Contribution To Risk Research Articles

Heavy metals pollution and health risk assessment in farmed scallops: Low level of Cd in coastal water could lead to high risk of seafood

Scallops are one of the most common bivalves, large-scale farmed in the coastal areas of China. Three species of scallops (Chlamys farreri, Argopecten irradians and Patinopecten yessoensis) from 10 samples sites along the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea were collected to investigate species-specific and tissues-specific bioaccumulation, spatial-temporal distribution and health risks for people. Cd must be paid attention since Cd concentrations in 96% of scallop samples exceeded standard with the highest Cd bioaccumulation potentials (BCF) >10,000 while those of the other metals were less than the corresponding limits except Zn with exceeding-limit percentage of 13%. The metal pollution index values showed that A. irradians could accumulate more metals than the other two species, and scallops in the Bohai Sea were polluted more seriously by heavy metals than in the Yellow Sea. The capacities of tissues in scallops to accumulate metals generally followed the order of digestive gland > gill > adductor muscle. However, Zn accumulated in gill was more than that in digestive gland and muscle. Adults and children would face the non-cancer risks because of the accumulation Cd in scallops based on health risk assessment. Cd was the major contributor of health risk to account for 85% of total hazard quotient and 48% of total cancer risk. Scallops could accumulate Cd rapidly from ambient environments to cause health risks according to the transplantation test. Moreover, the recommended maximum edible amounts of whole scallops were 127/63 g/week for adult/children on the basis of the provisional tolerance weekly intake. Humans are recommended to only consume adductor muscles for reducing health risks.

An Exploration of Mothers’ Beliefs, Expectations, and Behaviors Regarding Young African American Children’s Early School Experiences and Success

We explored mothers’ beliefs, expectations, and behaviors as these relate to early academic success, their roles as parents to young children, and the influence of other ecological factors. Eleven African American mothers of children in kindergarten through third grades were interviewed twice with daily journaling for 2 weeks. Utilizing both Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and Spencer’s phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory as our primary theoretical underpinnings, results were interpreted emphasizing contextual, cultural, and personal characteristics that may serve as protective or risk contributors during children’s education. As mothers defined their contributions to the early academic success of their children, related themes emerged from the data including the significance of parent involvement, family routine and cohesiveness, the availability of resources, and racial issues. Findings provide a contextualized cultural understanding of African American mothers’ beliefs and their potential influence on their children’s early school experiences and how these beliefs are enacted in structured and intentional ways.

Spillovers and portfolio optimization of agricultural commodity and global equity markets

ABSTRACT We investigate the portfolio allocation and risk contribution characteristics of agricultural commodities, and the volatility spillovers between agricultural commodities and global and regional equity markets. We draw our results by applying a directional spillover index and a nonlinear portfolio optimization method. We find that the largest transmission and reception of spillovers occur among wheat, corn and soybeans, and between sugar cane and sugar beets. All global and regional stock market indices considered most largely spillover on cotton and cocoa. The global and Americas stock market indices are most largely spillovered by corn and soybeans. Also, while the European stock market index is most largely spillovered by cotton, the Asia Pacific stock market index is most largely spillovered by wheat and coffee. The portfolio optimization shows that sugar cane, followed by wheat and corn, are the largest risk contributors to total portfolio risk, whereas, cocoa, followed by lumber and cotton, are the lowest risk contributors to total portfolio risk. Cocoa and lumber are the most desirable for investment. Implications of the results are discussed.

Effects of Mesophilic Anaerobic Digestion and Thermophilic Anaerobic Digestion on the Risk and Stability of Heavy Metals in Sludge

Anaerobic digestion is widely used for sewage sludge stabilization. Different anaerobic digestion methods have different impacts on the speciation and stability of heavy metals in sludge. This study investigated the response of the speciation and stability of heavy metals in sludge to the treatment of mesophilic anaerobic digestion-mechanical dewatering and thermal hydrolysis pre-treatment-thermophilic anaerobic digestion. The results showed that the process of mesophilic anaerobic digestion increased the contents of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, and Zn in the sludge, increasing its contamination level and potential ecological risks. In contrast, the thermophilic anaerobic digestion process increased the contents of Cd, Cr, and Pb in the sludge, reducing the level of heavy metal contamination and potential ecological risks. It was found that the main contaminated metals were Cd and Zn in Plant N and Cd in Plant S. Cd has the highest risk factor and is the highest risk contributor to the potential ecological risk of all the types of sludge. The sum of reducible and the exchangeable fractions of Cd, Ni, Pb, and Zn reduced, and the residual fraction of Cd, Cr, Cu, and Ni decreased after mesophilic anaerobic digestion. This indicated that the process of mesophilic anaerobic digestion changed the proportion of potential toxicity and steady state of the heavy metals into direct toxicity. After thermophilic anaerobic digestion, the exchangeable proportion of Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn decreased, and the steady state of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn decreased. After the thermophilic anaerobic digestion process, the proportions of bio-availability and mobility of heavy metals therefore decreased, and the proportions of steady state also reduced. The potential toxicity increased.

