Terms Of Structure Research Articles

China’s position and competitiveness in the global antibiotic value chain: implications for global health

BackgroundAntibiotics are a key commodity for global health, and inadequate access is a major contributor to global mortality. COVID-19 has refocused attention on global pharmaceutical value chains and the need for sustainable and secure production and supply of key products, including antibiotics. Production of antibiotics and their active pharmaceutical ingredients is capital- and technology-intensive, however, and value chains are dominated by a limited number of countries. China is known to be one of the largest producers, but its position in global value chains has not previously been analyzed. This is important for discussions about equitable and resilient global supplies, including through global instruments such as the pandemic treaty.MethodsThis study utilizes data from the International Trade Center database to analyze global and Chinese export trade patterns in the antibiotic industry from 2002 to 2021, along with trends in comparative advantage. The antibiotic trade data included in this study covers different antibiotic products, including some tuberculosis drugs, while other types of antimicrobial drugs (such as antivirals, antiparasitics) are excluded.ResultsThe export share of antibiotic ingredients from China increased from 9.0% in 2002 to 44.5% in 2021. China is the largest exporter of antibiotic ingredients (with a strong comparative advantage). Additionally, the export share of antibiotic medicines increased from 0.5% in 2002 to 6.5% in 2021, making it the 7th largest exporter of antibiotic medicines (though with a comparative disadvantage). The proportion of antibiotic medicines in China’s exports is gradually increasing, though the country’s antibiotic industry is expected to remain in the upstream-to-midstream segments of the global supply chain in the short term. China’s export market for antibiotic medicines is fragmented, focusing on developing countries, though European (17.9% in 2021) and North American markets (13.1% in 2021) are increasing in importance. China’s weight in global antibiotic exports, particularly of antibiotic ingredients, creates dependencies for countries reliant on China, and for Chinese companies reliant on certain overseas markets.ConclusionsChina is central to global antibiotic manufacturing. Policies promoting the reshaping of global supply chains and reshoring of critical medicines will likely create challenges for Chinese exporters, though are unlikely to alter the global supply structure in the short term. This has implications for Chinese policymakers, including strengthening innovation, quality, international competitiveness, and diversifying markets. Equally, China’s huge manufacturing capability, cost advantages, and rapid scientific and technological progress, make the country an inevitable and important part of future arrangements to ensure equitable global antibiotic access. As the Chinese government considers its global health policy in the post-COVID-19 era, antibiotics may provide an area where China can play a distinctive role.

Rhetorical Miracles in the Vocabulary of Quranic Composition Surah Al-Ikhlas as a Model

This research aims to uncover the facets of rhetorical miracles in the vocabulary of one of the chapters of the Holy Quran, specifically Surah (Al-Ikhlas). This surah is among the shorter chapters that encapsulate matters of faith and numerous benefits through magnificent and high-level rhetorical forms. This is because the Holy Quran, which is concise and succinct in its words, verses, and chapters, possesses all aspects of eloquence in their various forms comprehensively and entirely ranging from clarity and literary beauty to profound meanings all interconnected without any fragmentation or flaw. This invites us to observe these facets in the vocabulary of this noble Quranic surah, highlighting its high status and elevated position similar to other great chapters of the Quran and its profound sanctity. This is because it is the miraculous word of God in its expression and clarity, and its noble meanings. All of this falls under a type of thematic interpretation in its rhetorical form, presented in a concise manner, carrying many subtle details of Quranic meanings, hinted at through the composition of words and the structure of terms, in an eloquent manner found only in the Great Quran.

COMPONENT CONSISTENCY AS ONE OF THE ASPECTS OF GERMAN-UKRAINIAN SPECIALIZED TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSURANCE

