Search results for: CDS spreads

Authors: Sélima Baccar, Ephraim Clark

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This paper can be considered as a new perspective to analyse credit spreads. A comprehensive empirical analysis of conditional variance of credit spreads indices is performed using various GARCH models. Based on a comparison between traditional and asymmetric GARCH models with alternative functional forms of the conditional density, we intend to identify what macroeconomic and financial factors have driven daily changes in the US Dollar credit spreads in the period from January 2011 through January 2013. The results provide a strong interdependence between credit spreads and the explanatory factors related to the conditions of interest rates, the state of the stock market, the bond market liquidity and the exchange risk. The empirical findings support the use of asymmetric GARCH models. The AGARCH and GJR models outperform the traditional GARCH in credit spreads modelling. We show, also, that the leptokurtic Student-t assumption is better than the Gaussian distribution and improves the quality of the estimates, whatever the rating or maturity.

Keywords: corporate bonds, default risk, credit spreads, asymmetric garch models, student-t distribution

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Authors: Asnate Kirse, Daina Karklina, Sandra Muizniece-Brasava, Ruta Galoburda

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Pulses are high in plant protein and dietary fiber, and contain slowly digestible starches. Innovative products from pulses could increase their consumption and benefit consumer health. This study was conducted to evaluate physicochemical stability of processed cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp. cv. Fradel) and maple pea (Pisum sativum var. arvense L. cv. Bruno) spreads at 5 °C temperature during 62-day storage. Physicochemical stability of pulse spreads was compared after sous vide treatment (80 °C/15 min) and high pressure processing (700 MPa/10 min/20 °C). Pulse spreads were made by homogenizing cooked pulses in a food processor together with salt, citric acid, oil, and bruschetta seasoning. A total of four different pulse spreads were studied: Cowpea spread without and with seasoning, maple pea spread without and with seasoning. Transparent PA/PE and light proof PET/ALU/PA/PP film pouches were used for packaging of pulse spreads under vacuum. The parameters investigated were pH, water activity and mass losses. Pulse spreads were tested on days 0, 15, 29, 42, 50, 57 and 62. The results showed that sous-vide treatment and high pressure processing had an insignificant influence on pH, water activity and mass losses after processing, irrespective of packaging material did not change (p>0.1). pH and water activity of sous-vide treated and high pressure processed pulse spreads in different packaging materials proved to be stable throughout the storage. Mass losses during storage accounted to 0.1% losses. Chosen sous-vide treatment and high pressure processing regimes and packaging materials are suitable to maintain consistent physicochemical quality of the new products during 62-day storage.

Keywords: cowpea, flexible packaging, maple pea, water activity

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Authors: Phakamani Xaba, Robert Huberts, Bilainu Oboirien

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It has been over 200 years since margarine was discovered and manufactured using liquid oil, liquified hardstock oils and other oil phase & aqueous phase ingredients. Henry W. Bradley first used vegetable oils in liquid state and around 1871, since then; spreads have been traditionally manufactured using liquified oils. The main objective of this study was to develop a process method to produce spreads using spray dried hardstock fat powders as a structing fats in place of current liquid structuring fats. A high shear mixing system was used to condition the fat phase and the aqueous phase was prepared separately. Using a single scraped surface heat exchanger and pin stirrer, margarine was produced. The process method was developed for to produce spreads with 40%, 50% and 60% fat . The developed method was divided into three steps. In the first step, fat powders were conditioned by melting and dissolving them into liquid oils. The liquified portion of the oils were at 65 °C, whilst the spray dried fat powder was at 25 °C. The two were mixed using a mixing vessel at 900 rpm for 4 minutes. The rest of the ingredients i.e., lecithin, colorant, vitamins & flavours were added at ambient conditions to complete the fat/ oil phase. The water phase was prepared separately by mixing salt, water, preservative, acidifier in the mixing tank. Milk was also separately prepared by pasteurizing it at 79°C prior to feeding it into the aqueous phase. All the water phase contents were chilled to 8 °C. The oil phase and water phase were mixed in a tank, then fed into a single scraped surface heat exchanger. After the scraped surface heat exchanger, the emulsion was fed in a pin stirrer to work the formed crystals and produce margarine. The margarine produced using the developed process had fat levels of 40%, 50% and 60%. The margarine passed all the qualitative, stability, and taste assessments. The scores were 6/10, 7/10 & 7.5/10 for the 40%, 50% & 60% fat spreads, respectively. The success of the trials brought about differentiated knowledge on how to manufacture spreads using non micronized spray dried fat powders as hardstock. Manufacturers do not need to store structuring fats at 80-90°C and even high in winter, instead, they can adapt their processes to use fat powders which need to be stored at 25 °C. The developed process method used one scrape surface heat exchanger instead of the four to five currently used in votator based plants. The use of a single scraped surface heat exchanger translated to about 61% energy savings i.e., 23 kW per ton of product. Furthermore, it was found that the energy saved by implementing separate pasteurization was calculated to be 6.5 kW per ton of product produced.

