**1. Introduction**

Botswana is a small, upper middle-income economy in sub-Saharan Africa, dependent on its mining sector. Its principal export commodity is diamonds and prudent natural resource management policies have propelled its economy to grow significantly compared to other resource-rich countries. In addition, political stability is one of Botswana's key features. Nonetheless, the country faces major economic problems. First, the capital-intensive mining sector has not reduced the persistent unemployment in Botswana. Second, the country has the third highest HIV prevalence in world, which increases fiscal pressures (Deléchat and Gaertner 2008; Hillboom 2008; Limi 2006; Matlho et al. 2019). In addition, previous studies indicate an important structural problem, namely, that Botswana's currency (the pula) is overvalued (Iyke and Odhiambo 2016; Limi 2006; Pegg 2010; Taye 2012). Limi (2006) and Pegg (2010) indicate that the substantial mining revenue plays a role in this overvaluation. Lindgren and Wicklund (2018) posit that diamond prices and business confidence in Botswana have a negative correlation with the domestic exchange rate. Hence, the important issue considered in this study is the e ffects of exchange rate misalignment on the economy.

The extant literature shows that exchange rate overvaluation can increase capital flight, misallocate resources, abate economic e fficiency and induce unfavourable downward spirals of trade and exchange rate controls (Cuddington 1986; Dornbusch 1984; Edwards 1989; Pfe ffermann 1985; World Bank 1984). This study evaluates the impact of exchange rate misalignment on capital flight from Botswana over the period 1980–2015. The country aims to attract capital inflows to develop economic sectors other than mining. Botswana is unique because unlike other developing economies, it used only the fixed exchange rate regime since 1976. There has been no exchange rate regime change and the country has experienced significant undervaluation and overvaluation of the currency. It is conceivable that such misalignment has an impact on outward capital flight in Botswana. Botswana needs capital inflows for economic diversification, therefore, it is imperative to determine the impact of misalignment on capital flight from Botswana.

This study empirically investigates the impact of exchange rate misalignment on capital flight from Botswana. The examination contributes to the literature in two important ways. First, previous studies posit that the pula is overvalued but there is no study that evaluates the impact of exchange rate misalignment on capital flight from Botswana. The present study aims to fill this gap. The results of this study are important for implementing macroeconomic policies that support capital inflows for economic diversification in Botswana. Further, the World Bank (2019) indicates that Botswana's diamond mines will be depleted by 2030. In the absence of diamonds, Botswana's economic growth will decline drastically. Correcting exchange rate misalignment is necessary for early economic diversification and sustainable economic growth without diamonds.

Second, this investigation extends Gouider and Nouira (2014) methodological approach to misalignment. Gouider and Nouira (2014) defined overvaluation and undervaluation as either positive or negative misalignment without any thresholds. The lack of thresholds in Gouider and Nouira (2014) study implies that insignificant real e ffective exchange rate (REER) misalignments were included in the estimations. This study uses thresholds to capture only significant REER misalignment. This approach is important for determining which level of misalignment initiates high capital flight as an early warning indicator. This will curb substantial capital outflows, which are needed desperately for economic diversification in Botswana. The use of thresholds in this study allows policymakers to take informed actions in correcting misalignment, for example devaluing the currency. The results show that Botswana should tolerate overvaluation of the pula of only up to 5%. The present study uses the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration and the Toda and Yamamoto (1995) approach to Granger causality to determine the relationship between economic variables. This paper is organised as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature on exchange rate misalignment and capital flight. Section 3 presents the methodology used to achieve research objectives. Section 4 presents the results of the empirical models and discussions. Section 5 summarizes the results, reviews the objectives and provides policy implications. It also identifies areas for further investigation and study limitations.


*2.7. Statistical Analysis*

Statistical analysis of data was performed using IBM SPSS 23 statistic software. The Mann–Whitney test for independent samples was performed to examine differences between equol producers and non-producers in terms of microbial groups, diversity indexes, and fecal FAs. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test for related samples was used to examine differences between before and after isoflavone supplementation. Alternatively, Student's *t*test was used when normal distribution was confirmed using Saphiro-Wilk test. Two-tailed probability values of *p* < 0.05 were considered significant.


3.1.2. Effect of Concentration Factor α on the Purity of the Product

To maximize the yield of a continuous crystallization process, the concentration factor should be set as high as possible. However, with an increasing level of impurities, the achievable purity decreases. The requested purity on a dry basis was defined as >99.3%.

