Estimated Recovery Rates Research Articles

Quantitative Spermidine Detection in Cosmetics using an Organic Transistor-Based Chemical Sensor.

Spermidine is an essential biomarker related to antiaging. Although the detection of spermidine levels is in high demand in life science fields, easy-to-use analytical tools without sample purification have not yet been fully established. Herein, we propose an organic field-effect transistor-based chemical sensor for quantifying the spermidine concentration in commercial cosmetics. An extended-gate structure was employed for organic field-effect transistor (OFET)-based chemical sensing in aqueous media. A coordination-bond-based sensing system was introduced into the OFET device to visualize the spermidine detection information through changes in the transistor characteristics. The extended-gate-type OFET has shown quantitative responses to spermidine, which indicates sufficient detectability (i. e., the limit of detection for spermidine: 2.3 μM) considering actual concentrations in cosmetics. The applicability of the OFET-based chemical sensor for cosmetic analysis was validated by instrumental analysis using high-performance liquid chromatography. The estimated recovery rates for spermidine in cosmetic ingredient products (108-111 %) suggest the feasibility of cosmetic analysis based on the OFET-based chemical sensor.

Density dependence only affects increase rates in baleen whale populations at high abundance levels

Abstract Most baleen whale populations are increasing after the end of industrial whaling, but their recovery patterns challenge long‐standing assumptions about density dependence. It has long been assumed that population growth rates will decline with recovery, until reaching equilibrium (‘carrying capacity’, K). Indeed, the International Whaling Commission assumes that growth rates will slow long before K is reached, with maximum productivity at 0.6K. This 0.6K population level is used as an international benchmark that forms the basis of whaling regulations and decisions about whether baleen whale populations are declared depleted. We fit models to four long‐term data sets for baleen whales with multiple abundance estimates that span the range from low to high abundance, finding strong evidence that increase rates remain at near‐maximal levels across a wide range of abundance levels, and only decline as the population nears K. As a result, maximum productivity occurs at 0.69–0.87 of K across these populations, which predicts more rapid recovery for baleen whale populations than currently assumed. The overall mean of these values (0.8K) would be a more sensible default choice than the 0.6K currently assumed. Synthesis and applications. Estimated recovery rates imply that management thresholds currently used are lower than actual maximum productivity and that populations can increase rapidly even at high abundance. However, if population models continue to assume that maximum productivity is at 0.6K, they will estimate abundance relative to K to be lower than it is, providing conservative assessment results. Our results should stimulate further discussion about the role of maximum sustainable yield as a fundamental concept in fisheries and wildlife management.

Holmium Laser Enucleation of the Prostate Is Associated with Complications and Sequelae Even in the Hands of an Experienced Surgeon Following Completion of the Learning Curve

BackgroundHolmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP) is considered a challenging procedure even for surgeons who have completed the learning curve. ObjectivesTo assess outcomes and complications following HoLEP performed by a highly experienced surgeon. Design, setting, and participantsThis was a single-institution prospective study (NCT03583034) performed at a tertiary referral centre that included 243 consecutive patients with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) due to benign prostatic enlargement (BPE) treated with HoLEP by a single experienced surgeon (>1600 cases). Outcome measurements and statistical analysisPatients were assessed using validated questionnaires and uroflowmetry at baseline and several follow-up dates. Intraoperative and postoperative complications were recorded. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to estimate recovery rates for urinary continence and erectile function. Logistic regression models were constructed to assess predictors of postoperative complications. Results and limitationsOf the 243 patients, 78 (32.1%) had an indwelling urethral catheter. The median prostate volume (PV) was 87 cm3 (interquartile range 60–115) and 146 patients (59.8%) had PV >80 cm3. At 3-mo follow-up, 219 patients (90.1%) had a peak flow rate >20 ml/s and 182 (74.9%) had no postvoid residual urine. The improvement in subjective symptoms was significant at 1-mo follow-up and was maintained until 12 mo after surgery. Urinary continence recovery was slow, with an estimated rate of 68% (95% confidence interval [CI] 62–74%) at 1 mo and 94% (95% CI 91–97%) at 12 mo after HoLEP. The recovery rate for erectile function was 53% (95% CI 46–61%) at 1 mo and 85% (95% CI 77–90%) at 12 mo. Postoperative complications occurred in 36 patients (14.8%) during their hospital stay, in 34 (14%) within 1 mo following discharge from hospital, and in ten (4.1%) at later follow-up dates. Clinically significant complications (Clavien-Dindo ≥2) were observed in 44 cases (18%) and were more common for patients with an indwelling catheter at baseline (odds ratio 5.05; p = 0.006). ConclusionsHoLEP is an effective procedure for treating LUTS due to BPE, although it is not devoid of complications and sequelae, even in the hands of a highly experienced surgeon. Patient summaryHolmium laser treatment of the prostate to reduce its size has positive results for urinary function when performed by an experienced surgeon, even in complex cases, although there can be complications.

