Impact of Financial Fragility on Sovereign Bond Spreads: An Empirical Analysis for BRICs Region

The paper investigates the impact of financial fragility on the sovereign bond spreads of the four rapidly rising emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs). Using fixed effect model, a comparison is being made among different models after including and excluding Financial Stress Index (FSI) from the base line model. The results suggest that financial fragility is a major determinant of sovereign bond spreads than other macroeconomic factors as it appears to be highly significant in all estimations. Moreover it has been observed that by adding FSI, the explanatory power of the model has increased quite prominently. The significance of FSI depicts the importance of idiosyncratic financial environment in financing conditions of BRICs by showing the transmission of financial stress through financial and economic linkages. The results also indicate the importance of local factors in explaining the sovereign bond spreads of BRICs economies that is in conforming to past studies. Keywords: Fragility, Bonds, Trade, Public Debt, Financial markets, Interest Rates

Efficacy of Melatonin and Pentoxifylline combination therapy in treatment of endotoxin induced hepatic dysfunction in white albino mice

Introduction: Despite major expansion and elaboration in treatment protocols of septic patients, mortality rate is still very high due to multiple organ damage including hepatotoxicity. We in study evaluated the role of two strong anti-inflammatory agents, melatonin and pentoxifylline, as a combined treatment in lipopolysaccharide induced hepatic dysfunction in white albino mice. Material and Methods: Endotoxemia was reproduced in white albino mice through intraperitoneal administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of serotype E.Coli. Therapeutic potential of the both melatonin and pentoxifylline alone and as combined therapy was adjudged by administering agents 2 hours after LPS delivering. The extent of liver damage was evaluated via serum alanine aminotransferases (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) estimation along with histopathological examination of liver tissue. Results: Lipopolysaccharide administration (Group 2) resulted in marked hepatotoxicity as evident by statistically raised serum ALT ((p≤0.01) and AST (p≤0.01) at the end of experimentation. Also liver cross section examination showed marked distortion of liver parenchyma. Melatonin (Group 3) was prosperous in aversion of LPS invoked hepatotoxicity as proved by lessening of augmented ALT (p≤0.01) and AST (p≤0.01) along with restoration of pathological changes on liver sections (p≤0.05). Pentoxifylline generated similar results and serum ALT, AST and histological alteration abated considerably (p≤ 0.05).Combination therapy in animals of Group 5 also tapered LPS evoked hepatic dysfunction statistically considerably. Conclusion: Melatonin and pentoxifylline alone and as combination therapy as effective in countering LPS induced hepatotoxicity. However the combination therapy did not yield synergistic effects. Keywords: Lipopolysaccharides, Endotoxin, Hepatotoxicity, Melatonin, Pentoxifylline

Tailoring structural and optical properties of ZnO system through elemental Mn Doping through First-principles calculations

In this study, band structure and optical properties of Manganese (Mn) doped ZnO are investigated adopting first-principles study calculations. It is observed that, by addition of Mn in ZnO crystal, the electrical properties like conductivity and dielectric function of material have been improved. The elastic constants for the elements are also calculated which shows that the element is stable after addition of dopant. The computational study is done on CASTEP and Material Studio. The ZnO system is simulated and atoms of Mn has been added replacing Zn atoms. The properties that studied are band structure and optics including conductivity, reflectivity, dielectric function, absorption and refractive index. Furthermore, this study also includes calculation of Elastic constants, XRD Spectra, Phonon dispersion and Temperature profile of doped ZnO systems. The computational study produced promising results and experimental approach can be adopted to reinforce the outcomes of this study.</p