A critical concentration factor could be observed, above which the requested purity could no longer be achieved in a single-stage process. Under these apparent conditions, and considering the washing of the crystal cake with pure water in a centrifuge (15% compared to the solids), the critical concentration factor was identified to be ~3.8 (Figure 6).

**Figure 6.** Purity of the product as function of the concentration factor of soluble impurities/byproducts after multi-stage crystallization with crystal washing (15% compared to solids) (blue) and the requested purity (orange).


*Review* **The Pulsed Electron Deposition Technique forBiomedical Applications: A Review**

**Anna Liguori 1, Chiara Gualandi 1,2, Maria Letizia Focarete 1,3, Fabio Biscarini 4,5 and Michele Bianchi 4,\***

Received: 11 December 2019; Accepted: 23 December 2019; Published: 25 December 2019

**Abstract:** The "pulsed electron deposition" (PED) technique, in which a solid target material is ablated by a fast, high-energy electron beam, was initially developed two decades ago for the deposition of thin films of metal oxides for photovoltaics, spintronics, memories, and superconductivity, and dielectric polymer layers. Recently, PED has been proposed for use in the biomedical field for the fabrication of hard and soft coatings. The first biomedical application was the deposition of low wear zirconium oxide coatings on the bearing components in total joint replacement. Since then, several works have reported the manufacturing and characterization of coatings of hydroxyapatite, calcium phosphate substituted (CaP), biogenic CaP, bioglass, and antibacterial coatings on both hard (metallic or ceramic) and soft (plastic or elastomeric) substrates. Due to the growing interest in PED, the current maturity of the technology and the low cost compared to other commonly used physical vapor deposition techniques, the purpose of this work was to review the principles of operation, the main applications, and the future perspectives of PED technology in medicine.

**Keywords:** pulsed electron deposition; thin films; orthopedic applications; bioactivity; ceramic coatings; yttria-stabilized zirconia; calcium phosphates; hydroxyapatite; biomimetic coatings; antibacterial coatings


**About the Special Issue Editor**

**Derek Kirton** is a reader in social policy and social work at the University of Kent. His research interests, though ranging fairly widely across the field of child welfare, are mostly focused on adoption, foster care, and children in state care. In relation to adoption, he has contributed primarily to the literature on transracial adoption, where he has written a book 'Race', Ethnicity and Adoption (Open University Press, 2000), a shorter monograph, and numerous journal articles and book chapters. Some of these publications have addressed issues related to genealogy. Dr. Kirton has also conducted, with colleagues, related research involving adults formerly in care (their reasons for seeking access to care records, searching, reunions, and identity concerns through the life course). Other research and scholarly interests include the wider politics of child welfare and the place of foster care in provision for those in public care. Here, the particular focus has been on the changing nature of foster care and its 'professionalization', a term capturing moves toward regarding foster care as a job and/or profession, in turn sparking debates about how this trend articulates with parenting


**3. SARS-CoV-2 infection and acute symptomatic seizures**

Seizure is a relatively uncommon neurological complication of SARS-CoV-2 infection, accounting for less than 1% of patients [17, 24, 25], despite a significant proportion of patients presenting risk factors such as hypoxia, acute cerebrovascular disease, and metabolic derangements [26]. Prevalence was lower compared with previous MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV (8,6% and 2,7%, respectively) [24, 27].

Acute symptomatic seizures can occur in infection setting particularly in patients with poor general condition and fever [25], but a few case reports stated it as a presenting symptom of SARS-CoV-2 infection without the classical respiratory symptoms [27–29]. No study has yet clarified any direct relation between COVID-19 and the potentiation of epileptic seizures. At least in some patients with a history of epilepsy, they could merely reflect unprovoked seizures [26].

Nonetheless, several mechanisms were proposed for seizure generation and epileptogenesis in SARS-CoV-2 infection setting.


**8. Histological features of the secondary Mullerian system**

The secondary Mullerian system consists of the covering mesothelial layer and the submesothelial mesenchyme, on and adjacent to the ovaries, the pelvic peritoneum, the omentum and the retroperitoneal lymph nodes. The most common type of epithelial differentiation is a tubal-like epithelium, with ciliated cells. In the omentum and the ovaries cystic inclusions of tubal type epithelium are often observed intermingled with endometrialtype epithelium. Differentiations to mucinous, transitional and squamous type epithelial lesions, benign and malignant are also described. The sub-mesothelial stroma retains the ability to differentiate towards endometrial stroma and smooth muscle tissue and to undergo decidual reaction.