Extreme Shock Research Articles

Marbug Virus Disease: An Overview

Marburg virus disease (MVD) is a highly fatal, but uncommon viral disease which causes viral infection accompanied by hemorrhage and fever. It is caused by Marburg virus (MARV), a zoonotic virus belonging to the family of viruses known as Filoviridae, a single stranded RNA negative-sense virus, of the Marburg marburgvirus species. Marburg virus was established to have up to 88% fatality rate. Fruit bat is thought to be the natural host for Marburg virus as well as other non-human primate such as the grivet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops), however noted that fruit bat could be the actual host for the MVD. Marburg virus has two recognized variants, Lake Victoria marburgvirus and Ravn Marburgvirus with up to 20% overall divergence. The zoonotic transmission of Marburg virus occurs through prolonged exposure to an infected host animal through bites, or contact with fluid, faeces, droplets, or blood from an infected animal host, whereas the human-to-human transmission is as result of prolonged contact with an infected person, or contact with surfaces contaminated with MARV. MVD has the incubation period of 2 - 21day period after initial exposure to the virus and is marked with abrupt and rapid manifestation of symptoms such as high fever, chills, severe headaches, malaise and myalgia, possibility of nausea, vomiting, chest pain, and sore throat, jaundice, pancreatic inflammation, extreme weight loss, disorientation, shock, liver failure, extensive bleeding, and multi-organ malfunction. MVD can be diagnosed using a variety of methods, including culture, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT- PCR), serology, and immunohistochemistry for confirmation. Since no vaccine has been approved so far for MVD, it can be prevented by avoiding contact with the suspected fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) host as well as their habitats and by avoiding handling of, and contact with sick animals, and contact with persons suspected to be infected with MVD. MVD treatment can be done with supportive therapy which includes electrolyte and fluid balancing, oxygen status and blood pressure maintenance, lost blood and clotting factors’ replacement in instances of excessive bleeding, and complicated or secondary infection treatment. This study focuses on creating more awareness on Marburg virus disease following the recent outbreak in some regions of the world.

Everyone wins? UK housing provision, government shared equity loans, and the reallocation of risks and returns after the Global Financial Crisis

The 2008 Global Financial Crisis was an extreme shock to the UK housing market. Frozen international capital markets resulted in highly restrictive mortgage lending by UK retail banks, and the collapse in homebuying threatened the heavily indebted housebuilding industry. To counteract the threat, between 2008 and 2013, the UK Government issued shared equity loans requiring matching loans from housebuilders alongside retail bank mortgages and deposits from homebuyers. In 2013, it introduced a new shared equity scheme, Help to Buy (HtB), which no longer required matching loans from housebuilders. This article explores the distribution of the benefits of the UK Government’s issuance of shared equity loans for homebuyers to buoy demand through its effects on the UK’s three largest publicly listed housebuilders. The article found that the housebuilders increased their output by 29,000 homes and generated an additional £1.4 billion in cash between 2013 and 2017 as a direct result of HtB. Over the same period, the housebuilders paid shareholders £3.5 billion in dividends and their share prices rose by an average of 140 per cent, suggesting a clear transfer of income and wealth from taxpayers to housebuilders to shareholders and the emergence of a new mode of housing provision.

Reliability modeling of uncertain random fractional differential systems with competitive failures

Typical degradation-shock failure processes have been widely investigated in current researches, and the failures caused by their dependence are described as competitive failure processes. This paper explores competitive failure modes for uncertain random fractional systems involving degradation and shock processes. We develop a wear degradation model explicitly by employing uncertain fractional differential equations in order to demonstrate the potential heredity and memorability of a system. External shocks are then considered to follow a Poisson process. Based on the classification of shock types, three definitions of reliability index for competitive failures are presented. The reliability index formulas are derived for systems with extreme shock, cumulative shock, and δ shock using chance measures. Finally, we introduce a numerical example where the results of the reliability analysis confirm the validity of proposed reliability evaluation methods.

Technology shocks, banking sector policy, and the trade-off between firms and households

In this paper, we analyse the best possible policy responses for banks facing the possibility of loan default because of an extreme and rare negative productivity shock. We use a finite-period framework with complete information to analyse the impact of such a shock on an economy in the presence of financial frictions, such as sticky deposit rates. Our findings indicate that any recapitalization measure works best in a flexible deposit/lending rate environment for all alternative-saving vehicles, as it leads to better transmission. However, policy interventions to revive economic activity may result in a trade-off between firms’ profit and consumers’ welfare. We, therefore, underline the importance of household welfare, which is augmented by government social expenditure and households’ interest income. Since these may decline due to supply side measures, we note the importance of demand management policies that may help overcome any such welfare effects.

