Real Trends Research Articles

Google it Up! A Google Trends-Based Uncertainty Index for the United States and Australia

We develop uncertainty indices for the United States and Australia based on freely accessible, real time Google Trends data. Our Google Trends Uncertainty (GTU) indices are found to be positively correlated to a variety of alternative proxies for uncertainty available for these two countries. VAR investigations document an economically and statistically significant contribution to unemployment dynamics by GTU shocks in the United States. In contrast, the contribution of GTU shocks to unemployment dynamics in Australia is found to be much milder and substantially lower than that of monetary policy shocks.

Real Estate Investment Trends in Unauthorised Colonies: A Case Study of Sangam Vihar, New Delhi

In recent years, Delhi has had an explosive growth in terms of economic development and population growth. Major contributor being In-Migration of poorer sections of society coming to Delhi for better employment opportunities. Hence there is a growing shortage of housing in the city. The apex body DDA, has not been able to provide planned and legal housing options for the people, especially the poorer section. This study is an investigation to unravel the Real estate market in the colonies wherein such sections of society has opted to build their houses, however it being in an illegal manner. The study is based on the parameters of investment, such as, Size of investment, plot sizes, Liquidity of buying and selling period, Lock-in period for the investment, the FAR built-up in these colonies. Other parameters include Net Annual income (rental) Type of accommodation available for rent, duration of stay of the tenants, size of investment- post purchase. The Average rate of return based on the lock-in period and the size of investment. These parameters along with the advantages have pronounced these UACs as a very good investment option among small and medium investors, besides being a good housing option.

Occupancy Profile Variation Analyzed through Generative Modelling to Control Building Energy Behavior

Nowadays, building energy models use parametric analyses to optimize design strategies considering multiple variables. Integrated dynamic models combining design tool and visual programming language (VPL) and simulation tools to calculate building performance with BIM tool for the whole-building energy simulation have been adopted in the recent studies. Through these tools, it is possible to identify parametric systems, which become a “genome”, where a rapid comparison of different alternatives is possible through fitness criteria defined by design goals. The aim of the paper is to use this concept and the suitable parametric tools such as Grasshopper for Rhinoceros to handle variable hypotheses on users’ occupancy that influence building energy performance. The paper focuses on occupancy variability applying the methodology to a university building located in northern Italy in the University of Brescia Campus to evaluate how generative modelling can represent an adequate approach to energy simulation of occupant behaviour. Sensors are now monitoring the real occupancy trend of the case study building and different scenarios defined in the parametric model could be compared to the real weekly. Using parametric tool and GA (Genetic Algorithms) can be analysed hundreds of occupancy patterns in order to better understand the influence of the occupancy on the building energy use and at the same time evaluate different strategies to save energy.

ФІНАНСОВА ГЛОБАЛІЗАЦІЯ СВІТОВОЇ ЕКОНОМІКИ

The article analyses the main trends in the world economy through the prism of the current global financial and credit system. Various forecasts for the development of the world economy were assessed and noted that they do not correspond to real trends and patterns. These forecasts cannot assess the conceptual principles of the structure of the financial and credit base of the economy. Such forecasting is carried out on the principles of the achieved indicators and the developed methods of estimation of disturbances in the financial markets. The specificity of the state of the debt market is indicated, which allows to develop the economy only by increasing the total debt obligations, which leads to a complete loss of profitability of debt securities. It is proved that no defaults and debt write-offs do not renew the economy; these instruments only restart the mechanism of holding the debt market. Such development is a direct consequence of liberal regulation and a departure from the full functions of money, which leads to a conceptual change in the paradigm of the financial system. The limitations of the dominant concept of the financial and credit system, which was based on the basic foundations of the Bretton Woods Conference, were revealed. Criteria for financial regulation of a market economy have been identified and substantiated, which have exhausted their effectiveness and do not guarantee an early effect, but are only immediate. It is noted that the global pandemic and financial infusions to overcome it are a tool for accumulating total debt in the long run. The primary measures for debt restructuring are indicated, namely the support of low-debt fundamental companies that will meet the objective basic needs of innovative companies. Factors of economic development are explained: growth of economic productivity, short-term and long-term credit cycles and political component. It is indicated that productivity determines the priority of society's development in the long run, and the element of its implementation is knowledge in the absence of political dictate, which will form a new financial and credit mechanism. High-tech knowledge is needed to ensure productivity development, so investing in education and knowledge without different dogmas can bring the world economy to a new level of efficiency.

