Under-reaction in the Sovereign CDS Market

The sovereign CDS market has been growing rapidly in recent years, with a gross notional amount of around 2 trillion dollars in 2015. We document a strong momentum effect in this market. Its unique feature is that this momentum strategy returns are positively skewed and higher during recessions. Hence, this effect cannot be attributed to momentum crash risk or exposure to business cycles. Our evidence is consistent with the interpretation that the effect is due to investors’ initial underreaction to sovereign credit information followed by corrections, especially during public announcements of credit rating or outlook changes of the underlying countries

Global Perspective or Local Knowledge: The Macro-Information in the Sovereign CDS Market

This paper shows that sovereign CDS spreads can predict future stock index returns, sovereign bond yields, as well as real macroeconomic variables such as GDP and PMI. The predictive power comes almost entirely from the global, rather than country-specific, component of sovereign CDS spreads. This is consistent with the interpretation that the information advantage of sovereign CDS investors is derived from their global perspective rather than their local knowledge about individual countries. Stock and sovereign bond market indices gradually “catch up” with sovereign CDS spreads, mostly during the days surrounding credit rating or outlook changes, and especially for downgrades

Effect of budesonide aerosol inhalation on postoperative complications and foreign body sensation in the throat of goiter resection patients

Purpose: To study the effect of budesonide aerosol inhalation on postoperative complications and foreign-body sensation in the throat of patients who underwent goiter resection.Methods: One hundred and twenty patients who underwent goiter resection at The Affiliated Hospital of Putian University (Fujian, China) from January 2019 to January 2020 were included in the study, and then equally and randomly assigned to groups A and B. During the perioperative period, group A patients were given budesonide aerosol inhalation, while group B patients received aerosol inhalation of equivalent volume of normal salineectively. Postoperative complication rate (CR), complication pain scores, scores on mucosal response in the throat, and scores on foreign body sensation in the throat were determined for both groups.Results: Postoperative complications in patients were hoarseness, sore throat and cough. Group A had significantly lower postoperative CR, lower complication pain scores, lower scores on mucosal response in the throat, and lower scores on foreign body sensation in the throat, when compared to group B (p < 0.001).Conclusion: Budesonide aerosol inhalation in patients who underwent goiter resection is effective in relieving throat injury from general anesthesia, minimizing likelihood of postoperative complications, and easing foreign-body sensation in the throat. Thus, this strategy may be suitable for the management of postoperative complications

A cognitive evaluation and equity-based perspective of pay for performance on job performance: A meta-analysis and path model

Pay for performance, as one of the most important means of motivating employees, has attracted the attention of many scholars and managers. However, controversy has continued regarding whether it promotes or undermines job performance. Drawing on a meta-analysis of 108 independent samples (N = 71,438) from 100 articles, we found that pay for performance was positively related to job performance. That pay for performance had a more substantial positive effect on task performance than contextual performance in workplace settings. From the cognitive evaluation perspective, we found that pay for performance enhanced employees' task performance and contextual performance by enhancing intrinsic motivation and weakened task performance and contextual performance by increasing employee pressure. From the equity perspective, our results indicated that the relationship between pay for performance and task performance was partially mediated by employee perceptions of distributive justice and procedural justice, with distributive justice having a more substantial mediating effect than procedural justice. However, the relationship between pay for performance and contextual performance was only partially mediated by procedural justice. Further tests of moderating effects indicated that the varying impacts of pay for performance are contingent on measures of pay for performance and national culture. The findings contributed to understanding the complex mechanisms and boundary conditions of pay-for-performance's effects on job performance, which provided insights for organizations to maximize its positive effects

