at elevated temperature are the main attribute of titanium alloys. These alloys also exhibit low modulus of elasticity, making it ideal for spring, body implant, dental fixtures and different sports equipment. Ti-64 accounting for more than 50 percent of titanium usage in today modern world high-tech industries subjected to various nature of cyclic loading. This study includes the experimental assessment of fracture toughness of Ti-64 using indentation technique which is easy and fast experimental techniques. For this purpose Vickers-indentation technique is employed to report the hardness followed by fracture toughness evaluation of the studied alloy using indentation energy model. The indentation method resulted a fracture toughness of the studied alloy with 14.5% when compared to the results obtained from strain dependent ductile damage model.  &nbsp