Assessing the contribution of China’s financial sectors to systemic risk

This paper aims to assess the level of systemic risk of China's financial system along with the main systemic risk contributors over the period from January 2010 to December 2016, a period spanning the deflation of China's property bubble, the banking liquidity crisis, and the stock market crash. To this end we divide the financial system into three sectors, namely: banks, insurance and brokerage industries, and real estate, applying the ΔCoVaR introduced by Adrian and Brunnermeier (2016) as the measure for systemic risk. Our findings show that the systemic risk level of China's financial system reacted to the main systemic events covered by our sample period, reaching a major peak during the stock market crash of 2015. We further show, through the Wilcoxon signed rank test, that the systemic risk level of the financial system and sectors significantly increased after the main systemic events. In order to provide a formal systemic risk ranking of the financial sectors, we apply the bootstrap Kolmogorov-Smirnov test as developed by Abadie (2002), finding that the banking sector contributed the most, followed by real estate and subsequently insurance and brokerage industries. Finally, comparing banks systemic risk's determinants between China and the US, the reduced level of competition among banks in China is found to increase banks’ systemic risk, contrary to what is found in the US.

Abstract 36: Synthetic lethality across normal tissues is strongly associated with cancer risk, onset, and tumor suppressor specificity

Abstract The tissue-specificity of cancer and cancer risk is a fundamental open research question. Beyond advancing our understanding of carcinogenesis, elucidating the factors underlying cancer risk may also contribute to cancer prevention. Recent studies have shown that the variation in tissue cancer risk can be explained by the number of tissue stem cell divisions occurring during the lifetime and by abnormal levels of DNA methylation. While cancer risk is likely not determined by a single factor, no other factor has been reported since to account for this fundamental variation. Here we show that cancer synthetic lethality (SL) is another strong contributor of cancer risk in human tissues. SL is a well-known type of genetic interaction where cell death occurs under the combined inactivation of two paired SL genes but not either of them alone. Targeting SLs has been recognized as a highly valuable approach for cancer treatment. We hypothesized that since down-regulated cancer SL (cSL) gene pairs reduce the viability of cancer cells, they may impede the malignant transformation of normal cells, thus modulating cancer risk. Utilizing several recently published large-scale cancer SL networks, we systematically quantified the cancer SL load (defined as the fraction of down-regulated cancer SL gene pairs) in numerous normal and cancer tissues from the TCGA and GTEx datasets. Our key findings are: 1. The cSL loads are lower in cancers vs their matched normal tissues. Furthermore, we find that the cSL load decreases progressively as cancers develop from normal tissues through multiple stages of pre-malignant lesions. These results testify that high cSL load is detrimental to cancer cells, acting as a barrier to cancer development. That is, as normal cells undergo malignant transformation, they need to reactivate at least some of the down-regulated cSL genes for the emerging cancer cells to survive. 2. In accordance with these observations, we find that cSL load in normal tissues is strongly inversely correlated with their lifetime cancer risk. 3. We find that cSL load is the first identified predictor of cancer onset time across different normal tissues - higher cSL load in the younger population is associated with later onset of cancers in that tissue. 4. cSL are important contributors of the tissue/cancer-type specificity of numerous tumor suppressor genes (like BRCA1) - that is, the activity state of cSL partners of quite a few tumor suppressor genes predicts the specific tissues in which they are known to drive cancer. Taken together, these results show that synthetic lethality load in normal tissues is a novel important biological contributor of cancer risk in humans. While synthetic lethality has been attracting tremendous attention as a way to identify cancer vulnerabilities and target them, this is the first time that its role in mediating cancer development is uncovered. Citation Format: Nishanth Ulhas Nair, Kuoyuan Cheng, Joo Sang Lee, Eytan Ruppin. Synthetic lethality across normal tissues is strongly associated with cancer risk, onset, and tumor suppressor specificity [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research 2020; 2020 Apr 27-28 and Jun 22-24. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(16 Suppl):Abstract nr 36.