CONVERGENCE OR DIVERGENCE? AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS FOR THE REGIONS OF TURKEY

This study aims to investigate the convergence issue for the NUTS2 level regions of Turkey based on the neoclassical perspective in order to test the empirical power of neoclassical models. The difference and one of the contributions of this study is that it uses per-capita gross value added instead of per-capita income because of not only data limitations but also some advantages it has. For example, it is purer and it shows real production activities that is why using it is not a handicap rather it is better indicator for growth studies. The investigation period of this study is the years between 2005 and 2011 due to the lack of data. In empirical part, s convergence (both conditional and unconditional), ? convergence, and coefficient of variation method are tested in order to capture whether there exists convergence or not. Empirical results show that there is convergence between regions of Turkey. However, by investigating the descriptive statistics in the light of empirical results, it can be easily seen that the reason of convergence is the crisis (2008 crisis). Since our investigation period is too short, the empirical result is highly affected by the crisis so that it is impossible to infer that there is convergence. The reason of finding convergence in crisis is that 2008 crisis is related with financial sector and it affects rich regions more. Therefore, this type of convergence is deceptive. In other words, it does not show the real trend. Consequently, according to this work, we cannot infer that there is convergence, to say that we need reinvestigation with larger time period.

Memory Impairment With Reference to Alzheimer’s Disease: An Update

Dementia or memory loss is the hallmark symptom of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The exploration of AD helps to identify the problems involved in neural structures such as the default network and role of genetic factors. Episodic memory (EM) directly deals with the memory system that allows an individual to consciously retrieve an old experience or an episode of life. EM plays an important role in AD. The World Health Organization predicts that, by 2025, about 75% of the estimated 1.2 billion people aged 60 years and older will reside in developing countries. It is estimated that the number of people living with dementia will almost double every 20 years to 42.3 million in 2020 and 81.1 million in 2040. In India, there are lesser number of good quality scientific studies/researches that deal with the real trend of the disease and determine the mechanism involved, risk factors, investigations on dementia, decline in awareness, and inadequate availability of social benefit. India is a country with varied cultures, and, therefore, conducting a genetic epidemiological study here has greater advantage. The goal of this review is to provide knowledge and increase the awareness of dementia associated with AD, as well as to understand the mechanism involved and its treatment, which can be useful for researchers or scientists in the near future.

Compensation in Residential Real Estate Purchasers’ Decisions

Abstract Predicting demand on the residential real estate market and the behavior of the purchasers requires a wide knowledge of both the economic mechanisms and psychology of decision-making. Decisions on the real estate market are often made by people without professional skills, and using simplified strategies. However, the decision-making process, on top of its heuristic nature, is dynamic and changing. As a result, a discrepancy in the preferred characteristics of planned and actually bought real estate can be observed. Such a discrepancy can be explained with the occurrence of the compensation process. The aim of this article was to recognize and describe the compensation process on the example of the suburban residential real estate market. The aim was achieved by analyzing the preferences of potential buyers in terms of particular characteristics of the location of suburban plots destined for single-family housing (respondents divided into age groups: 25 and 26-40), analyzing the real settlement trend in the suburban zone (the result of actual transactions) and comparing the results, including compensation.

