High-frequency stock market order transitions during the US-China trade war 2018: A discrete-time Markov chain analysis.

Statistical analysis of high-frequency stock market order transaction data is conducted to understand order transition dynamics. We employ a first-order time-homogeneous discrete-time Markov chain model to the sequence of orders of stocks belonging to six different sectors during the US-China trade war of 2018. The Markov property of the order sequence is validated by the Chi-square test. We estimate the transition probability matrix of the sequence using maximum likelihood estimation. From the heatmap of these matrices, we found the presence of active participation by different types of traders during high volatility days. On such days, these traders place limit orders primarily with the intention of deleting the majority of them to influence the market. These findings are supported by high stationary distribution and low mean recurrence values of add and delete orders. Further, we found similar spectral gap and entropy rate values, which indicates that similar trading strategies are employed on both high and low volatility days during the trade war. Among all the sectors considered in this study, we observe that there is a recurring pattern of full execution orders in the Finance & Banking sector. This shows that the banking stocks are resilient during the trade war. Hence, this study may be useful in understanding stock market order dynamics and devise trading strategies accordingly on high and low volatility days during extreme macroeconomic events.

Antitumor Activity of a Lectin Purified from Punica granatum Pulps against Ehrlich Ascites Carcinoma (EAC) Cells.

BACKGROUND: Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins with various pharmacological activities, such as antimicrobial, antidiabetic, antioxidant, and anticancer. Punica granatum fruit extract has traditional uses, however, the anti-cancer activity of purified lectin isolated from P. granatum pulp is yet to be reported. OBJECTIVE: The goals of this study are purification, characterization of the lectin from P. granatum, and examination of the purified lectin's anticancer potential. METHODS: Diethylaminoethyl (DEAE) ion-exchange chromatography was used to purify the lectin, and SDSPAGE was used to check the purity and homogeneity of the lectin. Spectrometric and chemical analysis were used to characterize the lectin. The anticancer activity of the lectin was examined using in vivo and in vitro functional assays. RESULTS: A lectin, designated as PgL of 28.0 ± 1.0 kDa molecular mass, was isolated and purified from the pulps of P. granatum and the lectin contains 40% sugar. Also, it is a bivalent ion-dependent lectin and lost its 75% activity in the presence of urea (8M). The lectin agglutinated blood cells of humans and rats, and sugar molecules such as 4-nitrophenyl-α-D-manopyranoside and 2- nitrophenyl -ß- D-glucopyranoside inhibited PgL's hemagglutination activity. At pH ranges of 6.0-8.0 and temperature ranges of 30°C -80°C, PgL exhibited the highest agglutination activity. In vitro MTT assay showed that PgL inhibited Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC) cell growth in a dose-dependent manner. PgL exhibited 39 % and 58.52 % growth inhibition of EAC cells in the mice model at 1.5 and 3.0 mg/kg/day (i.p.), respectively. In addition, PgL significantly increased the survival time (32.0 % and 49.3 %) of EAC-bearing mice at 1.5 and 3.0 mg/kg/day doses (i.p.), respectively, in comparison to untreated EAC-bearing animals (p < 0.01). Also, PgL reduced the tumor weight of EAC-bearing mice (66.6 versus 39.13%; p < 0.01) at the dose of 3.0 mg/kg/day treatment. Furthermore, supplementation of PgL restored the haematological parameters toward normal levels deteriorated in EAC-bearing animals by the toxicity of EAC cells. CONCLUSION: The results indicated that the purified lectin has anticancer activity and has the potential to be developed as an effective chemotherapy agent.

A sentiment-based modeling and analysis of stock price during the COVID-19: U- and Swoosh-shaped recovery.

In the aftermath of stock market crash due to COVID-19, not all sectors recovered in the same way. Recently, a stock price model is proposed by Mahata et al. (2021) that describes V- and L-shaped recovery of the stocks and indices, but fails to simulate the U- and Swoosh-shaped recovery that arises due to sharp fall, continuation at the low price and followed by quick recovery, slow recovery for longer period, respectively. We propose a modified model by introducing a new parameter θ = + 1 , 0 , - 1 to quantify investors' positive, neutral and negative sentiments, respectively. The model explains movement of sectoral indices with positive financial anti-fragility ( ϕ ) showing U- and Swoosh-shaped recovery. Simulation using synthetic fund-flow with different shock lengths, ϕ , negative sentiment period and portion of fund-flow during recovery period show U- and Swoosh-shaped recovery. It shows that recovery of indices with positive ϕ becomes very weak with extended shock and negative sentiment period. Stocks with higher ϕ and fund-flow show quick recovery. Simulation of Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial and Nifty Realty show U-shaped recovery and Nifty IT shows Swoosh-shaped recovery. Simulation results are consistent with stock price movement. The estimated time-scale of shock and recovery of these indices are also consistent with the time duration of change of negative sentiment from the onset of COVID-19. We conclude that investors need to evaluate sentiment along with ϕ before investing in stock markets because negative sentiment can dampen the recovery even in financially anti-fragile stocks.