Positional effect of phosphorylation sites 266 and 267 in the cytoplasmic domain of the E2 protein of hepatitis C virus 3a genotype: Interferon Resistance analysis via Sequence Alignment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Interferon is well thought-out as the key defence against all infections including HCV. The only treatment for HCV infection is pegylated interferon alpha (IFN-α) but unluckily more than half of the infected individuals do not act in response to the cure and become chronic HCV carriers. The mechanism how HCV induce interferon resistance is still elusive. It is recently reported that HCV envelope protein 2 interacts with PKR which is the interferon-inducible protein kinase and which in turn blocks the activity of its target molecule called eukaryotic initiation factor elF2. Sequence analysis of Envelope protein reveals it contains a domain homologous to phosphorylation sites of PKR andthe translation initiation factor eIF2alpha. Envelope protein competes for phosphorylation with PKR. Inhibition of kinase activity of PKR is postulated as a mechanism of to interferon (IFN) resistance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Present study involves the insilico investigation of possible role of potential phosphorylation in envelope 2 protein of 3a genotype in interferon resistance. Envelope protein coding genes were isolated from local HCV isolates, cloned and sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis was done and tertiary structure of envelope gene was predicted. Visualization of phosphorylation in tertiary structure reveals that residue 266 and 267 of envelope gene 2 are surface exposed and their phosphorylation may compete with the phosphorylation of PKR protein and possibly involved in mediating Interferon Resistance.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A hybrid in-silico and wet laboratory approach of motif prediction, evolutionary and structural analysis has pointed out serine 266 and 267 of the HCV E2 gene as a hopeful claimant for the serine phosphorylation. Recognition of these nucleotide variations may assist to propose genotype precise therapy to avoid and resolve HCV infections.</p

Factors affecting adoption behavior for Tablet device among computer users in Pakistan

Mobile computing represents a need of this decade. Mobile computing is possible with a tablet device, for which there is no clear-cut definition. It is partly because mobile computation field is still an emerging field. Tablet industry is still in its infancy stage and therefore, standards have yet to be defined. Given the limitations, however, a tablet device can be defined as a computing device smaller and slower than a laptop, however larger, and faster than a palm type device. In this research work, factors affecting adoption behavior for tablet device among computer users have been studied. An integral part of the study was to compare effect of the income level on adoption behavior. In this regard, two samples of private and public university students were studied. A modified technology acceptance model (TAM) has been used. Two variables were added to TAM model based on Pakistan’s demographics. A questionnaire was used to collect data. 1000 questionnaires were distributed from which we received 972; twenty two questionnaires were having major missing values so they were separated from analysis. Twenty five respondents were found outliers during data screening; by this sample used in this study is 925. Results were analyzed using linear regression which showed only perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness affected attitude to adopt tablet device. These results were found to be consistent for both private and public universities. Facilitation conditions and price perception play an insignificant role. The results confirmed perceived usefulness and ease of use are the only important factors affecting adoption behavior for tablet device

Energy-makespan optimization of workflow scheduling in fog-cloud computing

The rapid evolution of smart services and Internet of Things devices accessing cloud data centers can lead to network congestion and increased latency. Fog computing, focusing on ubiquitously connected heterogeneous devices, addresses latency and privacy requirements of workflows executing at the network edge. However, allocating resources in this paradigm is challenging due to the complex and strict Quality of Service constraints. Moreover, simultaneously optimizing conflicting objectives, e.g., energy consumption and workflow makespan increases the complexity of the scheduling process. We investigate workflow scheduling in fog–cloud environments to provide an energy-efficient task schedule within acceptable application completion times. We introduce a scheduling algorithm, Energy Makespan Multi-Objective Optimization, that works in two phases. First, it models the problem as a multi-objective optimization problem and computes a tradeoff between conflicting objectives while allocating fog and cloud resources, and schedules latency-sensitive tasks (with lower computational requirements) to fog resources and computationally complex tasks (with low latency requirements) on cloud resources. We adapt the Deadline-Aware stepwise Frequency Scaling approach to further reduce energy consumption by utilizing unused time slots between two already scheduled tasks on a single node. Our evaluation using synthesized and real-world applications shows that our approach reduces energy consumption, up to 50%, as compared to existing approaches with minimal impact on completion times