Determinants of the development of corporate bond markets in Argentina: One size does not fit all

Conventional theory leads to expect bonds to be a financing vehicle for large firms because of economies of scale and contracting costs. We find both in our econometric evidence for firms quoted on Latin American stock exchanges, and in our survey results for Argentina, that size of assets is a robust determinant of the use of bond finance. This result, together with the fact that there are few firms that are large in terms of market value, can help understand why Argentina, as well as Latin America, has small bond markets in terms of the ratio of the stock of bonds to GDP. Since firm value represents the present value of the cash flows against which the firm borrows, the outstanding stock of corporate bonds is as small as the size of Argentine firms.debt structure, leverage, short term debt, corporate bonds, firm size, firm value

Short-term memory binding in mild cognitive impairment

We showed that short-term memory (STM) binding is sensitive to sporadic and familial Alzheimer's disease (AD) but is not affected by healthy ageing, chronic depression in the elderly or other forms of dementia. STM binding deficits were also observed in individuals with a genetic susceptibility for AD in the preclinical stages. Hence, we aim to investigate longitudinally individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) using STM binding tasks. Here we report on preliminary cross-sectional results. A comprehensive neuropsychological test battery and a visual STM task were given to 21 MCI patients and 20 controls. The STM task required participants to recognise changes across two consecutive arrays presenting either single features (colour or shape) or feature bindings. The MCI group performed significantly poorer than controls on standard tests of memory, attention and on the binding condition of the STM task, but not on single feature conditions. Performance on the binding task and on standard memory tests did not correlate. Eight MCI patients clearly performed outwith the range of normality in the binding task. However, they did not significantly differ from the other 13 MCI patients in disease severity or demographic and neuropsychological variables. Six patients with binding impairments showed a multiple domain profile whereas ten patients with a preserved binding function showed an amnesic profile [Chi-square = 5.45, p = 0.020]. These results suggest that (1) the binding task is assessing a function different from other memory tests and that (2) STM binding may be differentially impaired in MCI subgroups

Loan and bond finance in Argentina, 1985-2005

Loan and bond finance during 1985-2005 can be divided into three sub-periods. After the 1982 debt crisis, which mainly involved domestic and foreign bank loans to both the corporate and government sectors, there was practically no credit. This situation of lack of credit persisted until the domestic economy was stabilized in 1991 with the Convertibility Plan, and foreign debt renegotiation was completed in 1993 with the Brady Plan. Loan finance recovered to unprecedented levels since the 1950s, and bond finance became for the first time an important financing vehicle for both the national government and large firms in the corporate sector. Credit came to a sudden stop in 2001, with widespread default on both corporate and government bonds. The 2001 debt crisis was not followed by runaway domestic inflation, and by 2005 Argentina was able to return to foreign capital markets.bank loans, sovereign bonds, provincial bonds, central bank bonds, corporate bonds, pension funds, yields, liquidity

Corporate bonds, asset-backed securities and deferred checks in Argentina

We describe the evolution of three types of corporate securities in Argentina, namely, corporate bonds, asset-backed securities and deferred checks. Corporate bonds (obligaciones negociables) were legally authorized in 1988, and after a tax reform in 1991 they became an important financing vehicle. Asset backed securities (fideicomisos), legally created in 1995, have been issued since 1996. They typically bundle together small credits of a similar category. Deferred checks (cheques de pago diferido) exist since 1993, alongside standard checks. They can be negotiated on the exchange since 2003, and are akin to commercial paper. Corporate bonds have been overwhelmingly issued by large firms and banks, with an average issue size of 53 million dollars. Asset backed securities have an average value of 9 million dollars. Deferred checks are typically used by smaller firms, and those traded on the exchange of the Buenos Aires board of trade have an average value of 9 thousand dollars.private securities, corporate bonds, asset-backed securities, deferred checks

Identifying explanatory factors of bitcoin price with artificial neural networks

This study aims to develop a new model that allows determining with high precision the factors that explain the price of bitcoin. To do this, an extensive database of variables related to bitcoin and artificial neural network techniques has been used. The results obtained have made it possible to identify that aspects related to the number of forum posts, the volume of transactions on the blockchain, and the hash rate provide an excellent strategy for predicting the price of bitcoi

Detection of People Boarding/Alighting a Metropolitan Train using Computer Vision

This paper has been presented at : 9th International Conference on Pattern Recognition Systems (ICPRS 2018)Pedestrian detection and tracking have seen a major progress in the last two decades. Nevertheless there are always appli-cation areas which either require further improvement or that have not been sufficiently explored or where production level performance (accuracy and computing efficiency) has not been demonstrated. One such area is that of pedestrian monitoring and counting in metropolitan railways platforms. In this paper we first present a new partly annotated dataset of a full-size laboratory observation of people boarding and alighting from a public transport vehicle. We then present baseline results for automatic detection of such passengers, based on computer vi-sion, that could open the way to compute variables of interest to traffic engineers and vehicle designers such as counts and flows and how they are related to vehicle and platform layout.The authors gratefully acknowledge the Chilean National Science and Technology Council (Conicyt) for its funding under grants CONICYT-Fondecyt Regular nos. 1140209 (“OBSERVE”) , 1120219, and 1080381 . S.A. Velastin is grateful to funding received from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 600371, el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (COFUND2013-51509) and Banco Santander. Finally, we are grateful to NVIDIA for its donation as part of its academic GPU Grant Program

Mujica Lainez y su simulacro: gestión de su posición social y saber legítimo-‘familiar’ como recursos constantes de su competencia literaria

We propose to analyze how Manuel Mujica Lainez, during his career as writer, dedicated efforts in his discourse in order to show a discursive “ image of oneself ” (pretense), by managing or pointing out (Costa-Mozejko, 2002, 2011) two resources he privileges –but not the only two he has. In this way, he tried to favor his legitimacy by the discursive emphasis put not only in his social origin and membership, but also in the family knowledge, exhibited as legitimate inheritance of some ancestors of him. Therefore, we will observe the writer M. Mujica Lainez -as social agent-, besides the accumulation of resources progressively capitalized along his career in the contemporary literary system of relationships, he chose for these two discursive constants in order to construct again and again his pretense (variable in others aspects, relatively and diachronically)

Small-angle X-ray scattering from GaN nanowires on Si(111): facet truncation rods, facet roughness and Porod's law

Small-angle X-ray scattering from GaN nanowires grown on Si(111) is measured in the grazing-incidence geometry and modelled by means of a Monte Carlo simulation that takes into account the orientational distribution of the faceted nanowires and the roughness of their side facets. It is found that the scattering intensity at large wavevectors does not follow Porod's law I(q) ∝ q-4. The intensity depends on the orientation of the side facets with respect to the incident X-ray beam. It is maximum when the scattering vector is directed along a facet normal, reminiscent of surface truncation rod scattering. At large wavevectors q, the scattering intensity is reduced by surface roughness. A root-mean-square roughness of 0.9 nm, which is the height of just 3-4 atomic steps per micrometre-long facet, already gives rise to a strong intensity reduction. open access