Financial Points Of View Research Articles

Role Of Fintech Adoption on Banking Sector Efficiency: A Survey Based Research Approach

Comparing financial technology businesses during the fourth industrial age to their counterparts, this study investigates the effects of these companies adhering to effective manufacturing practices. The objective is to offer actual proof of the operational effectiveness of FinTech companies and how business efficiency affects market performance. FinTech has to pass through different business models to attain the maturity as a successful pure player actor. This demonstrates that FinTech innovations improve banks' performance using several panel data estimators, including panel-corrected standard errors for linear regression, fixed effects, and random effects. Furthermore, it also show that the proportion of capital that is adequate, earnings capacity, total assets, and yearly GDP growth rate of banks also have a noteworthy beneficial influence on bank performance. By using a balanced scorecard to examine financial points of view, customer perspectives, business internal perspectives, education and growth perspectives, and competitive advantage in services growth and development, monetary advantage, and economic inclusion when implementing FinTech, this study seeks to understand the impact of these factors on banks' performance. A sample of 259 respondents was collected from people working in banking sector. The variables that identify the role of Fintech adoption on banking sector efficiency are Financial Inclusion, Data Analytics and Insights, Cost Reduction, and Improved Customer Experience.

Finite element investigation on the post-fire behavior of reinforced composite NSC-HPC slabs

Purpose Even though it is widely used, reinforced concrete (RC) is susceptible to damage from various environmental factors. The hazard of a fire attack is particularly severe because it may cause the whole structure to collapse. Furthermore, repairing and strengthening existing structures with high-performance concrete (HPC) has become essential from both technical and financial points of view. In particular, studying the postfire behavior of HPC with normal strength concrete substrate requires experimental and numerical investigations. Accordingly, this study aims to numerically investigate the post-fire behavior of reinforced composite RC slabs. Design/methodology/approach Consequently, in this study, a numerical analysis was carried out to ascertain the flexural behavior of simply supported RC slabs strengthened with HPC and exposed to a particularly high temperature of 600°C for 2 h. This behavior was investigated and analyzed in the presence of a number of parameters, such as HPC types (fiber-reinforced, 0.5% steel, polypropylene fibers [PPF], hybrid fibers), strengthening side (tension or compression), strengthening layer thickness, slab thickness, boundary conditions, reinforcement ratio and yield strength of reinforcement. Findings The results showed that traction-separation and full-bond models can achieve accuracy compared with experimental results. Also, the fiber type significantly affects the postfire performance of RC slab strengthened with HPC, where the inclusion of hybrid fiber recorded the highest ultimate load. While adding PPF to HPC showed a rapid decrease in the load-deflection curve after reaching the ultimate load. Originality/value The proposed model accurately predicted the thermomechanical behavior of RC slabs strengthened with HPC after being exposed to the fire regarding load-deflection response, crack pattern and failure mode. Moreover, the considered independent parametric variables significantly affect the composite slabs’ behavior.

Desalination of seawater in Morocco: Case study of Chtouka and Dakhla public‐private partnership projects

AbstractSituated between the southern Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert, Morocco has a semi‐arid climate characterized by low and irregular rainfall and a succession of dry years. With demographic and economic growth, the country's water needs are constantly increasing. The desalination of sea water is an option adopted by the government to cope with the drying up of water resources. A number of projects have been launched to secure the country's drinking water and irrigation needs. In this study, the contributions of the public‐private partnership (PPP) set‐up are assessed from the institutional, financial, technical, and management points of view, as well as the contribution of this set‐up to the success of major desalination projects for irrigation. To achieve the objective, the study focused on two desalination projects for irrigation, one in the Chtouka plain and another in the Dakhla area, based on an assessment of the various components of the two projects, and the key success factors for each of them. The study reveals that the PPP arrangement brings several advantages to these desalination projects for irrigation, principally: the participation of the private partner in the financing, the sharing of risks between the two public and private parties, and the sustainable management of the various components of the project. The Dakhla project also offers added value compared with other desalination PPP projects, because it is the first project to be included in Law No. 86‐12 on PPP contracts. At the same time, the PPP structure presents risks in terms of controlling delays caused by external events. Thus, the inauguration of new desalination PPP projects, as part of the Generation Green strategy, is proving to be a relevant solution for guaranteeing additional resources for irrigation and improving the technical, economic, and financial conditions for managing the irrigation water service.

