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"I confidently predict more deaths…" says TCI Governor in plea for residents to take the Vaccine
#TurksandCaicos, April 3, 2021 – The Governor of Turks and Caicos Islands "confidently predict more deaths" in the coming days due to the ever-increasing new Covid-19 infections and deaths. Speaking during the first Covid-19 anniversary on March 23, Nigel Dakin expressed his fear of a possible high, future death rate in TCI if the Islanders do not take the responsibility to get vaccinated.
"I confidently predict more deaths, there is no reason to think any other way. The restrictive measures we have in place clearly are reducing contagion but not eliminating it, and those catching the virus are becoming more likely to die," said the Governor.
While the government can impose a raft of new stringent measures, including total lockdown, business shutdowns, and curfews, HE Dakin emphasised that TCI residents can take the precaution and go for the readily available vaccines instead of having the country shut.
"There is no action Government can now take – in terms of restricting your behaviours or closing down parts of the economy that offers the protection that an individual can now take, themselves, by taking the vaccine," added Governor Dakin.
Even though pleased with TCI residents who were on the frontline in the fight to keep the country safe, the Governor expressed his displeasure at the flattening curve of people taking vaccines when they need it the most. And with such behaviour, there is a great risk of overrunning the hospitals, which are already strained.
With "an extraordinary roll out of the vaccines – efficiently delivered and administered" and the high chances of those who contract the virus dying, the Governor revealed that TCI has got a golden opportunity that other Caribbean countries admire. But they aren't lucky enough to have it.
Even more worrying, there's already a warning of a possible vaccine shortage. Those who shall not have seized this opportunity to normalcy may not get any other opportunity to get after the vaccine supply stops.
"This future is ours to have if we have the collective courage to seize it. Please (please) register for the vaccine and, more than that, encourage those you care about to do so too. This is a moment for all of us to be leaders and recognise that the power of one, the power of individual decision making, has the power to change these Island's future," the Governor concluded.
As of March 2, 12,935 persons have been vaccinated, without any incident, which is 34 per cent of our population; and that was a good start!
TCI Governor, Nigel Dakin and his wife, Mandy were the very first to take the Covid-19 vaccine in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Related Topics:#coronavirus#covid19#covidvaccine#governorpredictsmoredeaths#magneticmedianews#nigeldakin
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January 20, 2022 – The US Centers for Disease Control Cruise Sailing Order expired on Saturday January 15th and it means cruise lines will now be able to choose whether or not they want to participate. This "Healthy Sail" program is a set of guidelines for cruising which the CDC says will provide transparency about COVID management on ships.
Cruise lines which chose to participate in the "healthy sail" voluntary program will be subject to CDC guidelines. Cruise lines which opt out of the program will still have to adhere to masking mandates and report all COVID cases.
However, the ships opting out of the CDC Healthy Sail program, will not be required to make public their testing regimes for crew and passengers.
"There will be a lot of unknowns about what risk mitigation measures are being used on board because they will really be able to set their own protocols for testing of passengers and crew," said Aimee Treffiletti, CDC representative to USA Today.
Naturally, this raises several questions about whether these ships will be required to make onboard protocols and findings public to ports of call.
Up to Monday, Norwegian, Oceania and Regent Seven Seas Cruise Lines had opted into the program. Noticeably absent from the roll call: Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean.


