Yes / In this paper, using China’s risk-free and corporate zero yields together with aggregate credit risk measures and various control variables from 2006 to 2013, we document a puzzle of counter-credit-risk corporate yield spreads. We interpret this puzzle as a symptom of the immaturity of China’s credit bond market, which reveals a distorted pricing mechanism latent in the fundamental of this market. We also find interesting results about relationships between corporate yield spreads and interest rates as well as risk premia and the stock index, and these results are somewhat attributed to this puzzle.

No / Mechanochemical chemoenzymatic peptide and amide bond formation catalysed by papain was studied by ball milling. Despite the high-energy mixing experienced inside the ball mill, the biocatalyst proved stable and highly efficient to catalyse the formation of α,α- and α,β-dipeptides. This strategy was further extended to the enzymatic acylation of amines by milling, and to the mechanosynthesis of a derivative of the valuable dipeptide L-alanyl-L-glutamine. / We thank RWTH Aachen University for support from the Distinguished Professorship Program funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. EPSRC, grant no. EP/L019655/1.

No / This study investigates the interfacial characteristics between aggregates and cement paste matrix in nanofillers modified concrete. A three-point bend test on the specimens composed of two pieces of aggregates bonded with a thin layer of cement pastes with/without nanofillers was carried out to characterize the interfacial bond strength of the composites. The scanning electron microscope observations and energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry analysis were also performed to characterize the interfacial microstructures and compositions of the composites. The experimental results indicated that the nanocomposites have higher interfacial bond strength and narrower interfacial transition zone thickness as well as more optimized intrinsic compositions and microstructures than that of composites without nanofillers. Specifically, the interfacial bond strength of nanocomposites can reach 7.67 MPa, which is 3.03 MPa/65.3% higher than that of composites without nanofillers. The interfacial transition zone thickness of nanocomposites ranges from 9 μm to 12 μm, while that of composites without nanofillers is about 18 μm. The ratio of CaO to SiO2 in the interface of composites without nanofillers is 0.69, and that of nanocomposites increases to 0.75–1.12. Meanwhile, the nanofiller content in nanocomposite interface is 1.65–1.98 times more than that in the bulk matrix. The interfacial microstructures of nanocomposites are more compact and the content and crystal size of calcium hydroxide were significantly reduced compared with that of composites without nanofillers. / National Science Foundation of China (51978127 and 51908103), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019M651116).

No / As the weakest zone in concrete, the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) between aggregates and cement mortars has important effects on the properties of concrete. This paper aims to investigate the effects and mechanisms of nanofillers on the bond strength and interfacial microstructures between aggregates and cement mortars. A total of 8 representative types of nanofillers (namely nano-SiO2, nano-TiO2, nano-ZrO2, untreated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), hydroxyl-functionalized MWCNTs, nickel-coated MWCNTs, multi-layer graphenes (MLGs), and nano boron nitride (nano-BN)) were selected to fabricate specimens with scale-up aggregate-cement mortar interface that can be characterized by the three-point bend test. The experimental results indicate that all types of nanofillers can enhance the bond strength between aggregates and cement mortars. The highest relative/absolute increases of 2.1 MPa/35.1%, 2.32 MPa/38.8% and 2.56 MPa/42.8% in interfacial bond strength are achieved by incorporating 2 wt% of nano-ZrO2, 0.3 wt% of nickel-coated MWCNTs, and 0.3 wt% of nano-BN, respectively. Scanning electron microscope observations show the presence of nanofillers can improve hydration products and increase interfacial compactness. Energy dispersive spectrometer results suggest that local content of nanofillers in the ITZ is higher than that in the bulk cement mortars. These findings indicate the nanofillers can transfer with water migration toward aggregates and enrich in ITZ, thus improving the bond strength and interfacial microstructures between aggregates and cement mortars through the nano-core effect. / National Science Foundation of China (51978127 and 51578110), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China(DUT18GJ203)

Yes / This study investigates the interfacial characteristics between aggregates and cement paste matrix in nanofillers modified concrete. A three-point bend test on the specimens composed of two pieces of aggregates bonded with a thin layer of cement pastes with/without nanofillers was carried out to characterize the interfacial bond strength of the composites. The scanning electron microscope observations and energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry analysis were also performed to characterize the interfacial microstructures and compositions of the composites. The experimental results indicated that the nanocomposites have higher interfacial bond strength and narrower interfacial transition zone thickness as well as more optimized intrinsic compositions and microstructures than that of composites without nanofillers. Specifically, the interfacial bond strength of nanocomposites can reach 7.67 MPa, which is 3.03 MPa/65.3% higher than that of composites without nanofillers. The interfacial transition zone thickness of nanocomposites ranges from 9 μm to 12 μm, while that of composites without nanofillers is about 18 μm. The ratio of CaO to SiO2 in the interface of composites without nanofillers is 0.69, and that of nanocomposites increases to 0.75–1.12. Meanwhile, the nanofiller content in nanocomposite interface is 1.65–1.98 times more than that in the bulk matrix. The interfacial microstructures of nanocomposites are more compact and the content and crystal size of calcium hydroxide were significantly reduced compared with that of composites without nanofillers. / The National Science Foundation of China (51978127 and 51908103), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019M651116).

