The role of Regime Shifts in the Term Structure of Interest Rates: Further evidence from an Emerging Market

In this paper, we investigate the interrelations among Turkish interest rates with different maturities by using a regime switching Vector Error Correction (VECM) model. We find a long run equilibrium relationship among interest rates with various maturities. Furthermore we conclude that term structure dynamics exhibit significant nonlinearity. Forecasting experiment also reveals that the nonlinear term structure models do fare better than other linear specifications. However, we cannot conclude that interest rate adjustments are made in an asymmetric way in the long run equilibrium.Term Structure of Interest Rates, Regime Switching, Forecasting, Foreacast Evaluation, Cointegration

Analyzing Systemic Risk with Financial Networks An Application During a Financial Crash

A financial network model, where the coded identity of the counterparties of every trade is known, is applied to both stable and crisis periods in a large and liquid overnight repo market in an emerging market economy. We have analyzed the financial crisis by using various network investigation tools such as links, interconnectivity, and reciprocity. In addition, we proposed a centrality measure to monitor and detect the ‘systemically important financial institution’ in the financial system. We have shown that our measure gives strong signals much before the crisis.systemic risk, financial regulation, financial crisis, BASEL III, systemically important financial institution, Turkey, IMF

Forecasting Stock Market Volatilities Using MIDAS Regressions: An Application to the Emerging Markets

We explore the relative weekly stock market volatility forecasting performance of the linear univariate MIDAS regression model based on squared daily returns vis-a-vis the benchmark model of GARCH(1,1) for a set of four developed and ten emerging market economies. We first estimate the two models for the 2002-2007 period and compare their in-sample properties. Next we estimate the two models using the data on 2002-2005 period and then compare their out-of-sample forecasting performance for the 2006-2007 period, based on the corresponding mean squared prediction errors following the testing procedure suggested by West (2006). Our findings show that the MIDAS squared daily return regression model outperforms the GARCH model significantly in four of the emerging markets. Moreover, the GARCH model fails to outperform the MIDAS regression model in any of the emerging markets significantly. The results are slightly less conclusive for the developed economies. These results may imply superior performance of MIDAS in relatively more volatile environments.Mixed Data Sampling regression model; Conditional volatility forecasting; Emerging Markets

iSpy : a real time application of shoulder surfing attacks

LAUREA MAGISTRALEAs far as all the digital and physical ways of obtaining information about a person, spying on a person is the most reliable way of doing so. Even if the person is protected from all digital attacks by protection software, he/she has very little to do against being spied on. The mobile application I developed focuses on the idea of digitalising and automating these kind of spying(or shoulder-surfing attacks). It is based on another eavesdropping attack[1], where they implemented the idea of eavesdropping on the input that is being entered to an iPhone, exploiting the magnification of the keys on the keyboard, with a video that is post processed, yielding reliable results. My application focuses on providing these results in real time on a mobile platform, with only the power of another mobile device. This way, it increases the usability and mobility of the attack, as it may be performed while the victim is unaware that such an attack is being performed on him/her. The application relies on the computer vision and image processing techniques. With the help of the in-built camera of the device, it inputs a video to send to processing. Based on three different stages of image processing, it first detects the screen, distinguishes and separates it from the rest of the frame that is being captured by the camera. As the screen of the phone is probably tilted, or captured from an angle, the screen is transformed by the help of a feature detection algorithm and rectified to make use of the input. After this process, the screen goes through several processes to distinguish the background (i.e., the keyboard without any input or occlusion) from the fluctuations that may happen on the keyboard. These may be the enlarged keys or occlusions (fingers on the keyboard, etc). Later these fluctuations are processed to distinguish the actual input (enlarged keys) from occlusions. After these eliminations of the input, the application matches the template of the keys to the input according to their position on the keyboard. The user sees the estimated keys through the application in-real time, as well as the processed frames. My implementation process was done with C++ and Objective-C, which uses the camera input to get the each frame, forward it to implementations of SURF algorithm to obtain the screen, plot the homography to rectify it, see if this yields a solution that corresponds with the optical flow of the screen, get the result and try to see if it yields a foreground which can be used by the image processing methods. If so, continue with thresholding the image to make use of the high pass filters and feed to the blob detectors that detect keys according to their size and area. Later on, finding the location of the key and matching the template of the key to the found area, to make sure we have the right output. The tests were done with a random text and with changing conditions(lighting, angles, threshold of the blob finding and sampling frame rate). These conditions show to be in a very delicate equilibrium since with different settings, the correctly detected key rate may change very quickly. They show that the sampling rate is still not enough for recording all keystrokes, while from the ones that the device can distinguish, given the right conditions, the application is able to distinguish the keys at a decent success percentage at quasi real-time. As this application is quite the first step for such shoulder surfing attacks via mobile, this is a promising one in mobile shoulder surfing attacks, while there is a lot of room to improve