Carcass non-recovery rate of franciscana dolphin (Pontoporia blainvillei), calibrated with a drift mark-recapture study at FMA Ia, Brazil

The franciscana dolphin (Pontoporia blainvillei) is one of the smallest dolphins globally and the most threatened in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean. Beach monitoring helps to investigate cetacean strandings within their distributions and assess impacts that cause mortality. Using drifters in mark-recapture studies helps to estimate recovery rates when carcasses are unavailable. The study aims to estimate the non-recovery rate of franciscana carcasses from FMA Ia by comparing the spatial distribution between carcasses and drifters along the coast; correlating the influence of cold fronts with the recovery rate of drifters; estimating the non-recovery rate of carcasses according to the drifters’ results and the meteorological profile in the pre-stranding period; characterizing the death diagnostic with temporal distribution of franciscanas by considering the stranding index and the carcass non-recovery rates. We repeated the release of 54 drifters in two campaigns close to the coast within the range of franciscana dolphins, where beaches are monitored daily, in the north region of Espírito Santo state, Brazil. The carcass stranding hotspots (21%) and drifters (18%) were 10 km apart. Cold fronts significantly increase the number of strandings. Considering the incidence of cold fronts in the pre-stranding period and linear regression from drifters, the median carcass recovery rate is 0.26, 95% IC [0.22 - 0.29], which means that for each stranding, the carcass non-recovery rate varies from 0.78 to 0.71. The range between 265 to 350 estimates the total of carcasses from 77 strandings observed from 2003 to 2021. The record year of strandings was 2014 (n = 14). About 52% of records occurred in summer, and January is the month with the highest occurrence of strandings. Of the conclusive diagnoses (n = 43), around 77% (n = 33) were attributed to incidental capture in gillnets. Estimating the number of carcasses based on stranding records is essential for population viability analyses and conservation purposes, especially considering small and isolated populations as in the present study. To prevent local extinction, a solution to avoid incidental capture, especially along summers, must be addressed quickly.

A model proposal for IFRS 16 IBR adjustment based on bond market pricing

The Incremental Borrowing Rate (IBR) is generally used by companies for discounting future lease payments and calculating the value of the lease assets and liabilities under IFRS 16. According to this standard, leased asset must be considered as a collateral, and therefore the yield to be used should reflect an adequate Loss-Given Default (LGD), which may vary depending on the estimated recovery rate of the asset (machinery, real estate, vehicles, etc.). There is a lack of accounting and finance literature focused on analysing how a standard IBR should be adjusted to reflect the expected underlying asset LGD in line with IFRS principles. In this context, we propose a model that uses bond quoted information as a basis for introducing an adjustment to the standard “unsecured” IBR. The model consists of replicating the change in a certain bond yield when there is a change in the LGD (usually due to a change in the seniority level). We empirically demonstrate that the model works by using data from real bond quotations (97 outstanding bonds quoted on several secondary markets such as NY, Vienna, Frankfurt and London). The empirical analysis has been performed for two different time periods: pre-COVID 19 and post-COVID 19.

IFRS 16 Incremental Borrowing Rate: Comparability Issues and a Methodology Proposal for Loss Given Default Adjustment

Under the IFRS 16 capitalization model for lessees, entities should measure both the lease liability and the ‘right of use’ (the lease asset) by discounting future lease payments over the lease term. For the most part, entities are using the Incremental Borrowing Rate (IBR) to perform said discounting. IFRS 16 establishes that the IBR must consider the underlying leased asset as collateral, and therefore the yield to be used should reflect a Loss Given Default (LGD) which may vary according to the estimated recovery rate of the asset, be it machinery, real estate, vehicles, etc. The previous literature has shown that the use of discount rates in IFRS is inconsistent across firms, and also that it is arbitrary. Through an empirical analysis using information from European quoted entities, we find that most companies do not disclose IBR details, thus affecting financial statement comparability. None of them disclose how the IBR is adjusted in order to reflect the LGD. Furthermore, there is a lack of accounting and finance literature analyzing this aspect. Within this context, we propose a model that is able to adjust the standard IBR (obtained from unsecured bonds/loans yields) in order to reflect a recovery rate in line with IFRS principles. The proposed model uses Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) quoted information as a basis for introducing the adjustment to the standard IBR. More precisely, it analyzes the change in the CDS spread in response to changes in the recovery rate, and applies this change to the initial IBR.

