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Over the past several decades, the dichotomy between traditional and emerging donors has been based upon the notion that emerging donors (such as China) support authoritarian regimes and use foreign aid to pursue their economic interests at the expense of the poor in the recipient countries. Accordingly, Western donors, media, and scholars portray Chinese aid as non-poverty-focused. This study aims to review and analyze whether the dichotomy between traditional and emerging donors is still relevant in the current aid system and to propose a new and rigorous criterion for recategorizing donors. In terms of methodology, this study relies on secondary data, including scholarly works on traditional and emerging donors and foreign aid policy documents. Conclusions based on the research indicate that the divide between traditional donors and (re)emerging donors is becoming more ambiguous. The literature review indicates that the two donors’ aids had a mixed impact and that their approaches were similar. This paper highlights the importance of developing different recategorization criteria depending on the impact of aid.

We review some general aspects about the Black–Scholes equation, which is used for predicting the fair price of an option inside the stock market. Our analysis includes the symmetry properties of the equation and its solutions. We use the Hamiltonian formulation for this purpose. Taking into account that the volatility inside the Black–Scholes equation is a parameter, we then introduce the Merton–Garman equation, where the volatility is stochastic, and then it can be perceived as a field. We then show how the Black–Scholes equation and the Merton–Garman one are locally equivalent by imposing a gauge symmetry under changes in the prices over the Black–Scholes equation. This demonstrates that the stochastic volatility emerges naturally from symmetry arguments. Finally, we analyze the role of the volatility on the decisions taken by the holders of the options when they use the solution of the Black–Scholes equation as a tool for making investment decisions.

In the paper carried out by Wenjun et al. [Phys. Rev. A 95, 032124 (2017)], a generalization of the James effective dynamics theory based on a first version of the James method was presented. However, we contend that this is not a very rigorous way of deriving the effective third-order expansion for an interaction Hamiltonian with harmonic time-dependence. In fact, here we show that the third-order Hamiltonian obtained by Wenjun et al. is not Hermitian for general situations when we consider time dependence. Its non-Hermitian nature arises from the foundation of the theory itself. In this comment paper, the most general expression of the effective Hamiltonian expanded up to third order is obtained. Our derived effective Hamiltonian is Hermitian even in situations where we have time dependence.

Corporate leaders are constantly dealing with stress in parallel with continuous decision-making processes. The impact of acute stress on decision-making activities is a relevant area of study to evaluate the impact of the decisions made, and create tools and mechanisms to cope with the inevitable exposure to stress and better manage its impact. The intersection of leadership and neurosciences techniques is called Neuroleadership. In this work, an experiment is proposed to detect and measure the emotional arousal of two groups of business professionals, divided into two groups. The first one is the intervention/stress group, n=30, exposed to stressful conditions, and the control group, n=14, not exposed to stress. The participants are submitted to a sequence of computerized stimuli, such as watching videos, answering survey questions, and making decisions in a realistic office environment. The Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) biosensor monitors emotional arousal in real-time. The experiment design implemented stressors such as visual effects, defacement, unfairness, and time-constraint for the intervention group, followed by decision-making tasks. The results indicate that emotional arousal was statistically significantly higher for the intervention/stress group, considering Shapiro and Mann-Whitney tests. The work indicates that GSR is a reliable stress detector and may be useful to predict negative impacts on executive professionals during decision-making activities.

Human emotions can be associated with decision-making, and emotions can generate behaviors. Due to the fact that it could be biased and exhaustively complex to examine how human beings make choices, it is necessary to consider relevant groups of study, such as stock traders and non-traders in finance. This work aims to analyze the connection between emotions and the decision-making process of investors and non-investors submitted to the same set of stimuli to understand how emotional arousal might dictate the decision process. Neuroscience monitoring tools such as Real-Time Facial Expression Analysis (AFFDEX), Eye-Tracking, and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) were adopted to monitor the related experiments of this paper and its accompanying analysis process. Thirty-seven participants attended the study, 24 were classified as stock traders, and 13 were non-traders; the mean age for the groups was 35 and 25, respectively. The designed experiment initially disclosed a thought-provoking result between the two groups under the certainty and risk-seeking prospect theory; there were more risk-takers among non-investors at 75%, while investors were inclined toward certainty at 79.17%. The implication could be that the non-investing individuals were less complex in thought and therefore pursued higher returns besides a high probability of losing the game. In addition, the automatic emotion classification system indicates that when non-investors confronted a stock trending chart beyond their acquaintance or knowledge, they were psychologically exposed to fear, anger, sadness, and surprise. On the contrary, investors were detected with disgust, joy, contempt, engagement, sadness, and surprise, where sadness and surprise overlapped in both parties. Under time pressure conditions, 54.05% of investors or non-investors tend to make decisions after the peak(s) of emotional arousal. Variations were found in the deciding points of the slopes: 2.70% were decided right after the peak(s), 37.84% waited until the emotions turned stable, and 13.51% were determined as the emotional indicators started to slide downwards. Several combinations of emotional responses were associated with decisions. For example, negative emotions could induce passive decision-making, in this case, to sell the stock; nevertheless, it was also examined that as the slope slipped downwards to a particular horizontal point, the individuals became more optimistic and selected the "BUY" option. Future works may consider expanding the study to larger sample size, different demographic groups, and other biometrics for further analysis and conclusions.