Real-driving emissions of circulating Spanish car fleet in 2015 using RSD Technology

In this paper we present the results corresponding to on-road traffic emissions measurements obtained during two field campaigns developed in the Madrid region (Spain) during 2014 and 2015 in the framework of the CORETRA project. The experimental strategy was based on the use of a RSD 4600 remote sensor in interurban roads. These measurements have produced a global database of >190,000 vehicles with their associated emission data (NO/CO2, HC/CO2 and CO/CO2), which can be considered representative of the current Spanish circulating fleet. The results of M1 vehicles were analysed according to their distribution by Euro Standard and engine model. One of the relevant findings is that, despite the progressive introduction of increasingly stringent standards, no NO emission reduction is observed for diesel vehicles with time, although this behavior shows significative differences among brands and engine models.We have also investigated the presence of “high emitter” (HE) vehicles in the Spanish M1 circulating fleet and most of the HE detected corresponded to diesel vehicles with very high NO/CO2 values. With these results at hand, we strongly propose the future incorporation of the “high emitter vehicle” definition into the European environmental legislation, as well as the establishment of specific strategies in each country/region in order to identify these anomalous vehicles. Identification and repair of HE vehicles within the European circulating fleets, although are not easy tasks, should be considered very important for the improvement of air quality in the EU. The use of non-intrusive optical technologies (i.e. RSD) is an excellent option to provide instantaneous real emission data of each individual vehicle without disturbing traffic and for on-road fleet monitoring. In summary, it is a good strategy to obtain valuable information about the long term surveillance of real vehicle emission trends, specially after the introduction of new standard.

PP.LB01.06] DESIGN OF A NEW NATIONAL EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEY FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF TREND IN HYPERTENSION'S PREVALENCE, TREATMENT, CONTROL AND CARDIOVASCULAR RISK AMONG THE ADULT POPULATION OF

Objective: TThe two SEPHARs cross-sectional national surveys carried out in the last seven years, revealed that the tendency of HT's prevalence among Romanian adult population seems to be a descending one, with an increase in awareness and treatment while BP control remains unsatisfactory and the total cardiovascular risk is still very high. However, in this moment, having only two evaluations does not enable us to estimate a trend in HT's prevalence, treatment, control and in total CV risk in Romania, trend that has a crucial importance for the development of prevention strategies at national level, thus resulting the need of a new national survey – SEPHAR III. Design and method: Sampling procedure was performed by a multi-stratified proportional procedure, leading to the selection of a representative sample of 2000 adults. Stratification criteria for sample selection were: territorial regions, locality type, gender and age groups. Description of Project Implementation The fieldwork team was made of cardiologists (primary investigators) and senior residents in cardiology and nurses (sub investigators), who underwent a special training program before study conduction. Each individual that gave a written informed consent to participate in the study was evaluated by means of a study questionnaire (including Epworth, MoCA, depression and compliance questionnaire), anthropometric measurements, sitting and standing BP measurements, arterial stiffness measurements, ABI, IMT/ plaque by carotid B mode Doppler ultrasound, echocardiography, 12-lead ECG, noninvasive hemodynamic measurements and laboratory work-up during 2 study visits at 4 days interval (Figure 1).Study visits took place in a special ’medical caravan’ (SEPHAR BUS) fully equipped with all the medical equipment and proper facilities for the conduction of study, that also allow the team to travel to all the 82 recruitment sites across the whole country. <ST>Results:</ST> SEPHAR III was conducted between November 16th 2015 – April 25th 2016. <ST>Conclusions:</ST> SEPHAR III survey represent a necessary step in HT management in our country – estimation of a real trend in HT's prevalence, treatment, and control and in total cardiovascular risk of Romanian adult population, trend that will serve as base for future prevention strategies.