Keywords: margarine emulsion, votator technology, margarine processing, scraped sur, fat powders

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Authors: Sebastian Luber

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The study demonstrates that tail inflation risk is priced into stock returns and credit spreads. This holds true even when controlling for current and historical inflation moments. The analysis employs inflation caps and floors to obtain the distribution of future inflation under the risk-neutral measure. Credit spreads decrease as the mean and median of future inflation rise, but they respond positively to tail risks. Conversely, stocks serve as a robust hedge against future inflation. Stock returns increase with a higher mean and median of future inflation and rising inflationary tail risk, while they decrease with rising deflationary tail risk.

Keywords: asset pricing, inflation expectations, tail risk, stocks, inflation derivatives, credit

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Authors: Aida Alemany, Laura Ballester, Ana González-Urteaga

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From 2007 subprime crisis to the recent Eurozone debt crisis the European banking industry has experienced a terrible financial instability situation with increasing levels of CDS spreads (used as a proxy of credit risk). This paper investigates whether volatility transmission channels in European banking markets have changed after three significant crises’ events during the period January 2006 to March 2013. The global financial crisis is characterized by a unidirectional volatility shocks spillovers effect in credit risk from inside to outside the Eurozone. By contrast, the Eurozone debt crisis is revealed to be local in nature with the euro as the key element suggesting a market fragmentation between distressed peripheral and non-distressed core Eurozone countries, whereas retaining the local currency have acted as a firewall. With these findings we are able to shed light on the impact of the different crises on the European banking credit risk dynamics.

Keywords: CDS spreads, credit risk, volatility spillovers, financial crisis

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Authors: Lidia Sanchis-Marco, Antonio Rubia, Pedro Serrano

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This paper studies the informational content of pricing errors in the term structure of sovereign CDS spreads. The residuals from a non-arbitrage model are employed to construct a Price discrepancy estimate, or noise measure. The noise estimate is understood as an indicator of market distress and reflects frictions such as illiquidity. Empirically, the noise measure is computed for an extensive panel of CDS spreads. Our results reveal an important fraction of systematic risk is not priced in default swap contracts. When projecting the noise measure onto a set of financial variables, the panel-data estimates show that greater price discrepancies are systematically related to a higher level of offsetting transactions of CDS contracts. This evidence suggests that arbitrage capital flows exit the marketplace during time of distress, and this consistent with a market segmentation among investors and arbitrageurs where professional arbitrageurs are particularly ineffective at bringing prices to their fundamental values during turbulent periods. Our empirical findings are robust for the most common CDS pricing models employed in the industry.

Keywords: credit default swaps, noise measure, illiquidity, capital arbitrage

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Authors: Mehdi Janbaz

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The global financial crisis and the credit crunch that followed magnified the importance of credit risk management and its crucial role in the stability of all financial sectors and the whole of the system. Many believe that risks faced by the sovereign sector are highly interconnected with banking risks and most likely to trigger and reinforce each other. This study aims to examine (1) the impact of banking and interbank risk factors on the sovereign credit risk of Eurozone, and (2) how the EU Credit Default Swaps spreads dynamics are affected by the Crude Oil price fluctuations. The hypothesizes are tested by employing fitting risk measures and through a four-staged linear modeling approach. The sovereign senior 5-year Credit Default Swap spreads are used as a core measure of the credit risk. The monthly time-series data of the variables used in the study are gathered from the DataStream database for a period of 2008-2019. First, a linear model test the impact of regional macroeconomic and market-based factors (STOXX, VSTOXX, Oil, Sovereign Debt, and Slope) on the CDS spreads dynamics. Second, the bank-specific factors, including LIBOR-OIS spread (the difference between the Euro 3-month LIBOR rate and Euro 3-month overnight index swap rates) and Euribor, are added to the most significant factors of the previous model. Third, the global financial factors including EURO to USD Foreign Exchange Volatility, TED spread (the difference between 3-month T-bill and the 3-month LIBOR rate based in US dollars), and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) Crude Oil Volatility Index are added to the major significant factors of the first two models. Finally, a model is generated by a combination of the major factor of each variable set in addition to the crisis dummy. The findings show that (1) the explanatory power of LIBOR-OIS on the sovereign CDS spread of Eurozone is very significant, and (2) there is a meaningful adverse co-movement between the Crude Oil price and CDS price of Eurozone. Surprisingly, adding TED spread (the difference between the three-month Treasury bill and the three-month LIBOR based in US dollars.) to the analysis and beside the LIBOR-OIS spread (the difference between the Euro 3M LIBOR and Euro 3M OIS) in third and fourth models has been increased the predicting power of LIBOR-OIS. Based on the results, LIBOR-OIS, Stoxx, TED spread, Slope, Oil price, OVX, FX volatility, and Euribor are the determinants of CDS spreads dynamics in Eurozone. Moreover, the positive impact of the crisis period on the creditworthiness of the Eurozone is meaningful.

