Dominant Entity Research Articles

A Cross-Sectional Study Of Manually Processed Petroleum Derivatives Burns

Syrian burn centers are facing challenges dealing with burns caused by manually processed petroleum derivatives during the current war due to the lack of energy storage. We are presenting a cross-sectional study conducted at Al-Mouwasat University Hospital from January 2024 to July 2024 in Syria. Based on our results, this kind of injuries is larger in burned area, can affect multiple body parts, is associated with higher prevalence of inhalation injuries, requires more debridement sessions, is more common among young females; and thus, higher mortality and morbidity rates, compared to other burn injuries. Receiving inappropriate first aid, associated with secondary transfer and late referral was the dominant entity in this kind of burn. On the other hand, this injury can be prevented with appropriate precautions. Although the retrospective descriptive nature of the study which relies on the quality of data collected and the consistency of clinical documentation, this paper is considered one of the leading studies to include this high number of cases in relative medical literature, as so far, medical literature is lacking about this specific injury and no national database is yet established.

Ekspansi Perkebunan Pisang Melalui Modal Ventura Serta Meningkatkan Efisiensi Operasi

Indonesia, renowned for its fertile terrain, has great potential for fruit plantation due to its land and market. Bananas, especially the globally favored Cavendish variety, are predominant in both production and consumption. In this dynamic market, PT Sewu Segar Nusantara (Sunpride) stands as the dominant entity, leaving other players, like PT Lampung Banana Agri, with minimal market traction. PT Lampung Banana Agri is one of the players in the industry struggling to compete due to limitation of resources and operational challenges. Over the past five years, the company has encountered negative income, and signaling an urgent need for strategic redirection to maintain operational viability. This research ventures into understanding these challenges, deriving insights from both internal and external vantages. Employing tools like SWOT, VRIO, and financial ratio analysis, the company's intrinsic strengths and weaknesses are spotlighted. At the same time, frameworks like PESTLE and Porter's Five Forces clarify the macroeconomic and market forces at play. Central to this exploration is an analysis of the company's financial statements from 2016-2022, with a caveat: the reliance on public data means certain assumptions might need real-world validation. From these comprehensive analysis, actionable strategies emerge. The TOWS Matrix, an essential analytical tool, bridges internal capabilities with external opportunities, leading to concrete recommendations. A prime proposition is the acceleration of PT Lampung Banana Agri's production and sales, aiming for a swift return to profitability. Capital budgeting methodologies further validate the viability of farm expansion, identifying venture capital as a potential financial ally. It is noteworthy that even with the heftier interest rates inherent to venture capital, the benefits to the company are pronounced. Sensitivity analysis further underscore the pivotal role of product pricing, demonstrating its precedence over interest rate considerations. In essence, this research offers PT Lampung Banana Agri a roadmap, potentially transforming challenges into opportunities within Indonesia's competitive banana market.
 Keywords: Cavendish, Net Present Value (NPV), Financial Ratios, Capital Budgeting

Евангелическо-лютеранская церковь Дании: социально-экономический и территориально-организационный аспекты

The study exemplifies the use of an institutional-territorial approach for a comprehensive description of a national denominational landscape. The article aims to provide such an account by analysing relevant official data and performing statistical processing using computational tools. The focus is on the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark and its administrative-territorial structures. The study places emphasis on the financial aspect, one seldom discussed in academic discourse. The denominational landscape of Denmark is a multicomponent system, with the National Lutheran Church holding a distinctive legal status as a dominant entity. Its historical and social significance, along with the ability to preserve functions that mirror those of the state, allow the Church of Denmark to maintain its civilisational and culture-building role for the populace, especially the indigenous one. However, Denmark is not exempt from the secular trends prevalent in the Nordic countries. One notable tendency is the decline in adherents of the Evangelical Lutheran Church observed over recent decades. This decline is most evident in the capital region, where the proportion of migrants in the population is higher and daily life is more vibrant than in other areas. Territorial variations in religiously motivated behaviour are evident, with the highest percentages observed in the country’s peripheral regions (despite the overall figures showing a negative trend). These areas also boast the most significant proportion of registered members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Exploring non-Christian religions in Denmark presents a promising avenue for future research.