Predicting prey recovery from scats of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) for novel prey species and sizes

ABSTRACTDiet studies of marine top predators increasingly inform assessments of prey stocks and ecosystems, as well as predator ecology. Prey hard parts provide quantitative information on diet composition. However, species and size variation in digestion of hard parts, and thus in recovery rates, introduces bias in diet reconstruction. Captive feeding studies estimate species- and size-specific recovery rates of prey hard parts in pinnipeds, but such studies can only include a small subset of prey species and sizes consumed by these commonly generalist predators. We developed a generalized linear mixed effects model that estimates recovery rates of otoliths in California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) scats from otolith morphometrics, based on previously published captive feeding studies. The resulting model explains 85% of the variance in recovery rates among common teleost prey species of California sea lions. We also reestimated cephalopod beak recovery rate in California sea lion scats using an intercept-only mixed effects model. The resulting models can estimate recovery rates—and numerical correction factors—for novel teleost and cephalopod prey species and sizes in California sea lion scats, supporting more accurate reconstruction of diet composition in the wild and suggesting a way forward for other pinniped species.

Co-quantification of crAssphage increases confidence in wastewater-based epidemiology for SARS-CoV-2 in low prevalence areas

Wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA is increasingly being incorporated into public health efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to obtain the maximum benefit from these efforts, approaches to wastewater monitoring need to be rapid, sensitive, and relatable to relevant epidemiological parameters. In this study, we present an ultracentrifugation-based method for the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 wastewater RNA and use crAssphage, a bacteriophage specific to the human gut, to help account for RNA loss during transit in the wastewater system and sample processing. With these methods, we were able to detect, and sometimes quantify, SARS-CoV-2 RNA from 20 mL wastewater samples within as little as 4.5 hours. Using known concentrations of bovine coronavirus RNA and deactivated SARS-CoV-2, we estimate recovery rates of approximately 7-12% of viral RNA using our method. Results from 24 sewersheds across Upstate New York during the spring and summer of 2020 suggested that stronger signals of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from wastewater may be indicative of greater COVID-19 incidence in the represented service area approximately one week in advance. SARS-CoV-2 wastewater RNA was quantifiable in some service areas with daily positives tests of less than 1 per 10,000 people or when weekly positive test rates within a sewershed were as low as 1.7%. crAssphage DNA concentrations were significantly lower during periods of high flow in almost all areas studied. After accounting for flow rate and population served, crAssphage levels per capita were estimated to be about 1.35 × 1011 and 2.42 × 108 genome copies per day for DNA and RNA, respectively. A negative relationship between per capita crAssphage RNA and service area size was also observed likely reflecting degradation of RNA over long transit times. Our results reinforce the potential for wastewater surveillance to be used as a tool to supplement understanding of infectious disease transmission obtained by traditional testing and highlight the potential for crAssphage co-detection to improve interpretations of wastewater surveillance data.

Recovering Global Supply Chains from Sourcing Interruptions: The Role of Sourcing Strategy

Problem definition: Fast recovery from sourcing interruptions is a key objective for global supply chains and for business continuity professionals. In this paper, we study the impact of different supply chain strategies—supplier diversification and the use of long-term relationships—on the ability of a supply chain to recover from sourcing interruptions. Academic/practical relevance: Improving supply chains’ recovery ability has been an important focus area for both practitioners and academics. Collectively, available anecdotal evidence and theoretical analyses provide ambiguous recommendations driven by competing effects of different sourcing strategies. Our paper provides the first rigorous and large-scale empirical evidence relating the use of different supply chain strategies to the ability of a supply chain to recover from supply interruptions. Methodology: We develop a compound estimator of a supply chain’s recovery rate that can be constructed using limited available data (only the time series of firms’ actual sourcing behavior). Using more than two and half million import manifests, we extract firms’ maritime sourcing transactions and use this data to estimate recovery rates of different firm-category supply chains of publicly traded U.S. firms. Results: We find that supplier diversification is associated with slower recovery from sourcing interruptions, whereas the use of long-term relationships is associated with faster recovery. A one standard deviation decrease in the former is associated with a 16% faster recovery, and a like increase in the latter is associated with a 20% faster recovery. Managerial implications: Our paper brings important empirical evidence to the hitherto theoretical debate on the impact of sourcing strategies on faster recovery in supply chains. We therefore provide actionable advice on supply chain design for faster recovery.