Detection of spatial variations in temporal trends with a quadratic function

Methods for the assessment of spatial variations in temporal trends (SVTT) are important tools for disease surveillance, which can help governments to formulate programs to prevent diseases, and measure the progress, impact, and efficacy of preventive efforts already in operation. The linear SVTT method is designed to detect areas with unusual different disease linear trends. In some situations, however, its estimation trend procedure can lead to wrong conclusions. In this article, the quadratic SVTT method is proposed as alternative of the linear SVTT method. The quadratic method provides better estimates of the real trends, and increases the power of detection in situations where the linear SVTT method fails. A performance comparison between the linear and quadratic methods is provided to help illustrate their respective properties. The quadratic method is applied to detect unusual different cervical cancer trends in white women in the United States, over the period 1969 to 1995.

International Real Estate Review

The literature primarily focuses on the effect of changes on property prices in terms of macrovariables and monetary aggregates. Only a few studies have taken into account bank characteristics when considering the effects of real estate market trends on bank lending policies and performance, and there is no study that controls for the type of bank or loan purpose. The paper studies the linkage between property market trends and bank risk exposure. We test for any significant difference of real estate banks with respect to other banks and the different roles of the real estate market trend in explaining changes in bank risk exposure. The empirical evidence demonstrates that real estate banks are not always riskier than other banks, and specialized banks are less sensitive to real estate market trends than other banks.

Czech version of OPQOL-35 questionnaire: the evaluation of the psychometric properties.

BackgroundBoth prognoses and real demographic trends in developed countries point to the increasing proportion in the population of people above 65 years of age. One of important themes of care for seniors is the assessment of their quality of life. To evaluate the quality of life of seniors three types of tools can be used: general generic tools; generic tools used for the age group of elderly persons; specific tools to detect the quality of life of the elderly who are affected by specific diseases.MethodsThe second type of tool is represented by the OPQOL - 35 questionnaire (Older People’s Quality of Life Questionnaire), which was developed in the UK. It has 35 items and deals with 8 domains of quality of life. With the consent of the author the questionnaire was translated into Czech and verified in a group of 478 seniors aged 60 and above (40 % males, 60 % females). Unlike the British version, the Czech version has seven factors: 1 Role of belief, religion and culture; 2 Health; independence, active life; 3 Financial situation; 4 Family and safe environment; 5 Loneliness; 6 Satisfaction with life; 7 Positive approach to life.ResultsThe Czech version has a very good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha ranges from .726 to .905). It also has satisfactory validity. The results show that with increasing age and number of health problems the satisfaction of the elderly is declining in all seven domains. Conversely, the degree of autonomy in the way of living is positively associated with the satisfaction of seniors. Old people who live alone at home, are self-sufficient and do not need the help of others, are more satisfied with their quality of life than other seniors (i.e..those who are living with their children, in sheltered accommodation or in homes for the elderly). Single, married seniors and seniors with a partner are happier than the widowed ones.ConclusionsThe questionnaire gives good guidance for assessing the current state of the quality of life of seniors, changes in quality over time and for targeted interventions as well.

Network Modeling and Assessment of Ecosystem Health by a Multi-Population Swarm Optimized Neural Network Ensemble

Society is more and more interested in developing mathematical models to assess and forecast the environmental and biological health conditions of our planet. However, most existing models cannot determine the long-range impacts of potential policies without considering the complex global factors and their cross effects in biological systems. In this paper, the Markov property and Neural Network Ensemble (NNE) are utilized to construct an estimated matrix that combines the interaction of the different local factors. With such an estimation matrix, we could obtain estimated variables that could reflect the global influence. The ensemble weights are trained by multiple population algorithms. Our prediction could fit the real trend of the two predicted measures, namely Morbidity Rate and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It could be an effective method of reflecting the relationship between input factors and predicted measures of the health of ecosystems. The method can perform a sensitivity analysis, which could help determine the critical factors that could be adjusted to move the ecosystem in a sustainable direction.