Comparison of successful versus failed percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with chronic total occlusion: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: The optimal treatment strategy of chronic total occlusion (CTO) is currently debated. This meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the long-term clinical outcomes of successful percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) of CTO. Methods: Electronic databases were searched for studies comparing long-term outcomes between successful PCI in patients with CTO using drug-eluting stents and failed procedures. Meta-analysis was conducted with major adverse cardiac events (MACE) and all-cause mortality during the longest follow-up as endpoints. The combined hazard ratios (HRs) were applied to assess the correlation between successful CTO PCI and MACE/all-cause mortality. Results: Eight studies consisting of 6,211 patients published between 2012 and 2020 met our inclusion criteria, and the CTO PCI success rate was 81.2%. Patients in the failed group were much older, and more likely to have morbidities (hypertension and prior myocardial infarction), reduced left ventricular ejection fraction, and severe lesion characteristics (multivessel disease and moderate/severe calcification). Pooled results indicated that successful CTO PCI was significantly associated with prognosis. Compared to failed recanalization, patients receiving successful procedures had an improved MACE (HR: 0.50, 95% CI: 0.40–0.61, p < 0.001). Subgroup analyses further revealed the prognostic value of successful CTO PCI. However, no difference was observed regarding all-cause mortality (HR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.61–1.02, p = 0.074). Conclusions: The present study showed that CTO recanalization was associated with improved long-term outcomes. However, randomized trials are needed to confirm the results due to the mismatch of baseline characteristics

Global trends and performances in diabetic retinopathy studies: A bibliometric analysis

ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis to identify and evaluate global trends in diabetic retinopathy (DR) research and visualize the focus and frontiers of this field.MethodsDiabetic retinopathy-related publications from the establishment of the Web of Science (WOS) through 1 November 2022 were retrieved for qualitative and quantitative analyses. This study analyzed annual publication counts, prolific countries, institutions, journals, and the top 10 most cited literature. The findings were presented through descriptive statistics. VOSviewer 1.6.17 was used to exhibit keywords with high frequency and national cooperation networks, while CiteSpace 5.5.R2 displayed the timeline and burst keywords for each term.ResultsA total of 10,709 references were analyzed, and the number of publications continuously increased over the investigated period. America had the highest h-index and citation frequency, contributing to the most influence. China was the most prolific country, producing 3,168 articles. The University of London had the highest productivity. The top three productive journals were from America, and Investigative Ophthalmology Visual Science had the highest number of publications. The article from Gulshan et al. (2016; co-citation counts, 2,897) served as the representative and symbolic reference. The main research topics in this area were incidence, pathogenesis, treatment, and artificial intelligence (AI). Deep learning, models, biomarkers, and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) of DR were frontier hotspots.ConclusionBibliometric analysis in this study provided valuable insights into global trends in DR research frontiers. Four key study directions and three research frontiers were extracted from the extensive DR-related literature. As the incidence of DR continues to increase, DR prevention and treatment have become a pressing public health concern and a significant area of research interest. In addition, the development of AI technologies and telemedicine has emerged as promising research frontiers for balancing the number of doctors and patients

TAO Conceptual Design Report: A Precision Measurement of the Reactor Antineutrino Spectrum with Sub-percent Energy Resolution

The Taishan Antineutrino Observatory (TAO, also known as JUNO-TAO) is a satellite experiment of the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO). A ton-level liquid scintillator detector will be placed at about 30 m from a core of the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant. The reactor antineutrino spectrum will be measured with sub-percent energy resolution, to provide a reference spectrum for future reactor neutrino experiments, and to provide a benchmark measurement to test nuclear databases. A spherical acrylic vessel containing 2.8 ton gadolinium-doped liquid scintillator will be viewed by 10 m^2 Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) of >50% photon detection efficiency with almost full coverage. The photoelectron yield is about 4500 per MeV, an order higher than any existing large-scale liquid scintillator detectors. The detector operates at -50 degree C to lower the dark noise of SiPMs to an acceptable level. The detector will measure about 2000 reactor antineutrinos per day, and is designed to be well shielded from cosmogenic backgrounds and ambient radioactivities to have about 10% background-to-signal ratio. The experiment is expected to start operation in 2022