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Highlights • Each episode of diarrhea incurred $29 direct and $34 indirect costs to caregivers. • The highest costs of $136 per child were incurred at private healthcare facilities. • Around 46% of caregivers experienced catastrophic healthcare expenditure resulting from diarrheal treatment. • In 2018, an estimated 4% of GDP per capita was spent on diarrheal treatment., Background Diarrhea is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among under-five children in Bangladesh. Hospitalization for diarrhea can pose a significant burden on households and health systems. The aim of this study was to estimate the cost of illness due to diarrhea from the healthcare facility, caregiver, and societal perspectives in Bangladesh. Method A cross-sectional study with an ingredient-based costing approach was conducted in 48 healthcare facilities in Bangladesh. In total, 899 caregivers of under-five children with diarrhea were interviewed face-to-face between August 2017 and May 2018, followed up over phone after 7–14 days of discharge, to capture all expenses and time costs related to the entire episode of diarrhea. Results The average cost per episode for caregivers was US$62, with $29 direct and $34 indirect costs. From the societal perspective, average cost per episode of diarrhea was $71. In 2018, an estimated $79 million of economic costs were incurred for treating diarrhea in Bangladesh. Using 10% of income as threshold, over 46% of interviewed households faced catastrophic expenditure from diarrheal disease. Conclusion The economic costs incurred by caregivers for treating per-episode of diarrhea was around 4% of the annual national gross domestic product per-capita. Investment in vaccination can help to reduce the prevalence of diarrheal diseases and avert this public health burden.

Five municipalities in Antioquia, Colombia, with population of 162,000 inhabitants, were the world's largest mercury polluter from artisanal gold mining in 2010, releasing and emitting an average of 92 (73–110) tonnes/a of mercury. UNIDO – United Nations Industrial Development Organization joined forces with the Government of Antioquia, National University of Colombia and University of British Columbia to start The Colombia Mercury Project to reduce mercury use and losses. 1 The actions consisted of assessment of mercury losses, health monitoring and awareness campaign. This was supported by technical demonstrations of methods to reduce the amount of mercury used in the processing centres (“entables”). Enhanced enforcement of existing local and federal regulations accompanied these activities. Demonstrations of cleaner methods to miners and owners of “entables” generated 39 new mercury-free processing plants. The presence of the company Gran Colombia Gold buying ore from the miners at a fair price also contributed considerably to observed reductions in mercury use. Mercury entering in the whole ore amalgamation in the 323 “entables” was reduced on average 43% from 2010 levels. In 2013, mercury losses were reduced by 63%, resulting in 46 to 70 tonnes/a, less mercury entering the environment than in 2010.

RVH offers significant advantages to the corresponding abdominal procedure, including: the possibility for regional anesthesia, particularly in patients with poor medical conditions; reduced surgical trauma because of the absence of an abdominal incision; applicability in obese patients; shorter surgical time when performed by an experienced surgeon; decreased need for blood transfusions; lower risk for complications; faster postoperative recovery period; shorter hospitalization. The primary drawback to the use of RVH for early stage cervical cancer has always been the lack of lymph node dissection. This has now been modified by the widespread use of laparoscopic lymphadenectomy. The increasing reliability of noninvasive radiologic techniques has provided and will continue to provide greater possibilities for preoperative staging to best determine the needs of the patient. The authors believe that an oncologic surgeon familiar with advanced laparoscopic techniques and RVH is able to take advantage of the benefits of both routes. Furthermore, a surgeon skilled in these techniques and RAH has the tools to ideally care for the specific needs, of each patient. The authors encourage individualization of surgical management, with special emphasis on the revision of the role of RVH in gynecologic oncology.

This paper investigates two elements of agency costs, namely the wealth-transfer and the value destruction problems, associated with the equity-conversion and writedown CoCo bonds. By focusing on the costs as those stemming from the deviation from absolute priority rule (DAPR), we derive the expressions for the CoCo bonds and show that both agency costs are aggravated under these structures. We demonstrate this by studying the case of Monte Di Paschi bail-out in 2010. We argue that the replacement of government bailout by bail-in is akin to replacing moral hazard for agency costs, and that by encouraging bail-in structures the regulator prioritises the reduction of the former while ignoring the aggravation of the latter.

WACC has traditionally been used as a measure of the cost of capital for companies and as a discount rate of the future company's cash flows for valuation purposes. The WACC, especially for "distressed" companies, can play a key role in determining the efficiency of the restructuring framework for companies heading into bankruptcy. The theory and the practice show that companies that file for Chapter 11 have a higher probability of rehabilitation as a going concern and boost the recovery of the stakeholders as a whole than more credit friendly restructuring frameworks. Additionally, rehabilitated companies from more debtor friendly proceedings that have undergone a profound restructuring through efficient tools should also enjoy a higher probability of survival. In the first part of the thesis, we aim to prove that empirically by thoroughly looking at the market based WACC of a sample of American and European companies one year before and after the filing date. If we meet with success, then we should be confident that the WACC could result in a powerful tool to evaluate the efficiency of the restructuring framework of the company's filing. This paper is the first one of a series of papers that form my thesis for the phd in Finance

This study examines hedge fund performance over the ongoing Sub-prime and credit crisis. We will determine how funds have changed their strategies to cope with the recent downturn. We will also conduct a post mortem analysis on failed and underperforming funds to determine “what went wrong” comparing their strategies to the ones adopted by the more successful funds.