The invention of neuroscience has benefited medical practitioners and businesses in improving their management and leadership. Neuromarketing, a field that combines neuroscience and marketing, helps businesses understand consumer behaviour and how they respond to advertising stimuli. This study aims to investigate the consumer purchase intention and preferences to improve the marketing management of the brand, based on neuroscientific tools such as emotional arousal using Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensors, eye-tracking, and emotion analysis through facial expressions classification. The stimuli for the experiment are two advertisement videos from the Macau tea brand “Guanding Teahouse” followed by a survey. The experiment was conducted on 40 participants. 76.2% of participants that chose the same product in the first survey responded with the same choice of products in the second survey. The GSR peaks in video ad 1 measured a total of 60. On the other hand, video ad 2 counted a total of 55 GSR peaks. The emotions in ad1 and ad2 have similar responses, with an attention percentage of 76%. The results showed that ad1 has a higher engagement time of 11.1% and ad2 has 9.6%, but only 19 of the respondent’s conducted engagement in video ad1, and 31 showed engagement in video ad2. The results demonstrated that although ad 1 has higher engagement rates, the respondents are more attracted to video ad 2. Therefore, ad2 has better marketing power than ad 1. Overall, this study bridges the gap of no previous research on measuring tea brand advertisements with the neuroscientific method. The results provide valuable insights for marketers to develop better advertisements and marketing campaigns and understand consumer preferences by personalising and targeting advertisements based on consumers' emotional responses and behaviour of consumers' purchase intentions. Future research could explore advertisements targeting different demographics.

In any physical system, when we move from short to large scales, new spacetime symmetries emerge which help us to simplify the dynamics of the system. In this letter we demonstrate that certain variations on the symmetries of general relativity at large scales generate the effects equivalent to dark matter ones. In particular, we reproduce the Tully-Fisher law, consistent with the predictions proposed by MOND. Additionally, we demonstrate that the dark matter effects derived in this way are consistent with the predictions suggested by MOND, without modifying gravity.

The pathophysiological mechanisms of arterial hypertension during hemodialysis (HD) in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are still poorly understood. The aim of this study is to investigate physiological, cardiovascular and neuroendocrine changes in patients with ESRD and its correlation with changes in blood pressure (BP) during the HD session. The present study included 21 patients with ESRD undergoing chronic HD treatment. Group A (study) consisted of patients who had BP increase and group B (control) consisted of those who had BP reduction during HD session. Echocardiograms were performed during the HD session to evaluate cardiac output (CO) and systemic vascular resistance (SVR). Before and after the HD session, blood samples were collected to measure brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), catecholamines, endothelin-1 (ET-1), nitric oxide (NO), electrolytes, hematocrit, albumin and nitrogen substances. The mean age of the studied patients was 43±4.9 years, and 54.6% were males. SVR significantly increased in group A (P<0.001). There were no differences in the values of BNP, NO, adrenalin, dopamin and noradrenalin, before and after dialysis, between the two groups. The mean value of ET-1, post HD, was 25.9 pg ml−1 in group A and 13.3 pg ml−1 in group B (P=<0.001). Patients with ESRD showed different hemodynamic patterns during the HD session, with significant BP increase in group A, caused by an increase in SVR possibly due to endothelial dysfunction, evidenced by an increase in serum ET-1 levels.

Quality of life in general population before and during pandemic is topic need to be address by researcher in terms of mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression. The study was carried out among Saudi population. Data were collected from general population using questionnaire during the period from 22 August 2021 to 10th January 2022. As a result, total 214 participants have included in this study. Among them prevalent age group include 40 years (n= 63, 29.4%) shadowed by the age group 25-35 (n= 61, 28.5%) while above 60 years group were least frequent (n= 1, 0.5%). On questioning the applicants whether they were satisfied with their health and how would they rate their quality of life, their answers were as follows: yes, or satisfied (n= 86, 40.2%), very Satisfied (n= 102, 47.7%) Dissatisfied (n= 11, 5.1%) and neither satisfied nor dissatisfied (n= 15, 7%). Due to pandemic, they were rate quality of life very good (n= 94, 43.9%), good (n= 63, 29.4 %) poor (n= 5, 2.3 %) and neither good and nor poor (n= 52, 24.3 %). During pandemic 96 participants feel no change in their weight but 110 participants respond that there is increase in coffee intake during the pandemic. Similarly increased in smoking habits and decrease rate in social activities (n=119,41.4%). The psychosomatic well-being of people has been interrupted by disturbing their social activities during pandemic.