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Affirmation in the 'Other': Middle-Class Identity and Nineteenth-Century Poverty Studies
David Johnson | Newcastle University
A family group of women and children sitting listening to a man telling a story. Wood engraving by Dalziel after J.E. Millais.
In 1849, a writer named Henry Mayhew, who was increasingly concerned about the working poor in London, visited the home of an impoverished woman and noted, 'The room in which the family lived, though more destitute of every article of furniture and comfort than any I had yet visited, was at least untainted by the atmosphere of poverty. I was no longer sickened with that overpowering smell that always hangs about the dwellings of the very poor.' The reason this particular room was 'untainted' was that it was occupied by not a street seller or manual labourer, but by a distressed gentlewoman who had been compelled to take up needlework to survive. Within that class contrast is found the core problem with the many poverty studies undertaken during the later nineteenth century: they were written by middle-class authors for a middle-class audience, reproducing not so much the experiences of poverty as the middle-class expectations of what poverty was supposed to be. This problem is not new for those who research different poverty studies. Since the middle of the twentieth century, historians have attempted to assess author biases and re-evaluate empirical data from these works in an effort to more accurately position them in the larger history of the working class. However, the field of emotions history allows for a fresh take on the material by taking that potential problem and turning it into an asset. Rather than reading the material with an eye to what the economically disadvantaged experienced in the nineteenth century, the material can instead be read for the way the middle class sought to affirm its own sense of identity through the use of a very specific set of ideas and vocabulary. In the example from Mayhew, no matter how barren or comfortless the room, it could never be 'tainted' by poverty due to the influence of the gentlewoman, simply because that was the power a gentlewoman had within a home according to middle-class ideology.
Members of the British middle class during the nineteenth century were keenly aware of the tenuous nature of their social position, situated as they were between the gentry and nobility on one side, and the working classes on the other. While the markers that set apart the upper classes were well defined, the distinctions between the working class and middle class were far less clear. This lack of a clear distinction meant there was often anxiety about whether those in the middle class truly measured up to class-appropriate standards. One of the consistent markers of true middle-class status was a particular type of home space in which the family was expected to live. Literally hundreds of domestic economy guides were written between 1800 and 1914 by a very wide range of male and female authors, all of which sought to define not just the physical conditions of the home, but also the emotional space. A lexicon of emotions words compiled from an extensive sample of these guides demonstrates some clear trends in the language being used. Overwhelmingly, various phrases describing comfort, happiness and cheer dominate the desirable emotional traits for a middle-class home. There is more variety in the vocabulary used for undesirable elements, but discomfort, misery and vexation are consistently used to describe those elements middle-class families should avoid in their homes. Tellingly, these exact same terms are also used by poverty study authors and their legion of surveyors when describing the homes of those in the working class.
Henry Mayhew was one of the first British writers to attempt a systemic study of the working class in London in the mid-nineteenth century. Initially, Mayhew wrote accounts for the Morning Chronicle newspaper in 1849 and 1850 before breaking from the paper and devoting his attention to his landmark work London Labour and the London Poor, first published in 1851, and reprinted in various versions over the next decade. Mayhew conducted his research himself, and his approach to writing was narrative in nature, recounting the working lives of those he interviewed more than their home lives. However, when Mayhew did describe homes, comfort and misery were key definitions of the space. Importantly, these emotional attributes were often completely separate from other aspects such as cleanliness or specific objects in the home. In a letter to the Morning Chronicle in 1849, Mayhew described a home he entered as 'scrupulously neat and clean', and yet it was also the site of the 'keenest misery' due to the extreme poverty the occupant of the room lived in. In contrast, in the first volume of London Labour and the London Poor, he notes a family of street sellers 'living in a cellar' that was dark, small, and horribly cramped but still managed to have 'a look of comfort' in their home. Likewise, when visiting the home of an Irish street seller, Mayhew was pleased to find 'an air of comfort' that was a marked departure from the reports he had heard from Ireland of dilapidated and unpleasant homes there.
In contrast to the narrative approach Mayhew used, the poverty studies of Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree took an analytical approach rather than a narrative one. Both authors were writing at the end of the nineteenth century, and like Mayhew, they sought to depict the lives of the working poor. Booth focused on London, while Rowntree was inspired by Booth's work to see if the same patterns seen in London held true for a smaller town such as York. As with Mayhew, the vocabulary they used strongly corresponded with the emotional language used to describe a middle-class home. In volume one of Booth's Life and Labour of the People in London, he lays out a set of classification groups from Class A, who are the lowest sort of labourers and 'semi-criminals' to Class H, which he terms the upper-middle class. More telling than the group labels is the set of descriptors Booth used for these classes. Classes A and B are the 'Very Poor', classes C and D are the 'Poor', and then classes E and F are 'Comfortable', even though they are still considered to be working class. In this system, the middle class categorised as classes G and H are the 'Well-to-do'. Rowntree uses a similar classification system to Booth, though it was not directly aligned and lacked the descriptors Booth used. Nevertheless, the emotional lexicon is still present, as the majority of those in Rowntree's class D lived in homes described as 'comfortable' even though the income of 'over 30s a week' was well below middle-class income in 1901. Both classification systems carry implications for what comfortable means.
Comfort is tremendously difficult to quantify in concrete terms, and when a middle-class author noted comfort in a working-class home, it was inevitably being assessed in middle-class terms. While Mayhew did his investigations himself, Booth and Rowntree relied on a large number of surveyors to go to each building on a street and gather data. The consistent use of the same language by these anonymous individuals provides robust evidence that in these surveys the middle class was seeking a way to reaffirm its own identity. Those in Booth's classes E and F were considered to be 'comfortable' because their homes closely resembled those of the middle class. In using such an assessment, the middle class reinforced to itself that comfort was the key element of a home, and that the middle-class perception of comfort was the correct one. Working-class homes either in some way tried to imitate this model of comfort or fell into the undesirable emotional state of misery or at least discomfort.
It was not uncommon for the distinction between comfort and misery to depend on the efforts of the mistress of the house, as with Mayhew's account of the gentlewoman. In the middle-class view, a woman was the source of all comfort in the home, and under the guiding touch of a good woman even a prison cell could take on the emotional feel of a comfortable parlour. For working-class women, their efforts were even more crucial, as Booth noted the comforts of a home for many of the poor depended on 'a good wife'. Many doing the survey work explicitly noted the efforts of the woman of the house. For example, Rowntree's surveyors noted more than one widow who was 'sober and industrious', and as a result lived in a clean and comfortable home, and described another comfortable home where the wife was a 'good manager' that made many little things for the home. On the other hand, in Rowntree's survey is the brief account of a mother who 'lacks method, and always apologies' for the undesirable state of her home and her children. Booth notes a similar issue in volume two of his work, describing a home where the wife was a 'quiet and steady' person but had a drunkard husband and had 'lost all heart', so the home was lacking in even basic comforts. For the good woman, though, such a lamentable fate was not inevitable, even in a difficult marriage or precarious living situation. Booth relates the tale of a deeply impoverished woman who started out with only a market basket and a 'bundle of something' in a corner for a bed, and yet eight years later due to her efforts and good influences, 'her room is comfortable, and its inmates contended and happy'. In a working-class home, no middle-class author expected to find the 'Angel in the House' as she was described in poetry and domestic literature, but angel-like qualities of industry and economy could help foster a middle-class sense of comfort in even the most impoverished working-class homes, as well as reaffirming the importance of women in a domestic setting in middle-class ideology.
On the higher end of the working-class income scale, Rowntree described how a railway employee making a good wage had a good situation in a home which was 'well planned and convenient', both clean and comfortable, and had a 'wallpaper of artistic design and colour' which created a 'very cheerful room'. This particular detail might seem odd for a surveyor to mention given that many comments are both brief and generalised to the overall characteristics of a location, but in fact, it is a crucial remark. The language used demonstrates the extent to which the emotions lexicon of the middle class drawn from domestic economy guides was used with exacting precision by poverty study surveyors. A more detailed look at the precise wording demonstrates just how middle-class expectations and ideology were imposed on working-class living conditions.
As noted, comfort is subjective and remarkably difficult to define. However, as the nineteenth century progressed, visual elements of a comfortable space were defined with increasingly specific elements, many of which had an emotional as well as aesthetic descriptions. The colouring of a room was deemed of great importance to its emotional condition, with certain colours causing great discomfort if used too liberally. The role of wallpaper became an integral part of the conversation in many domestic economy guides after the 1850s. It was so important to have the correct wall covering and colours in a space that Florence Nightingale included details about how it impacts the health and comfort of patients in her medical advice book Notes on Nursing, which had a tremendous impact on later advice for home builders and occupants. In sections about wallpaper, two advice writers used particular phrases that the later surveyor that visited the railway engineer would directly echo. In 1878, Lady Barker noted in The Bedroom and Boudoir that there were plenty of wallpapers that were 'artistically simple enough to please a correct taste', while in 1898 Mrs Peel wrote in The New Home that if the walls of a room were properly decorated with the right materials, 'the effect may be cheerful'. In the description of the wallpaper in the railway employee's house, these exact terms are mapped directly from the middle-class ideal of home onto a working-class home in exactly the same context with the same result. That a surveyor did so demonstrates just how deeply embedded the middle-class language of emotions for the home was for those people conducting and writing the poverty surveys.
Descriptive map of London poverty, 1889 (south- western sheet)
It has been said that the best way to appreciate being home is to leave it for a while, as anyone returning from holiday to sleep in their own bed will appreciate. For the middle class of the nineteenth century, reading about the lives and homes of the working class, particularly those who were in the direst straits of poverty, had a similar effect. By seeing how certain conditions were present or lacking in working-class homes, members of the middle class were able to confirm their own class standing and ideals. The use of the same emotional vocabulary in both domestic guides and descriptions of working-class homes was a subtle but important way in which the living conditions of the working class were formatted for middle-class consumption. Modern historians can rightly critique the poverty studies of Booth, Rowntree, Mayhew, and others as being manifestations of middle-class expectations of poverty rather than accurate records of it. However, that very fault makes them useful tools for seeing how the middle class sought to affirm its own identity and status.
• Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the People of London and Seebohm Rowntree's Poverty: A Study of Town Life are often available in local libraries, and various reprinted editions are also available for sale.
• Emotional Lexicons: Continuity and Change in the Vocabulary of Feeling. Ute Frevert, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014
• Jane Hamlett. Material Relations: Domestic Interiors and Middle-Class Families in England, 1850-1910, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2010
• Lawrence James. The Middle Class: A History, London: Abacus, 2008
• Jan Plamper. The History of Emotions: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012
• The emotions lexicon referenced in this article is available as 'Emotions Lexicon for Nineteenth-Century British Homes' at https://doi.org/10.25405/data.ncl.11830383.v1
David Johnson is a third-year PhD candidate at Newcastle University, writing on the history of the nineteenth-century British home. His other research interests include the interwar period in Europe, and the history of East Germany. David has a previously-published book, Madman in a Box: The Social History of Doctor Who, released in 2016. His research profile is available at https://ncl.ac.uk/hca/research/history/students/current-students/david-johnson/.
Review: NETLFIX's The Crown (2020)
Soyboys and Sensitivity: Mocking Meat-Avoidance from Punch to Twitter
The Mystery of the Missing Miners: Making the Most of Probate Inventories and Wills, c.1614-1780

