We revisit the issue of informational efficiency of Bitcoin using a battery of computationally efficient long-range dependence estimators for a period spanning over July 18, 2010 to June 16, 2017. We ...report that the market is informational efficient as consistent to recent findings of Urquhart (2016), Nadarajah and Chu (2017) and Bariviera (2017).
•We revisit the issue of informational efficiency of Bitcoin.•We use a battery of robust long-range dependence estimators.•We establish efficiency of Bitcoin prices.•Inefficiency exists during April–August, 2013 and August–November, 2016.
We have quantified the influence of different pyrolysis temperature and feedstocks types on thirty six compositional characteristics of biochar. The properties of biochar were principally influenced ...more by the feedstocks type than pyrolytic temperature. Higher porosity and surface area illustrated its soil structural modification and nutrient retention capacity along with their utilization for wastewater adsorbents. The total carbon content in all the biochar increased upto 10.14% with the increase in pyrolysis temperature. The produced biochar can replace the conventional fossil fuels due to their high fixed carbon. The cation exchange capacity of biochar augmented with rise in pyrolysis temperature. But the dissolved organic carbon reduced exponentially with increase in temperature. At low temperature pyrolysis the polarity index tends to increase and vice-versa. All the biochar has a potential to alleviate soil boron deficiency due to its higher concentration. Therefore, dissimilar properties of biochar can be produced by selecting the right feedstock type and standardizing specific pyrolytic temperature, depending on the necessity for environmental application in a specific crisis.
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•Compositional heterogeneity can meet the necessity for environmental application in a specific crisis.•Total carbon (53.30–74.10) in biochar can be used for purification and adsorption due to low sulphur content.•Low atomic O/C (0.04) and H/C (0.28) ratio reflects favourable fuel quality.•Well-established total pores volume (1.37–3.99 cm3 g−1) might promote the methanogenesis procedure.
Understanding the spatial spreading patterns of plant-available sulphur (S) (AS) and plant-available micronutrients (available zinc (AZn), available iron (AFe), available copper (ACu), available ...manganese (AMn) and available boron (AB)) in soils, especially in coastal agricultural soils subjected to various natural and anthropogenic activities, is vital for sustainable crop production by adopting site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) strategies. We studied the spatial distribution patterns of AS, AZn, AFe, ACu, AMn, and AB in cultivated soils of coastal districts of India using geostatistical approaches. Altogether 39,097 soil samples from surface (0 to 15 cm depth) layers were gathered from farm lands of 68 coastal districts. The analysis of soil samples was carried out for soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC), soil organic carbon (SOC) and AS, AZn, AFe, ACu, AMn, and AB. Soil pH, EC and SOC varied from 3.70 to 9.90, 0.01 to 7.45 dS m.sup.-1 and 0.02 to 3.74%, respectively. The concentrations of AS, AZn, AFe, ACu, AMn, and AB varied widely in the study area with their corresponding mean values were 37.4±29.4, 1.50±1.53, 27.9±35.1, 2.14±1.74, 16.9±18.4 and 1.34±1.52 mg kg.sup.-1, respectively. The coefficient of variation values of analyzed soil parameters varied from 14.6 to 126%. The concentrations of AS, AZn, AFe, ACu, AMn, and AB were negatively and significantly correlated with soil pH and positively and significantly correlated with SOC. The geostatistical analysis indicated stable, Gaussian and exponential best-fit semivariogram models with moderate to strong spatial dependence for available nutrients. The generated spatial spreading maps revealed different distribution patterns for AS, AZn, AFe, ACu, AMn, and AB. There were variations in spatial spreading patterns of AS, AZn, AFe, ACu, AMn, and AB in east- and west-coastal area. About 62, 35, 12, 0.4, 23 and 45% of the study area had deficiency of AS, AZn, AFe, ACu, AMn, and AB, respectively. The spatial spreading maps will be highly useful for SSNM in the cultivated coastal soils of the country. This study could also be used as a base for assessing spatial spreading patterns of soil parameters in cultivated coastal areas of other parts of the world.