MTSS2-related neurodevelopmental disorder: Further delineation of the phenotype

MTSS2-related neurodevelopmental disorder (MTSS2-related NDD) (MIM 620086) is characterized by intellectual developmental disorder with ocular anomalies and distinctive facial features (IDDOF). The only existing report to date described five individuals who exhibited an identical de novo c.2011C>T (p.Arg671Trp) variant in the MTSS2 gene. Herein, we report a new case of MTSS2-related NND in a male dizygotic twin who presented with IDDOF and severe intellectual disability. This patient also displayed additional clinical features, including low functioning autism, hypothyroidism, duodenal obstruction secondary to Ladd's bands, inguinal hernias, cryptorchidism, transient subperiosteal new bone formation, and short stature with delayed bone age, which had not been previously reported in association with the MTSS2-related NDD. Exome sequencing identified the recurrent c.2011C>T (p.Arg671Trp) variant in the MTSS2 gene. The mother and the other twin tested negative for the pathogenic variant, while the father's participation in the study was unavailable. This case confirms that the MTSS2-related NDD is caused by the recurrent MTSS2 missense variant p.Arg671Trp. The novel findings identified in our patient expand the phenotypic spectrum associated with this new autosomal dominant entity, but further studies on its genetic and clinical manifestations are still needed.

Humoral Immunodeficiency in two patients with Alagille Syndrome

IntroductionAlagille syndrome is an autosomal dominant entity caused by mutations that affect the Notch-Jagged1 signaling pathway. It is characterized by cholestasis due to poor bile ducts, congenital heart disease, skeletal abnormalities, ocular abnormalities and characteristic facial phenotype. We present 2 patients diagnosed with Alagille syndrome who presented associated immunodeficiency and required gammaglobulin treatment. Case 117-year-old male patient, who was liver transplanted at 19 months of the age. At 6 years of life, he underwent splenectomy secondary to immune thrombocytopenic purpura. He presented recurrent otitis and severe, large styes on the eyelids. He developed a first episode of pneumonia at 6. He received double kidney transplantation due to end-stage chronic kidney disease at 9. At the age of 10 laboratory results showed: IgG: 374 mg/dl IgM: 43 mg/dl IgE: 3 UI and IgA: 202 mg/dl. Functional responses against protein and polysaccharide antigens were absent. Lymphocytes populations were normal. He started treatment with intravenous gammaglobulin at 10 years of age. Case 27-year-old male patient with liver involvement, portal hypertension and portal vein cavernomas that evolved to hypersplenism with esophageal and gastric varices and gastrointestinal bleeding that required a splenorenal anastomosis and a stent. He presented a ventricular communication with a severe hypoplasia of the left pulmonary branch. He presented multiple infectious events including pneumococcal pneumonia. Laboratory showed pancytopenia secondary to hypersplenism, CD4 T lymphopenia (<250/uL)) with preserved CD4/CD8 ratio with normal lymphocyte proliferations, IgG: 450 mg/dl, IgM: 21 mg/dl, IgA: 136 mg/dl. A humoral response decay against global Pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide was observed. Variable response to protein antigen was present. Daily chemoprophylaxis with trimethoprim sulfamethoxazole was indicated but he repeated infectious episodes, then subcutaneous gammaglobulin was started. ConclusionsWe present2 patients diagnosed with Alagille syndromewith associated immunodeficiency. The NOTCH/Jagged 1 signaling pathway is of profound relevance to the process of somitogenesis and in the development of CD4 and CD8 lymphocytes. The immune compromise of patients with Alagille syndrome should be emphasized and eventually gammaglobulin treatment should be indicated.

Возможность и целесообразность маркетинговой вариативности в условиях дефицитного рынка (кейс рынка цельнокатанных колес-957)