Concentrated solar power integration with refinery process heaters

Crude oil heating is considered an energy-intensive process in the oil industry that requires a huge amount of heat to process the crude oil. There is scarcity of a thorough research that deals with the techno-economic viability of introducing renewable energy solutions to the refinery industry including its environmental benefits. Therefore, a renewable energy solution i.e. a parabolic trough system is reviewed and examined to support minimizing the burning of natural gas in crude heaters and relying on thermal heat from sun radiation to increase crude oil temperature prior to going into the fractionation column. The system is designed to support refinery operation during day time whereas system design and analysis were done from thermal and financial points of view. Furthermore, benefits such as natural gas savings, reduction in CO2 emissions, and total payback period are presented in the paper to reflect the feasibility of constructing such a solution. Moreover, a MATLAB simulation was carried out to define the design points for the solar field and related heat exchanger components. This is to assure that the system can operate during winter and summer seasons given that the direct normal irradiance (DNI) is typically variant throughout the year. It has been concluded that integrating a parabolic trough collector into the operation of an oil refinery, i.e. crude oil heater, can potentially result in natural gas savings of 555,515 MMBtu and can prevent 30,020 tons of CO2 emissions annually. Moreover, the system is anticipated to result in cost savings of approximately 1.65 M $ per year.

Investigation of a High-Temperature Heat Pump for Heating Purposes

High-temperature heat pumps consist of a promising choice for substituting conventional boilers and producing hot water with temperature levels in the range of 70–80 °C. The use of high-temperature heat pumps makes it possible to exploit the existing radiators in existing buildings to achieve effective heating of the indoor space and keep thermal comfort at high standards. The goal of this work is the detailed investigation of a high-temperature heat pump, with the R1234ze(E) as the working medium for producing heating at 80 °C for space-heating purposes, in Greek climate conditions. The analysis was conducted at two locations, one in the south (Athens—Zone B) and one in the north (Thessaloniki—Zone C), in order to examine the performance of the study’s technology in the most representative locations of Greece. The thermodynamic analysis of the heat pump was performed with a developed model in Engineering Equation Solver by exploiting real data from the compressor manufacturer and by practically using a gray box model. The heating thermal loads were calculated with a dynamic analysis using TRNSYS software. According to the final results, the high-temperature heat pump was beneficial when compared to a conventional oil boiler from energy, financial, and environmental points of view. The net savings were found at EUR 6448 for Athens and EUR 13,161 for Thessaloniki; the simple payback period resulted in 8.03 years for Athens and 6.11 years for Thessaloniki, while the CO2 emissions avoidance was found at 35% for Athens and 32% for Thessaloniki. Last but not least, the lifetime CO2 emissions reduction was calculated at 20,882 kgCO2 for Athens and 35,278 kgCO2 for Thessaloniki.

A socioeconomic approach to the profile of microcredit holders from the Hispanic minority in the USA

The subject of this study is the microcredit market in the USA, more specifically in Florida. The justification for choosing this specific state is the massive presence of the Hispanic population. This will facilitate a generalization of the obtained results to the microcredit market in Latin American countries. Thus, the objective of this study is to analyze the profile of microcredit holders and their companies from socioeconomic and financial points of view. As our data also consider the degree of repayment of the microloans included in the sample, the clients’ profile is related to the punctuality or default of their corresponding loan repayments using the methodology of multinomial logit regression. The variables used in this study refer to personal information concerning borrowers (gender, age, education level, and marital status), the economic situation of their respective companies (closeness to the lender, number of workers, and revenues), and the characteristics of granted loans (principal, term, and purpose). However, the results of the regression show that only two variables are significant at the 5% significance level: the borrower’s age, which has a positive effect on repayment punctuality, and the loan term, which exhibits a negative effect. The findings of this study have clear implications, as they can help lenders design suitable microloans adjusted to customer profiles. Finally, future research should include other demographics and characteristics of affected companies.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Life Without Parole as an Alternative to the Death Penalty