Mapping the stocks in MICEX: Who is central in the Moscow Stock Exchange?

AbstractIn this article, we use partial correlations to derive bi‐directional connections between major firms listed in the Moscow Stock Exchange. We obtain coefficients of partial correlation from the correlation estimates of the Constant Conditional Correlation GARCH (CCC‐GARCH) and the consistent Dynamic Conditional Correlation GARCH (cDCC‐GARCH) models. We map the graph of partial correlations using the Gaussian Graphical Model and apply network analysis to identify the most central firms in terms of both shock propagation and connectedness with others. Moreover we analyze some network characteristics over time and based on these we construct a measure of system vulnerability to external shocks. Our findings suggest that during the crisis interconnectedness between firms strengthens and becomes polarized and the system becomes more vulnerable to systemic shocks. In addition, we found that the most connected firms are the state‐owned firms Sberbank and Gazprom and the private oil company Lukoil, while in terms of the top most central systemic risk contributors, Sberbank gave its place to the NLMK Group.

Characterization and health risk assessment of organophosphate esters in indoor dust from urban and rural domestic house and college dormitory in Nanjing, China.

Indoor dust is an important route of exposure for organophosphate esters (OPEs), which are associated with adverse health effects. In the present study, the pollution occurrence and potential health risks of 13 OPEs in indoor dust from urban homes, college dormitories, and rural homes in Nanjing were investigated. Most OPEs were detected in the tested samples. College dormitories dust samples showed significantly higher OPEs concentrations (132.31-1.61 × 103 ng/g), followed by that in urban homes (31.42-49.84 ng/g) and rural homes (51.19-309.75 ng/g). The Mann-Whitney U test found no significant difference in the total concentrations of OPEs except for some individual OPEs between urban and rural homes. Tris (2-chloroisopropyl) phosphate (TCPP) was the most abundant compound in all tested areas. Spearman correlation coefficients and principal component analysis indicated that OPEs might originate from different sources in three microenvironments. Estimated exposures for adults and children in all indoor dust were below the relevant reference doses. Additionally, TCPP was the primary contributors to the non-carcinogenic risk, ranging from 1.07 × 10-6 to 2.20 × 10-5. Tris (2,3-dibromopropyl) phosphate was the dominant carcinogenic risk contributor in indoor dust, with a range of 1.33 × 10-11 to 8.74 × 10-10. These results suggested that the health risk of OPEs was within acceptable limits in the tested areas.

Contamination and ecological health risks of heavy metals in groundwater of a typical agricultural area in NW China

Heavy metal pollution in groundwater has become a widespread issue worldwide. However, information on heavy metal pollution in groundwater of inland river basins in NW China remains limited. This study evaluated pollution and ecological health risks of heavy metals in groundwater of the Zhangye Basin, which is a typical inland river basin in NW China. The concentrations of heavy metals in groundwater were relatively low. Heavy metals in groundwater of the northeastern edge and western regions of the study area showed a higher concentration than those of the remaining parts. Iron was the dominant heavy metal in groundwater with a maximum concentration of 1270 μg L −1 . Results of heavy metal pollution index calculations showed that approximately 3.5% of groundwater samples are classified into moderate or high pollution levels. The ecological risks of heavy metals in groundwater were relatively low with several metal(loid)s including As, Ni and Cd serving as the dominant risk contributors. The ingestion pathway contributed to 97.2%/93.6% of non-cancer risks and 97.5%/97.5% of cancer risks for children/adults, respectively. Ingestion was the main health risk contributor. Total hazard quotients and cancer risks for children were 3.5 and 9.7 times higher than those for adults, suggesting that children are much more susceptible to potential harm caused by heavy metals in groundwater. Therefore, more effective control strategies should be taken in the study area as soon as possible. Supplementary material: Spatial distribution of health risks of heavy metals is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4967510

Emission characteristics and associated assessment of volatile organic compounds from process units in a refinery