Effects of omega-3 fatty acids on Nod-like receptor 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome in decidual macrophages

The application of the Quality by Design principles is one of the key issues of the recent pharmaceutical developments. In the past decade a lot of knowledge was collected about the practical realization of the concept, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions.The key requirement of the concept is the mathematical description of the effect of the critical factors and their interactions on the critical quality attributes (CQAs) of the product. The process design space (PDS) is usually determined by the use of design of experiment (DoE) based response surface methodologies (RSM), but inaccuracies in the applied polynomial models often resulted in the over/underestimation of the real trends and changes making the calculations uncertain, especially in the edge regions of the PDS. The completion of RSM with artificial neural network (ANN) based models is therefore a commonly used method to reduce the uncertainties. Nevertheless, since the different researches are focusing on the use of a given DoE, there is lack of comparative studies on different experimental layouts. Therefore, the aim of present study was to investigate the effect of the different DoE layouts (2 level full factorial, Central Composite, Box–Behnken, 3 level fractional and 3 level full factorial design) on the model predictability and to compare model sensitivities according to the organization of the experimental data set.It was revealed that the size of the design space could differ more than 40% calculated with different polynomial models, which was associated with a considerable shift in its position when higher level layouts were applied. The shift was more considerable when the calculation was based on RSM. The model predictability was also better with ANN based models. Nevertheless, both modelling methods exhibit considerable sensitivity to the organization of the experimental data set, and the use of design layouts is recommended, where the extreme values factors are more represented.

Estimation of design space for an extrusion–spheronization process using response surface methodology and artificial neural network modelling

The application of the Quality by Design principles is one of the key issues of the recent pharmaceutical developments. In the past decade a lot of knowledge was collected about the practical realization of the concept, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions.The key requirement of the concept is the mathematical description of the effect of the critical factors and their interactions on the critical quality attributes (CQAs) of the product. The process design space (PDS) is usually determined by the use of design of experiment (DoE) based response surface methodologies (RSM), but inaccuracies in the applied polynomial models often resulted in the over/underestimation of the real trends and changes making the calculations uncertain, especially in the edge regions of the PDS. The completion of RSM with artificial neural network (ANN) based models is therefore a commonly used method to reduce the uncertainties. Nevertheless, since the different researches are focusing on the use of a given DoE, there is lack of comparative studies on different experimental layouts. Therefore, the aim of present study was to investigate the effect of the different DoE layouts (2 level full factorial, Central Composite, Box–Behnken, 3 level fractional and 3 level full factorial design) on the model predictability and to compare model sensitivities according to the organization of the experimental data set.It was revealed that the size of the design space could differ more than 40% calculated with different polynomial models, which was associated with a considerable shift in its position when higher level layouts were applied. The shift was more considerable when the calculation was based on RSM. The model predictability was also better with ANN based models. Nevertheless, both modelling methods exhibit considerable sensitivity to the organization of the experimental data set, and the use of design layouts is recommended, where the extreme values factors are more represented.

Modeling higher education attractiveness to stand global environment

Inabilities to deal with the changing environment may lead Higher Education Institutions (HEI) to loose institutional attractiveness. Digital transformation requires global insertion as essential feature to institutional attractiveness. Processes for international education seem to lack the links between real environmental trends and the internal capabilities to global education. HEI managers may approach endeavors to internationalize education combining ambidextrous strategy supported by consolidated resilience capabilities. The latest ones refer to building internal value attributes to increase institutional attractiveness assuring solid standing in the global environment. In this article, a theoretical essay, we approach the problem of creating resilience as a way of backing up ambidexterity to generate institutional attractiveness. The set of value attributes, on the other hand, may originate strategic routes to strengthen internal competences and to make the institution more attractive, as a dynamic capability.