Substitute foods are increasingly popular to reduce our environmental footprint and promote food security. As the world population is expected to grow and food resources become scarce, insects as food have recently gained attention as a viable alternative. In the present study, a model grounded on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is proposed and analyzed through structural equation modeling software (SmartPLS) to assess consumers intentions toward insects as food. Except for subjective norm, both attitude and perceived behavioral control were key determinants of intention and, in turn, of actual use behaviour. Despite insects being consumed in nearly 1/4 of the sample (for instance in Chinese medicine), the study found that respondents were on average relatively unwilling to use them as a dietary habit. Also, it appeared that men were more likely to consume insects as food than women. The insights of our study have important implications for practitioners and policymakers seeking to promote sustainable nutritional practices among consumers. This study is particularly relevant for Macau, as the city positions itself as a "UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy" with the aim to develop internationally a unique and sustainable food image.

Peer-rewieved journal

The question of how to adequately integrate environment and labor provisions in free trade agreements is still a difficult one for both States and academicians. This article explores China’s approach to environment and labor issues in free trade agreements. For reference and comparison, it relies on the European Union’s and the United States’ approaches in their respective FTAs. The article identifies China’s preference for a case-by-case approach to the inclusion of environmental chapters in its FTAs. Additionally, in most FTAs it avoids to include provisions on labor standards. These two preferences represent major divergences from the European Union’s and the United States’ approaches, characterized by inclusion of chapters on environment and labor in all their modern FTAs. The article also finds that China’s FTAs rely solely on consultations and cooperation for the implementation of environmental and labor provisions, within the framework of Joint Committees and avoid the inclusion of civil society mechanisms. Moreover, resolution of disputes relies exclusively on consultations, in a diverse procedure than the one applicable to trade disputes. Despite alignment with the European Union model, this is another major point of divergence with the United States’ model, which applies the same enforcement mechanism for both environment and labor issues and trade issues and includes the possibility of applying sanctions. Finally, the article concludes that China’s options with regards to the treatment of environment and labor concerns in its free trade agreements aligns with both its domestic governance approach and its approach to international cooperation.

By using the Hamiltonian formulation, we demonstrate that the Merton-Garman equation emerges naturally from the Black-Scholes equation after imposing invariance (symmetry) under local (gauge) transformations over changes in the stock price. This is the case because imposing gauge symmetry implies the appearance of an additional field, which corresponds to the stochastic volatility. The gauge symmetry then imposes some constraints over the free parameters of the Merton-Garman Hamiltonian. Finally, we analyze how the stochastic volatility gets massive dynamically via Higgs mechanism.

In recent years, the integration of Machine Learning (ML) techniques in the field of healthcare and public health has emerged as a powerful tool for improving decision-making processes [...]

We are delighted to present this special issue editorial for Neural Computing and Applications special issue on LatinX in AI research. This special issue brings together a collection of articles that explore machine learning and artificial intelligence research from various perspectives, aiming to provide a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of what LatinX researchers are working on in the field. In this editorial, we will introduce the overarching theme of the special issue, highlight the significance of the selected papers, and offer insights into the contributions made by the authors. The LatinX in AI organization was launched in 2018, with leaders from organizations in Artificial Intelligence, Education, Research, Engineering, and Social Impact with a purpose to together create a group that would be focused on “Creating Opportunity for LatinX in AI.” The main goal is to increase the representation of LatinX professionals in the AI industry. LatinX in AI Org and programs are volunteer-run and fiscally sponsored by the Accel AI Institute, 501(c)3 Non-Profit.

We prove the consistency of the different approaches for deriving the black hole radiation for the spherically symmetric case inside the theory of Massive Gravity. By comparing the results obtained by using the Bogoliubov transformations with those obtained by using the Path Integral formulation, we find that in both cases, the presence of the extra-degrees of freedom creates the effect of extra-particles creation due to the distortions on the definitions of time defined by the different observers at large scales. This, however, does not mean extra-particle creation at the horizon level. Instead, the apparent additional particles perceived at large scales emerge from how distant observers define their time coordinate, which is distorted due to the existence of extra-degrees of freedom.