The relevance of the study is due to the need to study the limits of the permissibility of business behavior of companies in the conditions of economic turbulence that has developed under the influence of various macro and microfactors. The disruption of logistics chains against the background of the first sanctions restrictions, the introduction of protective duties, a comprehensive system of state support for the industry (the “trade-in” program for changing the car fleet) led to new structural and behavioral models of the functioning of markets, which required understanding and selection of an adequate policy of state regulation. The purpose of the study is to consider the strategy of behavior of the dominant player with a pronounced differentiation in pricing policy in relation to different counterparties in a scarce market on the example of an antimonopoly case against a dominant economic entity in the market of solid-rolled wheels with a diameter of 957 mm within the borders of the Russian Federation (2018–2019). The objectives of the study are to consider how the implementation of three important elements of the company’s marketing strategies – price formation, market segmentation based on the Buchanan product concept and the selection of counterparties, as well as methods and technologies of discount policy in conditions of unsatisfied demand, can affect the functioning of a scarce market and affect price growth for two years. In the context of this study, the transformation of the mechanism of price discrimination in scarce markets is presented. It is noted that the behavior of the dominant entity regarding the establishment of a monopolistically high price in a scarce market looks economically unconditioned, the establishment of a differentiated final price for the sale of goods to various buyers at a level higher than the prices of the period preceding the shortage indicates price discrimination of the first and second degree. The analysis of various types of discounts shows that sales promotion is not a necessary marketing tool, as it reduces the monopoly profit of the seller and does not contain motivation for the formation of competitive initiations. The main gain of the consumer is not the volume of potential discounts, but the speed of searching for goods, contracting on any terms, the promptness of concluding transactions and obtaining maximum financial gain in conditions of uncertainty.

Preference heterogeneity in Bitcoin and its forks' network

This study investigates the transmission channel of information diffusion in the network of Bitcoin and its six forks using daily closing prices from the start of trading for each one to September 24, 2021. In particular, the price series are stationarized for further analysis by converting them to log returns. We find the following: (i) the Bitcoin market has the central authority of information flow because of its large market size and high liquidity, and (ii) the Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Diamond markets collaborate in information dissemination and intermediary role despite their small market size and low liquidity. Using the scaling and Hurst exponents, we explain the roles of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin Diamond in the network of forks. The potential externality emerges from a highly liquid market and spreads through efficient markets in terms of price fairness, resulting in considerable information share in the cryptocurrency market. Our findings suggest that the forks' network evolves for preference heterogeneity rather than for a single dominant entity with market leadership in the network.

Record-Breaking Rain Event Altered Estuarine Viral Assemblages.

Viruses are the dominant biological entity in the ocean, play a vital role in biogeochemical cycles, and provide their hosts with novel metabolic capabilities through auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs). Hurricane Harvey was a category 4 hurricane that made landfall on the Texas coast in 2017 and lashed the Houston area with 1.4–1.7 × 1010 m3 of rainfall. In this paper, we aim to characterize how the changes in abiotic conditions brought by Hurricane Harvey altered the viral assemblages of Galveston Bay at the taxonomic level and determine how viral ecosystem functions were altered. Metagenomes of the viruses and their hosts were sequenced from a transect in Galveston Bay over the five weeks following the storm. Our results show that the viral assemblages of Galveston Bay dramatically changed following Hurricane Harvey’s landfall. Of the abiotic parameters measured, salinity had the strongest effect on shaping the viral assemblages. In the five weeks following Hurricane Harvey, there was a steady increase of metabolic genes and putative viral infections. Our study provides the first in-depth look at how marine viral assemblages respond and recover from extreme rainfall events, which models predict will become more frequent and intense with climate change.

Prospective green constitution in new and renewable energy regulation

The format for regulating new and renewable energy in the draft law on new and renewable energy in Indonesia still contains many polemics and problems. This is motivated by various problems of conception and substance in it, such as misconceptions about nomenclature, problems with institutional formats, licensing problems, and the accommodation of nuclear energy. This paper aims to analyze the potential impacts and prospects of energy using a green constitution point of view. This study used normative juridical research with a statutory and conceptual approach. The results show that the environment is the dominant entity affected by energy management and utilization activities, both fossil energy and new renewable energy with different potential impacts. The prospect of a green constitution has been contained in the draft law on new and renewable energy, but it cannot be realized optimally because transition policies in Indonesia still have dual orientations and overlapping arrangements. The principles of a green constitution can be a guiding concept and norm for the format of regulation and implementation of the use and utilization of new and renewable energy so that it is in line with the values ​​of environmental protection and preservation.