Keywords: CDS, crude oil, interbank risk, LIBOR-OIS, OVX, sovereign credit risk, TED

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Authors: Xu Wang

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This research builds linear regressions of U.S. macroeconomic condition and volatility measures in the investment grade and high yield Credit Default Swap index spreads using monthly data from March 2009 to July 2016, to study the relationship between different dimensions of macroeconomy and overall credit risk quality. The most significant contribution of this research is systematically examining individual and joint effects of macroeconomic condition and volatility on CDX spreads by including macroeconomic time series that captures different dimensions of the U.S. economy. The industrial production index growth, non-farm payroll growth, consumer price index growth, 3-month treasury rate and consumer sentiment are introduced to capture the condition of real economic activity, employment, inflation, monetary policy and risk aversion respectively. The conditional variance of the macroeconomic series is constructed using ARMA-GARCH model and is used to measure macroeconomic volatility. The linear regression model is conducted to capture relationships between monthly average CDX spreads and macroeconomic variables. The Newey–West estimator is used to control for autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity in error terms. Furthermore, the sensitivity factor analysis and standardized coefficients analysis are conducted to compare the sensitivity of CDX spreads to different macroeconomic variables and to compare relative effects of macroeconomic condition versus macroeconomic uncertainty respectively. This research shows that macroeconomic condition can have a negative effect on CDX spread while macroeconomic volatility has a positive effect on determining CDX spread. Macroeconomic condition and volatility variables can jointly explain more than 70% of the whole variation of the CDX spread. In addition, sensitivity factor analysis shows that the CDX spread is the most sensitive to Consumer Sentiment index. Finally, the standardized coefficients analysis shows that both macroeconomic condition and volatility variables are important in determining CDX spread but macroeconomic condition category of variables have more relative importance in determining CDX spread than macroeconomic volatility category of variables. This research shows that the CDX spread can reflect the individual and joint effects of macroeconomic condition and volatility, which suggests that individual investors or government should carefully regard CDX spread as a measure of overall credit risk because the CDX spread is influenced by macroeconomy. In addition, the significance of macroeconomic condition and volatility variables, such as Non-farm Payroll growth rate and Industrial Production Index growth volatility suggests that the government, should pay more attention to the overall credit quality in the market when macroecnomy is low or volatile.

Keywords: autoregressive moving average model, credit spread puzzle, credit default swap spread, generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model, macroeconomic conditions, macroeconomic uncertainty

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Authors: Fatiha Boudjema, Samia Boudergua, Abdallah Elhirtsi Nour El Houda, Ahmed Mbarek Kaouther

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The main objective of our work is to prepare and characterize a moisturizing lip balm based on natural ingredients such as waxes, vegetable oils, and shea butter. First, the vegetable and essential oils were extracted, and then lip balm was prepared. The extracted oils and the lip balm were submitted to many tests in order to guarantee their quality and effectiveness. These tests show that our balm has a shear thinning behavior with a melting point of 58 °C and that it spreads easily on the skin without showing an allergic reaction. The balm showed a moisturising effect and stability over the two-month period at storage room temperature condition.

Keywords: lip balm, natural products, rheological study, antioxydant activity

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Authors: Marinka K. Baghdasaryan, Siranush M. Muradyan, Avgen A. Gasparyan

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Based on the experimental data, the impact of resistance and reactance of the winding, as well as the magnetic permeability of the magnetic circuit steel material on the value of the electromotive force of the induction converter is investigated. The obtained results allow to estimate the main technological spreads and determine the maximum level of the electromotive force change. By the method of experiment planning, the expression of a polynomial for the electromotive force which can be used to estimate the adequacy of mathematical models to be used at the investigation and design of induction converters is obtained.

Keywords: induction converter, electromotive force, expectation, technological spread, deviation, planning an experiment, polynomial, confidence level

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Authors: S. K. Ashiquer Rahman

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Recently, oil has become more influential in almost every economic sector as a key material. As can be seen from the news, when there are some changes in an oil price or OPEC announces a new strategy, its effect spreads to every part of the economy directly and indirectly. That’s a reason why people always observe the oil price and try to forecast the changes of it. The most important factor affecting the price is its supply which is determined by the number of wildcats drilled. Therefore, a study about the number of wellheads and other economic variables may give us some understanding of the mechanism indicated by the amount of oil supplies. In this paper, we will consider a relationship between the number of wellheads and three key factors: the price of the wellhead, domestic output, and GNP constant dollars. We also add trend variables in the models because the consumption of oil varies from time to time. Moreover, this paper will use an econometrics method to estimate parameters in the model, apply some tests to verify the result we acquire, and then conclude the model.