Exploring how entrepreneurial orientation improve firm resilience in digital era: findings from sequential mediation and FsQCA

PurposeUnder extensive pressure from normal market competition, frequent technological change and extreme exogenous shock, firms are facing severe challenge nowadays. How to withstand discontinuous crises and respond to normal risks through improving resilience (RE) is an important question worth researching. Thus, drawing on the strategic entrepreneurship theory, the purpose of this study is exploring the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and RE, and combining digitization to discuss the role of digital business capability (DBC), digital business model innovation (DBMI) and environmental hostility (EH).Design/methodology/approachBased on survey data from 203 Chinese firms, using the methods of linear regression and bootstrap to test our hypothesis. Furthermore, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQCA) is used to identify previously unknown combinations which lead to strong/weak RE in digital context.FindingsFirst, EO positively influenced DBC and RE. Second, DBMI promoted RE, DBC and DBMI served as sequential mediators that linked EO and RE. Third, EH positively moderated the effects of EO on RE. Further the study revealed that different configuration of DBMI and dimensions of EO and DBC can explain RE.Originality/valueThe study explains mechanism of RE from perspective of digitization. The conclusion is good for further consolidating strategic entrepreneurship theory, and providing a new frame for firms to build the ability of antifragile.

Did tourism dependence exacerbate economic contractions over and above COVID? Preliminary evidence and clues for identifying optimal tourism levels

ABSTRACT The COVID pandemic brought an unwelcome but rare natural quasi-experimental condition to empirically observe the effect of varying levels of tourism dependence on the intensity of economic contraction, vulnerability, and exposure to risks faced by countries when extreme circumstances and global shock events such as COVID cause travel and tourism activity to contract to zero or near-zero levels. Previous studies examining how to optimize tourism specialization, activity, or carrying capacity have thus far ignored scenarios in which global and local travel could be severely curtailed in such short, unexpected, manner and on a massive scale involving nearly all countries. This study aims to fill this knowledge void. Findings suggest that while almost all economies faced extraordinary contraction in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, countries more heavily reliant on tourism for economic growth fared more poorly. Analysis also suggests that tourism dependence likely inflicted greater impact on economic contraction than the pandemic itself. Implications for long-term sustainable tourism levels incorporating worst case scenarios and based on the rare circumstance ushered by the pandemic are discussed.

The impact of India's demonetization on domestic agricultural trade

AbstractWe examine the impact of an extreme monetary shock, India's demonetization of 2016, on domestic agricultural trade. Using data from around 3000 regulated markets for 35 major crops, we find that trade value fell by 16.3–16.8% in the short run, settling at 11.8–12.1% after eight months, driven primarily by a decline in prices. Triple difference estimates suggest sharpest impacts for kharif crops, perishables and crops with minimal government intervention. Markets far away from banks fared worse. Our results suggest that the implosion of value of agricultural trade domestically persisted two growing seasons beyond the one that coincided with the shock, whereas existing findings suggest that the negative impact on the economy as a whole dissipates in that time.

Reliability analysis for systems with interactive competing degradation processes and mixed shock effects

In this article, an extended mixed shock model is investigated, in which the system suffers from mutually dependent competing soft failure and hard failure processes. The system studied degrades gradually with time and the number of shocks coming from the environment. A soft failure occurs when the overall degradation amount surpasses the soft failure threshold of the system. The extended mixed shock model is a combination of a system-state-dependent extreme shock model and a system-state-dependent δ shock model. A hard failure occurs when the magnitude of a single shock exceeds the threshold D(t), or an inter-arrival time between shocks is less than the recovery time threshold The mutual dependency between the soft failure and hard failure processes is reflected in the fact that: (1) the external shock will accelerate the degradation process of the system by causing an abrupt increment of its degradation amount; (2) the system degradation amount determines the thresholds of the extreme shock model and the δ shock model. The system fails when a hard failure or a soft failure occurs. By using the stochastic process theory, the reliability expression and some reliability indices of the system are obtained. Some special cases of the model are also discussed. Finally, a case study of the pier columns of a sea bridge is presented to illustrate the developed model.