The accuracy and reliability of volatile organic compound (VOC) emission data are essential for assessing emission characteristics and their potential impact on air quality and human health. This paper describes a new method for determining VOC emission data by multipoint sampling from various process units inside a large-scale refinery. We found that the emission characteristics of various production units were related to the raw materials, products, and production processes. Saturated alkanes accounted for the largest fraction in the continuous catalytic reforming and wastewater treatment units (48.0% and 59.2%, respectively). In the propene recovery unit and catalytic cracking unit, alkenes were the most dominant compounds, and propene provided the largest contributions (57.8% and 23.0%, respectively). In addition, n-decane (12.6%), m,p-xylene (12.4%), and n-nonane (8.9%) were the main species in the normal production process of the delayed coking unit. Assessments of photochemical reactivity and carcinogenic risk were carried out, and the results indicate that VOC emissions from the propene recovery unit and catalytic cracking unit should be controlled to reduce the ozone formation potential; in addition, alkenes are precedent-controlled pollutants. The cancer risk assessments reveal that 1,2-dibromoethane, benzene, 1,2-dichloroethane, and chloroform were the dominant risk contributors, and their values were much higher than the standard threshold value of 1.0 × 10−6 but lower than the significant risk value defined by the US Supreme Court. Based on the VOC composition and a classification algorithm, the samples were classified into eight main groups that corresponded to different process units in the petroleum refinery. In conclusion, this work provides valuable data for investigating process-specific emission characteristics of VOCs and performing associated assessments of photochemical reactivity and carcinogenic risk in petrochemical refineries.

Formal Safety Assessment of a Marine Seismic Survey Vessel Operation, Incorporating Risk Matrix and Fault Tree Analysis

In maritime safety research, risk is assessed usually within the framework of formal safety assessment (FSA), which provides a formal and systematic methodology to improve the safety of lives, assets, and the environment. A bespoke application of FSA to mitigate accidents in marine seismic surveying is put forward in this paper, with the aim of improving the safety of seismic vessel operations, within the context of developing an economically viable strategy. The work herein takes a close look at the hazards in North Sea offshore seismic surveying, in order to identify critical risk factors, leading to marine seismic survey accidents. The risk factors leading to undesirable events are analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. A risk matrix is introduced to screen the identified undesirable events. Further to the screening, Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is presented to investigate and analyse the most critical risks of seismic survey operation, taking into account the lack of historical data. The obtained results show that man overboard (MOB) event is a major risk factor in marine seismic survey operation; lack of training on safe work practice, slippery deck as a result of rain, snow or water splash, sea state affecting human judgement, and poor communication are identified as the critical risk contributors to the MOB event. Consequently, the risk control options are focused on the critical risk contributors for decision-making. Lastly, suggestions for the introduction and development of the FSA methodology are highlighted for safer marine and offshore operations in general.

Spillovers and diversification potential of bank equity returns from developed and emerging America

We examine the network spillovers, portfolio allocation characteristics and diversification potential of bank returns from developed and emerging America. We draw our results by applying a directional spillover index, the tail-event driven network (TENET) and nonlinear portfolio optimization methods on bank returns. We find that the spillovers and connectedness among banks from emerging America are noticeably smaller than those among banks from developed America. The largest emerging market spillover transmitters and receivers are the banks from Brazil, followed by the banks from Chile. The largest developed market spillover transmitter is JP Morgan Chase. The connectedness among banks from developed America is dominated by the banks from the USA, relative to those from Canada. The total connectedness of the emerging market banks is more intensified than that of the banks from developed America due to the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. The portfolio optimization shows that in developed America, the largest banks from the USA are the largest risk contributors to total portfolio risk, whereas the banks from Canada contribute the least risk. In emerging America, the banks from Brazil contribute the most risk to total portfolio risk while the banks from Peru and one bank from Colombia contribute the least risk. The portfolio of banks from emerging America offers greater diversification potential and lower total portfolio allocation risk.

Assessment of TREM2 rs75932628 variant’s association with Parkinson’s disease in a Greek population and Meta-analysis of current data

Background Α number of genetic variants are considered to confer susceptibility to Parkinson’s disease (PD). Rs75392628 (R47H), a rare variant of TREM2 gene, has been linked to PD, although its role on PD remains conflicting. Objective Detection of a possible contribution of rs75392628 variant of TREM2 gene to PD risk. Methods A total of 358 PD patients and 358 healthy controls genotyped for rs75392628. In addition, a meta-analysis was performed by merging our results with those from previous studies. Results The rare variant of rs75932628 (47H) of TREM2 gene was not detected on cohort. Meta-analysis of a total of 9271 PD cases and 9777 controls across 14 independent PD data sets from 9 studies, including the present study, did not show any statistically significant effect of rs75392628 on PD risk (ORFE:1.54 95% CI:0.87-2.73. ORRE: 1.54, 95%CI: 0.71-3.32). Conclusions Rs75392628 TREM2 variant is rather unlikely to be a major genetic risk contributor of PD.