Collaborative vendor managed inventory model by using multi agent system and continuous review (r, Q) replenishment policy

In the vendor-managed inventory (VMI) system, the vendor takes over responsibility for managing customer inventory so that delivery is not based on the order but the customer's inventory condition. It makes the vendor becomes a dominant entity, and customers are supplied by its own vendor exclusively. That is why most studies in VMI implement a single-vendor-single-customer or single-vendor-multi-customer scenario. In certain conditions, this exclusiveness can increase lost sales. Besides, most of them implement a single product scenario. In this work, we develop VMI model for the multi-vendor-customer-product scenario. This model is developed based on the collaborative multi-agent system. The relationship between vendors and customers is many-to-many. This work aims to reduce lost sales and maintain efficiency in the inventory. The continuous review (r, Q) policy is used as the replenishment model. The simulation result shows that the collaborative model creates higher sales, lower lost sales, and competitive inventory than the non-collaborative one. The lost sales is 50 to 75 percent lower. The sales percentage is 17 to 27 percent higher. The total retailers' stock is 20 to 38 percent higher. The total vendors' stock is 11 to 30 percent lower. The total stock in the supply chain in the collaborative model is 2 to 16 percent higher. The number of retailers is directly proportional to the total vendor's stock and total supply chain stock gaps; inversely proportional to the lost sales gap; and not related to the sales percentage and total retailers' stock gaps.

Instrumenty ochrony podmiotów gospodarczych sektora bankowego zagrożonych praktykami monopolistycznymi w Polsce, Czechach i Słowacji

The goal of the paper is presenting legal-administrative instruments of protecting economic entities exposed to the employment of monopolistic practices available to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority and its equivalents in Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Polish Financial Supervision Authority is not a classic regulatory body, however, it has at its disposal instruments influencing competition, e.g. considering an entity a dominant entity or an entity with close connections to a bank, considering a bank to be significant, objection regarding purchasing or taking up shares, objection regarding becoming a dominant entity of a domestic bank, permission for banks to merge. This paper will present the solutions functioning in Czech Republic and Slovakia.

CAN NON-DOMINANT ENTITIES BEHAVE DOMINANTLY: REVISITING THE CONTOURS OF PREDATORY PRICING UNDER INDIAN COMPETITION LAW.

Predatory pricing policy in India is at crossroads with Jio becoming the largest player in the wireless telecommunication market and reducing the market to a triopoly. There is a need for the Competition Commission of India to reflect on its enforcement policy under Section 4 of the Indian Competition Act, 2002. The article starts by exploring the concept of predatory pricing and why it remains a contested concept. The second part of the paper argues the need for revisiting the dominance requirement to initiate an investigation under Section 26 read with Section 4 of the Indian Competition act by drawing inferences from US and France antitrust law. It shall discuss in detail the need for adopting an attempted monopolization benchmark for cases of predatory pricing. The third part proposes two thresholds (a) common market share and; (b) proof of exclusion, that the commission can adopt in order to differentiate legitimate promotional pricing from illegitimate predatory pricing. The article questions the major premises on which predatory pricing abuse can be invoked. It will be illustrated, that a non-dominant entity can achieve the same result of distorting competition as a dominant entity can, by predation. In particular, it will be argued that for an entity to commit predation, market power is not a prerequisite instead the commission must look at the effect in the market. Therefore, the Competition Commission of India is well advised to revisit the prerequisite of dominance for predatory pricing wrongs.

Science-Nonscience Research Partnership in Poland

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to inquire into the network structure of publicly financed research collaboration, which Polish scientific institutions undertake with their commercial and non-commercial partners from a multilevel perspective (international, domestic, and intra-regional one). Design/Methodology/Approach: Data collected from the POL-on was used. There were identified 97 publicly financed scientific inter-organizational projects launched in 2019. Social network analysis was applied: there were recognized components, bi-components, centrality measures were calculated (degree, closeness, betweenness). Findings: Polish scientific institutions conduct cross-sectoral projects at different hierarchical levels, and nearly half of them involve partners from different domestic regions. A trilateral partnership between sectors is visible within international projects, while at domestic and local levels, science collaborates with those sectors separately. Warsaw University of Technology is a dominant entity recognized within the identified network. Practical Implications: The conducted analysis helped describe some effects of the public financing system of Polish science. There were also indicated entities of significant meaning within this network. Particular science sector institutions may apply the research results to their future strategies. Originality/Value: This study enriches the empirical investigation on cross-sectoral research collaboration in Poland (that includes not only university-industry-government linkages but also encompasses other types of scientific, commercial, and non-commercial entities). Moreover, a multilevel perspective was applied.

