Assessing the Effect of Bilateral Trade on Health in the Asian Region: Does Digitization Matter?

A recurrent theme of the literature and wider public discourse is that trade and digitization are good for health as it promotes economic prosperity. The present study investigates the impact of trade and digitization on health in 12 selected Asian economies for the period 1991–2019. The study applied FMOLS and DOLS approaches for confirming the panel and economy-wise findings. The core findings of the panel FMOLS confirm the significant negative impact of trade and digitization on mortality rate, and trade and digitization have significantly positively contributed to life expectancy in selected Asian countries in the long run. The study deduces some imperative policy implications related to trade, digitization, and health, specifically for Asian economies.

Intense ocean freshening from melting glacier around the Antarctica during early twenty-first century

With the accelerating mass loss of Antarctic ice sheets, the freshening of the Southern Ocean coastal oceans (SOc, seas around Antarctica) is gradually intensifying, which will reduce the formation of bottom water and weaken the meridional overturning circulation, thus having a significant negative impact on the ocean’s role in regulating global climate. Due to the extreme environment of the Southern Ocean and the limitations of observational techniques, our understanding of the glacier-derived freshening of SOc is still vague. We developed a method that first provided us with an expansive understanding of glacier-derived freshening progress over the SOc. Applying this method to the observational data in the SOc from 1926 to 2016, revealed that the rate of glacier-derived freshwater input reached a maximum of 268 ± 134 Gt year−1 during the early twenty-first century. Our results indicate that during the same period, glacier melting accounted for 63%, 28%, and 92% of the total freshening occurred in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific sectors of the SOc, respectively. This suggests that the ice shelf basal melt in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula plays a dominant role in the freshening of the surrounding seas.

Acceptance of Digital Sports: A Study Showing the Rising Acceptance of Digital Health Activities Due to the SARS-CoV-19 Pandemic

In pandemic times, the possibilities for conventional sports activities are severely limited; many sports facilities are closed or can only be used with restrictions. To counteract this lack of health activities and social exchange, people are increasingly adopting new digital sports solutions—a behavior change that had already started with the trend towards fitness apps and activity trackers. Existing research suggests that digital solutions increase the motivation to move and stay active. This work further investigates the potentials of digital sports incorporating the dimensions gender and preference for team sports versus individual sports. The study focuses on potential users, who were mostly younger professionals and academics. The results show that the SARS-CoV-19 pandemic had a significant negative impact on sports activity, particularly on persons preferring team sports. To compensate, most participants use more digital sports than before, and there is a positive correlation between the time spent physically active during the pandemic and the increase in motivation through digital sports. Nevertheless, there is still considerable skepticism regarding the potential of digital sports solutions to increase the motivation to do sports, increase performance, or raise a sense of team spirit when done in groups.

Can Marketization Improve Sustainable Development in Northeastern China? Evidence from the Perspective of Coupling Coordination Degree Model

With the acquisition of sustainable development, pursuing the coordinated development of social economy and ecological environment has been a critical approach of Northeastern China. Since the reform and opening-up, marketization has profoundly affected the regional social economy. However, what role will marketization play in regional sustainable development? Can marketization improve sustainable development measured by the coupling coordination degree? This paper adopts the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) to estimate the coupling coordination degree and further explore the impact of marketization on the coupling coordination degree in Northeastern China from 1994 to 2019. The results show that the average values of the static coupling degree (SCD), dynamic coupling degree (DCD), and coupling coordination degree (CCD) remained in a tiny coordinated state, which indicated that the level of sustainable development in Northeastern China is presented still primary from 1990 to 2019. Marketization has a significant negative impact on the coupling coordination degree, which indicates that marketization should be considered in the process of sustainable development in Northeastern China.

Impact of Executive Remuneration and Firm Leverage on Firm Stability: Lessons from European Firms

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of executive remuneration and firms’ leverage on firms’ stability as measured by winsorized Zscore (wZscore). The wZscore measure corresponds to the Altman Zscore, which increases as default risk decreases. To test the study’s hypotheses, a linear regression model is applied to a 6-year panel dataset of 180 listed firms categorized in 10 economic sectors operating in 22 countries from the years 2013 to 2018. The results show that executive remuneration has a significant negative impact on firm stability as measured by wZscore. Additionally, firm leverage has a significant positive impact on firm stability. Beyond the theoretical implications, the findings of this study have some practical implications that are particularly relevant to boards of directors, shareholders, managers, and policymakers. The findings suggest that executives should be offered a proper remuneration package to maintain their firms’ stability along with the capacity of firms’ equity and assets to cope up with unprecedented circumstances and the firms’ long-term debts. Finally, this study offers specific recommendations for how firms can balance their pay and performance in terms of executive remuneration and ensure better leverage to optimize their own and society's sustainable development.

Adaptive Strategies of Small Family Farms in the Face of Climate Change

Climate change is now an accepted reality. It is felt globally through increased temperature and precipitation regime disruption and increased frequency of extreme events such as floods and droughts. In the absence of effective mitigation and adaptation actions, these changes could have significant negative impact on the sustainability of agriculture and the resilience of populations especially in areas with fragile ecology. However, these changes remain an issue that is difficult to grasp and still not well integrated into management strategies at the farm, sector, and territory levels. The objectives of this research are to describe the production systems, and to study the resilience strategies, perception, and adaptive practices of farms in the Tleta watershed in Northwest Morocco in the face of climate change and landscape dynamics. It describes farming systems and activities, attempts to analyze how farmers perceive global changes in their landscape, and adopts innovative strategies and practices to adapt to them. It also shows that the actions of institutional actors in the area that can contribute to the resilience of the populations are numerous but remain fragmentary and lack integration.