A Time-Frequency Analysis of the Systemic Risk in China

Although there have been many empirical studies about systemic risk since the financial crisis of 2008, few have analyzed the systemic risk in the time-frequency domain. In this paper, based on wavelet analysis, the main time-frequency characteristics of China’s systemic risk, the time-frequency similarity between financial institutions, the comovement and the systemic risk contagion channels are analyzed. We find that the systemic risk rose in the short-run but fell in the long-run. In addition, city commercial banks are becoming the main source and contributor of systemic risk.

Public health risk of toxic metal(loid) pollution to the population living near an abandoned small-scale polymetallic mine

Small-scale mining activities in many developing countries have caused severe environmental issues to the surrounding areas, which ultimately threatened the health of local populations. Based on detailed characterization of the local drinking water and surface soil, as well as foodstuffs, this study comprehensively assessed the public health risk of toxic metal(loid)s to the population living in three villages surrounding an abandoned small-scale polymetallic mine in southern China. The agricultural soils contained elevated levels of Cu, Zn, As, Cd, and Pb, which originated from the mining district, and as expected, the locally cultivated rice and vegetables were contaminated by As, Cd, and Pb to varying extents. Arsenic occurred in both inorganic and organic forms in the rice and vegetables, with inorganic As (i-As) accounting for 82.2% (45.4–100%) and 94.7% (65.2–100%) of the total As contents in rice and vegetables, respectively. Results of health risk assessment indicate that the residents in the impacted villages had serious non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk. Dietary exposure to i-As and Cd through rice and vegetable consumption was the primary cause of non-carcinogenic risk, while i-As intake was the dominant contributor of carcinogenic risk. These findings suggest that significant environmental pollution by toxic metal(loid)s could result from small-scale metal mines, even after being abandoned, and the accumulation of the toxic metal(loid)s in food crops could pose significant health risk to the local residents. Immediate actions should be taken to discourage them from consuming the locally produced food crops, while long-term control measures for containment of toxic metal(loid) pollution are being developed, and high priority should be given to the remediation of Cd and As in the contaminated soils.

Portfolio selection and unsystematic risk optimisation using swarm intelligence

The financial crisis of 2008, got investment managers to study alternate methods of portfolio construction by focusing on optimisation of risk distribution. In this paper, we introduce a new method of risk diversification of an equity portfolio, based on the individual securities risk contribution. Markowitz’s portfolio optimisation methods were widely believed to diversify the risks until 2010, when it caught the financial market practitioners by surprise. But the scale of misjudgement raised doubts and opened the drawbacks of existing methods in portfolio construction and risk management. In this study, we propose a new technique for portfolio construction and unsystematic risk optimisation, using a well known meta heuristic from evolutionary computation, known as Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO). We build a portfolio construction model using machine learning methods, to minimise risk contributors from our universe of securities, and then target to increase the asset diversification by maximising the maximum-diversification ratio. We apply boosting techniques to construct portfolio using ensemble of two well known techniques, known as maximum diversification ratio and risk budgeting of portfolio. We have benchmarked our findings by examining the returns of major global indices, and then illustrate our results by comparing with an alternate well known portfolio construction technique, the risk parity portfolio. For comparison, we have considered the length of investment horizon, returns and risks, as factors to present our findings by using the proposed portfolio optimisation and diversification method. Our technique offers practical insights and scope for further investigation into alternate methods of portfolio diversification and risk management using machine learning algorithms.

Personal exposure to VOCs (BTX) and women health risk assessment in rural kitchen from solid biofuel burning during cooking in West Bengal, India.

