The quest for multidimensional financial immunity to the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from international stock markets

What determines a country’s financial immunity to a global pandemic? To answer this question, we investigate the behavior of 67 equity markets around the world during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. We consider a multidimensional data set that includes factors from finance, economics, demographics, technological development, healthcare, governance, culture, and law. Our study also accounts for government interventions, such as containment and closure policies, and economic stimuli. We apply machine learning techniques, panel regression, and factor analysis to ascertain sources of financial immunity to the coronavirus pandemic. Our findings demonstrate that stock markets in countries with low unemployment rates and populated with firms with conservative investment policies and low valuations relative to expected profits tend to be more immune to the healthcare crisis. We also find that firm government policy responses tend to support stock markets in times of the pandemic

Marmara Seawater Desalination by Membrane Distillation: Direct Consumption Assessment of Produced Drinking Water

Drinking water was produced from Marmara seawater by membrane distillation (MD). The best operating conditions were determined by batch experiments as: 0.45 μm PTFE, 30°C distillate temperature and temperature difference, and 270–360 L/h cross‐flow rates in feed‐distillate. Seawater desalination was carried out with 99.93% solute rejection and 17.2 L/m2h permeate flux in 66% concentration ratio by lab‐scale pilot system. Since the desalinated water contained no organic carbon, turbidity, and nitrate, it seemed to be very suitable for immediate service with quality of 7.3 pH, clear, odor‐free, 76.0 µS/cm, 47.1 mg TDS/L, <0.001 color, and 0.01 mg boron/L. The product water lacked of vital cations, especially Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ that are essentials for promoting osmotic balanced body liquid and healthy development. A holistic management approach towards satisfying specific water quality requirements in direct service of MD effluents to human consumption was proposed that jointly included in injecting into urban potable water, adding appropriate chemicals into the effluent, and mixing effluents with raw or concentrated seawater (1:250/1:1000 for Marmara seawater) or brackish natural waters under hygienic precautions

Targeted knock-down of miR21 primary transcripts using snoMEN vectors induces apoptosis in human cancer cell lines

We have previously reported an antisense technology, 'snoMEN vectors', for targeted knock-down of protein coding mRNAs using human snoRNAs manipulated to contain short regions of sequence complementarity with the mRNA target. Here we characterise the use of snoMEN vectors to target the knock-down of micro RNA primary transcripts. We document the specific knock-down of miR21 in HeLa cells using plasmid vectors expressing miR21-targeted snoMEN RNAs and show this induces apoptosis. Knock-down is dependent on the presence of complementary sequences in the snoMEN vector and the induction of apoptosis can be suppressed by over-expression of miR21. Furthermore, we have also developed lentiviral vectors for delivery of snoMEN RNAs and show this increases the efficiency of vector transduction in many human cell lines that are difficult to transfect with plasmid vectors. Transduction of lentiviral vectors expressing snoMEN targeted to pri-miR21 induces apoptosis in human lung adenocarcinoma cells, which express high levels of miR21, but not in human primary cells. We show that snoMEN-mediated suppression of miRNA expression is prevented by siRNA knock-down of Ago2, but not by knock-down of Ago1 or Upf1. snoMEN RNAs colocalise with Ago2 in cell nuclei and nucleoli and can be co-immunoprecipitated from nuclear extracts by antibodies specific for Ago2

Comparison of prognostic scores and surgical approaches to treat spinal metastatic tumors: A review of 57 cases

Surgical treatment of metastatic spinal cord compression with or without neural deficit is controversial. Karnofsky and Tokuhashi scores have been proposed for prognosis of spinal metastasis. Here, we conducted a retrospective analysis of Karnofsky and modified Tokuhashi scores in 57 consecutive patients undergoing surgery for secondary spinal metastases to evaluate the value of these scores in aiding decision making for surgery. Comparison of preoperative Karnofsky and modified Tokuhashi scores with the type of the surgical approach for each patient revealed that both scores not only reliably estimate life expectancy, but also objectively improved surgical decisions. When the general status of the patient is poor (i.e., Karnofsky score less than 40% or modified Tokuhashi score of 5 or greater), palliative treatments and radiotherapy, rather than surgery, should be considered

Dobrava Hantavirus Infection Complicated by Panhypopituitarism, Istanbul, Turkey, 2010

We identified Dobrava-Belgrade virus infection in Turkey (from a strain related to hantavirus strains from nearby countries) in a patient who had severe symptoms leading to panhypopituitarism, but no known risk for hantavirus. Our findings emphasize the need for increased awareness of hantaviruses in the region and assessment of symptomatic persons without known risk factors for infection

A precision study of the fine tuning in the DiracNMSSM

Recently the DiracNMSSM has been proposed as a possible solution to reduce the fine tuning in supersymmetry. We determine the degree of fine tuning needed in the DiracNMSSM with and without non-universal gaugino masses and compare it with the fine tuning in the GNMSSM. To apply reasonable cuts on the allowed parameter regions we perform a precise calculation of the Higgs mass. In addition, we include the limits from direct SUSY searches and dark matter abundance. We find that both models are comparable in terms of fine tuning, with the minimal fine tuning in the GNMSSM slightly smaller.Comment: 20 pages + appendices, 10 figure

2D-PAGE as an effective method of RNA degradome analysis

The continuously growing interest in small regulatory RNA exploration is one of the important factors that have inspired the recent development of new high throughput techniques such as DNA microarrays or next generation sequencing. Each of these methods offers some significant advantages but at the same time each of them is expensive, laborious and challenging especially in terms of data analysis. Therefore, there is still a need to develop new analytical methods enabling the fast, simple and cost-effective examination of the complex RNA mixtures. Recently, increasing attention has been focused on the RNA degradome as a potential source of riboregulators. Accordingly, we attempted to employ a two-dimensional gel electrophoresis as a quick and uncomplicated method of profiling RNA degradome in plant or human cells. This technique has been successfully used in proteome analysis. However, its application in nucleic acids studies has been very limited. Here we demonstrate that two dimensional electrophoresis is a technique which allows one to quickly and cost-effectively identify and compare the profiles of 10–90 nucleotide long RNA accumulation in various cells and organs

Diversity of SCCmec Elements in Methicillin-Resistant Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci Clinical Isolates

in MR-CoNS can generate useful information on the mobilization and evolution of this element.). in MR-CoNS

Lifetime measurements in 80^{80}Br and a new region for observation of chiral electromagnetic selection rules

Level lifetimes for the candidate chiral doublet bands of 80Br were extracted by means of the Doppler-shift attenuation method. The absolute transition probabilities derived from the lifetimes agree well with the M1 and E2 chiral electromagnetic selection rules, and are well reproduced by the triaxial particle rotor model calculations. Such good agreements among the experimental data, selection rules of chiral doublet bands and theoretical calculations are rare and outstanding in researches of nuclear chirality. Besides odd-odd Cs isotopes, odd-odd Br isotopes in the A≈ 80 mass region represent another territory that exhibits the ideal selection rules expected for chiral doublet bands