A Novel Smart Metering Infrastructure using Virtual Instrument

Objective: This paper describes the use of virtual instrumentation tool - LabVIEW for web based demand side energy monitoring using GSM based wireless data acquisition. Method: The demand side energy monitoring is carried out by microcontroller based system on Time of Day basis. The demand side energy utilization tracked by the microcontroller based system is transmitted using GSM communication to remote metering infrastructure implemented on LabVIEW platform for real time monitoring. The demand side energy utilization information acquired by metering infrastructure can be accessed over the internet using server - client model based communication. The metering infrastructure is designed to provide SMS based customer service regarding monthly energy utilization. Findings: Demonstrates the use of virtual instrument for wireless and internet based automation of energy metering system for functions such as remote meter reading, meter data management, report generation and finally real time and historical trending are realized. Applications/Improvements: The LabVIEW based virtual instrument application can be improved to perform multipoint wireless communication.

Ab initio X-ray absorption modeling of Cu-SAPO-34: Characterization of Cu exchange sites under different conditions

Copper-exchanged SAPO-34 (Cu-SAPO-34) provides excellent catalytic activity and hydrothermal stability in the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NOx by using NH3 as a reductant. We find that the 6-membered ring (6MR) site is the most energetically favorable for a Cu+ ion while the 8-membered ring (8MR) sites are less favorable by about 0.5eV with respect to the 6MR site in Cu-SAPO-34. Upon adsorption of molecular species (H2O, O, OH, O2), the energy differences between Cu in the 8MR and 6MR sites decreases and almost disappears. Further, a thermodynamic phase diagram study shows that a Cu+ ion bound to a single H2O molecule is the most stable species at low oxygen potential values while a Cu2+ ion bound to 2 OH species is more stable when the oxygen chemical potential is sufficiently high. By comparing Cu K-edge XANES between Cu-SSZ-13 and Cu-SAPO-34 with Cu in different oxidation states, we conclude that it is difficult to differentiate the simulated XANES of Cu in these structures at a given oxidation state. By studying the Cu K-edge XANES of several favorable structures in Cu-SAPO-34 in the presence of adspecies, the simulated XANES results capture the real trend of the edge shift with oxidation state and gives new insights into the experimentally determined XANES of Cu-SAPO-34 obtained under standard SCR conditions.

Evolutionary Optimization of Model Parameters for Electro-Injectors in Common Rail Diesel Engines

One of the main issues in the design, modeling, and control of innovative automotive engines is to reduce energy consumption and emission of pollutants and, at the same time, to guarantee a high level of performance indices. In particular, enhanced model-based control of the injection process has been a hot research topic in recent years to increase the combustion efficiency in common rail (CR) diesel engines and to meet strict legislations. This paper focuses on the development of a more accurate model for the electro-injector in CR diesel engines. The model takes into account the mechanical deformation of relevant parts of the electro-injector and the nonlinear fuel flow. Model parameters are then optimized by an evolutionary strategy. Simulation results confirm that the optimized model can be helpful for predicting the real trend of the injected fuel flow rate, evidenced by experimental data, thus can be helpful for injection control of CR diesel engines.

Estimation of actuarial quantities at fractional ages with Kriging

ABSTRACTLife tables used in life insurance are often calibrated to show the survival function of the age of death distribution at exact integer ages. Actuaries usually make fractional age assumptions (FAAs) when having to value payments that are not restricted to integer ages. Traditional FAAs have the advantage of simplicity but cannot guarantee to capture precisely the real trends of the survival functions and sometimes even result in a non intuitive overall shape of the force of mortality. In fact, an FAA is an interpolation between integer age values which are accepted as given. In this article, we introduce Kriging model, which is widely used as a metamodel for expensive simulations, to fit the survival function at integer ages, and furthermore use the precisely constructed survival function to build the force of mortality and the life expectancy. The experimental results obtained from a simulated life table (Makehamized life table) and two “real” life tables (the Chinese and US life tables) show that these actuarial quantities (survival function, force of mortality, and life expectancy) presented by Kriging model are much more accurate than those presented by commonly-used FAAs: the uniform distribution of death (UDD) assumption, the constant force assumption, and the Balducci assumption.