Search

While there is a proliferation of studies on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), there is a gap in the literature in terms of an exploration of the costs and benefits from the perspective of the energy sector, in both the areas of sectoral development and energy transition. This paper uses Australia as a case study. The paper is the first to quantify the impact of the BRI in the energy sector, and the analysis informs the current debates on the BRI in Australia. We find that energy cooperation under the BRI enhances the performance of energy companies, but the Chinese energy investment in Australia faces mounting challenges. We suggest some areas for cooperation and such cooperation could be extended to third countries. Amid the increasing trade and political tensions, the two countries need continued, level-headed discussions and debates about the potential cooperation areas at all levels.

This paper attempts to explore the direct effects and spill-overs of COVID-19 on stock markets. Using conventional t-tests and non-parametric Mann-Whitney tests, we empirically analyse daily return data from stock markets in the People’s Republic of China, Italy, South Korea, France, Spain, Germany, Japan and the United States of America. Our empirical results show that (i) COVID-19 has a negative but short-term impact on stock markets of affected countries and that (ii) the impact of COVID-19 on stock markets has bidirectional spill-over effects between Asian countries and European and American countries. However, there is no evidence that COVID-19 negatively affects these countries’ stock markets more than it does the global average. The findings contribute to the research on economic impact of the pandemic by providing empirical evidence that COVID-19 has spill-over effects on stock markets of other countries. The results also provide a basis for assessing trends in international stock markets when the situation is alleviated worldwide.

We estimate the time-varying co-movements of a large set of bilateral exchange rates/the RMB and explore their relationship with the firm-level exchange rate exposure in China. We find that firms’ exchange rate exposure increases in periods of high exchange rate co-movements. The co-movements of emerging market (EME) currencies have a weaker effect on exposure than the co-movements of developed market (DM) currencies. This effect is more pronounced after the launch of the One Belt One Road initiative, RMB inclusion in the SDR basket and in highly multinational firms, providing evidence that the RMB’s internationalization (i.e., its anchoring effect) has generally helped to reduce Chinese firms’ exposure to exchange rate fluctuations of EME currencies.

Background: Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19 have been reported. Treating patients with COVID-19 is high cost, so investigating the risk factors for prolonged hospital length of stay (LOS) is useful. Knowing these risk factors could help identify COVID-19 patients with a poor prognosis early and thus improve outcomes for these patients. Methods: This retrospective study involved patients with COVID-19 laboratory-confirmed from the infectious Diseases Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of the University of Scienc and Technology of China, Hefei (discharged from January 20 to March 16, 2020). Demographic, clinical treatment, and laboratory data were extracted from medical records. Prolonged LOS was defined as equal to or greater than the median inhospitable stay time. We used univariable and multivariable logistic regression to explore risk factors associated with prolonged hospital LOS. Adjusted odds ratios (aORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated. Results: The median age of the 75 patients was 47 (interquartile range 31-54) years (range 5 to 91), and 57% were male. About 75% of the patients had mild or general disease. Odds of prolonged LOS was associated with female sex (aOR 0.19, 95%CI 0.05-0.63, p =0.01), fever (aOR 8.27, 95%CI 1.47-72.16, p = 0.028), and chronic kidney or liver disease on admission (aOR 13.73, 95%CI 1.95-145.4, p =0.015) as well as each 1-unit increase in creatinine level (aOR 0.94, 95% CI 0.9-0.98, p =0.007). Conclusions: Female sex, fever, chronic kidney or liver disease before admission and increasing creatinine level were associated with prolonged LOS in patients with COVID-19. Future research should evaluate and support interventions and treatments to improve outcomes for these high-risk groups. Funding Statement: This study received the following funding: Natural Science Foundation of China (11801540), Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong (2017A030310572) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (WK2040170015, WK2040000016), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province (2017A010101030), the third Medical technology projects of Shantou City in 2018. Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: The study was approved by the Research Ethics Commission of the First Affiliated Hospital of the University of Science and Technology of China (2020-P-018) and the requirement for informed consent was waived by the ethics commission.

Reconfigurable FSS is an important research direction of FSS research. The reconfigurable FSS can be changed to a suitable resonant frequency, bandwidth or resonant characteristic according to the changing electromagnetic environment, which has wide application value in many electromagnetic engineering environments. The current reconfigurable FSS design can be roughly classified into mechanical and electronically controlled reconfigurable FSS according to the control method. The liquid crystal-based tunable FSS is a kind of electronically controlled reconfigurable FSS. The equivalent dielectric constant of the liquid crystal changes under the action of the bias voltage, thereby changing the resonance characteristics of the FSS. At present, liquid crystal-based tunable FSS is generally tuned by covering a layer of liquid crystal on the FSS unit. This method uses a large amount of liquid crystal material, and the dielectric loss and material cost are high. In this paper, two miniaturized tunable FSS units are designed by loading a small number of liquid crystal cells. The first structure is based on the Jerusalem cross metal patch and the cross metal slit, and is miniaturized by the fractal of the cross-shaped structure, working in the C-band. The size of the structural unit is equivalent to ten of the working wavelength. In one part, the equivalent dielectric constant of the liquid crystal is changed by changing the voltage between the FSS layers, thereby changing the overall resonance frequency of the unit. The results show that the continuous adjustable range of the resonant frequency is 11.8% (compared to the lower resonant frequency). The second structure is based on a fractal mutual-coupled metal patch, which is miniaturized by loading the lumped element capacitance and inductance, and operates in the X-band. The size of the structural unit is equivalent to one-sixteenth of the operating wavelength. The resonance frequency is also adjusted by changing the voltage between the FSS layers. The results show that the continuous adjustable range of the resonant frequency is 11.5% (compared to the lower resonant frequency). The feasibility and rationality of this loading method are verified by two FSS structural designs, which can achieve tunability with less liquid crystal, reduce dielectric loss and material cost, and provide a new design idea for liquid crystal-based tunable FSS design.

Notwithstanding the widely held view that gold and the dollar are negatively correlated, we ask when and why gold and the dollar sometimes depart from their typical inverse relationship and go so far as to move in parallel. Using a threshold vector error correction model (VECM), we investigate the nonlinear relationship between gold and the dollar. We find evidence of short run positive correlation between gold and the dollar under extreme market conditions. Our result suggests that the hedging property of gold is influenced by the gold-dollar threshold process.