High‐Temperature Copper–Graphene Conductors via Aerosol Jetting

Additive manufacturing is transforming electronics, attributed to the rapid‐prototyping of complex electronic geometries. Herein, aerosol jet printing of nanostructured copper on ceramics is reported, enabling high‐temperature hybridized conductors with the ampacity of 2.05 × 109 A m−2 and a negative temperature coefficient of −0.07% °C−1 when subjected to extreme thermal shock. The atomized material jetting results in a layer‐by‐layer transfer of copper nanoplates, which incorporate a graphene precursor, dopamine, to ensure uniform deposition of conductive materials. Incorporation of graphene in copper maintains the intrinsic electric conductivity of copper while enhancing its ampacity and thermal conductivity, as well as exhibiting a negative temperature coefficient. The mechanistic studies suggest that the graphene formed suppresses the grain growth of the crystallites of hybridized copper–graphene conductor at high temperature. This hybridized conductor through aerosol jet printing is capable of withstanding elevated temperatures and can be utilized for the electronics for harsh environments.

Formation, preservation and extinction of high-pressure minerals in meteorites: temperature effects in shock metamorphism and shock classification

The goal of classifying shock metamorphic features in meteorites is to estimate the corresponding shock pressure conditions. However, the temperature variability of shock metamorphism is equally important and can result in a diverse and heterogeneous set of shock features in samples with a common overall shock pressure. In particular, high-pressure (HP) minerals, which were previously used as a solid indicator of high shock pressure in meteorites, require complex pressure–temperature–time (P–T–t) histories to form and survive. First, parts of the sample must be heated to melting temperatures, at high pressure, to enable rapid formation of HP minerals before pressure release. Second, the HP minerals must be rapidly cooled to below a critical temperature, before the pressure returns to ambient conditions, to avoid retrograde transformation to their low-pressure polymorphs. These two constraints require the sample to contain large temperature heterogeneities, e.g. melt veins in a cooler groundmass, during shock. In this study, we calculated shock temperatures and possible P–T paths of chondritic and differentiated mafic–ultramafic rocks for various shock pressures. These P–T conditions and paths, combined with observations from shocked meteorites, are used to constrain shock conditions and P–T–t histories of HP-mineral bearing samples. The need for rapid thermal quench of HP phases requires a relatively low bulk-shock temperature and therefore moderate shock pressures below ~ 30 GPa, which matches the stabilities of these HP minerals. The low-temperature moderate-pressure host rock generally shows moderate shock-deformation features consistent with S4 and, less commonly, S5 shock stages. Shock pressures in excess of 50 GPa in meteorites result in melt breccias with high overall post-shock temperatures that anneal out HP-mineral signatures. The presence of ringwoodite, which is commonly considered an indicator of the S6 shock stage, is inconsistent with pressures in excess of 30 GPa and does not represent shock conditions different from S4 shock conditions. Indeed, ringwoodite and coexisting HP minerals should be considered as robust evidence for moderate shock pressures (S4) rather than extreme shock (S6) near whole-rock melting.

The COVID-19 Economic Crisis in Mexico through the Lens of a Financial Conditions Index

The COVID-19 pandemic not only generated real shocks affecting economic activity severely, but also a broad uncertainty that unleashed an extreme shock to financial markets. In this paper, we focus on the financial dimension of the pandemic from the viewpoint of an emerging market economy. Accordingly, we estimate a financial conditions index for Mexico since 1993 and find that the acute turmoil generated by the pandemic stands among the four largest episodes of financial distress experienced by the country. In addition, we find evidence suggesting that real variables have responded differently to shocks that worsen financial conditions than to shocks that improve them.

Expression Analysis using Reverse Transcription Quantitative Real-Time PCR (RT-qPCR) Suggests Different Strategies in Parageobacillus caldoxylosilyticus ER4B under Exposure to Cold Shock

Microorganisms have acquired both common and unique abilities to withstand cold stress on Earth. Many studies on bacterial cold shock have been conducted, however, the majority of the studies were focused on mesophiles and psychrophiles. To date, limited information is available on the response of thermophilic bacteria to cold stress and therefore, it is not known how thermophilic bacteria would respond to different cold shocks. To address this question, the cold shock responses of a thermophilic Parageobacillus caldoxylosilyticus ER4B which has an optimal growth temperature at 64 °C were determined using Real-Time PCR (RT-qPCR). When the bacterium was exposed to mild cold shock at 54 °C, the expressions of gene encoding for pyruvate kinase and acetolactate synthase were significantly upregulated, suggesting that more pyruvate molecules were produced to synthesize branched-chain amino acids that could alter the fatty acid profile on the cell membrane. Accumulation of pyruvate in the bacterium could also help to scavenge cold-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS). Meanwhile, exposing the bacterium to extreme cold shock at 10 °C resulted in significant upregulation of genes encoding for γ-glutamylcyclotransferase, cold shock protein B and competence protein ComEA. An increase in these enzymes expression indicated more extreme measures including apoptosis and transformation were adopted during extreme cold shock.