This empirical-theoretical inquiry aims to identify, describe, and propose solutions to address incon- sistent reproduction of derived terms containing recurring components in German-Ukrainian legal trans- lation. The study is grounded in translation-oriented terminology and seeks to establish new criteria for translation quality assessment. The manifold objectives encompass: 1) undertaking a scientific investiga- tion to demonstrate the problematical nature of intratextual term consistency in translation; 2) scrutinizing potential impacts of prospective translation regulating instruments on providing terminology consistency; 3) adducing extensive illustrations of adherence to the intratextual term component consistency principle while translating German legal texts into Ukrainian. The research proposes four heuristic hypotheses: 1) Term component inconsistency in translation sig- nificantly reduces translation quality, potentially leading to partial information loss or distortion, which af- fects the translation dominant. 2) Maintaining consistency in how term components are translated is cru- cial for ensuring high-quality specialized translations, especially in fields like legal translation. 3) Implicitly formulated quality requirements for specialized translation can induce strategic terminological-discursive errors, regardless of the translator’s professional experience or status, which can be attributed to trans- lator’s unconscious decisions. 4) Specialized lexicographic reference works, while functioning as translation regulating instruments, exhibit both general and component inconsistencies. Therefore, they can only serve as aids for exercising the translator’s term selection and decision-making competence. The comprehensively formulated methodology encompasses a blind translator experiment incorpo- rating three participants of disparate professional experience and status (two Ukrainian translation agen- cies and one translation studies master’s student), meticulous comparative intralingual and interlingual analysis of source and target texts, induction/deduction approach to identify recurrent translational phe- nomena, morphosemantic analysis to determine the internal semantic structure of legal terms, derivation analysis to explicate term-formation processes, and contrastive lexicographic analysis to assess the poten- tial of existing terminological records to ensure the term component consistency. The methodology pro- posed in the article allowed to examine invariant properties of the object (legal terms in both languages) under study from various translation-oriented terminology perspectives. An in-depth approach to consideration of intratextual terminology heterogeneity, which contradicts the re- quirements of current international standards for translation quality assurance, has led to the distinction of term component consistency and term component inconsistency in translation. It is established that recurring strate- gic terminological- discursive mistakes at the text level of multiple translations result from translation instructors/ scholars not sufficiently attending to the problematic issue. The overlooked translation quality criterion has led even experienced and well-regarded experiment participants to inadvertently make unconscious mistakes. Concurrently, the contrastive analysis of German-Ukrainian specialized dictionaries evinced their lim- itations in ensuring component consistency, spotlighting the indispensability of the translator’s role in up- holding this benchmark. The proposed glossary with verified equivalents for the terminological field of Ger- man “Unterhalt” demonstrates the potential for consistent translation of derived terms into Ukrainian. The extensive empirical evidence and elucidation of a novel translation studies method (viz., blind translator experiment) along with newly discovered concepts (inter alia term selection competence) ren- der this inquiry a worthwhile contribution toward enhancing German-Ukrainian legal translation quality. Ultimately, this is a commendable study advancing the field of translation-oriented terminology and con- tributing to the harmonization of German-Ukrainian terminological capital. Future research prospects include developing and describing a microstrategy to ensure intratextual term component consistency and investigating the influences of explicit translation regulating instruments on specialized translation quality.

The Predictive Power of the Yield Spread Under the Veil of Time

Abstract This paper studies the sources of cyclical information delivered by the term spread for output growth predictability in the U.S. I use a wavelet-based time-frequency decomposition to decompose the predictive power of the yield spread across time scales, both in-sample and out-of-sample, over various forecast horizons. Spreads between interest rates on 10-year and 3-month Treasuries have a predictive ability for output growth that changes largely over different time scales. I find evidence of a negative correlation between the spread and future GDP growth for fluctuations with a frequency of 4 to 8 years per cycle. A linear combination among filtered yield spreads shows a sizable improvement in forecasting out-of-sample. The time-frequency decomposition is also used to propose an interpretation for the breakdown of in-sample predictability documented by Dotsey (1998) that arises after 1985. JEL classification numbers: C19, E43, E27. Keywords: Multiresolution analysis, Term structure, Predictability.

Demand Risks and Term Structure of Volatility Index Futures

In this paper, we develop an equilibrium framework to explain the characteristics of volatility index (VIX) futures prices and returns across maturities. In the framework, the investors prefer VIX futures with specific maturities, and the arbitrageurs optimize portfolios based on mean-variance preferences. The model-implied futures prices are affected by the variance and demand risk factors. Theoretical and empirical analyses show that incorporating jump risks helps to explain the higher-order moments of futures and that including the demand factor improves futures pricing performance.

A unifying approach for the pricing of debt securities

We propose a unifying framework for the pricing of debt securities under general time-inhomogeneous short-rate diffusion processes. The pricing of bonds, bond options, callable/putable bonds, and convertible bonds (CBs) is covered. Using continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) approximations, we obtain closed-form matrix expressions to approximate the price of bonds and bond options under general one-dimensional short-rate processes. A simple and efficient algorithm is also developed to price callable/putable debt. The availability of a closed-form expression for the price of zero-coupon bonds allows for the perfect fit of the approximated model to the current market term structure of interest rates, regardless of the complexity of the underlying diffusion process selected. We further consider the pricing of CBs under general bi-dimensional time-inhomogeneous diffusion processes to model equity and short-rate dynamics. Credit risk is also incorporated into the model using the approach of Tsiveriotis and Fernandes (1998). Based on a two-layer CTMC method, an efficient algorithm is developed to approximate the price of convertible bonds. When conversion is only allowed at maturity, a closed-form matrix expression is obtained. Numerical experiments show the accuracy and efficiency of the method across a wide range of model parameters and short-rate models.