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Gunmen ambush and kill six rangers at endangered Mountain Gorilla National Park – rest in peace
Newsner » Family » Gunmen ambush and kill six rangers at endangered Mountain Gorilla National Park – rest in peace
A group of gunmen have killed seven rangers and seriously injured a seventh at the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
As per reports, the park is home to the last of the endangered mountain gorillas. The rangers are said to have been set upon by a group of armed men, though no one has taken responsibility for the killings and a motive yet remains unclear.
The six rangers – all between the ages of 25 and 30 – were ambushed and fired upon at 7:30 am on Sunday.
Statement from Virunga National Park following the fatal attack on Park Rangers today: https://t.co/P30dSCmLqJ
— Virunga NationalPark (@gorillacd) January 10, 2021
The Virunga National Park confirmed the tragic news in the following press statement:
"Preliminary investigations indicate that the rangers were taken by surprise and had no opportunity to defend themselves, and that those responsible for the attack are local Mai-Mai groups.
Virunga National Park deeply regrets the tragic loss of life among its rangers, who work tirelessly and with dedication to protect both the park and the neighbouring communities from the tyranny of armed groups. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten nor be in vain.
All efforts will be undertaken to bring the perpetrators to justice and sustain the rule of law within the park."
Six rangers lost their lives in an attack at Virunga National Park, protecting endangered wildlifehttps://t.co/8llYJfZbDt pic.twitter.com/ZA7L3AS0uO
— Liam R. Findlay 🐊 (@Pevalwen) January 11, 2021
The men who lost their lives have since been identified as Burhani Abdou Surumwe (30), Kamate Mundunaenda Alexis (25), Maneno Kataghalirwa Reagan (27), Kibanka Bashekere Eric (28), Paluku Budoyi Innocent (28) and Nzabonimpa Ntamakiriro Prince (27).
An investigation is now being launched into the killings, though sources say finding the culprits will be a difficult task. Several armed groups reside close to the park, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, one of the surviving rebel factions in the Congo.
12 rangers were attacked and got killed in an an ambush in Virunga National Park in DRC. Saddened to know this tragic loss of saviours of wildlife. A world heritage site and biodiversity hotspot Virunga had been in news for ranger's selfi with gorillas. RIP green warriors. pic.twitter.com/tittnvv6XO
— Ramesh Pandey (@rameshpandeyifs) April 25, 2020
Officials at Virunga National Park told how more than 200 rangers have died since the park's official founding in 1925. Poaching and the Congo Civil War have made the jobs of staff working there increasingly perilous.
The Park finished its statement by saying:
"Virunga National Park remains committed to delivering development initiatives that benefit local people and the wider region, and to working in partnership with local communities to bring peace and prosperity to many millions of people whose lives have for too long been blighted by conflict and the activities of armed groups.
The thoughts and prayers of everyone at Virunga National Park are with the families and friends of all the victims, as well as the injured Ranger."
My heart goes out to these brave men gunned down in the line of duty. Rest in peace!
Please share this article if you hope for a better future wherein the animals in such parks can be protected and the staff protecting them can live without fear for their own lives.


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ITC takes first step towards making apparel biz 'sin-free'
Re-branding alone may not help unless combined with change in sales strategy and execution.
Kiran Kabtta Somvanshi
Has ITC killed two birds with the same stone? The tobacco-to-hotels major has changed the identity of its lifestyle apparel brand from Wills Lifestyle to WLS. It will now sell apparel that is 100 per cent natural – from fabric to threads, buttons and labels. The new brand logo is befittingly named Tattva.
By renaming its premium apparel retail brand to WLS, it has effectively removed the brand's connection with the Wills cigarette brand and made the brand name trendier, in line with other brands like W, AND, AJIO, M&S and D&G.
Simultaneously, by making it allnatural, it has introduced a sharp differentiator in the apparel market – riding on the current bandwagon of preference for natural and organic products. It has become the first mainstream Indian apparel brand to go natural.
However, it remains to be seen how much impact re-branding will have on the prospects of ITC's lifestyle retailing business. The segment has been under pressure in recent years – effectively pulling down the growth rates of the company's FMCG business. According to ITC's latest annual report, 2017-18 was another challenging year for the branded apparel industry. Transition to GST regime triggered a premature end to the Spring Summer 2017 season with most players announcing an early end-of-season sale period, which was extended in a bid to liquidate pre-GST merchandise.
On the other hand, ecommerce players continued with their aggressive push to capture market share amongst value seeking consumers by offering heavy discounts and launching exclusive labels and brands. The company's annual report for 2016-17 mentions that the branded apparel industry witnessed severe pressure during the year in the wake of consumers cutting back on discretionary spends, heavy discounting by industry players and emergence of value retailing by ecommerce majors.
Re-branding alone may not help unless combined with change in sales strategy and execution. According to Abneesh Roy of Edelweiss Securities, although this re-branding will help, still ITC needs to take more steps to get back strong growth in this business. The tectonic shift comes at a time when consumers are increasingly becoming conscious of their impact on environment. The ITC stock closed 0.6 per cent higher on Monday.
Wills Lifestyle
FMCG business
apparel industry
SHEROES members will also have access to exclusive deals from the streaming platform, including discounts on ALTBalaji's yearly subscription


