Search

Omega-3 fatty acids plus vitamin (e.g. vitamin D and E) may be beneficial to treat gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), and we aimed to study the influence of omega-3 fatty acids plus vitamin versus placebo on the treatment efficacy of GDM.We searched the databases including PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the influence of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins combination supplementation versus placebo on metabolic status of GDM were included.Five RCTs were included in the meta-analysis. Compared with control intervention for women with GDM or prediabetes, omega-3 fatty acids plus vitamin substantially reduced fasting plasma glucose (FPG, mean difference [MD] = -11.25; 95% confidence intervals [CI] = -13.73 to -8.77;The supplementation of omega-3 fatty acids in combination with vitamin D or E can improve glycemic control, alleviate oxidative stress, and reduce triglycerides, but had no effects on total cholesterol, preterm delivery or macrosomia4000 g in women with GDM or prediabetes.

We discover a novel flight-to-safety effect from cryptocurrency markets to stock markets. It occurs after a series of hacking attacks on crypto exchanges as greater uncertainty heightens investors' risk awareness and perception, which, in turn, induces herd-like behaviour in favor of safer stock markets over riskier cryptocurrency markets. We extensively examine this effect worldwide across 39 countries and confirm this novelty. This effect is amplified when investors' risk awareness is strengthened by frequent attacks. Intriguingly, the sentiment elicited from the attacks discussed on social media not only serves as a timely warning indicator for the forthcoming attack events but also measures the flight-to-safety pressure after attack events. We conclude that the collapse of investors’ confidence is the primary cause of such an effect. Through the lens of cyber attacks, we document how a shock in crypto markets is transmitted into stock markets through investors' flight-to-safety behavior.

This study attempts to reconcile the conflicting theoretical predictions regarding how government ownership affects bank capital behaviour. Using a unique Chinese bank dataset over 2006–2015 we find that government-owned banks have higher target capital ratios and adjust these ratios faster compared to private banks, supporting the ‘development/political’ view of the government’s role in banking. This effect is stronger for local government-owned and state enterprise-owned banks than for central government-owned banks. We also find that undercapitalized government-owned banks increase equity while undercapitalized foreign banks contract assets and liabilities as their respective main strategy to adjust their capital ratios.

Employing data of one belt one road (OBOR) countries from 2002 to 2013, this study compares the contagious corruption difference between geographic border and distance through the dynamic spatial econometric model. The empirical results not only confirm that corruption in OBOR countries exists under various contagious channels, but also indicate that border effects, serving as contagious channels for corruption, are better than distance effects. The empirical implication is that OBOR countries with a common border tend to possess contagious corruption due to the hosts’ demonstration effect and the convenience of transferring illegal assets. We advise that those OBOR countries should enhance the supervision of cash flow, look for any opportunity of kicking back a portion of the stolen money, and establish a specific task force on corruption.

Foreign body removal is a challenging procedure. Firstly we have to identify properly the foreign body and the position of the obstruction. Secondly we have to choose the proper removal equipment and finally the appropriate method of patient ventilation during the procedure. In our case report we present a challenging procedure with the removal of a metallic needle with minimum resources and equipment in a young girl in Djibouti, Africa. Keywords: Foreign body, Bronchoscopy, Biopsy forceps

This paper combines the static effect of ownership and the dynamic effect of privatization on bank performance in China over 1995–2010, reporting a significantly higher performance by private intermediaries – joint stock commercial banks and city commercial banks – relative to state-owned commercial banks. However, publicly traded banks, subject to multiple monitoring and vetting in capital markets, perform better regardless of ownership status. The privatization of banks has improved performance with respect to revenue inflow and efficiency gains in the short- or long-run (initial public offerings). The positive long-run effect is more relevant and significant for banking institutions with minority foreign ownership. Moreover, this paper innovatively estimates interest income efficiency and non-interest income efficiency at the same time. The results suggest that Chinese banks are much more efficient in generating interest income than raising non-interest revenue, although the latter aspect has improved significantly during the sample period.