The global crude oil market has experienced a significant downturn following the novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) in December 2019. Thereafter, all the major oil markets have become extremely ...volatile, and investments in these markets could lead to substantial losses. This paper empirically investigates the time-varying correlations between gold and oil markets to examine whether gold is a safe haven asset for the international crude oil markets during the COVID-19 period. For the purpose of comparison, the safe haven property of Bitcoin is tested as well. The results of the time-varying correlations obtained through the DCC-GARCH model suggest that gold is a safe haven asset for global crude oil markets. Bitcoin, on the other hand, acts only as a diversifier for crude oil. The results further show that the portfolio risk is minimized when investors include oil and gold in their portfolio rather than holding assets in oil and Bitcoin markets. Given that financial downturn, terrorist attacks, pandemics and similar global events often play a crucial role in portfolio risk analysis, our results could be of interest to those who invest in oil, gold and Bitcoin markets.
•Significant downturn in global crude oil market is witnessed onset COVID-19 outbreak.•We examine the safe haven property of gold for crude oil market during this phase.•The performance of gold is compared with Bitcoin.•Gold outperforms Bitcoin as a safe haven asset.
Influenza virus is a common human pathogenic agent that has caused serious respiratory illness and death over the past century and in recent year. Treatment options against pandemic influenza strain ...A/H1N1 are very limited and unsatisfactory. Therefore we have developed iron oxide nanoparticles (IO-NPs) with particle size in the range of 10–15 nm against pandemic influenza strain A/H1N1/Eastern India/66/PR8-H1N1. Cell viability and anti-influenza activity was measured by MTT assay, plaque inhibition and quantifying viral transcripts using quantitative real-time PCR with Iron oxide nanoparticles in a dose- and time-dependent manner. 50% cell viability (TD50) was observed at 4.25 pg ± .2 pg of Iron oxide nanoparticles. The percentage of plaque inhibition relative to the infection and the IC50 (50% virus reduction) of PR8-H1N1strain (0.5 moi) were measured in vitro by the plate forming unit (pfu) in MA104 cells. Finding were observed at 01 pg after 72 h. The Antiviral activity determined by change in viral RNA transcripts within 24 h of virus infection by RT-PCR, 08 fold reductions in virus found when treated with Iron oxide nanoparticles Thus; it opens a new avenue for use of IP-NPs against virus infections.
•Direct seeded rice (DSR) reduced CH4 emission by 82–87% as compared to transplanted puddled rice.•8–11% higher N2O emissions were observed in zero tilled wheat (ZTW) as compared to conventional ...tillage.•Surface application of rice residue and neem oil coated urea in ZTW reduced N2O emission.•Cultivation of rice followed by ZTW led to higher CH4 emission.•ZTW-DSR and ZTW+RR-DSR reduced global warming potential by 44–47%.
Rice–wheat cropping systems (RWCS) of the Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP) of India are tillage, water and energy intensive and an important source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Developing agronomic management in RWCS that lead to minimum adverse impact on soil, enhances water use efficiency, reduces GHG emission and are climate resilient is required. The aim of this study was to evaluate different combinations of GHG mitigation technologies for rice and wheat and to find suitable low carbon options for RWCS in the IGP. Seven management systems i.e. conventionally tilled wheat (CTW); zero tilled wheat (ZTW); transplanted puddled rice (TPR); dry direct seeded rice (DSR); intermittent wetting and drying (IWD); application of neem oil coated urea (NOCU); and surface application of rice residue (RR) were experimented in six combination of rotations CTW-TPR, ZTW-TPR, ZTW-IWD, ZTW-DSR, ZTW+RR-DSR and (ZTW-TPR)+NOCU for two consecutive years. Among these rotations, ZTW-DSR and ZTW+RR-DSR showed the lowest global warming potential (GWP) and GHG intensity in both the years. Adoption of these systems in the Indian-IGP can reduce GWP of the conventional RWCS (CTW-TPR) by 44–47% without any significant loss in the system yield. This was mainly due to significantly low CH4 emission (82.3–87.2%) in DSR as compared to TPR due to prolonged aerobic condition under DSR. However, frequent wetting and drying in DSR led to higher denitrification emissions of N2O (60–70%). Significantly higher emissions of N2O were observed in ZTW treatments (8–11%). NOCU was found effective in reducing N2O emission from ZTW (17.8–20.5%) leading to lower GWP as compared to CTW. Application of rice residue in ZTW treatment also reduced N2O emission (11–12.8%). There was no significant effect of different treatments in rice on GHG emission from the succeeding wheat crop; however, ZTW and ZTW+RR were found to enhance CH4 emission from the succeeding rice treatments.