Band Wear and Effects on Recovery and Survival Estimates of Diving Ducks

ABSTRACTWildlife biologists commonly use marked individuals to estimate population size and vital rates. If markers are lost or become too illegible to be reported (which we define as functional loss), population size and vital rates derived from marked individuals could be biased. We double‐banded 4,990 lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) and 1,429 redheads (A. americana) with a traditionally used band made of aluminum, plus another band made of incoloy designed to be more resistant to wear. Banding took place at 10 late‐summer banding stations in the northcentral United States and Canada during 2009 and 2010 and during spring at Pool 19 on the Mississippi River, Iowa, USA, during 2009–2011. We then examined bands recovered from hunter‐shot birds to assess wear of paired bands. We also conducted band‐recovery analyses to test for differences in band retention and reporting rates between birds banded with aluminum versus hard metal bands. Band wear assessments indicated that incoloy bands lost zero mass over time and showed no effects of wear. Although no bands were lost, aluminum bands showed significant mass loss and wear over time. For double‐banded lesser scaup recovered in their fourth year after banding, 71.9% of aluminum bands had contact information that was completely unreadable, compared with only 12.5% for those worn by redheads. Based on our recent double‐band recovery data, up to 34% of lesser scaup bands would be recovered during the fifth through eighth hunting seasons of band wear. Band wear affected estimated recovery rates of both species, with stronger effects in lesser scaup. Our results indicate that use of aluminum bands resulted in a substantial loss of information; thus, banders should only use bands made of hard metal alloys (e.g., incoloy or stainless steel), and discontinue all use of aluminum bands for these species and other diving ducks with sparse recovery data. Future demographic analyses using banding data for species with excessive band wear and low numbers of band‐recoveries should account for band type and functional band loss. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

Emergency Drug Procurement Planning Based on Big-Data Driven Morbidity Prediction

Due to the uncertainty of diseases, traditional approaches of drug procurement planning in hospitals often cause drug overstocking or understocking, which can have strong negative effects on healthcare services. This paper proposes a big-data driven approach, which uses a deep neural network to predict morbidities of acute gastrointestinal infections based on a huge amount of environmental data, and then constructs an optimization problem of drug procurement planning for maximizing the expected therapeutic effect on the predicted cases. The problem is solved by an efficient heuristic optimization algorithm. Computational experiments demonstrate the performance advantages of both the deep learning model and the heuristic algorithm over existing ones, and two real case studies in Central China show that the average prediction error of our approach is only 8% and the estimated recovery rate reaches 99%, much better than the currently used method. Our approach can also be extended for many other medical resource planning problems.

Cryopreservation of Ribes nigrum (L.) dormant buds: recovery via in vitro culture to the field

Cryopreservation of dormant buds can be a feasible method for long term preservation of clonally propagated woody plants. In the present study, dormant buds of blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum L) cultivar Mortti were cryopreserved. Twig segments from greenhouse and field grown plants were cooled at their natural moisture content at the rate of 0.17 °C min−1 from zero to −38 °C, immersed in liquid nitrogen and stored in liquid nitrogen vapor. The post-cryopreservation regrowth of buds was evaluated in vitro and viability of recovered plants was tested in vivo. The estimated recovery rate for buds thawed after 1–6 days in cryostorage was 86% and 66% for outdoor and greenhouse grown buds, respectively. Microplants adequate in size and quality grew successfully in vivo and plants produced berries in field. After 4 years in cryostorage, the estimated recovery rate for outdoor buds was 58%. According to results from 1 to 6 days cryostorage, the tested dormant bud protocol turned to be applicable for cryopreservation of the blackcurrant cultivar Mortti. However, concerning the long-term preservation the decline of recovery is important to consider in the future experiments.

Efficient recovery and enrichment of infectious rotavirus using separation with antibody-integrated graphite-encapsulated magnetic nanobeads produced by argon/ammonia gas plasma technology.