One main objective of banking reform in China is to improve bank performance so that the banking sector could allocate capital more efficiently. While three decades of reform give rise to a number of important research questions, this chapter addresses the following three issues: Has the banking reform been motivated by the agency theory and the budget constraint theory? Has the banking sector become more efficient? What impact has the privatization strategy had on bank efficiency? This chapter starts with an introduction of the efficiency concept and a brief literature review on bank efficiency in Sect. 3.1. After outlining research methodology in Sect. 3.2, this chapter empirically tests for whether banking reform strategies have been motivated by the agency theory and/or the budgetary constraint theory in Sect. 3.3. The privatization of state banks has been the focus of banking reform to alleviate the agency problem and to harden budget constraints aiming at improving bank efficiency. Partial privatization has led to significant changes in banking, and this chapter examines how concrete privatization strategies affect bank cost and profit efficiency in the short run and in the long run in Sect. 3.4. Section 3.5 concludes.

Banks are the cornerstone of the financial system, especially in developing countries where capital markets are underdeveloped. The global financial crisis in 2007–2008 caused great turmoil in the banking sectors of the developed world with the clustered collapses of international financial giants in the advanced economies. However, there have been fewer bank failures in transitional and emerging economies and it is important to understand the role of the banking sector in developing countries and transitional and emerging economies. This chapter takes a comparative approach and puts Chinese banking into the context of the emerging economies. The importance of the banking systems in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (hereinafter the BRIC refers to Brazil Russia, India, and China and the BRICS includes South Africa) has been rising in the global banking marketplace, noticeably witnessed by the launch of the New Development Bank in 2015. Moreover, BRICS’ banking sectors have withstood the storm wave of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis without major bank failures. This chapter, in particular, examines the impact of bank risk-taking and market concentration on bank performance from the perspective of emerging economies. The rest of this chapter unfolds as follows. Section 4.1 reviews related literature on developing countries and transitional and emerging economies. Section 4.2 introduces the economies and the evolutionary background of the banking systems in BRICS. Section 4.3 outlines the research methodology—the output distance function approach—and describes data. Section 4.4 discusses empirical results, and Sect. 4.5 concludes.

Over the last few decades, the financial system has gone through enormous transformation due to a number of driving forces, such as globalization, financial liberalization, financial innovation, and technological advancement. Development in information and communication technologies has blurred the boundaries of different segments of the financial system. Both banks and non-bank institutions/intermediaries take advantage of arbitrage opportunities in information, regulation, price and taxation systems and engage in off-balance sheet activities for profit. Financial institutions have become more closely interconnected in a global network through financial derivatives and highly leveraged products. The disastrous global financial crisis in 2008–2009 showed the contagion effect among the financial systems in major developed economies, for which shadow banking activities have been considered by many scholars and authorities as one of the important causes for the crisis. Subsequently, the shadow banking system has become the centre of the governments’ emergency policy in response to the crisis.

Competition is important in any industry, with impacts on a wide range of issues such as productivity, innovation, and consumer welfare. In banking, competition is even more important because of its externalities beyond the banking industry. Anti-competitive behaviour of banks may have far-reaching influences on social welfare and well-being of the economy with implications for not only banking and financial services sector regulation and supervision but also financial stability and macroeconomic policy. The market-oriented banking reform in China started from deregulation in order to increase competition in the sector. After more than two decades of reform, the banking sector has undergone significant changes and it is of great interest to understand whether the sector has become more competitive. This chapter addresses this issue by assessing the degree of banking competition and its evolution over the period 1995–2015 using multiple competition measures.