Characteristics of 2020 stock market crash: The COVID-19 induced extreme event.

A sudden fall of stock prices happens during a pandemic due to the panic sell-off by the investors. Such a sell-off may continue for more than a day, leading to a significant crash in the stock price or, more specifically, an extreme event (EE). In this paper, Hilbert-Huang transformation and a structural break analysis (SBA) have been applied to identify and characterize an EE in the stock market due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hilbert spectrum shows a maximum energy concentration at the time of an EE, and hence, it is useful to identify such an event. The EE's significant energy concentration is more than four times the standard deviation above the mean energy of the normal fluctuation of stock prices. A statistical significance test for the intrinsic mode functions is applied, and the test found that the signal is not noisy. The degree of nonstationarity test shows that the indices and stock prices are nonstationary. We identify the time of influence of the EE on the stock price by using SBA. Furthermore, we have identified the time scale ( τ) of the shock and recovery of the stock price during the EE using the intrinsic mode function obtained from the empirical mode decomposition technique. The quality stocks with V-shape recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic have definite τ of shock and recovery, whereas the stressed stocks with L-shape recovery have no definite τ. The identification of τ of shock and recovery during an EE will help investors to differentiate between quality and stressed stocks. These studies will help investors to make appropriate investment decisions.

Modeling and analysis of the effect of COVID-19 on the stock price: V and L-shape recovery.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new and novel risk factor, leads to the stock price crash due to the investors' rapid and synchronous sell-off. However, within a short period, the quality sectors start recovering from the bottom. A stock price model has been developed to capture the price dynamics during shock and recovery phases of such crisis. The main variable and parameter of the model are the net fund flow ( Ψ t ) due to institutional investors, and financial antifragility ( ϕ ) of a company, respectively. We assume that during the crash, the stock price fall is independent of the ϕ . We study the effects of shock length ( T S ) and ϕ on the stock price during the crisis period using the Ψ t obtained from both the synthetic fund flow data and real fund flow data. We observed that the possibility of recovery of stock with ϕ > 0 , termed as quality stock, decreases with an increase in T S beyond a specific period. A quality stock with higher ϕ shows V-shape recovery and outperform others. The T S and recovery period of quality stock are almost equal in the Indian market. Financially stressed stocks, i.e., the stocks with ϕ < 0 , show L-shape recovery during the pandemic. The stock data and model analysis show that the investors, in the uncertainty like COVID-19, invest in the quality stocks to restructure their portfolio to reduce the risk. The study may help the investors to make the right investment decision during a crisis.

Moringa oleifera seed lectin inhibits Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cell growth by inducing apoptosis through the regulation of Bak and NF-κB gene expression.

A Moringa oleifera seed lectin (MOSL) was purified by using chitin column with the molecular mass of 17±1kDa. The lectin agglutinated mouse, cow and human erythrocytes and the hemagglutination activity was inhibited by methyl-α-d-mannopyranoside, methyl-ß-d-galactopyranoside, lactose and glucose. The lectin exhibited 100% hemagglutination activity at the pH range from 8.0 to 9.0 and temperature range from 30 to 60°C. Additionally, the lectin gradually lost its activity in the presence of urea but the activity abolish completely when treated with EDTA. MOSL showed mild toxicity against brine shrimp nauplii with a LC50 value of 131.0µg/ml. Antiproliferative activity was studied against Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC) cells and 71.08% cell growth inhibition was observed in vitro at 200µg/ml. The lectin was injected (i.p.) into EAC mice at the doses of 2.0 and 4.0mg/kg/day for five consecutive days and 25.38% and 55% of cell growth inhibition was observed, respectively. MOSL caused the cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase as determined by FACS flow cytometry. The cell growth inhibition was due to the induction of apoptosis in the EAC cells which was confirmed by cell morphological study, caspase-3 inhibitor and activation of Bak and suppression of Bcl-2 and NF-κB genes expression.