Yes / Literature solubilities and NMR and IR studies have been used to obtain properties or descriptors of edaravone. These show that edaravone has a significant hydrogen bond acidity so that it must exist in solution partly as the OH and NH forms, as found by Freyer et al. Descriptors have been assigned to the keto form which has a low hydrogen bond acidity, and which is the dominant form in nonpolar solvents. Physicochemical properties of the keto form can be been calculated such as solubilities in nonpolar solvents, partition coefficients from water to nonpolar solvents, and partition coefficients from air to biological phases.

Yes / The bond between FRP bars and concrete, the foremost performance for implementation of such reinforcements to corrosion-free concrete structures, is still unsatisfied due to the weak nature of duplex film in the interface. The existing approaches show low efficiency in improving the microstructures and bond between FRP bars and concrete. To address these issues, this paper provided a new approach for improving the bond between FRP bars and concrete by incorporating nanomaterials, as well as explored the modifying mechanisms and established the bond-slip models. For these purposes, the pull-out test, scanning electron microscope observation, as well as energy dispersive spectrometry analysis were performed. The experimental results demonstrated that the presence of nanomaterials increased the ultimate bond strengths between glass/carbon FRP bars and concrete by up to 16.2% and 37.8%, while the corresponding slips decreased by 28.7% and 35.4%, respectively. Such modification effects can be attributed to the optimized intrinsic composition and the reduced pore content of hydration products in the interface, especially in the duplex film, through the nanomaterial enrichment and nano-core effects. The bond-slip relationship between FRP bars and concrete with nanomaterials can be accurately predicted by the mBPE model. / The authors would like to thank the funding offered by the National Science Foundation of China (51978127 and 51908103), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (DUT21RC(3) 039).

Computational chemistry examination of the bond dissociation enthalpies of tungsten and main group elements. Includes quantification and calibration of theoretical methods to address the question of bond strengths including component σ and π molecular bonds.

How Bank Competition Influences Financial Stability Abstract This paper investigates the link between financial stability and bank competition by means of the Arellano & Bond (1991) GMM model using annual panel data over the period 2000 - 2014 for 205 countries. Our data source is a new, richer and updated dataset The Global Financial Development Database available at World Bank. Due to the specifics of this dataset we are able to use new combinations of measures of financial stability and of bank competition and to study their relationship in greater depth. We find a positive link between financial stability and bank competition. Furthermore, our results provide evidence that it matters what measures of financial stability and bank competition we apply. Lastly, we ascertain that the relationship between financial stability and bank competition does not change over time. Keywords Financial Stability, Bank Competition, Dynamic GMM, the Arellano and Bond Estimator Author's e-mail VildovaRomana@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail Roman.Horvath@gmail.com

<p>Even though today´s world unwinds on the increasing way of the globalisation, investors are aware of the possibilities the international markets offer and distance is not an issue any more, they are still governed by the “home bias factor“. This phenomenon implies that investors tend to prefer investing in domestic securities rather than entering the global market. Swedish investors are not the exception and the issue of the attraction of foreign fixed income securities is highlighted even more when we have found out there is lack of academic research about the topic from the perspective of Swedish investors. To narrow down the research subject and provide a reader with an interesting approach, we decided to examine the attraction of foreign government bonds from the perspective of Swedish investors.</p><p>At the beginning of the paper we raised three research questions and defined the objective of the paper in questioning the existence of reasons to invest in foreign government bonds. Another research question was defined as identifying our local investor, who is entering the global market and last, but not least, what investing strategy do we recommend him to follow.</p><p>Along the paper we proposed to apply a decent level of informative as well as a scientific approach to provide a reader with a valuable study concerning pre-defined topic. To reach more concrete outcomes of the study we have accepted couple of assumtions which we have identified ourselves with and we have stressed them especially during the theoretical part of the paper.</p><p>After conducting the comprehensive analysis of the Swedish market for government bonds we have identified a huge gap between the demand and supply for such bonds and based on the discussion concerning the opportunities and risks connected with such investments we have defined our investor. Under given assumptions, as the most probable case of occurance we consider a rational investor, who is offsetting the balance of interest rate sensitive assets and liabilities simultaneously looking for the best possible yield, the lowest possible risk and sound level of diversification.</p><p>During the empirical analysis, namely examination of the national yield curves we set first, however very limited investment strategy. After the incorporation of the portfolio theory, currency rate risk and the existence of instruments covering the foreign currency exposure we have come into a conclusion that our investor does not have to necessarily prefer a security from the depicted efficient frontier, but he can employ other securities as well. As a consequence, when using 100% hedging he can use whichever security on the global market.</p><p>At the conclusion, stated findings imply another investigation, since our research was based on very strong assumptions presented during the study. Thus it by far does not provide the reader with a comprehensive investment analysis, which some readers might be interested in. However, even from the beginning we claimed that we do not have such an ambitious goal.</p>