Information sources, ICTs and price information in rural agricultural markets

The spread and rapid uptake of mobile telephony in Sub-Saharan Africa has highlighted the potential role of Information Communication Technologies in improving market participation and welfare outcomes for farm producers in agricultural produce markets. This article explores the influence of different sources of information and transmission technologies on the quantum and reliability of market information flowing to farm producers, based on a survey of farm households in northern Ghana. Our results suggest that the principal role of radio broadcasts and mobile telephony is in providing a broader knowledge of markets by enhancing the quantum of market information flowing to farm producers. They do not, however, appear to have a significant impact on the quality/reliability of price information obtained by farmers for making marketing decisions. Information sources appear to be the chief determinant of the reliability of price information, with price information obtained from extension agents being the most credible. Our results provide some useful insights for the design and implementation of Market Information Systems aimed at encouraging market participation by rural farm producers in agricultural markets.

Residential property loans and bank performance during property price booms: evidence from Europe

Understanding the performance of banks is of the utmost importance due to the impact the sector may have on economic growth and financial stability. Residential mortgage loans constitute a large proportion of the portfolio of many banks and are one of the key assets in the determination of their performance. Using a dynamic panel model, we analyse the impact of residential mortgage loans on bank profitability and risk, based on a sample of 555 banks in the European Union (EU-15), over the period from 1995 to 2008. We find that an increase in residential mortgage loans seems to improve bank’s performance in terms of both profitability and credit risk in good market, pre-financial crisis, conditions. These findings may aid in explaining why banks rush to lend to property during booms because of the positive effect it has on performance. The results also show that credit risk and profitability are lower during the upturn in the residential property cycle.

Commodity price dynamics and derivatives valuation: a review

This paper reviews extant research on commodity price dynamics and commodity derivatives pricing models. In the first half, we provide an overview of stylized facts of commodity price behavior that have been explored and documented in the theoretical and empirical literature. In the second half, we review existing derivatives pricing models and discuss how the peculiarities of commodity markets have been integrated in these models. We conclude the paper with a brief outlook on important research questions that need to be addressed in the future.

Information analytics for healthcare service discovery

The concept of being ‘patient-centric’ is a challenge to many existing healthcare service provision practices. This paper focuses on the issue of referrals, where multiple stakeholders, i.e. general practitioners and patients, are encouraged to make a consensual decision based on patient needs. In this paper, we present an ontology-enabled healthcare service provision, which facilitates both patients and GPs in jointly deciding upon the referral decision. In the healthcare service provision model, we define three types of profile, which represents different stakeholders’ requirements. This model also comprises of a set of healthcare service discovery processes: articulating a service need, matching the need with the healthcare service offerings, and deciding on a best-fit service for acceptance. As a result, the healthcare service provision can carry out coherent analysis using personalised information and iterative processes that deal with requirements change over time.

Hierarchical clustering based web service discovery

This paper presents a hierarchical clustering method for semantic Web service discovery. This method aims to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the traditional service discovery using vector space model. The Web service is converted into a standard vector format through the Web service description document. With the help of WordNet, a semantic analysis is conducted to reduce the dimension of the term vector and to make semantic expansion to meet the user’s service request. The process and algorithm of hierarchical clustering based semantic Web service discovery is discussed. Validation is carried out on the dataset.