Understanding ore-forming conditions using machine reading of text

• A methodology is proposed for constructing a geological knowledge graph (KG) from mineral exploration reports. • KG is enriched using an external stratigraphic database to incorporate important relations including hierarchical relations and name changes among extracted stratigraphic units. • Sequence labelling is used for geological named entry recognition, while word semantics, distributed representations and clustering are used to extract relation types. • Case studies on mineral deposits are used to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methodology. Mineral exploration reports assist present day exploration by providing valuable observations about the geological environments in which mineral deposits form. Querying and aggregating historical data can assist in reducing future exploration risks and costs. However, since the reports are written in unstructured text, it is a challenging task to derive meaningful geological information without manually reading through a large collection of reports, which is a formidable task for geologists. In this study, geological information relevant to mineralisation and ore-forming conditions is automatically extracted from such under-utilised exploration reports. This is achieved by constructing knowledge graphs that describe geological entities and their relations as they appear in exploration reports. Natural language processing and deep learning methods are used to automatically extract and label geological terms with the correct entity types and establish the relationships between these entities. In this research, six dominant entity types are considered, namely, geographical location, geological timescale, stratigraphic unit, rock type, ore and deposit type, and contained minerals. Two knowledge graphs are constructed for two high-quality mineral exploration reports, one for iron ore and the other for gold deposit, to illustrate the effectiveness of our methodology. The knowledge graphs are then assessed by determining whether the contents of the source reports were depicted accurately, specifically the labelled geological terms in the nodes and their associations in node connections. The results show that the structured information stored in the knowledge graphs faithfully represent the contents of the source reports, matching well with the domain knowledge. The proposed methods are capable of rapidly and robustly transforming text data into a structured form, the untapped area towards geological knowledge mining.

Digital media in a contemporary conflict – example of Ukraine

The ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia provides many examples of using media, including technologically new ones, to conduct information warfare. The article focuses on the issue of the importance of digital media in the context of war in eastern Ukraine and socio-political protests (2013/2014) that preceded the armed conflict. This article analyzes the methods of instrumental usage of digital media by Russia as the dominant entity in conducting aggressive information warfare against Ukraine as well as civic actions on the Ukrainian side aimed at counteracting Russian propaganda. The results show that, in the times of the mediatization of war, different entities tend to actively use both traditional media present in the digital space and social media. In addition, this work systematizes the conceptual apparatus related to the discussed issues. The article is based on the analysis of case studies (mainly Russian RT and Ukrainian, social initiative StopFake), content analysis, analysis and criticism of literature, and examination of source studies. The article complements the current debate on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia by highlighting the role of digital media in the context of information warfare and by showing that digital media, especially social media, can be a platform adopted not only by state actors, but also for citizens.

Clinical characterization and identification of five novel FOXL2 pathogenic variants in a cohort of 12 Mexican subjects with the syndrome of blepharophimosis-ptosis-epicanthus inversus

Blepharophimosis-ptosis-epicanthus inversus syndrome (BPES) is an autosomal dominant entity characterized by eyelid malformations and caused by mutations in the forkhead box L2 (FOXL2) gene. Clinical and genetic analyses of large cohorts of BPES patients from different ethnic origins are important for a better characterization of FOXL2 mutational landscape. The purpose of this study is to describe the phenotypic features and the causal FOXL2 variants in a Mexican cohort of BPES patients. A total of 12 individuals with typical facial findings were included. Clinical evaluation included palpebral measurements and levator function assessment. The complete coding sequence of FOXL2 was amplified by PCR and subsequently analyzed by Sanger sequencing. A total of 11 distinct FOXL2 pathogenic variants were identified in our cohort (molecular diagnostic rate of 92%), including 5 novel mutations. Our results broaden the BPES-related mutational spectrum and supports considerable FOXL2 allelic heterogeneity in our population.