Death penalty in the United States has been steadily replaced by life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) sentences since 2001. As of July 2021, the number of people on death row imprisoned in state, federal, or military prisons was down to a thirty-year low, which translated to a 33% decrease since its peak in July 2001. On the other hand, the number of people serving LWOP increased by 66% since 2003. This paper reviews current academic literature to compare the pros and cons of LWOP and death penalty from financial and psychological points of view in response to the question of whether LWOP is a more effective alternative to the death penalty in the United States. From a total cost perspective, LWOP is less costly to execute than that of a death sentence. Psychologically speaking, LWOP may be more satisfactory for both families of the victims and defendants. However, while LWOP has been regarded by many as more humane, its effectiveness has been degraded by harsh policies in the 1980s and 1990, which have resulted in prison overcrowding and the United States having the highest prison incarnation rate in the world. In addition, diminishing rights is a common issue experienced by LWOP prisoners. Therefore, the author concludes that while LWOP has strengths over the death penalty, its ultimate effectiveness remains in question.

Ramsey rule with forward/backward utility for long-term yield curves modeling

This paper draws a parallel between the economic and financial points of view in the modeling of long-term yield curves and provides new results on asymptotic long rates. The Ramsey rule, which is the reference equation in the economic literature to compute long-term discount rates, links endogenous discount rate and marginal utility of aggregate optimal consumption at equilibrium. This paper proposes a unified framework and a financial interpretation of the economic discount rate given by the Ramsey rule, using marginal utility indifference prices for non-replicable zero-coupon bonds. Optimal discounted pricing kernel is at the core of this unifying approach and is determined through an optimization program that can be posed backward or forward. The dynamics and the long-term behavior of the marginal utility yield curve is studied in both settings. Special attention is paid to its dependency on the initial wealth of the economy, as well as on the time-horizon in the backward setting, extending previous results in the literature.

Adaptive Impact Factor Research Concerning Effectiveness of the Introduction and use of Digital Twins for Oil and Gas Deposits

In recent years, there have been significant changes in the conditions of oil production leading to an increase in its cost and wasteful use of resources. This necessitates the search for a system of adaptive factors that can adapt to environmental changes, affect the cost reduction and increase in the efficiency of oil and gas fields. Studies show that this problem needs to be solved on the basis of the creation of digital oil or gas fields being digital counterparts of existing enterprises, which allow preserving nature and use resources economically due to the existing field development at a new qualitative level. However, the transformation of existing fields through their transformation into digital oil or gas fields requires serious justification, and above all, from a financial and economic points of view. At the same time, one should in no case ignore the natural factor contributing to saving, restoring the used oil and gas resources and preserving the external space being the human environment. The purpose of this study is to develop recommendations for assessing the economic efficiency of the implementation of the project concerning a digital oil or gas field being a digital twin of oil or gas enterprise, and their use in practice. Such an assessment will be carried out based on the analysis of the ratio between capital investments and operating costs necessary to create a digital oil or gas field, as well as by comparing the expected costs and benefits derived from its use.

Increase efficiency of a gas compressing facility in Oil and Gas Industry. Setting up an efficient design review session during a construction project

As most gas compression facilities in Romania are from the 60’s-80, there is an increased demand to increase their efficiency. The paper is meant to give general guidelines to manage the project and to know one’s importance in the project in order to have a good understanding of the actual steps involved in the gas energy efficiency increase from the technical, financial and managerial points of view.

Analysing the Sustainability of Cascade Recycling in Plastic Manufacturing

This study ventures to further sustainable manufacturing by showing how a cascade recycling approach can be utilised by a plastic cosmetic packaging company. Three reprocessing cycles were assessed from product quality, environmental, financial and social points of view. It is shown how the cascade approach did not negatively affect the quality of the produced parts and when compared to a no-recycling scenario, the proposed three-cascade recycling approach results in 28.1% less costs and 29.3% less carbon footprint. The labour increases up to a maximum of 7 hours per 50,000 products. When compared to a conventional in-house recycling scenario, the proposed approach would reduce the costs by 11.7% and the carbon footprint by 12.9%.