In the past decade, the financial services industry has changed significantly, especially after the 2008 global financial crisis. The emergence of FinTech has been enabled by a “perfect storm” of rising customer expectations for services, increased access to VC funding, reduced barriers to entry, and accelerated technological advancements (World FinTech Report, Capgemini Consulting Technology Outsourcing, 2017). The dramatic rise of FinTech opens up a revolutionary means of financing and global FinTech investment continues to grow; it reached $15 billion by mid-August 2016 (The Fintech Ecosystem Report, Business Insider’s premium research service, 2016). More than 80% of global financial services companies consider their business at risk and plan to increase FinTech partnerships with tech companies to avoid losing revenue to innovators (Redrawing the lines: FinTech’s growing influence on Financial Services, Global FinTech Report, 2017). As mainstream financial institutions adopt new business models and emerging technologies, FinTech and the financial industry become more integrated. The influence of FinTech on the markets is growing with significant long-term potential.

This book presents a series of our studies on various aspects of the Chinese banking industry over the last 15 years. It starts from the economic and banking sector reform, which matches China’s long-term ambition to build a modern financial services industry. When we initially started our research on the Chinese banking industry, we encountered two important international events. The first was China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, forcing the authorities to gradually open up for international competition and inward foreign direct investment into the otherwise tightly controlled domestic financial market; and the second was the world financial crisis triggered by the US subprime crisis in 2007.

This paper examines the effects of corporate governance on bank performance in China over the period 1995-2008. Bank performance has improved significantly and the mean profit efficiency level is estimated at 61 per cent. The results suggest that differences in corporate governance have significant impacts on bank performance: banks with majority foreign ownership are most profitable while banks with majority state ownership are most unprofitable. We find no evidence that foreign minority ownership in domestic banks improves performance. Banks with more dispersed ownership are found to be more profit efficient.

Objectives To investigate the impact of exposure to the phytoestrogen daidzein on erectile function and sexual hormones. The negative effects of phytoestrogens on the male reproductive system, particularly on penile erection, have hardly been evaluated. Methods Thirty adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were equally divided into a normal control group, three experimental groups, and one positive control group. The three experimental groups were given daidzein at doses of 2, 20, and 100 mg/kg body weight daily, and the positive control group received 0.1 mg diethylstilbestrol per animal daily for 90 days. The apomorphine-induced erection test was performed 0, 30, 60, and 90 days after daidzein administration to evaluate for erectile function or dysfunction. After each test, blood samples were collected for plasma testosterone and luteinizing hormone measurement. Results High-dose daidzein (100 mg/kg) decreased erectile responses to apomorphine from the 30th day of daidzein treatment and lasted to the 90th day without significant differences compared with the diethylstilbestrol-treated rats. However, similar changes were observed in the medium-dose daidzein (20 mg/kg) group from the 60th day. Low-dose daidzein (2 mg/kg) had no significant effect on the erectile responses to apomorphine compared with the normal control group ( P >0.05). The plasma testosterone and luteinizing hormone levels showed a declining trend similar to that of the apomorphine-induced erections. Conclusions The phytoestrogen daidzein has the potential to adversely affect erectile function in a dose and time-related manner that is at least partly attributable to androgen deficiency. These findings implicate that phytoestrogens, especially isoflavones, if overconsumed for a long period, might be a novel risk factor for erectile dysfunction.

After joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001, China was given 5 years to completely open up its banking market for international competition. Chinese banks have been renowned for their mounting nonperforming loans and low efficiency. Despite gradual reforms, the banking system is still dominated by state ownership and encapsulated monopolistic control. How to raise efficiency is a key to the survival and success of domestic banks, especially the state-owned commercial banks. Two important factors may be responsible for raising efficiency: ownership reform and hard budget constraints. This article uses a panel data of 22 banks over the period 1995 to 2001, and employs a stochastic frontier production function to investigate the effects of ownership structure and hard budget constraint on efficiency. Empirical results suggest that nonstate banks were 8–18% more efficient than state banks, and that banks facing a harder budget tend to perform better than those heavily capitalized by the ...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of capital structure using a cross-section sample of 1,481 non-financial firms listed on the Chinese stock exchanges in 2011. Design/methodology/approach – Employing four leverage measures (total leverage and long-term leverage in terms of both book value and market value, respectively) this study examines the effects of factors with proven influences on capital structure in literature, along with industry effect and ownership effect. Findings – The authors find that large firms favour debt financing while profitable firms rely more on internal capital accumulation. Intangibility and business risk increase the level of debt financing but tax has little impact on capital structure. The authors also observe strong industrial effect and ownership effect. Real estate firms borrow considerably more and firms from utility and manufacturing industries use more long-term debt despite compared with commercial firms. On the other hand, firms with state ownership tend to borrow more, while firms with foreign ownership choose more equity financing. Research limitations/implications – The study uses cross-section data to avoid any potential time effects, which allows the authors to focus on their main research question – to identify the determinants of capital structure for Chinese firms. Future research may gain more insights using panel data and considering other factors such as crisis and financial reforms. Practical implications – These results may provide important implications to investors in making investment decision and to firms in making financing decisions. Originality/value – This paper uses by far the largest and latest cross-section sample from the Chinese stock markets, offering a more complete picture of the financing behaviours in the Chinese firms, with known characters and the impact of ownerships.