Purification and characterization of a novel chitinase from Trichosanthes dioica seed with antifungal activity.

Chitinases are a group of enzymes that show differences in their molecular structure, substrate specificity, and catalytic mechanism and widely found in organisms like bacteria, yeasts, fungi, arthropods actinomycetes, plants and humans. A novel chitinase enzyme (designated as TDSC) was purified from Trichosanthes dioica seed with a molecular mass of 39±1 kDa in the presence and absence of ß-mercaptoethanol. The enzyme was a glycoprotein in nature containing 8% neutral sugar. The N-terminal sequence was determined to be EINGGGA which did not match with other proteins. Amino acid analysis performed by LC-MS revealed that the protein was rich in leucine. The enzyme was stable at a wide range of pH (5.0-11.0) and temperature (30-90 °C). Chitinase activity was little bit inhibited in the presence of chelating agent EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraaceticacid), urea and Ca(2+). A strong fluorescence quenching effect was found when dithiothreitol and sodium dodecyl sulfate were added to the enzyme. TDSC showed antifungal activity against Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma sp. as tested by MTT assay and disc diffusion method.

Momordica charantia seed lectin: toxicity, bacterial agglutination and antitumor properties.

In last three decades, several studies were carried out on the D-galactose-specific lectin of Momordica charantia seeds (MCL). In the present study, in vitro growth inhibition (8-23 %) at different concentrations (6-24 µg/ml) of MCL was observed against Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC) cells by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. MCL also showed 28, 45, and 75 % growth inhibitions against EAC cells when administered 1.2, 2.0, and 2.8 mg/kg/day (i.p.), respectively for five consequent days in vivo in mice. After lectin treatment, the level of red blood cell and hemoglobin was increased significantly with the decrease of white blood cell and maintained the normal level when compared with EAC-bearing control and normal mice without EAC cells. Although MCL caused cell cycle arrest at G0/G1 phase of EAC cells, any irregular shape or apoptotic morphological alterations in the lectin-treated EAC cells was not observed by an optical and fluorescence microscope. Lectin showed toxicity against brine shrimp nauplii with an LC50 value of 49.7 µg/ml. Four out of seven pathogenic bacteria were agglutinated by MCL in the absence of inhibitory sugar D-lactose/D-galactose. In conclusion, MCL showed strong cytotoxic effect and therefore can be used as a potent anticancer chemotherapeutic agent.

Effect of discrete time observations on synchronization in Chua model and applications to data assimilation.

Data assimilation is a tool, which incorporates observations in the model to improve the forecast, and it can be thought of as a synchronization of the model with observations. This paper discusses results of numerical identical twin experiments, with observations acting as master system coupled unidirectionally to the slave system at discrete time instances. We study the effects of varying the coupling constant, the observational frequency, and the observational noise intensity on synchronization and prediction in a low dimensional chaotic system, namely, the Chua circuit model. We observe synchrony in a finite range of coupling constant when coupling the x and y variables of the Chua model, but not when coupling the z variable. This range of coupling constant decreases with increasing levels of noise in the observations. The Chua system does not show synchrony when the time gap between observations is greater than about one-seventh of the Lyapunov time. Finally, we also note that the prediction errors are much larger when noisy observations are used than when using observations without noise.

Purification and characterization of a Ca(2+)-dependent novel lectin from Nymphaea nouchali tuber with antiproliferative activities.

A lectin (termed NNTL) was purified from the extracts of Nymphaea nouchali tuber followed by anion-exchange chromatography on DEAE-cellulose, hydrophobic chromatography on HiTrap Phenyl HP and by repeated anion-exchange chromatography on HiTrap Q FF column. The molecular mass of the purified lectin was 27.0 ± 1.0 kDa, as estimated by SDS/PAGE both in the presence and in the absence of 2-mercaptoethanol. NNTL was an o-nitrophenyl ß-D-galactopyranoside sugar-specific lectin that agglutinated rat, chicken and different groups of human blood cells and exhibited high agglutination activity over the pH range 5-9 and temperatures of 30-60 °C. The N-terminal sequence of NNTL did not show sequence similarity with any other lectin and the amino acid analysis revealed that NNTL was rich in leucine, methionine and glycine residues. NNTL was a glycoprotein containing 8% neutral sugar and showed toxicity against brine shrimp nauplii with an LC(50) value of 120 ± 29 µg/ml and exerted strong agglutination activity against four pathogenic bacteria (Bacillus subtilis, Sarcina lutea, Shigella shiga and Shigella sonnei). In addition, antiproliferative activity of this lectin against EAC (Ehrlich ascites carcinoma) cells showed 56% and 76% inhibition in vivo in mice at 1.5 and 3 mg·kg(-1)·day(-1) respectively. NNTL was a divalent ion-dependent glycoprotein, which lost its activity markedly in the presence of denaturants. Furthermore, measurement of fluorescence spectra in the presence and absence of urea and CaCl(2) indicated the requirement of Ca(2+) for the stability of NNTL.