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Genetics →
Genetic Conditions →
MECP2 duplication syndrome
URL of this page: https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/mecp2-duplication-syndrome/
MECP2 duplication syndrome is a condition that occurs almost exclusively in males and is characterized by moderate to severe intellectual disability. Most people with this condition also have weak muscle tone in infancy, feeding difficulties, poor or absent speech, or muscle stiffness (rigidity). Individuals with MECP2 duplication syndrome have delayed development of motor skills such as sitting and walking. About half of individuals have seizures, often of the tonic-clonic type. This type of seizure involves a loss of consciousness, muscle rigidity, and convulsions and may not respond to medication. Some affected individuals experience the loss of previously acquired skills (developmental regression). Approximately half of individuals learn to walk, and about one-third of people with this condition require assistance when walking. Many individuals with MECP2 duplication syndrome have recurrent respiratory tract infections. These respiratory infections are a major cause of death in affected individuals, with only half surviving past age 25.
The prevalence of MECP2 duplication syndrome is unknown; more than 200 affected individuals have been described in the scientific literature. It is estimated that this condition is responsible for 1 to 2 percent of all cases of intellectual disability caused by changes in the X chromosome.
MECP2 duplication syndrome is caused by a genetic change in which there is an extra copy of the MECP2 gene in each cell. This extra copy of the MECP2 gene is caused by a duplication of genetic material on the long (q) arm of the X chromosome. The size of the duplication varies from 100,000 to a few million DNA building blocks (base pairs). The MECP2 gene is always included in this duplication, and other genes may also be involved, depending on the size of the duplicated segment. It is unclear whether extra copies of these other genes affect the severity of the condition.
The MECP2 gene provides instructions for making a protein called MeCP2 that is critical for normal brain function. Researchers believe that this protein has several functions, including regulating other genes in the brain by controlling when they are able to participate in protein production. An extra copy of the MECP2 gene leads to the production of excess MeCP2 protein and an increase in protein function. The resulting changes in gene regulation and protein production in the brain lead to abnormal nerve cell (neuronal) function. These neuronal changes disrupt normal brain activity, causing the signs and symptoms of MECP2 duplication syndrome.
Learn more about the gene associated with MECP2 duplication syndrome
MECP2
MECP2 duplication syndrome is inherited in an X-linked pattern. The gene associated with this condition is located on the X chromosome, which is one of the two sex chromosomes in each cell. In males (who have only one X chromosome), a duplication of the only copy of the MECP2 gene in each cell is sufficient to cause the condition. In females (who have two X chromosomes), a duplication of one of the two copies of the gene typically does not cause the disorder, but can be associated with behavioral and psychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and features of autism spectrum disorder that affect communication and social interaction.
Females with a MECP2 gene duplication tend to be unaffected or less severely affected than males because the X chromosome that contains the duplication may be turned off (inactive) in many of their cells due to a process called X-inactivation . Early in embryonic development in females, one of the two X chromosomes is permanently inactivated in somatic cells (cells other than egg and sperm cells). X-inactivation ensures that females, like males, have only one active copy of the X chromosome in each body cell. Usually X-inactivation occurs randomly, such that each X chromosome is active in about half of the body's cells. Sometimes X-inactivation is not random, and one X chromosome is active in more than half of cells. When X-inactivation does not occur randomly, it is called skewed X-inactivation.
Females with a MECP2 gene duplication often have skewed X-inactivation, which results in the inactivation of the X chromosome containing the duplication in most cells of the body. Although this skewed X-inactivation ensures that the chromosome with the normal MECP2 gene is active most often, some of these females develop behavioral and psychiatric symptoms thought to be related to the additional genetic material. It is unclear why these features develop in a small number of females with skewed X-inactivation. Researchers speculate that in these females some cells in the brain may have a different pattern of X-inactivation than the cells in the rest of the body so that the X chromosome with the duplicated MECP2 gene is active, resulting in behavioral and psychiatric symptoms.
Other Names for This Condition
Lubs X-linked mental retardation syndrome
Trisomy Xq28
Additional Information & Resources
Genetic Testing Information
Genetic Testing Registry: Syndromic X-linked intellectual disability Lubs type
Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center
Patient Support and Advocacy Resources
Disease InfoSearch
National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD)
Research Studies from ClinicalTrials.gov
Catalog of Genes and Diseases from OMIM
Scientific Articles on PubMed
El Chehadeh S, Touraine R, Prieur F, Reardon W, Bienvenu T, Chantot-Bastaraud S, Doco-Fenzy M, Landais E, Philippe C, Marle N, Callier P, Mosca-Boidron AL, Mugneret F, Le Meur N, Goldenberg A, Guerrot AM, Chambon P, Satre V, Coutton C, Jouk PS, Devillard F, Dieterich K, Afenjar A, Burglen L, Moutard ML, Addor MC, Lebon S, Martinet D, Alessandri JL, Doray B, Miguet M, Devys D, Saugier-Veber P, Drunat S, Aral B, Kremer V, Rondeau S, Tabet AC, Thevenon J, Thauvin-Robinet C, Perreton N, Des Portes V, Faivre L. Xq28 duplication including MECP2 in six unreported affected females: what can we learn for diagnosis and genetic counselling? Clin Genet. 2017 Apr;91(4):576-588. doi: 10.1111/cge.12898. Epub 2017 Feb 16. Citation on PubMed
Gonzales ML, LaSalle JM. The role of MeCP2 in brain development and neurodevelopmental disorders. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2010 Apr;12(2):127-34. doi: 10.1007/s11920-010-0097-7. Citation on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central
Lombardi LM, Baker SA, Zoghbi HY. MECP2 disorders: from the clinic to mice and back. J Clin Invest. 2015 Aug 3;125(8):2914-23. doi: 10.1172/JCI78167. Epub 2015 Aug 3. Citation on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central
Lugtenberg D, Kleefstra T, Oudakker AR, Nillesen WM, Yntema HG, Tzschach A, Raynaud M, Rating D, Journel H, Chelly J, Goizet C, Lacombe D, Pedespan JM, Echenne B, Tariverdian G, O'Rourke D, King MD, Green A, van Kogelenberg M, Van Esch H, Gecz J, Hamel BC, van Bokhoven H, de Brouwer AP. Structural variation in Xq28: MECP2 duplications in 1% of patients with unexplained XLMR and in 2% of male patients with severe encephalopathy. Eur J Hum Genet. 2009 Apr;17(4):444-53. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2008.208. Epub 2008 Nov 5. Erratum In: Eur J Hum Genet. 2009 May;17(5):697. Citation on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central
Ramocki MB, Peters SU, Tavyev YJ, Zhang F, Carvalho CM, Schaaf CP, Richman R, Fang P, Glaze DG, Lupski JR, Zoghbi HY. Autism and other neuropsychiatric symptoms are prevalent in individuals with MeCP2 duplication syndrome. Ann Neurol. 2009 Dec;66(6):771-82. doi: 10.1002/ana.21715. Citation on PubMed or Free article on PubMed Central
Yi Z, Pan H, Li L, Wu H, Wang S, Ma Y, Qi Y. Chromosome Xq28 duplication encompassing MECP2: Clinical and molecular analysis of 16 new patients from 10 families in China. Eur J Med Genet. 2016 Jun;59(6-7):347-53. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmg.2016.05.004. Epub 2016 May 11. Citation on PubMed
Related Health Topics
What is the prognosis of a genetic condition?
How can gene variants affect health and development?
What does it mean if a disorder seems to run in my family?
What are the different ways a genetic condition can be inherited?
How are genetic conditions treated or managed?
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The information on this site should not be used as a substitute for professional medical care or advice. Contact a health care provider if you have questions about your health.