Photoinduced aryl radical generation is a powerful strategy in organic synthesis that facilitates the formation of diverse carbon‐carbon and carbon‐heteroatom bonds. The synthetic applications of ...photoinduced aryl radical formation in the synthesis of complex organic compounds, including natural products, physiologically significant molecules, and functional materials, have received immense attention. An overview of current developments in photoinduced aryl radical production methods and their uses in organic synthesis is given in this article. A generalized idea of how to choose the reagents and approach for the generation of aryl radicals is described, along with photoinduced techniques and associated mechanistic insights. Overall, this article offers a critical assessment of the mechanistic results as well as the selection of reaction parameters for specific reagents in the context of radical cascades, cross‐coupling reactions, aryl radical functionalization, and selective C−H functionalization of aryl substrates.
Photoinduced Generation of Aryl Radical and Applications: Generation of aryl radicals under photosensitized, photoinitiated, and direct or indirect photoredox‐catalyzed conditions are reviewed. The utilization of aryl radicals in various reactions is demonstrated with examples.
This research proposes a differential evolution-based regression framework for forecasting one day ahead price of Bitcoin. The maximal overlap discrete wavelet transformation first decomposes the ...original series into granular linear and nonlinear components. We then fit polynomial regression with interaction (PRI) and support vector regression (SVR) on linear and nonlinear components and obtain component-wise projections. The sum of these projections constitutes the final forecast. For accurate predictions, the PRI coefficients and tuning of the hyperparameters of SVR must be precisely estimated. Differential evolution, a metaheuristic optimization technique, helps to achieve these goals. We compare the forecast accuracy of the proposed regression framework with six advanced predictive modeling algorithms- multilayer perceptron neural network, random forest, adaptive neural fuzzy inference system, standalone SVR, multiple adaptive regression spline, and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator. Finally, we perform the numerical experimentation based on—(1) the daily closing prices of Bitcoin for January 10, 2013, to February 23, 2019, and (2) randomly generated surrogate time series through Monte Carlo analysis. The forecast accuracy of the proposed framework is higher than the other predictive modeling algorithms.
Label-free biosensors are plagued by the issue of non-specific protein binding which negatively affects sensing parameters such as sensitivity, selectivity, and limit-of-detection. In the current ...work, we explore the possibility of using the Rayleigh waves in ST-Quartz devices to efficiently remove non-specifically bound proteins via acoustic streaming. A coupled-field finite element (FE) fluid structure interaction (FSI) model of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) device based on ST-Quartz substrate in contact with a liquid loading was first used to predict trends in forces related to SAW-induced acoustic streaming. Based on model predictions, it is found that the computed SAW body force is sufficient to overcome adhesive forces between particles and a surface while lift and drag forces prevent reattachment for a range of SAW frequencies. We further performed experiments to validate the model predictions and observe that the excitation of Rayleigh SAWs removed non-specifically bound (NSB) antigens and antibodies from sensing and non-sensing regions, while rinsing and blocking agents were ineffective. An amplified RF signal applied to the device input disrupted the specific interactions between antigens and their capture antibody as well. ST-quartz allows propagation of Rayleigh and leaky SH-SAW waves in orthogonal directions. Thus, the results reported here could allow integration of three important biosensor functions on a single chip, i.e., removal of non-specific binding, mixing, and sensing in the liquid phase.
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