Modeling noise-induced resonance in an excitable system: an alternative approach.

Recently, it has been observed [Md. Nurujjaman, Phy. Rev. E 80, 015201(R) (2009)] that in an excitable system, one can maintain noise-induced coherency in the coherence resonance by blocking the destructive effect of the noise on the system at higher noise level. This phenomenon of constant coherence resonance (CCR) cannot be explained by the existing way of simulation of the model equations of an excitable system with added noise. In this paper, we have proposed a general model which explains the noise-induced resonance phenomenon CCR as well as coherence resonance (CR) and stochastic resonance (SR). The simulation has been carried out considering the basic mechanism of noise-induced resonance phenomena: noise only perturbs the system control parameter to excite coherent oscillations, taking proper precautions so that the destructive effect of noise does not affect the system. In this approach, the CR has been obtained from the interference between the system output and noise and the SR has been obtained by adding noise and a subthreshold signal. This also explains the observation of the frequency shift of coherent oscillations in the CCR with noise level.

Coherence resonance in a unijunction transistor relaxation oscillator.

The phenomenon of coherence resonance is investigated in an unijunction transistor relaxation oscillator and quantified by estimating the normal variance (NV). Depending on the measuring points, two types of NV curves have been obtained. We have observed that the degradations in coherency at higher noise amplitudes in our system is probably the result of direct interference of coherent oscillations and the stochastic perturbation. Degradation of coherency may be minimal if this direct interference of noise and coherent oscillations is eliminated.

Comparative study of nonlinear properties of EEG signals of normal persons and epileptic patients.

BACKGROUND: Investigation of the functioning of the brain in living systems has been a major effort amongst scientists and medical practitioners. Amongst the various disorder of the brain, epilepsy has drawn the most attention because this disorder can affect the quality of life of a person. In this paper we have reinvestigated the EEGs for normal and epileptic patients using surrogate analysis, probability distribution function and Hurst exponent. RESULTS: Using random shuffled surrogate analysis, we have obtained some of the nonlinear features that was obtained by Andrzejak et al. [Phys Rev E 2001, 64:061907], for the epileptic patients during seizure. Probability distribution function shows that the activity of an epileptic brain is nongaussian in nature. Hurst exponent has been shown to be useful to characterize a normal and an epileptic brain and it shows that the epileptic brain is long term anticorrelated whereas, the normal brain is more or less stochastic. Among all the techniques, used here, Hurst exponent is found very useful for characterization different cases. CONCLUSION: In this article, differences in characteristics for normal subjects with eyes open and closed, epileptic subjects during seizure and seizure free intervals have been shown mainly using Hurst exponent. The H shows that the brain activity of a normal man is uncorrelated in nature whereas, epileptic brain activity shows long range anticorrelation.

Noise-invoked resonances near a homoclinic bifurcation in the glow discharge plasma.

Stochastic resonance (SR) and coherence resonance (CR) have been studied experimentally in discharge plasmas close to a homoclinic bifurcation. For the SR phenomenon, it is observed that a superimposed subthreshold periodic signal can be recovered via stochastic modulations of the discharge voltage. Furthermore, it is realized that even in the absence of a subthreshold deterministic signal, the system dynamics can be recovered and optimized using noise. This effect is defined as CR in the literature. In the present experiments, induction of SR and CR is quantified using the absolute mean difference and normalized variance techniques, respectively.

Parametric investigation of nonlinear fluctuations in a dc glow discharge plasma.

Glow discharge plasmas exhibit various types of self-excited oscillations for different initial conditions like discharge voltages and filling pressures. The behavior of such oscillations associated with the anode glow has been investigated using nonlinear techniques like correlation dimension, largest Lyapunov exponent, etc. It is seen that these oscillations go to an ordered state from a chaotic state with an increase in input energy, i.e., with discharge voltages implying occurrence of inverse bifurcations. These results are different from the other observations wherein the fluctuations have been observed to go from ordered to chaotic state.