Keywords: price, domestic output, GNP, trend variable, wildcat activity

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Authors: Saber Fatourechian

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People within modern cities have faced macro urban values spreads rapidly through current style of living. Unexpected phenomena without any specific features of micro scale, humanity and urban social/cultural patterns. The gap between micro and macro scale is unidentified and people could not recognize where they are especially in the interaction between life and city. Urban life details were verified. Micro architecture is a pattern in which human activity derives from human needs in an unconscious position. Sustainable attitude via micro architecture causes flexibility in decision making through micro urbanism essentially impacts macro scale. In this paper the definition of micro architecture and its relation with city and human activity are argued, there after the interaction between micro and macro scale is presented as an effective way for urban sustainable development.

Keywords: micro architecture, sustainability, human activity, city

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Authors: Shih-Pin Chen, Shih-Syuan You

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This study proposes a regression model with flexible spreads for fuzzy input-output data to cope with the situation that the existing measures cannot reflect the actual estimation error. The main idea is that a dissemblance index (DI) is carefully identified and defined for precisely measuring the actual estimation error. Moreover, the graded mean integration (GMI) representation is adopted for determining more representative numeric regression coefficients. Notably, to comprehensively compare the performance of the proposed model with other ones, three different criteria are adopted. The results from commonly used test numerical examples and an application to Taiwan's business monitoring indicator illustrate that the proposed dissemblance index method not only produces valid fuzzy regression models for fuzzy input-output data, but also has satisfactory and stable performance in terms of the total estimation error based on these three criteria.

Keywords: dissemblance index, forecasting, fuzzy sets, linear regression

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Authors: Ji-Hun Choi, Kyoung-Suk Cho, Seung-Un Chae

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Consisting of organic compounds, plastic ignites easily and burns fast. In addition, a large amount of toxic gas is produced while it is burning. When plastic is heated, its volume decreases because its surface is melted. The decomposition of its molecular bond generates combustible liquid of low viscosity, which accelerates plastic combustion and spreads the flames. Radiant heat produced in the process propagates the fire to increase the risk of human and property damages. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to identify chemical, thermal and combustion characteristics of thermoplastic plastics using the fire propagation apparatus based on experimental criteria of ISO 12136 and ASTM E 2058. By the experiment result, as the ignition time increased, the thermal response parameter (TRP) decreased and as the TRP increased, the slope decreased. In other words, the large the TRP was, the longer the time taken for heating and ignition of the material was. It was identified that the fire propagation speed dropped accordingly.

Keywords: fire propagation apparatus (FPA), ISO 12136, thermal response parameter (TRP), fire propagation index (FPI)

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Authors: Jaime Muñoz, José Arcos, Oscar Bautista Federico Méndez

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The influence of a pulsatile electroosmotic flow (PEOF) at the rate of spread, or dispersivity, for a non-reactive solute released in a microcapillary with slippage at the boundary wall (modeled by the Navier-slip condition) is theoretically analyzed. Based on the flow velocity field developed under such conditions, the present study implements an analytical scheme of scaling known as the Theory of Homogenization, in order to obtain a mathematical expression for the dispersivity, valid at a large time scale where the initial transients have vanished and the solute spreads under the Taylor dispersion influence. Our results show the dispersivity is a function of a slip coefficient, the amplitude of the imposed electric field, the Debye length and the angular Reynolds number, highlighting the importance of the latter as an enhancement/detrimental factor on the dispersivity, which allows to promote the PEOF as a strong candidate for chemical species separation at lab-on-a-chip devices.

Keywords: dispersivity, microcapillary, Navier-slip condition, pulsatile electroosmotic flow, Taylor dispersion, Theory of Homogenization

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Authors: Seung Won Park

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Pornographic images are becoming increasingly normalized as innovations in media technology arise, the porn industry explosively grows, and transnational capitalism spreads due to government deregulation and privatization of media. As the media evolves, pornography has become more and more violent and non-consensual; this growth of ‘raunch culture’ reifies the traditional power balance between men and women in which men are dominant, and women are submissive. This male domination objectifies and commodifies women, reducing them to merely sexual objects for the gratification of men. Women are exposed to pornographic images at younger and younger ages, providing unhealthy sexual role models and teaching them lessons on sexual behavior before the onset of puberty. The increasingly sexualized depiction of women in particular positions them as appropriately desirable and available to men. As a result, women are not only viewed as sexual prey but also end up treating themselves primarily as sexual objects, basing their worth off of their sexuality alone. Although many scholars are aware of and have written on the great lack of agency exercised by women in these representations, the general public tends to view some of these women as being empowered, rather than exploited. Scholarly discourse is constrained by the popular misconception that the construction of women’s sexuality in the media is controlled by women themselves.