Asymptotic behavior of bond yields and volatilities for the extended 3/2 model under the real-world measure

Abstract The extended $3/2$ short rate model is a mean reverting model of the short rate which, for suitably chosen parameters, permits a sensible term structure of bond yields and closed-form valuation formulae of zero-coupon bonds and options. This article supplies proofs of the formulae for the expected present values of future cash flows under the real-world probability measure, known as actuarial valuation. Finally, we give formulae for asymptotic levels of bond yields and formulae for bond option prices for the extended $3/2$ model, under particular conditions on its parameters.

Does economic policy uncertainty matter to corporate default probability? findings from theoretic analyses and China’s listed firms

This paper conducts a theoretical–empirical study to investigate the nexus between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and corporate default probability (CDP) and documents a significant and positive impact of EPU on CDP, which is validated through rigorous robustness tests and local project estimations. The study also reports that the increasing term structure of bond maturity aggravates the impact of EPU on CDP systematically. Our findings pronounce that EPU brings about the erosion of firm financing capacity, management quality deterioration, lowered stock liquidity, and corporate sentimental depression, providing an effective conducting mechanism to breed an increase in CDP. Additionally, state ownership, high technology, and internationalization curtail the CDP-increasing effect of EPU, and the same in the manufacturing sector. Whereas, this effect is intensified in non-state-owned, low-tech, service, and non-internationalized enterprises. We also highlight that EPU can robustly predict in the subsequent 2 years. This study suggests that the corporate financial position well reflects EPU and the relevant stakeholders, both governments and firms, may improve financial risk management by considering EPU and the attribute of its impacting CDP.

The impact of sanctions on the structure of foreign trade in medical devices: Evidence from the medical consumables market

Subject. The article investigates the level of health care and medical industry development in Russia. Objectives. The aim is to assess the impact of sanctions on the structure of foreign trade in medical devices, analysis of import, export and production of medical syringes in Russia for the period 2013–2023. Methods. The study employs the content analysis, comparative analysis. Results. The study found that the volume of consumption of disposable syringes changed slightly, but the sanctions had an impact on the structure of imports. China increased its market share by 32% due to a decrease in supplies from Germany, other European countries, and the United States. The cost structure of imports differs from the structure in physical terms: only three largest manufacturers in Germany import 80 % of needles to Russia. Negative balance of foreign trade is observed - the volume of syringe exports from Russia is only 2% of imports. The volume of disposable syringe production in Russia in 2023 decreased by 26% (to 724 million units). Conclusions. The development of foreign trade in medical devices is hindered by such factors as the raw material problem and imbalance of tax benefits and support measures. To increase the sustainability of the Russian medical industry, it is necessary to localize raw materials and create a register of medical polymers.

A post-pandemic new normal for interest rates in emerging bond markets? Evidence from Chile

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers intensely debated the extent of the decline in the so-called equilibrium or natural rate of interest. Given the recent sharp increase in interest rates, we revisit this question in an emerging bond market context and offer a Chilean perspective using a dynamic term structure finance model estimated directly on the prices of individual Chilean inflation-indexed bonds with adjustments for bond-specific liquidity risk and real term premia. Beyond documenting the existence of large and time-varying liquidity risk premia in the bond prices, we estimate that the equilibrium real rate in Chile fell about 2 and a half percentage points in the 2003-2022 period and has remained low since then with model projections only suggesting a gradual reversal in coming years. Instead, recent increases in real interest rates in Chile are driven by spikes in the liquidity and term premia of inflation-indexed bond prices.

Enhancing Late Retinopathy of Prematurity Outcomes with Fresh Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cells and Melatonin Combination Therapy.