Occupancy-based HVAC control using deep learning algorithms for estimating online preconditioning time in residential buildings

This paper presents a rule-based (RB) heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) control system using a multi-layer perceptron network, a deep learning algorithm, for estimating dynamic preconditioning time in residential buildings. The proposed system takes advantage of occupancy, indoor temperature, and weather data to make control decisions in buildings. The system performance is evaluated in terms of financial, demand-side management, energy-efficiency, and occupants’ thermal comfort. The proposed approach considers the perfect occupancy prediction assumption to remove the impact of the uncertainty associated with occupancy prediction and to estimate an upper bound limit for the system performance. The system performance is compared with that of conventional rule-based control approaches to show its effectiveness. To select the optimal control system, the TOPSIS method, as a multi-criteria decision-making approach, is employed. The sensitivity of the proposed system to the temperature setback is also assessed by considering conservative, medium, and deep setback bounds. It is demonstrated that the proposed system outperforms other alternatives when the deep and medium bounds are utilized. This study reveals two limitations of occupancy-based control systems by investigating their performance from financial and peak-demand points of view. First, these systems can cause peak-demand issues and increase the on-peak energy consumption by up to 10%. Secondly, employing a conservative setback can significantly decrease the financial merits of the system, leading to a discounted payback period of 10.87 years for implementing smart thermostats.

Economic and Social Aspects of Secondary Lymphedema following Treatment of Breast Cancer

Introduction The quality of life of female patients who have undergone mentally and physically demanding treatment of cancer is often affected by the emergence of secondary lymphedema. The purpose of our work is to evaluate this complexity not only from an objective but also subjective point of view. Methods Qualitative focusstudy in 18 patients under 60 years of age conducted by way of a structured interview during 2019 at the lymphological workplace. Results The economic burden for patients is on the average CZK 683 per month (about $360 USD per year), the treatment is paid for fully by health insurance companies. Lymphedema is a significant barrier in an occupation, more in women after treatment of the second grade of cancer than the first one. Lymphedema is a bigger obstacle for women with lower education, physically working. Family status does not have a significant effect on the treatment of cancer. Conclusions The study has confirmed the difficulty of treatment ofsecondary lymphedema after the treatment of breast cancer, both from financial and professional points of view. The medical staff should take into account these factors or expand the rehabilitation team and thus ensure better compliance in therapy.

Possibilities for predicting the state of usability web resources

The article discusses the possibilities of predicting the state of the web resources usability. The usability testing procedure is quite costly from both financial and time points of view. Therefore, a system that reduces these costs is useful for modern organizations. Different approaches of forecasting the number of visitors: ARIMA model and Neural Networks are considered. An important time series property for ARIMA model being applicable is the stationarity of the series. It is shown that this model is not suitable enough for the investigated time series, some types of neural networks are also not suitable for various reasons. As a result, NARX networks are selected, which are successfully used for time series forecasting, providing an opportunity to use an exogenous variable.

An Overview of the Transition to a Circular Economy in Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy Considering Technological, Legal–Regulatory and Financial Points of View: A Case Study

The circular economy is a growing and strategic topic and has motivated changes and innovations in several segments of research, businesses, financial sectors and public administration. In this context, the Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy) is considered a pioneer in Italy, due to the efforts taken for the transition towards a circular economy. It was the first Italian region to launch a specific law on the subject besides to have relevant projects. Thus, the objective of this paper is to analyse the efforts aimed at the transition to a circular economy in the Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy, considering technological, legal–regulatory, and financial points of view under a market orientation. Complementary, we pointed out the main initiatives related to the circular economy and the areas of interest. To gather data, we conducted applied, descriptive and qualitative research. The data collection was based on documental analysis, and also considering the results of previous questionnaires and interviews. In addition, we applied a dedicated questionnaire and we consider the outcomes of the project Reinwaste—Remanufacture the food supply chain by testing Innovative solutions for zero inorganic waste. The unit of analysis was the project conducted by ART-ER, entitled “Accelerare la transizione verso l’economia circolare in Emilia-Romagna: Uno studio sullo stato dell’arte, le competenze e i bisogni tecnologici e finanziari”. This paper can be useful for researchers and practitioners acting in this field, which can use the results based on public and private policies, investment decisions and further studies.