Keywords: construction of gender, hypersexualization, media, objectification

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Authors: Julien Romieux, Fabio Verdicchio

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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which sense environmental data with battery-powered nodes, require multi-hop communication. This power-demanding task adds an extra workload that is unfairly distributed across the network. As a result, nodes run out of battery at different times: this requires an impractical individual node maintenance scheme. Therefore we investigate a new Cooperative Sensing approach that extends the WSN operational life and allows a more practical network maintenance scheme (where all nodes deplete their batteries almost at the same time). We propose a novel cooperative algorithm that derives a piecewise representation of the sensed signal while controlling approximation accuracy. Simulations show that our algorithm increases WSN operational life and spreads communication workload evenly. Results convey a counterintuitive conclusion: distributing workload fairly amongst nodes may not decrease the network power consumption and yet extend the WSN operational life. This is achieved as our cooperative approach decreases the workload of the most burdened cluster in the network.

Keywords: cooperative signal processing, signal representation and approximation, power management, wireless sensor networks

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Authors: Maryam Tajadod

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The treatment of cancer is one of the main challenges of nuclear medicine; while cancer begins in an organ, such as the breast or prostate, it spreads to the bone, resulting in metastatic bone. In the treatment of cancer with radiotherapy, the determination of the involved tissues’ dose is one of the important steps in the treatment protocol. Comparing absorbed doses for Lu-177 and Ra-223 and Ac-225 in the bone marrow and soft tissue of bone phantom with evaluating energetic emitted particles of these radionuclides is the important aim of this research. By the use of MCNPX computer code, a model for bone phantom was designed and the values of absorbed dose for Ra-223 and Ac-225, which are Alpha emitters & Lu-177, which is a beta emitter, were calculated. As a result of research, in comparing gamma radiation for three radionuclides, Lu-177 released the highest dose in the bone marrow and Ra-223 achieved the lowest level. On the other hand, the result showed that although the figures of absorbed dose for Ra and Ac in the bone marrow are near to each other, Ra spread more energy in cortical bone. Moreover, The alpha component of the Ra-223 and Ac-225 have very little effect on bone marrow and soft tissue than a beta component of the lu-177 and it leaves the highest absorbed dose in the bone where the source is located.

Keywords: bone metastases, lutetium-177, radium-223, actinium-225, absorbed dose

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Authors: Benmessaoud Hassen

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We propose in this study to address the impact of socio-economic and environmental impact on the physical environment, especially their spatiotemporal dynamics in semi-arid and arid eastern Aurès. Including 11 municipalities, the study area spreads out over a relatively large surface area of about 60.000 ha. The hindsight is quite important and is determined by 03 days of analysis of environmental variation spread over thirty years (between 1987 and 2007). The multi-source data acquired in this context are integrated into a geographic information system (GIS).This allows, among other indices to calculate areas and classes for each thematic layer of the 4 layers previously defined by a method inspired MEDALUS (Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use).The database created is composed of four layers of information (population, livestock, farming and land use). His analysis in space and time has been supplemented by a validation of the ground truth. Once the database has corrected it used to develop the comprehensive map with the calculation of the index of socio-economic and environmental (ISCE). The map supports and the resulting information does not consist only of figures on the present situation but could be used to forecast future trends.

Keywords: impact of socio-economic and environmental, spatiotemporal dynamics, semi-arid environments, GIS, Eastern Aurès

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Authors: M. Benhamza, M. Touati, M. Aissaoui

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The Guelma-Bouchegouf irrigated area is located in the north-east of the country; it extends about 80 km. It was commissioned in 1996, with an irrigable area of 9250 ha, it spreads on both banks of the Seybouse Wadi and it is subdivided into five autonomous distribution sectors. In order to assess the state of groundwater quality, physico-chemical and organic analyzes were carried out during the low water period in November 2017, at the level of fourteen wells in the Guelma-Bouchegouf irrigation area. The interpretation of the results of the chemical analyzes shows that the waters of the study area belong to two dominant chemical facies: sulphated-chlorinated-calcium and Sulfated-chlorinated-sodium. The mineral quality of the groundwater in the study area shows that Ca²⁺, Cl⁻ and SO₄²⁻ indicate little to significant pollution, Na⁺ and Mg²⁺ show moderate to significant mineralization of water, closely correlated with very high conductivities. NO₃⁻ and NH⁴⁺ show little to significant pollution throughout the study area. Phosphate represents a significant pollution, with excessive values exceeding the allowable standard. Phosphate concentrations indicate pollution caused by agricultural practices in the irrigated area, following the use of phosphates in the form of chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

