Decoupling Between the Energy and Semiconductor Sectors During the Pandemic: New Evidence from Wavelet Analysis

We study the impact of COVID-19 on the pairwise dependence between three indices, the COVID-19 Media Coverage Index, MSCI World Semiconductor Index, and the MSCI World Energy Index, as well as investigate the respective volatility spillovers. We find intervals of weak, moderate, and strong coherence between the Media Coverage Index and returns and volatility of semiconductor and energy sector companies. Low coherence intervals indicate a diversification potential of investments in these sectors and in their volatility-based products during periods of systemic crises such as the financial turmoil induced by COVID-19. Our results provide evidence that after the escalation of the pandemic in early 2020, the energy sector cedes its leading role in terms of volatility to the semiconductor industry. We report on appealing hedging attributes related to the decoupling between the trends in the global semiconductor industry and the global energy sector accelerated by the COVID-19 triggered crisis.

Medical Waste Treatment Process Based on Blockchain Technology - A Case Study of Covid-19 Waste Handling in Vietnam

Medical waste management is a challenging problem that not only directly affects the environment but also people's health. This urgent issue is getting more and more attention in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. New infections are increasing exponentially in all countries globally, especially developing countries with large populations (e.g., India, Brazil, Bangladesh). Studies on the spread of the disease have listed one of the causes of this crisis as the Covid-19 waste treatment process not being followed correctly and the difficulty of data retrieval. Vietnam was also severely damaged by the Covid-19 epidemic, although the government initially controlled the disease very well. The Covid-19 waste treatment process in Vietnam is still being processed manually and with a combination of many departments. Data sharing and tracking are also tricky because they are centrally stored in different facilities/departments. In addition, there is a lack of synchronization and transparency of shared data. This paper is one of the first attempts to fill that gaps by applying Blockchain technology and decentralized storage. Relevant parties will retrieve all data, and the source of waste can be easily traced. We also implemented a proof-of-concept based on the Hyperledger Fabric platform to demonstrate the idea's feasibility. In the evaluation, we observe the process of initializing and querying data. These initial efforts will lay the groundwork for more in-depth studies to create an initiative for Vietnam's medical waste treatment process when faced with a new wave of infections or another epidemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Decoupling Between the Energy and Semiconductor Sectors During the Pandemic: New Evidence from Wavelet Analysis

We study the impact of COVID-19 on the pairwise dependence between three indices, the COVID-19 Media Coverage Index, MSCI World Semiconductor Index, and the MSCI World Energy Index, as well as investigate the respective volatility spillovers. We find intervals of weak, moderate, and strong coherence between the Media Coverage Index and returns and volatility of semiconductor and energy sector companies. Low coherence intervals indicate a diversification potential of investments in these sectors and in their volatility-based products during periods of systemic crises such as the financial turmoil induced by COVID-19. Our results provide evidence that after the escalation of the pandemic in early 2020, the energy sector cedes its leading role in terms of volatility to the semiconductor industry. We report on appealing hedging attributes related to the decoupling between the trends in the global semiconductor industry and the global energy sector accelerated by the COVID-19 triggered crisis.

Covid-19 impact on NFTs and major asset classes interrelations: insights from the wavelet coherence analysis

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) revolutionize crypto-landscape, becoming popular among investors and general public. This first-ever study of coherence between returns of NFTs and major assets employs the wavelet approach. The pairwise returns coherence between the considered markets grows throughout the Covid-19. Before the pandemic, NFTs lag behind stocks (2017) and bitcoin (2018), while lead gold (2018). We reveal that the returns coherence between NFTs and other assets is high/low for the two-week-plus/below-to-weeks investment horizons. We refine Aharon and Demir´s (2021) findings stating that NFTs absorbed risk during Covid-19 by demonstrating that this conclusion holds only in the short-run for below-two-weeks horizons.