This paper examines the role of total factor productivity (TFP) in China’s miraculous growth during 1997-2012 and reports that 16% of the GDP growth is driven by the TFP growth, dominated by technological progress. The TFP growth varies significantly across regions and is positively influenced by human capital, innovations and import of machinery, and negatively affected by financial development and exports with little influence from FDI, infrastructure and market competition. It also reports tentative evidence for a weak spillover effect of FDI conditional on the level of financial development and a negative counteractive effect of import of machinery and human capital.

We investigate ownership effects on capital and adjustments speed to the target capital ratio in China from 2000 to 2012 and find that state-owned banks hold higher levels of capital than banks of other ownership types. Foreign banks are more highly capitalized than local non-state banks but under-capitalized compared with the bigger non-state banks with nationwide presence. Foreign banks adjust risk-weighted capital towards their optimal targets at a slower speed than domestic banks, while foreign minority ownership results in a faster adjustment process. Capital is positively influenced by profitability, asset diversification and liquidity risk, but negatively influenced by bank market power. Capital ratios typically co-move with the business cycle although this relationship is reversed during the crisis period due to active government intervention. Our results are robust to various modelling specifications and have important policy implications. Publication keywords: banking, capital, adjustment, ownership, China

OBJECTIVES Daidzein is a soy isoflavone with estrogenic activity present in plant-based food items and health foods and used as an alternative therapy for cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of daidzein on the cavernosal components, including smooth muscle cells, collagen fibers, and elastic fibers, that are the key structures fundamental for erection. METHODS A total of 30 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were equally divided into a normal control group, three experimental groups, and one positive control group. The three experimental groups were given daidzein at a dose of 2, 20, and 100 mg/kg body weight daily, and the positive control group received 0.1 mg diethylstilbestrol per animal daily for 90 days. The collagen fibers and elastic fibers in the corpora cavernosa were measured using histochemical or immunohistochemical techniques, and their relative contents were evaluated quantitatively or semiquantitatively. RESULTS The relative content of collagen fibers in the corpus cavernosa in rats treated with low-dose daidzein (2 mg/kg) was not significantly different from that of controls, as was the case for the smooth muscle and elastic fiber content (all P >0.05). However, the relative content of the collagen fibers was significantly increased in rats treated with a medium dose (20 mg/kg) and a high dose (100 mg/kg) of daidzein. The smooth muscle cell and elastic fiber content was reduced significantly compared with that of the controls (all P

Employing the one-step stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) approach, this paper examines bank efficiency in China, paying special attention to the ownership, selection effect and dynamic effects of governance changes on bank performance. Bank efficiency has improved over the data period 1995-2008. The estimated average cost and profit efficiencies are 74% and 63% respectively. Joint Stock Commercial Banks (JSCBs) and City Commercial Banks (CCBs) outperform State-owned Commercial Banks (SOCBs). The results suggest a strong selection effect for foreign investors. Foreign ownership participation has a negative effect on profit efficiency in the long-term while initial public offerings (IPOs) improve bank profitability in the short-term. The research findings have important implications on future bank reforms in China in the aftermath of the current financial crisis.