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Peter Lines (born 11 December 1969) is an English professional snooker player. He has reached the semi-finals of one ranking tournament, the 2018 Paul Hunter Classic. He reached his highest ranking, 42nd in the world, in 1999. He is the father of fellow professional snooker player Oliver Lines.

In January 2022, Lines won the 2022 UK Seniors Championship, part of the World Seniors Tour. In the same month, he was disciplined by the WPBSA for breaching conduct rules and bringing the game into disrepute. The sanction followed an incident at the 2021 Northern Ireland Open qualifiers, where Lines accused his opponent Xiao Guodong of cheating and challenged him to a fight.

Career
Lines turned professional in 1991, and in his debut season reached the last 32 stage twice, at the 1992 Strachan Open and the 1992 Asian Open. Wins were hard to come by for him during the next few seasons, although he qualifyied for the 1995 International Open, beating the likes of Fergal O'Brien and Doug Mountjoy in the process. Lines briefly fell off tour in 1997 but returned immediately via Qualifying School, and his results started to improve. 1997/98 season saw him reach the last 32 of the Welsh Open and Scottish Open before coming through qualifying for the World Championship to reach The Crucible for the first (and to date only) time in his career; there he was beaten 10–4 by John Parrott but not before compiling a 141 total clearance - the highest break by a debutant. As a result, he finished the season ranked 53, and rose to 42 after the next season despite having failed to reach another last 32.

Lines scored his best ever result at the 1999 China International as he sensationally defeated John Higgins and Peter Ebdon en route to his first career quarter-final, where he lost 4–5 to Brian Morgan.
Following this result, however, he started to struggle for form and to slip down the rankings, before an eventual relegation from the tour in 2004. He briefly regained his place in 2006 but was again relegated after another poor season.

Lines did not give up however, and thanks to working with coach Steve Prest had a successful 2007–08 season in the PIOS, where he won one event and reached the final of another to finish second in the top 8 qualifying for the main tour. He carried his fine form into the 2008–09 season as he performed consistently to finish in the top 64 and maintain his tour place. Better was to come during the next season, as Lines reached the last 64 of the Shanghai Masters and the last 48 of the Grand Prix, before a remarkable run in the UK Championship. He defeated Xiao Guodong, Ian McCulloch and Nigel Bond to qualify for the venue stages; there he convincingly beat Marco Fu 9–3, then caused an upset by edging out Mark Williams 9–8 to reach his second career quarter-final. Despite the 5–9 loss to Stephen Maguire, this performance could've allowed Lines to return to the top 48 of the world rankings, but another drop in form resulted in three opening round defeats in the remaining tournaments of the season to leave him ranked 50.

2010–11 season saw Lines recording a number of good results in the newly introduced minor-ranking PTC events, with three last 16 appearances and a quarter-final at the Event 5 to his name. However, his performances in the major tournaments were less successful, as aside from the UK Championship last 48 appearance he won only one more match; as a result he couldn't improve his ranking at the end of the season. Lines qualified for the 2011 UK Championship by defeating Ken Doherty 6–5 in round 4 of qualifying. He played Martin Gould in the last 32 and was beaten 6–2. Lines qualified for the 2013 German Masters by defeating John Higgins 5–3 in round 4 of qualifying. He played Ken Doherty in the last 32 and won 5–3, before losing 3–5 to Marco Fu in the last 16. In June 2014 he won the Pink Ribbon pro–am event defeating Lee Walker 4–1 in the final. Lines the Yorkshireman beat defending champion Neil Robertson on a run to the last 32 of the 2016 UK Championship. In March 2017 he won the World Seniors Championship defeating John Parrott 4–0 in the final. Lines regained full professional status for the 2017–18 season by coming through an EBSA playoff.  He defeated Zack Richardson 4–0 in the final round. He reached the last 16 on two occasions during the 2017/18 campaign, at the 2017 Paul Hunter Classic and the 2017 European Masters. During the 2019-2020 season Lines reached the last 16 of the 2020 Snooker Shoot Out. Lines famously has a 4-3 (excluding the Shoot-Out) winning head-to-head record against 4-time World Champion John Higgins.

On 7 January 2022, Lines won the UK Seniors Championship, defeating David Lilley 4–1 in the final.

On 13 January 2022, the WPBSA's disciplinary committee announced that it had fined Lines £2,500 and ordered him to pay costs of £5,464.80 for breaching conduct rules and bringing the game into disrepute. While playing Xiao Guodong at the 2021 Northern Ireland Open qualifiers in Leicester, Lines had become angry over what he regarded as the incorrect replacement of balls after referee Brendan Moore called a foul and a miss against his opponent. The committee heard that Lines confronted Xiao in the players' lounge after the match, accused him of cheating, swore at him, and challenged him to a fight, leading to security personnel removing Lines from the lounge. Lines apologised to Xiao shortly afterward, and the committee took his apology and his "unblemished career in snooker" into account when issuing its ruling.