Discovery of a mammalian splice variant of myostatin that stimulates myogenesis

Myostatin plays a fundamental role in regulating the size of skeletal muscles. To date, only a single myostatin gene and no splice variants have been identified in mammals. Here we describe the splicing of a cryptic intron that removes the coding sequence for the receptor binding moiety of sheep myostatin. The deduced polypeptide sequence of the myostatin splice variant (MSV) contains a 256 amino acid N-terminal domain, which is common to myostatin, and a unique C-terminus of 65 amino acids. Western immunoblotting demonstrated that MSV mRNA is translated into protein, which is present in skeletal muscles. To determine the biological role of MSV, we developed an MSV over-expressing C2C12 myoblast line and showed that it proliferated faster than that of the control line in association with an increased abundance of the CDK2/Cyclin E complex in the nucleus. Recombinant protein made for the novel C-terminus of MSV also stimulated myoblast proliferation and bound to myostatin with high affinity as determined by surface plasmon resonance assay. Therefore, we postulated that MSV functions as a binding protein and antagonist of myostatin. Consistent with our postulate, myostatin protein was co-immunoprecipitated from skeletal muscle extracts with an MSV-specific antibody. MSV over-expression in C2C12 myoblasts blocked myostatin-induced Smad2/3-dependent signaling, thereby confirming that MSV antagonizes the canonical myostatin pathway. Furthermore, MSV over expression increased the abundance of MyoD, Myogenin and MRF4 proteins (P,0.05), which indicates that MSV stimulates myogenesis through the induction of myogenic regulatory factors. To help elucidate a possible role in vivo, we observed that MSV protein was more abundant during early post-natal muscle development, while myostatin remained unchanged, which suggests that MSV may promote the growth of skeletal muscles. We conclude that MSV represents a unique example of intra-genic regulation in which a splice variant directly antagonizes the biological activity of the canonical gene product.

Discovery of 157W and 161Os

The nuclides 157W and 161Os have been discovered in reactions of 58Ni ion beams with a 106Cd target. The 161Os α -decay energy and half-life were 6890±12 keV and 640±60 μs. The daughter 157W nuclei β -decayed with a half-life of 275±40 ms, populating both low-lying α-decaying states in 157Ta, which is consistent with a 7/2− ground state in 157W. Fine structure observed in the α decay of 161Os places the lowest excited state in 157W with Iπ=9/2− at 318±30 keV. The branching ratio of View the MathML source indicates that 161Os also has a 7/2− ground state. Shell-model calculations analysing the effects of monopole shifts and a tensor force on the relative energies of 2f7/2 and 1h9/2 neutron states in N=83 isotones are presented.

Multiresolution semantic activity characterisation and abnormality discovery in videos

This paper addresses the issue of activity understanding from video and its semantics-rich description. A novel approach is presented where activities are characterised and analysed at different resolutions. Semantic information is delivered according to the resolution at which the activity is observed. Furthermore, the multiresolution activity characterisation is exploited to detect abnormal activity. To achieve these system capabilities, the focus is given on context modelling by employing a soft computing-based algorithm which automatically enables the determination of the main activity zones of the observed scene by taking as input the trajectories of detected mobiles. Such areas are learnt at different resolutions (or granularities). In a second stage, learned zones are employed to extract people activities by relating mobile trajectories to the learned zones. In this way, the activity of a person can be summarised as the series of zones that the person has visited. Employing the inherent soft relation properties, the reported activities can be labelled with meaningful semantics. Depending on the granularity at which activity zones and mobile trajectories are considered, the semantic meaning of the activity shifts from broad interpretation to detailed description.Activity information at different resolutions is also employed to perform abnormal activity detection.

House price dynamics in Panama City

In this paper, we analyze the drivers of the housing markets in Panama City. To the best of our knowledge, no formal academic analysis has been documented on the Panamanian housing market. In this paper, we outline key unique characteristics of the market and provide a brief review of broader economic indicators and housing market literature. Using a unique dataset comprising property-level information over 2007–2014, we employ a hedonic modeling framework to analyze the impacts of certain amenities and drivers that may affect housing values. The results indicate several unique features of the Panamanian housing market.

House price dynamics and bank herding: European empirical evidence

This paper investigates the behavior of residential property and examines the linkages between house price dynamics and bank herding behavior. The analysis presents evidence that irrational behaviour may have played a significant role in several countries, including; United Kingdom, Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Ireland. In addition, we also provide evidence indicative of herding behaviour in the European residential mortgage loan market. Granger Causality tests indicate that non-fundamentally justified prices dynamics contributed to herding by lenders and that this behaviour was a response by the banks as a group to common information on residential property assets. In contrast, in Germany, Portugal and Austria, residential property prices were largely explained by fundamentals. Furthermore, these countries show no evidence of either irrational price bubbles or herd behaviour in the mortgage market. Granger Causality tests indicate that both variables are independent.