Keywords: Algeria, groundwater, irrigated perimeter, pollution

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Authors: A. Beatti, L. Chipchase, A. Rayner, T. Souvlis

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The aims of this study were to investigate the depth of interferential current (IFC) penetration through soft tissue and to investigate the area over which IFC spreads during clinical application. Premodulated IFC and ‘true’ IFC at beat frequencies of 4, 40 and 90Hz were applied via four electrodes to the distal medial thigh of 15 healthy subjects. The current was measured via three Teflon coated fine needle electrodes that were inserted into the superficial layer of skin, then into the subcutaneous tissue (≈1 cm deep) and then into muscle tissue (≈2 cm deep). The needle electrodes were placed in the middle of the four IFC electrodes, between two channels and outside the four electrodes. Readings were taken at each tissue depth from each electrode during each treatment frequency then digitized and stored for analysis. All voltages were greater at all depths and locations than baseline (p < 0.01) and voltages decreased with depth (P=0.039). Lower voltages of all currents were recorded in the middle of the four electrodes with the highest voltage being recorded outside the four electrodes in all depths (P=0.000).For each frequency of ‘true’ IFC, the voltage was higher in the superficial layer outside the electrodes (P ≤ 0.01).Premodulated had higher voltages along the line of one circuit (P ≤ 0.01). Clinically, IFC appears to pass through skin layers to depth and is more efficient than premodulated IFC when targeting muscle tissue.

Keywords: electrotherapy, interferential current, interferential therapy, medium frequency current

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Authors: Makito Sakai, Takahiro Kiwata, Takumi Awa, Hiroshi Teramoto, Takaaki Kono, Kuniaki Toyoda

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Using experimental and numerical results, this paper describes the effects of tabs on the flow characteristics of a plane jet at comparatively low Reynolds numbers while focusing on the velocity field and the vortical structure. The flow visualization and velocity measurements were respectively carried out using laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) and particle image velocimetry (PIV). In addition, three-dimensional (3D) plane jet numerical simulations were performed using ANSYS Fluent, a commercially available computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software application. We found that the spreads of jets perturbed by large delta tabs and round tabs were larger than those produced by the other tabs tested. Additionally, it was determined that a plane jet with square tabs had the smallest jet spread downstream, and the jet’s centerline velocity was larger than those of jets perturbed by the other tabs tested. It was also observed that the spanwise vortical structure of a plane jet with tabs disappeared completely. Good agreement was found between the experimental and numerical simulation velocity profiles in the area near the nozzle exit when the laminar flow model was used. However, we also found that large eddy simulation (LES) is better at predicting the developing flow field of a plane jet than the laminar and the standard k-ε turbulent models.

Keywords: plane jet, flow control, tab, flow measurement, numerical simulation

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Authors: Helena Susana Afonso Alves, Natália Maria Rafael Canadas, Ana Maria Rodrigues

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We examined the impact of governance rules on information asymmetry, using the turnover ratio and the bid-ask spread as proxies for the information asymmetry. We used a SEM model and analyzed the indirect relations through the voluntary disclosure of information and the organizational performance. We built a voluntary disclosure index based on the information firms provided in their annual reports and divided the governance characteristics in two constructs: directors’ and supervisors’ structures and ownership structure. We concluded that the ownership structure exerts a direct influence on share price and share liquidity, Otherwise, the directors’ and supervisors’ structures exert an indirect influence, through the organizational performance and the voluntary disclosure of information. The results also show that for firms with high levels of disclosure the bid-ask spread is lower. However, in firms with a high ownership concentration investors tend to increase the bid-ask spreads and trade less, which, in this case, reduces the liquidity of the stock. The failure to find the relationship between voluntary disclosure of information and the turnover ratio shows us that the liquidity of shares is more related to the greater or lesser concentration of shareholders, with the performance of their companies than with the access to information. Moreover, it is clear that the role that information disclosure plays is mainly at the level of price formation.

Keywords: corporate governance, information asymmetry, voluntary disclosure, structural equation modelling, SEM

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Authors: Raymond Xu, Cindy Jingru Wang

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Social media has become a globally connected and influencing platform. Social media data, such as tweets, can help predict the spread of pandemics and provide individuals and healthcare providers early warnings. Public psychological reactions and opinions can be efficiently monitored by AI models on the progression of dominant topics on Twitter. However, statistics show that as the coronavirus spreads, so does an infodemic of misinformation due to pandemic-related factors such as unemployment and lockdowns. Social media algorithms are often biased toward outrage by promoting content that people have an emotional reaction to and are likely to engage with. This can influence users’ attitudes and cause confusion. Therefore, social media is a double-edged sword. Combating fake news and biased content has become one of the essential tasks. This research analyzes the variety of methods used for fake news detection covering random forest, logistic regression, support vector machines, decision tree, naive Bayes, BoW, TF-IDF, LDA, CNN, RNN, LSTM, DeepFake, and hierarchical attention network. The performance of each method is analyzed. Based on these models’ achievements and limitations, a multi-dimensional AI framework is proposed to achieve higher accuracy in infodemic detection, especially pandemic-related news. The model is trained on contextual content, images, and news metadata.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, fake news detection, infodemic detection, image recognition, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Jeevan Jyoti Mohindroo, Umesh Kumar Garg