Personal life
He is married to Sarah and has three children, Penny, Leo and Oliver. Both he and Oliver practise at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds.

Performance and rankings timeline

Career finals

Non-ranking finals: 4 (3 titles)

Pro-am finals: 7 (5 titles)

Amateur finals: 3 (1 title)

References

External links

Peter Lines at worldsnooker.com

Snooker players from Leeds
Living people
1969 births
World champions in snooker
English snooker players

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Alternative Volatility Forecasting Method Evaluation
Tagged: Finance
For many financial market applications, including option pricing and investment decisions, volatility forecasting is crucial. Therefore, the research of volatility forecasting has been an active area of study since the past years. In recent years, the emergence of many financial time series methods for volatility forecasting has proved the importance of understanding the nature of volatility in any financial instruments.
Often, people will think 'price' is used as an indicator of the stock market performance. Due to the non-stationary nature of price series of the stock market, most researchers actually transformed series of 'price change (return)' or 'absolute price changes (absolute return)' in their studies. There is a difference between the term 'return' and the term 'volatility'. The term 'volatility' is used as a crude measure of the total risk of financial assets. Actually, volatility is the standard deviation or the variance of returns whereas 'return' is merely the changes of prices.
An increasingly commonly adopted tool for the measurement of the risk exposure associated with a particular portfolio of assets known as 'Value at Risk' (VaR) involves calculation of the expected losses that might result from changes in the market prices of particular securities (Jorion, 2001; Bessis, 2002). Thus, the VaR of a particular portfolio is defined as the maximum loss on a portfolio occurring within a specified time and with a given (small) probability. Under this approach, the validity of a bank's internally modeled VaR is 'backtested' by comparing actual daily trading gains or losses with the estimated VaR and noting the number of 'exceptions' occurring, in the sense of days when the VaR estimate was insufficient to cover actual trading losses, with concerns naturally arising where such exceptions frequently occur, and that can result in a range of penalties for the financial institution concerned (Saunders & Cornett, 2003).
A crucial parameter in the implementation of parametric VaR calculation methods is an estimate of the volatility parameter that describes the asset or portfolio, or more accurately a forecast of that volatility where the simplifying assumption of constancy is relaxed and time-varying volatility is acknowledged. While it has long been recognized that returns volatility exhibits 'clustering,' such that large (small) returns follow large (small) returns of random sign (Mandelbrot, 1963; Fama, 1965), it is only following the introduction of the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model (Engle, 1982; Bollerslev, 1986) that financial economists have modeled and forecast these temporal dependencies using econometric techniques, and a variety of adaptations of the basic GARCH framework are now widely used in modeling time-varying volatility. In particular, the significance of asymmetric effects in stock index returns has been widely documented, such that equity return volatility increases by a greater amount following positive shocks, usually associated with the 'leverage effect,' whereby a firm's debt-to-equity ratio increases when equity values decline, and holders of that equity perceive future income streams of the firm as being more risky (Black, 1976; Christie, 1982). Such variance asymmetry has been successfully modeled and forecast in a variety of market contexts (Henry, 1998) using the threshold-GARCH (TGARCH) model (Glosten et al., 1993), and the exponential-GARCH (EGARCH) model (Nelson, 1991) in particular.
While risk management practises in financial institutions often rely on simpler volatility forecasting approaches based on heuristics and moving average, smoothing or 'RiskMetrics' techniques, symmetric and asymmetric GARCH models have also recently begun to be considered in the VaR context. However, the standard GARCH model and variants within that class of model impose rapid exponential decay in the effect of shocks on conditional variance. In contrast, empirical evidence has suggested that volatility tends to change slowly and that shocks take a considerable time to decay (Ding et al., 1993). The fractionally integrated-GARCH (FIGARCH) model (Baillie et al., 1996; Chung, 1999) has provided a popular means of capturing and forecasting such non-integrated but highly persistent 'long memory' dynamics in volatility in the recent empirical literature, as well as its exponential (FIEGARCH) variant (Bollerslev & Mikkelsen, 1996) which parallels the EGARCH extension of the basic GARCH form, and therefore provides a generalization capable of capturing both the volatility asymmetry and long memory in volatility which are potential characteristics of emerging equity markets.
This paper therefore seeks to extend previous research concerned with the evaluation of alternative volatility forecasting methods under VaR modeling in the context of the Basle Committee criterion for determining the adequacy of the resulting VaR estimates in two ways. First, by broadening the class of GARCH models under consideration to include more recently proposed models such as the FIGARCH and FIEGARCH representations described above, which are capable of accommodating potential fractional integration and the associated long memory characteristics of return volatility, as well as the more simple and computationally less intensive methods commonly used in financial institutions. Second, extending the scope of previous research through evaluative application of these methods to daily index data of nine stock market indexes.
Significance of this study
The extensive research of volatility forecasting plays an important role for investment, financial risk management, security valuation, and also business decision-making process. Without a proper forecasting tools and research on this field, many financial decision making process will be difficult and risky to be implemented. The positive contribution of volatility forecasting in the field of finance is no doubt a fact as it given many practitioners a mean of guidelines to estimate their management risk such as option pricing, hedging and estimating investment risk.
Therefore, it is crucial to study on the performance of different approaches and methods of forecast model to determine the best suitable practical application for different situation. The most common form of financial instrument is the stock market. The stock indices consist of a particular country's most prominent stocks. Thus, in this study our aim is to focus on forecasting the stock indices volatility of eight different stock indices that provide us the ability to test the forecast approaches.
There are quite a number of forecast models since the recent years. However, the new concern is on the performance of these forecast model when incorporated with higher frequency data with the realized volatility method. There are still gap for researching the intra-day data effects on forecasting model which is comparative new as compared to daily data volatility forecasting. The significant role of this study also include whether intra-day data can really help at improving the performance of forecast model to estimate volatility for the stock index.
Review of Chapters
In this proposal, the report is mainly subdivided into three chapters. Chapter 1 is about the overview of this research which includes the background of the study, the research objective, problem statement, and the significance of this study. Chapter 2 presents the literature review of volatility forecasting, GARCH models, exponentially smoothing and realized volatility.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Volatility forecasting