Extreme Climate Shocks and Green Agricultural Development: Evidence from the 2008 Snow Disaster in China.

Extreme climate shocks cause agricultural yield reductions and increase long-term climate risk, altering farmers’ long-term production decisions and affecting green agricultural development (GAD). We take the 2008 snow disaster in China as an extreme climate shock, calculate the GAD index by the entropy weighting method, and use the difference-in-difference method to study the extreme climate shock’s impact on GAD. The results show that: (1) Extreme climate shocks are detrimental to GAD, with the snow disaster decreasing China’s GAD level by 3.07%. (2) The impacts of extreme climate shocks are heterogeneous across climate and economic zones, with greater impact in humid and developed regions. (3) Extreme climate shocks affect GAD mainly by reducing farmers’ willingness to cultivate, and increasing energy consumption, fertilizer, and pesticide input. (4) Extreme climate shocks do not reduce agricultural yields in the long run. Still, they reduce the total value of agricultural production and decrease the quality of agricultural products expressed in terms of unit value. The findings of this study have policy implications for developing countries in coping with extreme climate shocks and promoting GAD.

Two shock models for single‐component systems subject to mutually dependent failure processes

AbstractIn this paper, the extreme and shock models are studied, in which systems are subject to dependent hard failure and soft failure processes. Under the extreme shock model, a hard failure occurs if the magnitude of a single shock surpasses a critical level, while under the shock model, a hard failure occurs if the interval time between two successive shocks is smaller than a threshold. Under both shock models, soft failure of a system happens if the total volume of degradation surpasses a given soft failure threshold. The hard and soft failure processes are interdependent owing to the fact that external shock will bring abrupt increment in the degradation path of the system, and on the other hand, the amount of total degradation will affect the hard failure threshold of the system. The failure of the system occurs if a hard failure or a soft failure occurs, whichever happens first. The reliability expressions of the systems under two shock models are derived explicitly. Some reliability indices of the system are calculated by utilizing the probability analysis method. A case study of the sliding spool is provided to illustrate the proposed model.

Do managers hedge disaster risk? Extreme earthquake shock and firm innovations

In this paper, we investigate how extreme earthquake events affect energy firms' innovations to hedge disaster risk. On May 12, 2008, a magnitude-8 earthquake hit Sichuan province. It was the most damaging earthquake since the foundation of the People's Republic of China. Using the Great Wenchuan earthquake as a shock, we find the following: 1) the extreme disaster shock spurs innovations of firms with similar strong earthquake experiences. 2) The effect is pronounced for shock-proximate firms, firms with a negative previous experience, and firms with financial constraint. 3) We also find that labor protections and political pressure also drive firms to improve innovation activities after the extreme event. Overall, this study sheds light on determinants of energy firms' innovations from the perspective of extreme natural disasters.

Optimal scheduling of self-healing distribution systems considering distributed energy resource capacity withholding strategies

This paper presents a multi-stage day-ahead and real-time optimization algorithm for scheduling of system’s energy resources in the normal and external shock operational conditions. The main contribution of this paper is that the model considers the non-utility electricity generation facilities capacity withholding opportunities in the optimal scheduling of system resources. The real-time simulation of external shock impacts is another contribution of this paper that the algorithm simulates the sectionalizing of the system into multi-microgrids to increase the resiliency of the system. The optimization process is categorized into two stages that compromise normal and contingent operational conditions. Further, the normal operational scheduling problem is decomposed into three steps. At the first step, the optimal day-ahead scheduling of system resources and the switching of normally opened switches are determined. At the second step, the optimal real-time market scheduling is performed and the switching of normally closed switches is optimized. At the third step, different extreme shock scenarios are simulated in the real-time horizon and the effectiveness of sectionalizing the system into multi-micro grids are assessed. Finally, at the contingent operational conditions, the optimal topology of the system and scheduling of energy resources are determined. The proposed method was successfully assessed for the 33-bus and 123-bus test systems. The algorithm were reduced the expected cost of the worst-case contingencies for the 33-bus and 123-bus systems by about 97.89% and 88.11%, respectively. Further, the average and maximum values of the 123-bus system capacity-withholding index for real-time conditions reduced by about 67.40% and 71.05%, respectively.