In this study, personal exposure to benzene, toluene and xylene as important VOC species of incomplete combustion are assessed, considering the ventilation condition of the rural kitchens throughout the seasons. Annual mean total BTX levels were 148.51, 76.98, 34.91 and 13.34μgm-3 for the rural kitchens with openness of <25%, 25-50%, 50-75% and >75% respectively. Overall annual mean concentration of benzene, toluene and xylene level was found to be 52.35, 8.85 and 7.23μgm-3 respectively. Annual mean total BTX was found across the openness of the kitchens to be 68.43μgm-3. There was no significant interaction between the independent variables 'openness' and 'season' explaining pollution exposure variability. Openness of the kitchens was the only significant predictor for BTX exposure concentration variation. Average daily dose (ADD) analysis showed median value of 1.439×10-3mg/kg-day with 95% certainty range from 9.04×10-4mg/kg-day to 2.220×10-3mg/kg-day. Hazard index (HI) indicates no significant risk of non-carcinogenic effect from the exposure to benzene, toluene and xylene. In ADD and all non-cancerous risk estimates (HQ of benzene, toluene, xylene), exposure time emerges as the single most contributor whereas, annual average pollutant exposure is the second most risk contributor in all the cases. Lifetime cancer risk of benzene exceeded the acceptable level indicating probable cancer risk and inhalation unit risk alone contributes above 75%; exposure time came after with 16.3% contribution.

Bioaccessibilities and health risk assessment of heavy and trace elements in fish from an urban city, India

An investigation on heavy and trace elements (HTEs) and their bioaccessibilities in the 15 fish species from two tropical rivers (Subarnarekha and Kharkai Rivers) of an urban city in India was carried out for accessing the health risk to the general populations. The average concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, and Zn in the 15 fish species varied within 0.006–0.009, 0.016–0.023, 0.067–0.094, 1.52–1.88, 0.006–0.008, 0.229–0.355, 15.9–20.8 mg/kg w.w., respectively, and their bioaccessibilities varied within 49–60%, 45–63%, 29–49%, 56–68%, 55–75%, 51–78%, and 60–75%, respectively. Comparison of fish length and HTEs showed no significant relation. The increasing trend of Cr and Pb from planktonivores to piscivores fish species of Subarnarekha River showed the biomagnification of these elements through the food web. The similar trend was observed for Cd in Kharkai River, suggesting the biomagnification of Cd. The total hazard index (THI) was found lower than the bioaccessible hazard index (BHI), and Pb and Zn were major risk contributors. The BHI and THI values were far below 1, implying no significant health risk to the general population. However, BHI values showed that the general population are more vulnerable to Zn and Pb exposure due to consumption of invertivores fish species.

Chronic health risk comparison between China and Denmark on dietary exposure to chlorpyrifos

Chlorpyrifos is one of the most heavily used pesticides in domestic and agricultural insect prevention globally. Given the potential neurotoxicity of chlorpyrifos and its high detection rates in food and drinking water, health risks attributable to chlorpyrifos residue in Chinese drinking water and food in both China and Denmark were assessed in this study. Mixed left-censored handling models were used to deal with the non-detected values in chlorpyrifos concentrations. Results show that chronic exposure imputed to chlorpyrifos residue is much lower than the reference dose, and will thus not pose appreciable health risk to the consumer. Compared to the total exposure from chlorpyrifos in drinking water and food sources, chronic exposure from drinking water sources in China accounts for 0–4.4%. Health risk owing to chlorpyrifos in food within China is 6-7-fold higher than in Denmark, and this coincides with the fact that all application of chlorpyrifos is banned in Denmark, in contrast to China. However, the Danish consumers are still exposed from imported food items. The main health risk contributors in China are the food groups of Grains and grain-based products and Vegetable and vegetable products, while the main chronic health risk contributor in Denmark is the food group of imported fruit and fruit products.

Monetary Policy, Industry Heterogeneity and Systemic Risk—Based on a High Dimensional Network Analysis

We utilized a high dimensional financial network to investigate the systemic risk contagion between different industries in China and to explore the impacts of monetary policy and industry heterogeneity factors. The empirical results suggest that the total level of systemic risk increased quite significantly during the 2008 global crisis and the 2015–2016 Stock Market Disaster. The energy, material, industrial, and financial sectors are the top systemic risk contributors. Industry heterogeneity variables such as the leverage ratio, book-to-market ratio, return on assets (ROA) and size have significant impacts on the systemic risk, but their effects on the systemic risk contribution are more pronounced than those on the systemic risk sensitivity. Moreover, monetary policy can effectively suppress the systemic risk diffusion derived from the leverage ratio. These results are essential for investors and regulators of risk management.