Dynamic Line Rating—An Effective Method to Increase the Safety of Power Lines

Exceeding the electric field’s limit value is not allowed in the vicinity of high-voltage power lines because of both legal and safety aspects. The design parameters of the line must be chosen so that such cases do not occur. However, analysis of several operating power lines in Europe found that the electric field strength in many cases exceeds the legally prescribed limit for the general public. To illustrate this issue and its importance, field measurement and finite element simulation results of the low-frequency electric field are presented for an active 400 kV power line. The purpose of this paper is to offer a new, economical expert system based on dynamic line rating (DLR) that utilizes the potential of real-time power line monitoring methods. The article describes the expert system’s strengths and benefits from both technical and financial points of view, highlighting DLR’s potential for application. With our proposed expert system, it is possible to increase a power line’s safety and security by ensuring that the electric field does not exceed its limit value. In this way, the authors demonstrate that DLR has other potential applications in addition to its capacity-increasing effect in the high voltage grid.

Simulation Modeling Approach for Collaborative Workplaces’ Assessment in Sustainable Manufacturing

The presented manuscript represents a new simulation modeling approach, which evaluates the impact of collaborative workplaces on manufacturing sustainability in terms of workplaces’ cost, flow times and electrical energy consumption. The impact of collaborative workplaces on the manufacturing system and on its sustainable viability as a whole has not yet been explored, despite the fact that collaborative workplaces are increasingly present in different manufacturing systems. In the past, researchers have devoted a lot of time to research individually examining the collaborative machines, workplaces and various aspects of Sustainable Manufacturing. Investigating the impact of collaborative workplaces on an enterprise’s financial, social and environmental points of view is a very complex task, since we are talking about a multicriteria evaluation of manufacturing systems. The simulation approach is based on a newly proposed block diagram structure that allows for an evaluation of the impact of collaborative workplaces on Sustainable Manufacturing in its entirety. Using the input data of the real-world manufacturing system characteristics and Eurostat statistical values, numerical and graphical results of the proposed simulation evaluation are given, which, with a high degree of evaluation credibility, influences the introduction of collaborative workplaces in manual workplaces. The results obtained show a 20% reduction in the cost of collaborative workstations compared to manual assembly workstations, a 13.2% reduction in order throughput times, a negligible increase in energy consumption in operation mode of 3.28% and a 4.57% reduction in the idle mode. The new evaluation approach allows for a comprehensive consideration of the influence of the collective workplace when developing new or modernizing existing manufacturing systems from a financial, social and environmental point of view.

The Application of Internet of Things in Metering the Consumption of Utilities in the Czech Republic

Purpose: This article proposes and analyses the potential use of IoT solutions for detecting water consumption not only from technical, but also from the business and financial points of view. This topic is important because by solving this problem, companies may save a lot of money and this paper provides financial analysis, which answers question, if the implementation is or is not meaningful.Methodology/Approach: Source data used in this paper come from an extensive survey among fifty experts from the energy supply industry in the Czech Republic during two-round workshops. One of the most attractive application has been appointed “monitoring of utility consumption” – for this article the water metering.Findings: We have reached the conclusion that an isolated implementation of IoT technologies is much more expensive than the current solution that are based on human labour, periodical inspections of meters by people. This is caused mainly by high prices of the sonic/mechanical metering devices supporting IoT functionality.Research Limitation/implication: Workshops and research work were realised in conditions in the Czech Republic. Principles of application opportunities and of its implementation are general, but the final decisions about their importance can be influenced by the specifics and situation in the Czech Republic.Originality/Value of paper: The value of the paper comes from the workshops where were defined important application opportunities for definition of the priority for each of defined application opportunities.

Alternative Assets and Cryptocurrencies

Alternative assets, defined by their low correlation with classical financial assets, have become an important investment vehicle in times of negative interest rates and in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis. Hedge funds increasingly invest in physical assets such as fine art, wine, or diamonds. Although digital and not physical, cryptocurrencies share many features of alternative assets, but are hampered by high volatility, sluggish commercial acceptance, and regulatory uncertainties. This special issue covers a broad variety of topics in financial technology, and provides a state-of-the-art overview of cryptocurrencies from economic, financial, statistical and technical points of view.

Empirical Finance

The research field related to finance has made great progress in recent years due to the development of information processing technology and the availability of large-scale data. This special issue is a collection of 16 articles on empirical finance and one book review. The content is six articles on machine learning, five articles based on traditional econometric analysis, and five articles on emerging markets. The large share of articles on the application of machine learning is in line with recent trends in finance research. This special issue provides a state-of-the-art overview of empirical finance from economic, financial, and technical points of view.