Volatility forecasts are produced by either market-based or time-series methods. Market-based forecasting involves the calculation of implied volatility from current option prices by solving the Black and Scholes option pricing model for the volatility that results in a price equal to the market price. In this paper, our focus is on the development of a new time series method. These methods provide estimates of the conditional variance, σ2t = var(rt | It-1), of the log return, rt, at time t conditional on It – 1, the information set of all observed returns up to time t – 1. This can be viewed as the variance of an error (or residual) term, εt, defined by εt = rt – E(rt | It – 1 ), where E(rt | It – 1 ) is a conditional mean term, which is often assumed to be zero or a constant. εt is often referred to as the price "shock� or "news�.
2.2 Overview of standard volatility forecast model
2.2.1 GARCH model
GARCH models (Engle, 1982; Bollersle, 1986) are the most widely used statistical models for volatility. GARCH models express the conditional variance as a linear function of lagged squared error terms and lagged conditional variance terms. For example, the GARCH(1, 1) model is shown in the following expression:
σ2t = ω + αε2t – 1 + βσ2t – 1,
where ω, α, and β are parameters. The multiperiod variance forecast, , is calculated as the sum of the variance forecasts for each of the k periods making up the holding period:
where is the one-step-ahead variance forecast. Empirical results for the GARCH(1, 1) model have shown that often β ≈ (1 – α). The model in which β = (1 – α) is term integrated GARCH (IGARCH) (Nelson, 1990). Exponential smoothing has the same formulation as the IGARCH(1, 1) model with the additional restriction that ω = 0. The IGARCH(1, 1) multiperiod forecast is written as
Stock return volatility is often found to be greater following a negative return than a positive return of equal size. This leverage effect has promted the development of a number of GARCH models that allow for asymmetry. The first asymmetric formulation was the exponential GARCH model of Nelson (1991). In this log formulation for volatility, the impact of lagged squared residuals is exponential, which may exaggerate the impact of large shocks. A simpler asymmetric model is the GJRGARCH model of Glosten et al. (1993). The GJRGARCH(1, 1) model is given by
where ω, α, γ, and β are parameters; and I[.] is the indicator function. Typically, it is found that α > γ, which indicates the presence of the leverage effect. The assumption that the median of the distribution of εt is zero implies that the expectation of the indicator function is 0.5, which enables the derivation of the following multiperiod forecast expression:
GARCH parameters are estimated by maximum likelihood, which requires the assumption that the standardized errors, εt / σt, are independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). Although a Gaussian assumption is common, the distribution is often fat tailed, which has prompted the use of the Student-t distribution (Bollerslev, 1987) and the generalized error distribution (Nelson, 1991).
Stochastic volatility models provide an alternative statistical volatility modelling approach (Ghysels et al., 1996). However, estimation of these models has proved difficult and, consequently, they are not as widely used as GARCH models. Andersen et al. (2003) show how daily exchange rate volatility can be forecasted by fitting long-memory, or fractionally integrated, autoregressive and vector autoregressive models to the log realized daily volatility constructed from half-hourly returns. Although results for this approach are impressive, such high frequency data are not available to many forecasters, so there is still great interest in methods applied to daily data. A useful review of the volatility forecasting literature is provided by Poon and Granger (2003).
2.2.2 Exponentially Smoothing
Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) is simple and well-known volatility forecast method. The method is based on the simple average of past squared residuals to estimate its variance forecasts. The EWMA allows the latest observations to have a stronger weighted impact on the volatility forecast of past data observations. The equation for the EWMA is shown and written as exponential smoothing in recursive form. The α parameter is the smoothing parameter.
The equation:
There is no proper guideline or statistic model for exponential smoothing. Generally, literature suggested using reduction in the sum of in-sample one-step-ahead estimation of errors (Taylor, 2004 cited from Gardner, 1985). In RiskMetrics (1996), volatility forecasting for exponential smoothing is recommended to use the following minimisation:
In the above equation, ε2t is the in-sample squared error which acted as the proxy for
actual variance whereby it is said to be not observable. By using ε2t as a proxy for
variance, the actual squared residual, ε2t, is said to be biased and noisy. In Andersen
et al. (1998), the research showed the evaluation of variance forecasts using realised volatility as a more accurate proxy. The next section would discuss more on the literature of realised volatility. The usage of high frequency data for realised volatility in forecast evaluation can be applied in parameter estimation for exponential smoothing with the following minimisation expression:
2.2.3 Realised volatility
The recent research's interest in using a comparative volatility estimator as an alternative has emerged a significant literatures on volatility models that incorporated high frequency data. One of the emerging theories for a comparative volatility estimator is the so called Realized Volatility. Realized volatility is referred as the volatility calculated using a short period time series or using higher frequency periods. In Andersen and Bollerslev (1998) showed that high frequency data can be used to compute daily realize volatility which showed a better true variance than the usual daily return variance. This concept is adopted in Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold & Labys (2003) to forecast the daily stock volatility which found that the additional intraday information are provide better result in forecasting low volume and up market day.
The application of realized volatility has also been employed by Taylor (2004) in parameters estimation for weekly volatility forecasting using realised volatility derived from daily data. An encouraging result were showed by using the smooth transition exponential smoothing method whereby the research used eight stock indices to compare the weekly volatility forecast of this method with other GARCH models (Taylor, 2004). The concept of realized volatility has been employed by many researchers in forecasting of many other financial assets such as foreign exchange rates, individual stocks, stock indices and etcetera.
One of the early application of realized volatility concept has used spot exchange rates of Deutschemark-US dollar and Japanese Yen-US dollar to show the superiority of using intraday data as realized volatility measure. The sum of squared five-minute high frequency returns incorporated in the forecasting model proved to outperform the daily squared returns as a volatility measure (Andersen et al., 1998). Another similar study done by Martens (2001) has adopted realized volatility in forecasting daily exchange rate volatility using intraday returns. The results showed that using highest available frequency of intraday returns leads to superior daily volatility forecast.
Furthermore, realized volatility approach has also been extended to studies for risk and return trade-off using high frequency data. In Bali et al. (2005), the research provided strong positive correlation between risk and return for stock market using high frequency data. The usage of daily realized which incorporated valuable information from intraday returns produce more accurate measure of market risk. In addition to this study, Tzang et al. (2009) as applied the realized volatility approach as a proxy for market volatility rather than squared daily returns to assess the efficiency of various model based volatility forecast.