BackgroundRotavirus is the representative cause of severe acute gastroenteritis in young children. A characteristic feature of rotavirus is low infectious dose and robustness of the virion, suggesting sanitation and hygiene will have little impact. Thus, development of a vaccine should be given priority. Efficient capture of infectious viruses is an important step in generating a vaccine. Previously, antibody-integrated magnetic nanobeads (MNBs) have been developed for virus capture. This study examines the applicability of this method for infectious rotavirus recovery and enrichment.Materials and methodsGraphite-encapsulated MNBs were treated with radio frequency (RF) excited Ar/NH3 gas mixture plasma to introduce amino groups onto their surfaces. Rotavirus viral protein 7 (VP7) antibody was attached to the surface of MNBs via these amino groups using a coupling agent, N-succinimidyl 3-(2-pyridyldithio)propionate (SPDP). The antibody-integrated MNBs were incubated with rotavirus-infected cell lysate and then separated from the supernatant by applying a magnetic field. After thorough washing, rotavirus was recovered and enrichment analysis done by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), immunochromatography, and an infection analysis using MA104 cells.Results and discussionImmunochromatography and PCR indicate that anti-rotavirus antibody-integrated MNPs efficiently capture rotavirus with the capsid protein and viral RNA. The estimated recovery rate was 80.2% by PCR and 90.0% by infection analysis, while the concentrating factor was 7.9-fold by PCR and 6.7-fold by infection analysis. In addition, the absence of non-specific binding to the antibody-integrated MNPs was confirmed using anti-dengue virus antibody-integrated MNBs as a negative control.ConclusionThese results suggest that this capture procedure is a useful tool for recovery and enrichment of infectious rotavirus. Moreover, when combined with a suitable virus assay this capture procedure can increase the sensitivity of rotavirus detection. Therefore, this capture method is a valuable tool for generating vaccines as well as for developing sensitive detection systems for viruses.

Special Issue for Honor Award dedicating to Prof Kimito Funatsu]Chemoinformatics Approach for Estimating Recovery Rates of Pesticides in Fruits and Vegetables

Special Issue for Honor Award dedicating to Prof Kimito Funatsu]Chemoinformatics Approach for Estimating Recovery Rates of Pesticides in Fruits and Vegetables

Enhancing two-stage modelling methodology for loss given default with support vector machines

We propose to incorporate least squares support vector machine technique into a two-stage modelling framework to predict recovery rates of credit cards from a UK retail bank. The two-stage model requires a classification step that discriminates the cases with recovery rate equal to 0 or 1 and a regression step to estimate recovery rates for the cases with recovery rates in (0, 1). The two-stage model with a support vector machine classifier is found to be advantageous on an out-of-time sample compared with other methods, suggesting that a support vector machine is preferred to a logistic regression as the classification technique. We further examine the predictive performances on a subset where recovery rate is bounded in (0, 1) and the empirical evidence demonstrates that support vector regression yields significant but modest improvement compared with other statistical regression models. When modelling on the whole sample, the support vector regression does not present any advantage compared with other techniques within the two-stage modelling framework. We suggest that the choice of regression models is less influential in prediction of recovery rates than the choice of classification methods in the first step of two-stage models.

Delayed coral recovery in a warming ocean

Climate change threatens coral reefs across the world. Intense bleaching has caused dramatic coral mortality in many tropical regions in recent decades, but less obvious chronic effects of temperature and other stressors can be equally threatening to the long-term persistence of diverse coral-dominated reef systems. Coral reefs persist if coral recovery rates equal or exceed average rates of mortality. While mortality from acute destructive events is often obvious and easy to measure, estimating recovery rates and investigating the factors that influence them requires long-term commitment. Coastal development is increasing in many regions, and sea surface temperatures are also rising. The resulting chronic stresses have predictable, adverse effects on coral recovery, but the lack of consistent long-term data sets has prevented measurement of how much coral recovery rates are actually changing. Using long-term monitoring data from 47 reefs spread over 10 degrees of latitude on Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR), we used a modified Gompertz equationto estimate coral recovery rates following disturbance. We compared coral recovery rates in two periods: 7years before and 7years after an acute and widespread heat stress event on the GBR in 2002. From 2003 to 2009, there were few acute disturbances in the region, allowing us to attribute the observed shortfall in coral recovery rates to residual effects of acute heat stress plus other chronic stressors. Compared with the period before 2002, the recovery of fast-growing Acroporidae and of "Other" slower growing hard corals slowed after 2002, doubling the time taken for modest levels of recovery. If this persists, recovery times will be increasing at a time when acute disturbances are predicted to become more frequent and intense. Our study supports the need for management actions to protect reefs from locally generated stresses, as well as urgent global action to mitigate climate change.