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a vasoproliferative disease affecting premature neonates with life-lasting impacts. This study aims to investigate the long-term functional outcomes and alterations in neural retina architecture following the intravitreal transplantation of bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNC) in the rat models of ROP, and to evaluate the effect of adjunctive therapy with melatonin. 32 neonate rats were employed. The ROP model was developed in 10 neonatal rats, and two were assigned as control. The ROP models received BMMNC suspension, containing 1.2 × 105cells, in their right eye, and normal saline in left at p12. Five ROP rats received 12.5 mg/kg melatonin orally for five days (p12 to p17). Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and electroretinography (ERG) were performed on p47. Eyes were then harvested on p47, and after six months for histology, immunofluorescence (anti-calbindin, anti-PKC, and anti-Brn3), and immunohistochemistry (synaptophysin). Cell therapy alone and with melatonin increased retinal thickness, and improved oscillatory potentials on ERG. Combination therapy increased horizontal and retinal ganglion cell populations. All treatments improved synaptic maturity in the inner plexiform layer, but only combination therapy was effective on the outer plexiform layer. Melatonin and BMMNCs combination therapyeffectively ameliorates retinal structural and functional deficits at later ROP stages, without causing severe adverse effects.It significantly increases the survival of post-receptor retinal neurons and preserves retinal synaptic structures in the long term, highlighting the promising potential of this novel combination therapy approach to minimize visual deficits in ROP patients.

Dissecting E, S, and G for risk mitigation: insights from the term structure of CDS

ABSTRACT In this study, we utilize a comprehensive dataset of US-traded credit default swaps (CDS) to assess the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) adoption on firm credit risk. Our study examines corporate bonds with key maturities from 0.5 to 30 years, covering data from 2007 to 2022. We apply fixed effects regression to analyse the impact of ESG scores on CDS spreads. The results are validated through a battery of robustness checks primarily the 2SLS method. The study finds that ESG scores, including the individual pillars, play a significant role in mitigating credit risk. The intriguing aspect of the finding is the decline in risk mitigation as the term-to-maturity increases. Further, the social pillar causes the highest sensitivity to credit risk, followed by the environmental and governance pillars. The effect of ESG adoption is slightly greater for subordinated bonds compared to senior tranches, however, the effects diverge for individual pillars. The study offers practical insights as understanding the relationship between sustainable practices and CDS term structure helps refine investment strategies and specifically pricing of credit risk.

Oil price shocks and bond risk premia: Evidence from a Panel of 15 Countries

We study the effect of oil price shocks on bond risk premia. Based on Baumeister and Hamilton (2019), we identify the different sources of oil price shocks using a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model of the global market for crude oil. These structural factors are then used as unspanned factors in an affine term structure model based on the representation of Joslin et al. (2014). This is done for a total of 15 countries. Unspanned factors are responsible for most of the variability in bond risk premia for short holding periods, while spanned factors dominate the variance decomposition for longer holding periods. In both cases, global oil supply and global economic activity are clearly the most important unspanned shocks. A historical decomposition around the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis shows the clear influence of global economic activity shocks during the months of February and March 2020, increasing bond risk premia significantly.

Time-varying variance decomposition of macro-finance term structure models

This paper studies time-series patterns in the contribution of macroeconomic shocks to the variation in U.S. Treasury bond yields. I consider a term structure model with time-varying conditional volatility, which implies time variation in the decomposition of forecast error variances. Based on the model, I show that the macroeconomic contribution to the variation in short-term yields has increased since the 1970s. A similar pattern characterizes the variation in the expectations on future interest rates. This trend is not reflected in long-term yields because macroeconomic shocks drive negative correlations between short-rate expectations and term premia. Finally, I show that accounting for time-varying volatility is important even for estimating the average macroeconomic contribution to yield curve volatility over a fixed sample.

International interest rate arbitrage: Study on a novel strategy

This study examines the time-varying excess returns in an international interest rate arbitrage (IIRA) strategy, with a particular emphasis on these excess returns. Unlike traditional carry strategies that typically match funding and investment bonds' maturities or currencies, our novel IIRA strategy is a dynamically adjusted approach involves funding with a 1-year low-yield treasury bond while investing in 2- to 10-year high-yield bonds in foreign currencies. An analysis of Sharpe ratios, foreign exchange (FX), and yield excess return shows variations in the joint expectations hypothesis of the term structure (EHTS) and the uncovered interest rate parity (UIRP) lead to profits. However, the international strategies perform worse than the domestic carry strategies. Predictive factors, such as the Cochrane–Piazzesi, show limited effectiveness due to FX volatility. Therefore, future studies should examine more predictability factors.