Financial risk propagation between Chinese and American stock markets based on multilayer networks

Stock networks, which are constructed from stock price time series, are useful tools for analyzing complex behaviors in stock markets. Following former researches, the epidemic model has been usually used to detect dynamic characteristics in a stock price complex systems. Recently, multilayer networks have been demonstrated well when working on heterogeneous nodes rather than integrated networks. In this paper, we proposed a two-layer SIR propagation model with an infective medium to analyze the spread of financial shocks. In consideration of strict financial regulation in the A shares, the model assumed that capital cannot flow directly between layers but through the Hong Kong stock market. By applying the model to constituent stocks included in three prominent indices, Standard & Poor 500, Shanghai and Shenzhen 300, and Hang Seng(medium), we established a two-layer Granger networks. Betweenness showed that the Hong Kong stock market had a promoting transition function of financial shocks between the US stock markets and the mainland China stock markets. In addition, with a big basic reproduction number, stock markets system appeared to be vulnerable during extreme financial shock such as the outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic and the meltdown of stock markets. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis and the spreading simulation indicated that the US stock markets were much more robust to financial shocks than the mainland China stock markets.

Reliability modeling for dependent competing failure processes with phase-type distribution considering changing degradation rate

In this paper, a system reliability model subject to Dependent Competing Failure Processes (DCFP) with phase-type (PH) distribution considering changing degradation rate is proposed. When the sum of continuous degradation and sudden degradation exceeds the soft failure threshold, soft failure occurs. The interarrival time between two successive shocks and total number of shocks before hard failure occurring follow the continuous PH distribution and discrete PH distribution, respectively. The hard failure reliability is calculated using the PH distribution survival function. Due to the shock on soft failure process, the degradation rate of soft failure will increase. When the number of shocks reaches a specific value, degradation rate changes. The hard failure is calculated by the extreme shock model, cumulative shock model, and run shock model, respectively. The closed-form reliability function is derived combining with the hard and soft failure reliability model. Finally, a Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed model

Book Review: <em>The Moorad Choudhry Anthology: Past, Present and Future Principles of Banking and Finance</em>, Moorad Choudhry (Wiley Finance; 1st Edition (2018), Pages: 1328)

The banking sector is the lifeblood of an economy as modern economies emerge from well-performing banking systems. Also, an efficient banking sector ensures a stable financial system and the country’s desirable growth. But, unfortunately, the banking sector has gone through extreme crisis shock waves over the last few years. To tackle the risk exposure, bankers, policymakers, academic scholars, and reformers have to have sound knowledge of banking operations to overcome complexities in the banking industry. Hence, there is a widespread need created to understand the mysterious world of the banking industry. In this regard, Professor Moorad Choudhry’s book “The Moorad Choudhry Anthology Past, Present, and Future Principles of Banking and Finance” eminently guides theoretical and practical knowledge of banking to the stakeholders.

A shock-capturing scheme with a novel limiter for compressible flows solved by smoothed particle hydrodynamics

There are many compressible flows involving strong discontinuities in nature and engineering applications. Their behaviors are complicated by the existence of shock waves, rarefaction waves and contact discontinuities. To investigate these flows, a shock-capturing scheme based on smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is proposed. In this scheme, Roe’s approximate Riemann solver cooperated with a novel limiter is embedded into the SPH governing equations to capture shocks. This limiter is simple and effective to control numerical dissipations, and the use of this limiter eliminates the tunable artificial viscosity as required by the conventional SPH. Additionally, to restore the accuracy limited by heterogeneous particle distribution that is usually encountered in the simulation of strongly-compressible flows, the gradient operator in the continuity equation is corrected by a renormalization procedure. Last but not least, for initial particle distribution, unlike the equal mass particle distribution commonly used in compressible SPH simulations, the equal spacing particle distribution is adopted in this scheme, which makes it much easier to model multidimensional problems. The present scheme has been verified by a set of benchmark tests involving contact discontinuities, extreme shock waves and strong rarefaction waves, some of which are firstly simulated by the SPH method.