A Kikuchi-Fujimoto Disease Case Mimicking T Cell Lymphoma with Prolonged Fever

Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease (KFD) is a self-limited disease characterized by necrotizing lymphadenitis. Although cervical lymphadenitis in young women is the most familiar clinical presentation, it may take place in the etiology of fever in cases presenting with fever of unknown origin. A 33-year-old male case admitted with fever, nausea, vomiting, weight loss, and leukopenia for one month, subsequently developing axillary lymphadenopathy during followup, diagnosed as KFD with typical histopathological findings, and showing full recovery after the excision of lymph node was presented in this report

Recurrent Staphylococcus warnerii prosthetic valve endocarditis: A case report and review

To our knowledge, there have been only six S. warneri endocarditis cases reported in the English-language literature (Medline: 1966 to April 2011). We report a case of recurrent S. warneri endocarditis in a patient with prosthetic valve and silicon mammoplasty and we also review the relevant literature

Assessing the Effect of Piperacillin/Tazobactam on Hematological Parameters in Patients Admitted with Moderate or Severe Foot Infections

Introduction: Piperacillin/tazobactam is a commonly used antibiotic for the empirical treatment of severe diabetic foot infections. One of the most feared complications of this drug is the development of pancytopenia. The aim of this study was to determine whether the use of piperacillin/tazobactam caused any hematological changes in patients admitted with severe diabetes-related foot infections from a specialist multidisciplinary foot clinic. Specifically, looking at whether it caused anemia, leukopenia, neutropenia, or thrombocytopenia. Methods: A 1-year retrospective analysis of patients admitted to a tertiary care center for treatment of diabetes-related foot infection using piperacillin/tazobactam. Hematological indices, urea and electrolytes, and C-reactive protein (CRP) were recorded pretreatment, during treatment, and posttreatment. HbA1c, vitamin B12, folate, thyroid-stimulating hormone, and free thyroxin were also analyzed to exclude any potential confounders as a cause of pancytopenia. Results: A total of 154 patients were admitted between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2016 who received piperacillin/tazobactam for severe diabetes-related foot infection. On admission, white cell count and CRP were raised and fell significantly within the first 48 h. Other hematological factors did not change. Five patients developed a mild pancytopenia, of which three were unexplained. Conclusion: In this relatively small cohort, pancytopenia did not occur. As such, piperacillin/tazobactam appeared to have a low risk of adverse hematological outcomes and remains the treatment of choice for severe diabetes-related foot infections

The role of Regime Shifts in the Term Structure of Interest Rates: Further evidence from an Emerging Market

In this paper, we investigate the interrelations among Turkish interest rates with different maturities by using a regime switching Vector Error Correction (VECM) model. We find a long run equilibrium relationship among interest rates with various maturities. Furthermore we conclude that term structure dynamics exhibit significant nonlinearity. Forecasting experiment also reveals that the nonlinear term structure models do fare better than other linear specifications. However, we cannot conclude that interest rate adjustments are made in an asymmetric way in the long run equilibrium

Analyzing Systemic Risk with Financial Networks An Application During a Financial Crash

A financial network model, where the coded identity of the counterparties of every trade is known, is applied to both stable and crisis periods in a large and liquid overnight repo market in an emerging market economy. We have analyzed the financial crisis by using various network investigation tools such as links, interconnectivity, and reciprocity. In addition, we proposed a centrality measure to monitor and detect the ‘systemically important financial institution’ in the financial system. We have shown that our measure gives strong signals much before the crisis