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The district of Tarntaran is located25 km south of Amritsar city in Punjab State of Northwestern India. It is 5059 Sq. Km in area. It is surrounded by Amritsar in the North, Kapurthala in the East, and Ferozepur in the South and Pakistan in the West. Patti Town is a municipal council of the Tarntaran district of the Indian state of Punjab, located 45 km from Amritsar its geographical coordinates are 310 16' 51" north to 740 51' 25" East Longitude. The town spreads over an area of 50sq. Km. Moisture content is very less in the air, falling within the semiarid region and frequently facing water scarcity as well as water quality problems. The major sources of employment are agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry engaging almost 80% of the workforce. Water samples are collected from 400 locations in 20 villages on the Patti –Khem Karan highway with 20 samples from each village, and were subjected to analysis of chemical characteristics. The type of water that predominates in the study area is Ca-Mg-HCO3 type, based on hydro-chemical analysis. Besides, suitability of water for irrigation is evaluated based on the sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), residual sodium carbonate, sodium percent and salinity hazard. Other Physico-chemical parameters such as pH, TDS, conductance, etc. were also determined using a water analysis kit. Analysis of water samples for heavy metal analysis was also carried out in the present study.

Keywords: groundwater, chemical classification, SAR, RSC, USSL diagram

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Authors: Benjamin Osae Agyei, Hypolite Bayor

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This present experiment was carried out during the 2012 cropping season, at the Farming for the Future Experimental Field of the University for Development Studies, Nyankpala Campus in the Northern Region of Ghana. The objective of the experiment was to determine the carrot growth and yield responses to poultry manure and N.P.K (15:15:15). Six treatments (Control (no amendment), 20 t/ha poultry manure (PM), 40 t/ha PM, 70 t/ha PM, 35 t/ha PM + 0.11t/ha N.P.K and 0.23 t/ha N.P.K) with three replications for each were laid in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). Data were collected on plant height, number of leaves per plant, canopy spread, root diameter, root weight, and root length. Microsoft Excel and Genstat Statistical Package (9^th edition) were used for the data analysis. The treatment means were compared by using Least Significant Difference at 10%. Generally, the results showed that there were no significant differences (P>0.1) among the treatments with respect to number of leaves per plant, root diameter, root weight, and root length. However, significant differences occurred among plant heights and canopy spreads. Plant height treated with 40 t/ha PM at the fourth week after planting and canopy spread at eight weeks after planting and ten weeks after planting by 70 t/ha PM and 20 t/ha PM respectively showed significant difference (P<0.1). The study recommended that any of the amended treatments can be applied at their recommended rates to plots for carrot production, since there were no significant differences among the treatments.

Keywords: poultry manure, N.P.K., soil amendment, growth, yield, carrot

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Authors: Nidhi S. Chandra, Veena Agrawal, Debprasad Chattopadhyay

Abstract:

Background: Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a major cause of acute viral hepatitis in developing countries. It spreads feco orally mainly due to contamination of drinking water by sewage. There is limited data on the genotypic comparison of HEV isolates from sewage water and humans. The aim of this study was to identify genotype and conduct phylogenetic analysis of HEV isolates from sewage water and humans. Materials and Methods: 14 sewage water and 60 serum samples from acute sporadic hepatitis E cases (negative for hepatitis A, B, C) were tested for HEV-RNA by nested polymerase chain reaction (RTnPCR) using primers designed with in RdRp (RNA dependent RNA polymerase) region of open reading frame-1 (ORF-1). Sequencing was done by ABI prism 310. The sequences (343 nucleotides) were compared with each other and were aligned with previously reported HEV sequences obtained from GeneBank, using Clustal W software. A Phylogenetic tree was constructed by using PHYLIP version 3.67 software. Results: HEV-RNA was detected in 49/ 60 (81.67%) serum and 5/14 (35.71%) sewage samples. The sequences obtained from 17 serums and 2 sewage specimens belonged to genotype I with 85% similarity and clustering with previously reported human HEV sequences from India. HEV isolates from human and sewage in North West India are genetically closely related to each other. Conclusion: These finding suggest that sewage acts as reservoir of HEV. Therefore it is important that measures are taken for proper waste disposal and treatment of drinking water to prevent outbreaks and epidemics due to HEV.