Discovery of novel GPVI receptor antagonists by structure-based repurposing.

Inappropriate platelet aggregation creates a cardiovascular risk that is largely managed with thienopyridines and aspirin. Although effective, these drugs carry risks of increased bleeding and drug 'resistance', underpinning a drive for new antiplatelet agents. To discover such drugs, one strategy is to identify a suitable druggable target and then find small molecules that modulate it. A good and unexploited target is the platelet collagen receptor, GPVI, which promotes thrombus formation. To identify inhibitors of GPVI that are safe and bioavailable, we docked a FDA-approved drug library into the GPVI collagen-binding site in silico. We now report that losartan and cinanserin inhibit GPVI-mediated platelet activation in a selective, competitive and dose-dependent manner. This mechanism of action likely underpins the cardioprotective effects of losartan that could not be ascribed to its antihypertensive effects. We have, therefore, identified small molecule inhibitors of GPVI-mediated platelet activation, and also demonstrated the utility of structure-based repurposing.

The probability of sale and price premiums in withdrawn auctioned properties

This paper examines the impact of the auction process of residential properties that whilst unsuccessful at auction sold subsequently. The empirical analysis considers both the probability of sale and the premium of the subsequent sale price over the guide price, reserve and opening bid. The findings highlight that the final achieved sale price is influenced by key price variables revealed both prior to and during the auction itself. Factors such as auction participation, the number of individual bidders and the number of bids are significant in a number of the alternative specifications.

The role of index trading in price formation in the grains and oilseeds markets

We use both Granger-causality and instrumental variables (IV) methods to examine the impact of index fund positions on price returns for the main US grains and oilseed futures markets. Our analysis supports earlier conclusions that Granger-causal impacts are generally not discernible. However, market microstructure theory suggests trading impacts should be instantaneous. IV-based tests for contemporaneous causality provide stronger evidence of price impact. We find even stronger evidence that changes in index positions can help predict future changes in aggregate commodity price indices. This result suggests that changes in index investment are in part driven by information which predicts commodity price changes over the coming months.

Time-variations in commodity price jumps

In this paper, we study jumps in commodity prices. Unlike assumed in existing models of commodity price dynamics, a simple analysis of the data reveals that the probability of tail events is not constant but depends on the time of the year, i.e. exhibits seasonality. We propose a stochastic volatility jump–diffusion model to capture this seasonal variation. Applying the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methodology, we estimate our model using 20 years of futures data from four different commodity markets. We find strong statistical evidence to suggest that our model with seasonal jump intensity outperforms models featuring a constant jump intensity. To demonstrate the practical relevance of our findings, we show that our model typically improves Value-at-Risk (VaR) forecasts.

Flight to quality? An investigation of changing price spreads in commercial real estate markets

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the crisis on the pricing of asset quality attributes. This paper uses sales transaction data to examine whether flight from risk phenomena took place in the US office market during the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Design/methodology/approach – Hedonic regression procedures are used to test the hypothesis that the spread between the pricing of low-quality and high-quality characteristics increased during the crisis period compared to the pre-crisis period. Findings – The results of the hedonic regression models suggest that the price spread between Class A and other properties grew significantly during the downturn. Research limitations/implications – Our results are consistent with the hypothesis of an increased price spread following a market downturn between Class A and non-Class A offices. The evidence suggests that the relationships between the returns on Class A and non-Class A assets changed during the period of market stress or crisis. Practical implications – These findings have implications for real estate portfolio construction. If regime switches can be predicted and/or responded to rapidly, portfolios may be rebalanced. In crisis periods, portfolios might be reweighted towards Class A properties and in positive market periods, the reweighting would be towards non-Class A assets. Social implications – The global financial crisis has demonstrated that real estate markets play a crucial role in modern economies and that negative developments in these markets have the potential to spillover and create contagion for the larger economy, thereby affecting jobs, incomes and ultimately people’s livelihoods. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies that address the flight to quality phenomenon in commercial real estate markets during periods of financial crisis and market turmoil.