Finally, the findings from a research done by Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold & Labys (2001) shown that realized volatility in certain conditions is free for measurement error and unbiased estimator for return volatility. The proven research has prompted many recent works in forecasting intra-day volatility to applied realized volatility for their studies. This can be observed in McMillan & Garcia (2009), Fuertes et al. (2009), Frijns et al.(2008) and Martens (2001). Many researchers exploit the advantage of realised volatility as an unbiased estimator's measure for intra-day data and also as a simplified way to incorporated additional information into other forecast models.
McMillan et al. (2009) utilised realised volatility to capture intraday volatilities itself as opposed to most researchers that uses realised volatility for daily realised approach. The study showed Hyperbolic Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasity (HYGARCH) as the best forecast model of intra-day volatility.
2.3 Forecast Models used in this study
The forecast models that are presented in this study include:
Random Walk (RW)
30 days Moving Average (MA30)
Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) with =0.06 (RiskMetrics)
Exponentially Smoothing with α optimised (ES)
Integrated General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic using daily data (IGARCH)
Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (Riskmetrics) on daily realised volatility calculated from intraday data. (EWMA-RV)
Exponentially Smoothing with α optimised on daily realised volatility calculated from intraday data. (ES-RV)
General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity model with intraday data using realised volatility approach (INTRAGARCH)
Integrated General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity with intraday data using realised volatility approach (IGARCH)
General Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity with daily realised volatility (RV-GARCH)
CHAPTER 3: DATA AND METHODOLOGY
3.1 Sample selection and description of the study
Various comparative forecast models are used in order to evaluate the performance of incorporating intraday data. This study used dataset from nine stock indices include Malaysia (FTSE-BMKLCI), Singapore (STI), Frankfurt-Germany (DAX30), Hong Kong (Hang Seng Index), London-United Kingdom (FTSE100), France (CAC40), Shanghai-China (SSE), Shenzhen-China (SZSE), and United States (S&P 100). These series consisted of daily closing prices and also the intraday hourly last price of their respective indices.
The daily closing prices were retrieved using "DataStream Advance 4.0� and also from Yahoo Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com). Whereas, the hourly intraday last prices of these stock indices were retrieved from Bloomberg Terminal from Bursa Malaysia. Each stock index has their respective trading hour's last price which produced a different number of observations for each series. The total number of trading hours within the day differed among different stock index.
However, the sample period used in this study spanned approximately for 300 trading days, from 15 October 2009 to 15 March 2011. In order to simplify the study, the focus is based on a one-step-ahead volatility forecast. The first 200 trading days log returns were applied to estimate the parameters for various forecast models which is known as the in-sample forecast. The remaining 100 trading days log returns were used for post-sample evaluation. This study aimed to forecast volatility in daily log returns for various forecasting methods and used daily realised volatility as proxy for actual volatility. The next subsections presented the data description and the 10 forecast methods which will be considered in the study.
3.2 Data Analysis
3.2.1 Forecasting Methods
This subsection describes the methodology to forecast the in-sample and out-sample performance of various forecast models. The forecast model includes Random Walk (RW), Moving Average, GARCH models, and Exponential smoothing techniques.
3.2.1.1 Standard volatility forecast model using daily returns
This project paper adopted the simple moving average of squared residuals from the recent past 30 daily observations which is labelled as MA30 and the Random Walk (RW) for the standard volatility forecast model as performance benchmark. The 30 day simple moving average is given by:
Whereby, ε2 = (rt – μ)2 shown in the previous section. The moving average is able to smooth out the short running fluctuations and emphasize on the long run trends or cycles through a series of averaging different subsets of datasets.
On the other hand, the Random Walk (RW) is explained as the forecast result is equal to the actual value of the recent period. The actual value in this study used is the squared residual denoted as, ε2t. The equation is as shown below:�
Tomorrow's forecasted value = yesterday actual value ()
3.2.1.2 GARCH models for hourly and daily returns
There are many different GARCH models for forecasting volatility that can be included in this research. However, the consideration in this study is limited to 2 forecast GARCH models which are the GARCH and IGARCH for practicality. The GARCH models in this study have applied GARCH (1, 1) specifications. The three forecast model used were labelled as IGARCH, INTRA-IGARCH, and INTRA-GARCH models.
The IGARCH model is estimated using daily residuals as daily data is easily obtained from the source mentioned above. The general IGARCH forecast model used is given by:
�� �
But, the parameter estimate generate by EVIEW 7 will be using the following expression:
ï?³ ï?¢ ï?¡ï?¥ ï?³
However, the INTRA-IGARCH and INTRA-GARCH models used hourly residual data to estimate the forecast for daily realised volatility. The forecast for volatility of these models over an N-trading hours span period would be recognised as the forecast of daily volatility. The N trading hour's span period is dependent on the trading hours of a specified stock index. In order to calculate the daily realised volatility, the equation is for N trading hours in a day for a particular stock index is given by:
Where period i is the higher frequency of hourly data and the ε2t, is the squared residual of the particular hour. For example, if KLCI index has a 7 trading hours per day, the realised daily volatility is calculated from the sum of squared residual of these 7 hours. Additionally, forecast models such as INTRA-IGARCH
and INTRA-GARCH applied equation 3 to obtain the daily realised volatility by replacing the squared residual, ε2t with values that is forecasted using these models.
3.2.1.3 GARCH model using realised volatility
The GARCH model can be estimated using daily realised volatility which is
derived from the hourly squared residual with equation 3. In order to apply RV for
GARCH forecast model, equation 3 has to be modified to be squared root to be able
to obtain the parameter estimates that is needed using EVIEW 6. The equation is as
As for this project paper, the GARCH model that used daily realised volatility as
input data is labelled as RV-GARCH.
3.2.1.4 Exponential smoothing and EWMA methods
The forecast model for exponential smoothing method has been implemented
into two approaches. The first is by using minimisation of equation 3 to optimise the
parameter and it is labelled as ES for this project paper. The actual value (squared
residual), ε2t is obtained from the daily data. The second approach which is said to be
the better proxy variance forecast has applied equation 4 for the minimisation. The
forecast model for this exponential smoothing method is termed as ES-RV which
adopted daily realised volatility from hourly data.
Apart from that, the study also considered the smoothing parameter α as a fixed value of 0.06 as recommended by RiskMetrics (1996) for model using daily data and daily realised volatility data derived from hourly data. The forecast model is termed as EWMA and EWMA-RV respectively. By using equation 2 as shown previously, the EWMA used daily squared residual as ε2t – 1 parameter input while the EWMA-RV used the daily realised volatility as the ε2t – 1 parameter input.
3.3 Research Design (Gantt Chart)
Business Bliss Consultants FZE. (November 2018). Alternative Volatility Forecasting Method Evaluation. Retrieved from https://ukdiss.com/examples/evaluation-of-alternative-volatility-forecasting-methods.php?vref=1
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