Trade Openness, Foreign Direct Investment and Sustainable Agriculture in Africa

This study applied a panel data of 37 African countries in examining the impact of trade openness and foreign direct investment on sustainable agriculture towards the attainment of the United Nation (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially, SDG-2, with the aim of ending extreme hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Data for the study was sourced from the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) and World Development Indicators (WDI) of the World Bank, for the period 2005 – 2019. To control for endogeneity, the study engaged the system Generalised Method of Moments (GMM). The result shows that FDI and trade openness have significant negative impact on agricultural sustainability in Africa. This result implies that, increase in FDI may decrease agricultural sustainability by 0.00294%, while increase in trade openness may lower agricultural sustainability by 0.430066 %. Therefore, the study concludes that while trade openness is negative, policy to raise local production towards export promotion should be encouraged. In addition, FDI should be encouraged to augment local employment and investment towards increasing output and productivity in the Africa region.

Nature of Academic Programs, Epistemological Beliefs and Their Impact on Pakistani University Students’ Academic Performance

The students’ academic behaviours and academic performance differ with their epistemological beliefs. Different social-cultural and educational contexts inculcate differences in students’ epistemological beliefs. However, the impact of the nature of the academic programs on students’ epistemological beliefs is most obvious. The students of different disciplines can have different epistemological beliefs. These different epistemological beliefs differ in their impact on students’ academic performance and academic behaviour. Hence, the current study evaluated the interrelationships of various educational programs and epistemological beliefs and their importance in students’ academic performance. The volunteer university students provided data about their academic programs, epistemological beliefs, and academic performance. Researchers used the Generalized Structured Component Analysis approach to calculate the suitability of specified measurement and structural models. The impact of subjects of the soft field of study such as Behavioural Sciences, English Literature was negative on naive epistemological beliefs in knowledge structure and omniscient authority compared to subjects of the hard field of studies such as Mathematical, Physical Sciences, and Biological Sciences. The Business Sciences from the soft applied field of study had the least noticeable negative impact on naive epistemological beliefs compared to other subjects of pure soft and pure hard field of studies. Only, the belief in quick learning had a significant negative impact on students’ academic performance.

Clinical and Quality of Life Outcomes among Ixekizumab Treated Psoriasis Patients in a Real-World Setting

Introduction: Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory skin condition that has a significant negative impact on the physical, emotional, and psychosocial well-being of those affected. This study aimed to assess the speed of onset and long-term clinical and quality of life (QOL) outcomes among Ixekizumab (IXE) treated plaque psoriasis patients. Method: A retrospective cohort study was conducted at a single US dermatology referral center. Medical charts were reviewed for adult psoriasis patients starting IXE (index date) between March 22, 2016, and February 28, 2018.Disease severity and QOL data were collected up to one-year pre-IXE initiation and up to 35 months post-IXE initiation. Static Physician Global Assessment (sPGA), Body Surface Area (BSA), and Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) were summarized at 1-month post-index and at 3-month intervals. Logistic regressions were performed to evaluate the 1-month response in relation to long-term sPGA, BSA, and DLQI outcomes. Results: A total of 153 patients (median age at index: 47.7 years; 65.4% male; 93.5% Caucasian) were included in the study. Majority of patients (69%; n=106) were biologic-experienced prior to IXE initiation. At 1-month post-index 58.8% of patients achieved sPGA (0,1), 55.9% achieved DLQI (0,1), and 66.9% achieved BSA≤1%. Patients with sPGA (0,1) at 1-month post-index had greater odds of remaining sPGA (0,1) and BSA≤1% at 24-month (sPGA 0,1: OR=10.1; 95% CI: 2.1-47.9; BSA≤1%: OR=13.3; 95% CI: 2.2-80.2). Among patients who achieved sPGA (0,1) at 1-month post-index, the observed proportion of patients with sPGA (0,1), DLQI (0,1), and BSA≤1% remained largely the same for the 24-month follow-up. Conclusion: This real-world study demonstrated that the majority of patients initiating IXE achieved sPGA (0, 1), DLQI (0, 1) and BSA ≤1% targets within the first month of treatment and were able to maintain treatment response for up to 24 months independent of prior biologic exposure.

Determinants of Banks Profitability: Empirical Evidence from Ghana’s Commercial Banking Industry

Over the years, Ghana’s commercial banking industry has been bedeviled with numerous challenges. The unbridled effect of this is the 2018 banking sector megrim which led to the collapse of seven major banks. This pointed out that it is very crucial to identify and mitigate the factors that negatively affect the performance of the banking sector. This paper is used to investigate the effect of banks specific variables (BSVs) and macroeconomic variables (MEVs) on the profitability of commercial banks (NIM, ROE, and ROA) in Ghana using FRED annual data of 25 years. In order to avoid endogeneity problems and aggregation bias, we used the SURE model to run the estimates simultaneously. The result reveals that profit earned by Ghana’s commercial banks is largely influenced by both internal factors such as KA, AQR, LMGT, MEFFI, and Z-Score and fluctuations in the macroeconomic environment (GDP and FOREX). The impact of KA, LMGT, MEFFI, and Z-score is significantly positive whereas AQR (NPLs) is found to have a negative effect on banks profitability. GDP has a significant negative impact on Ghana’s commercial bank’s profitability whiles forex induced commercial banks profitability positively, but inflation CPI does not determine the profitability of commercial banks in Ghana.