An After-Action Review at Municipal Level in the Public Health Service - Lessons Learned at the Corona Unit of the Duesseldorf Public Health Authority after the end of the Covid-19 Pandemic, March 2023

After-Action Reviews (AARs) represent structured, qualitative evaluations of crisis interventions. Here, we describe the implementation of an AAR to assess the Corona Unit of the Duesseldorf Health Department. We employed an after-action review (AAR) using the working group format supplemented by structured interviews with key personnel. Our approach was guided by the guidelines for AARs provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Participants identified nine relevant challenges with potential for improvement in three categories: (I) challenges in recruiting requested personnel, (II) overarching coordination issues, and (III) frequent relocations. Participants proposed solutions for these challenges: (I) 1. Routine cross-agency inquiries for voluntarily available personnel, 2. consideration of resources from municipal subsidiaries and involvement of personnel with leadership experience from other departments, 3. Better coordination of deployment and onboarding, 4. proposal for early communication regarding different compensation regulations, (II) 5. establishment of an overarching coordination authority for the crisis unit, 6. clearer delineation of responsibilities within the crisis unit with explicit job profiles, 7. establishment of a shared working platform, and 8. creation of a central dashboard for generating all situation reports. Additionally, they identified (III) 9. a facility for housing a crisis unit in case of an emergency. This study represents one of the first applications of an AAR for evaluating crisis structures at the level of a local Public Health Authority (LPHA) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. While some of the identified challenges are specific to Duesseldorf, many municipalities faced personnel recruitment and coordination challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Municipal crisis plans can be reviewed and adjusted concerning the identified challenges. Sharing evaluation results among LPHA stakeholders can contribute to strengthening crisis structures in the long term.

Bond supply expectations and the term structure of interest rates

This paper investigates the influence of forward-looking government bond supply information on changes in the term structure of interest rates. While traditional arbitrage-free models suggest that bond supply should not impact bond yields, models accounting for preferred-habitat investors and imperfect asset substitutability raise this possibility. By analysing debt supply expectations derived from Germany's Treasury press releases, we find that news about expected bond supply affects bond yields, supporting the notion that supply expectations influence current interest rates. Our study also extends macro-finance models, highlighting the significant role of supply expectations in term structure dynamics. Additionally, we provide insights into the puzzle of German government bond yields falling below the ECB deposit rate.

Food-fuel nexus beyond mean-variance: New evidence from a quantile approach

This paper investigates the dynamic relationship between crude oil, ethanol, and corn markets across various quantiles of return distributions, as well as at higher statistical moments. Using a quantile vector autoregression model and data from 2007 to 2022, we find that the cross-market linkages are quantile dependent, with the strongest connections observed in the tails of the distribution. A shock to the oil market significantly impacts ethanol and corn returns under extreme bearish and bullish conditions. Positive shocks to the corn market reduce ethanol returns when the ethanol market is highly bullish, but this effect becomes positive in the left tail of the distribution. We also identify significant co-movement in higher statistical moments between these markets. Extreme excess kurtosis in the food-fuel nexus is more likely to occur with high financial market uncertainty, a bullish stock market, contracting industrial production, and a strong US dollar. In addition to these variables, credit spreads, futures market liquidity, futures term structure, and hedging pressure also influence kurtosis in individual markets within the nexus.

Option implied dividends and the market risk premium

We propose a new method for computing a lower bound to the expected future dividend component of the market risk premium from observed option prices. We find that our estimate of future dividend yields has similar characteristics to future realized dividend yields, exhibits significant volatility and is a strong predictor of the realized dividend yield. We demonstrate that the dividend yield term structure is downward sloping and dividend yields constitute around 27% of the total market risk premium in the US. Our findings indicate that dividend yields are an important component of the total US market risk premium.

Sovereign CDS Spread and Term Structure Forecasting Based on Neural Network

The article aims to forecast credit risk for BRICS countries using daily credit default swaps (CDS) spreads obtained from Datastream data base from 2018 to 2023. Our approach consists, first, of forecasting the CDS spread in order to estimate the forecasted CDS term structure. The general regression neural network (GRNN) is used to predict the CDS spread. By checking the accuracy of the prediction, the results show that the GRNN model can be recommended as an effective forecasting tool for CDS spread. Second, the predicted spreads are used to estimate the forecasted CDS term structure using the Nelson–Siegel model. The results show that for Russia, overall, the CDS spreads in the long term are less than those in the short term, which implies that the future outlook is more optimistic, given the events that occurred during the study period, but it still retains the highest level of credit risk compared to other countries. Unlike Brazil, India and South Africa, the future outlook is more pessimistic. For China, the term structure is unstable; in the short term, there is a tendency to reduce the risk, but for longer horizons, the risk will increase. Thus, BRICS countries have different risk profiles depending on investment horizons. The study’s findings help policymakers in developing tailored risk management strategies for BRICS countries and guide investors in making informed credit investment decisions. The use of advanced forecasting tools like GRNN and Nelson–Siegel models emphasizes the importance of sophisticated techniques in enhancing financial market resilience.