Clinical Genetics of Polydactyly: An Updated Review

Polydactyly, also known as hyperdactyly or hexadactyly is the most common hereditary limb anomaly characterized by extra fingers or toes, with various associated morphologic phenotypes as part of a syndrome (syndromic polydactyly) or may occur as a separate event (non-syndromic polydactyly). Broadly, the non-syndromic polydactyly has been classified into three types, i.e.; preaxial polydactyly (radial), central polydactyly (axial), and postaxial polydactyly (ulnar). Mostly inherited as an autosomal dominant entity with variable penetrance and caused by defects that occur in the anterior-posterior patterning of limb development. In humans, to-date at least 10 loci and six genes causing non-syndromic polydactyly have been identified, including the ZNF141, GLI3, MIPOL1, IQCE, PITX1, and the GLI1. In the present review, clinical, genetic and molecular characterization of the polydactyly types has been presented including the recent genes and loci identified for non-syndromic polydactyly. This review provides an overview of the complex genetic mechanism underlie polydactyly and might help in genetic counseling and quick molecular diagnosis.

“We are his children”: de Landmanfamilie als erfgenaam van Adamastor

In Die eerste lewe van Adamastor (The first life of Adamastor, 1988) André Brink reinvented the giant Adamastor, introduced in 1572 with the publication of Os Lusíadas, the Portuguese epic by Luis de Camões. So fascinated was Brink by the Southern African monster, that he wanted to write more novels containing new personifications of Adamastor. An Act of Terror (1992) can be seen as his most prominent Adamastor novel. An addendum entitled “The Chronicle of the Landman Family: As told by Thomas Landman” was included in this novel. In this article, I focus on this chronicle and unravel the way in which Adamastor manifests himself in every character, because each figure bears some resemblances to the Adamastor that Brink recreated in T’kama, the protagonist in Die eerste lewe van Adamastor (1988). All the characters in the Landman family fight against a dominant entity, but they do it on their own terms. This article shows that Brink uses the Adamastor figure as a metaphor for conflict, but also for reconciliation and protection. Against the background of these characteristics, Adamastor also appears to be a personification of different ideological constructs and of the continent of Africa. Furthermore, Adamastor’s appearance is a key feature to understanding how ideology transforms the representation of historical knowledge in Brink’s novel.

Entity linking of tweets based on dominant entity candidates

Entity linking, also known as semantic annotation, of textual content has received increasing attention. Recent works in this area have focused on entity linking on text with special characteristics such as search queries and tweets. The semantic annotation of tweets is specially proven to be challenging given the informal nature of the writing and the short length of the text. In this paper, we propose a method to perform entity linking on tweets built based on one primary hypothesis. We hypothesize that while there are formally many possible entity candidates for an ambiguous mention in a tweet, as listed on the disambiguation page of the corresponding entity on Wikipedia, there are only few entity candidates that are likely to be employed in the context of Twitter. Based on this hypothesis, we propose a method to identify such dominant entity candidates for each ambiguous mention and use them in the annotation process. Particularly, our proposed work integrates two phases (i) dominant entity candidate detection, which applies community detection methods for finding the dominant candidates of ambiguous mentions; and (ii) named entity disambiguation that links a tweet to entities in Wikipedia by only considering the identified dominant entity candidates. Our investigations show that: (1) there are only very few entity candidates for each ambiguous mention in a tweet that need to be considered when performing disambiguation. This helps us limit the candidate search space and hence noticeably reduce the entity linking time; (2) limiting the search space to only a subset of disambiguation options will not only improve entity linking execution time but will also lead to improved accuracy of the entity linking process when the main entity candidates of each mention are mined from a temporally aligned corpus. We show that our proposed method offers competitive results with the state-of-the-art methods in terms of precision and recall on widely used gold standard datasets while significantly reducing the time for processing each tweet.

Debt dynamics in Europe: A Network General Equilibrium GVAR approach

In this work, we investigate the dynamic interdependencies among the EU12 economies using a competitive general equilibrium network system representation. Additionally, using Bayesian techniques, we estimate the autoregressive scheme that characterizes the equilibrium price system of the network, while characterizing each economy/node in the universe of our network in terms of its degree of pervasiveness. In this context, we unveil the dominant(s) unit(s) in our model and estimate the dynamic linkages between the economies/nodes. Lastly, in terms of robustness analysis, we compare the findings of the degree pervasiveness of each economy against other popular quantitative methods in the literature. According to our findings, the economy of Germany acts as weakly dominant entity in the EU12 economy. Meanwhile, all shocks die out in the short run, without any long lasting effect.