Equine hepatocytes: isolation, cryopreservation, and applications to invitro drug metabolism studies.

Despite reports of the successful isolation of primary equine hepatocytes, there are no published data regarding the successful cryopreservation of these isolated cells. In this study, a detailed description of the procedures for isolation, cryopreservation, and recovery of equine hepatocytes are presented. Furthermore, the intrinsic clearance (Clint) and production of metabolites for three drugs were compared between freshly isolated and recovered cryopreserved hepatocytes. Primary equine hepatocytes were isolated using a two‐step collagenase perfusion method, with an average cell yield of 2.47 ± 2.62 × 106 cells/g of perfused liver tissue and viability of 84.1 ± 2.62%. These cells were cryopreserved with William's medium E containing 10% fetal bovine serum with 10% DMSO. The viability of recovered cells, after a 30% Percoll gradient, was 77 ± 11% and estimated recovery rate was approximately 27%. These purified cells were used to determine the in vitro Clint of three drugs used in equine medicine; omeprazole, flunixin, and phenylbutazone, via the substrate depletion method. Cryopreserved suspensions gave a comparable estimation of Clint compared to fresh cells for these three drugs as well as producing the same metabolites. This work paves the way for establishing a bank of cryopreserved equine hepatocytes that can be used for estimating pharmacokinetic parameters such as the hepatic metabolic in vivo clearance of a drug as well as producing horse‐specific drug metabolites.

Synkinesis following recurrent laryngeal nerve injury: A computer simulation.

When the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) is injured, functional recovery may be limited by the number of axons that regrow across the site of injury, and by the proportions of these axons that reinnervate the antagonistic muscle (synkinesis). This process was investigated in a computer model of RLN recovery. Computer simulation. The developed computer program accepted as inputs: number of RLN axons; proportions of axons originally innervating adductor versus abductor, fraction of axons transected, fraction of axons that grow back, and width of 1 standard deviation about the mean. The program employed random sampling from a normal distribution to model various degrees of recovery, using random numbers to assign each axon to the correct muscle, an incorrect muscle, or no recovery. Each simulation was run 1,000×, and the mean, highest, and lowest degrees of synkinesis were determined. More severe injuries were associated with greater degrees of synkinesis. Extremes of synkinesis were possible but were rare. One example result, for a 50% injury with a 50% recovery rate, found: in the adductor muscles, 74.8% of axons will be innervated, of which 49.2% are the original uninjured axons, 19.4% are recovered adductor axons, and 6.2% are misdirected abductor axons. In the posterior cricoarytenoid (PCA), these values were 75.7%, 50.8%, 6.1%, and 18.8%, respectively. Results of many such simulations are plotted. Laryngeal synkinesis can be simulated based on known anatomic ratios and estimated recovery rates. The PCA is invariably much more affected by synkinetic reinnervation than are the adductor muscles. NA Laryngoscope, 126:1600-1605, 2016.

Recovering from Disruptions: The Role of Sourcing Strategy

Fast recovery from supply interruptions is a key objective of supply chain and business continuity professionals. This paper provides the first rigorous and large-scale empirical evidence that relates the use of different supply chain strategies — supplier diversification and the use of long-term relationships — with the ability of a supply chain to recover from supply interruptions. We develop an estimator of a supply-chain’s recovery rate that can be constructed using the limited available data — only the time series of firms’ actual sourcing behavior. Using more than two million import manifests, we extract firms’ sourcing transactions and use these data to estimate recovery rates of different firm-category supply chains of publicly traded US firms. We find that supplier diversification is associated with slower recovery from supply interruptions, while the use of long-term relationships is associated with faster recovery. A one standard deviation decrease in the former is associated with a 16% faster recovery, and a like increase in the latter is associated with a 20% faster recovery.

The Cross Section of Recovery Rates and Default Probabilities Implied by Credit Default Swap Spreads

AbstractRather than assuming a fixed recovery rate in estimation, we estimate recovery rates from credit default swap spreads, using 3 years of daily data on 152 corporations. We use a quadratic pricing model, which ensures nonnegative default probabilities and recovery rates. The estimated cross section of recovery rates is plausible, with an average recovery rate of 54% and substantial cross-sectional variation. Estimated 5-year default probabilities are on average 67% higher than default probabilities obtained using the standard 40% recovery assumption. This finding critically impacts the valuation of structured credit products. Larger firms and firms with more tangible assets have higher recovery rates.