Keywords: hepatitis E virus, nested polymerase chain reaction, open reading frame-1, nucleotidies

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Authors: Esma Hande Alıcı, Gülnur Arabacı

Abstract:

Antioxidants are compounds or systems that can safely interact with free radicals and terminate the chain reaction before vital molecules are damaged. The anti-oxidative effectiveness of these compounds depends on their chemical characteristics and physical location within a food (proximity to membrane phospholipids, emulsion interfaces, or in the aqueous phase). Antioxidants (e.g., flavonoids, phenolic acids, tannins, vitamin C, vitamin E) have diverse biological properties, such as antiinflammatory, anti-carcinogenic and anti-atherosclerotic effects, reduce the incidence of coronary diseases and contribute to the maintenance of gut health by the modulation of the gut microbial balance. Plants are excellent sources of antioxidants especially with their high content of phenolic compounds. Raphanus raphanistrum L., the wild radish, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae. It grows in Asia and Mediterranean region. It has been introduced into most parts of the world. It spreads rapidly, and is often found growing on roadsides or in other places where the ground has been disturbed. It is an edible plant, in Turkey its fresh aerial parts are mostly consumed as a salad with olive oil and lemon juice after boiled. The leaves of the plant are also used as anti-rheumatic in traditional medicine. In this study, we determined the antioxidant capacity of two different solvent fractions (methanol and ethyl acetate) obtained from Raphanus raphanistrum L. plant leaves. Antioxidant capacity of the plant was introduced by using three different methods: DPPH radical scavenging activity, CUPRAC (Cupric Ion Reducing Antioxidant Capacity) activity and Reducing power activity.

Keywords: antioxidant activity, antioxidant capacity, Raphanis raphanistrum L., wild radish

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Authors: Joseph George, Anne Kotteswara Roa

Abstract:

Skin disease is one of the most common and popular kinds of health issues faced by people nowadays. Skin cancer (SC) is one among them, and its detection relies on the skin biopsy outputs and the expertise of the doctors, but it consumes more time and some inaccurate results. At the early stage, skin cancer detection is a challenging task, and it easily spreads to the whole body and leads to an increase in the mortality rate. Skin cancer is curable when it is detected at an early stage. In order to classify correct and accurate skin cancer, the critical task is skin cancer identification and classification, and it is more based on the cancer disease features such as shape, size, color, symmetry and etc. More similar characteristics are present in many skin diseases; hence it makes it a challenging issue to select important features from a skin cancer dataset images. Hence, the skin cancer diagnostic accuracy is improved by requiring an automated skin cancer detection and classification framework; thereby, the human expert’s scarcity is handled. Recently, the deep learning techniques like Convolutional neural network (CNN), Deep belief neural network (DBN), Artificial neural network (ANN), Recurrent neural network (RNN), and Long and short term memory (LSTM) have been widely used for the identification and classification of skin cancers. This survey reviews different DL techniques for skin cancer identification and classification. The performance metrics such as precision, recall, accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and F-measures are used to evaluate the effectiveness of SC identification using DL techniques. By using these DL techniques, the classification accuracy increases along with the mitigation of computational complexities and time consumption.

Keywords: skin cancer, deep learning, performance measures, accuracy, datasets

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Authors: Benhamza Moussa, Aissaoui Marwa, Touati Mounira, Chaoui Widad

Abstract:

The Guelma-Bouchegouf irrigated area is located in the northeast of Algeria, and it extends about 80 km. It was commissioned in 1996, with an irrigable area of 9250 ha, it spreads on both banks of the Seybouse Wadi and it is subdivided into five autonomous distribution sectors. In order to assess the state of groundwater quality, the results of the chemical analyzes were plotted on the Piper diagram, which shows that the chemical facies are sulfate-calcium chloride and sulfate-calcium with a slight tendency to migrate to chlorinated sulphate - sodium. The predominance of sulphates in the waters of the region is geologically explained by the existence in the Guelma Basin of evaporitic deposits, which are mainly represented by rock salt and gypsum. In addition to this natural origin, we can mention the anthropogenic origin, following the use of chemical fertilizers in the Guelma-Bouchegouf irrigated area. Na⁺ and Mg²⁺ show moderate to significant mineralization of water, closely correlated with very high conductivities. The values of the recorded conductivities vary from 1360 μs / cm (P3) to 4610 μs / cm (P10). These important values are due to dissolved salts on the one hand and the leaching of fertilizers by irrigation water on the other hand. NO₃⁻ and NH₄⁺ show little to significant pollution throughout the study area. Phosphate represents significant pollution, with excessive values far exceeding the allowable standard. With respect to ammonium, 87% of the sampling points present little pollution and 13 % significant pollution. Regarding phosphates, in the form of PO₄³⁻, groundwater in the study area represents significant pollution; all values far exceed the allowable standard.

Keywords: groundwater, organic parameters, standards, Pollution

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