Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relation between Earnings Management and Pro Forma Reporting

Managers have a variety of tools at their disposal to influence stakeholder perceptions. Earnings management and the strategic reporting of non-GAAP (pro forma) performance metrics are just two of the many choices on the menu. We investigate how managers’ use of other menu items can influence the likelihood that they will disclose pro forma earnings. Specifically, we explore how (1) prior earnings management, current-period (2) operating performance, (3) real earnings management, and (4) accruals management influence the probability that a company will disclose an adjusted earnings metric in its earnings press release and the likelihood that it will do so aggressively. Based on a sample of hand-collected pro forma earnings disclosures, we find that companies that have used up their accruals in prior periods and that engage in less current-period earnings management are more likely to disclose pro forma earnings and to do so aggressively. Moreover, we find some evidence that companies using more real earnings management and with better current operating performance are less likely to report aggressive pro forma numbers. These results suggest that while more past earnings management is consistently positively associated with aggressive pro forma reporting, we find evidence of a substitute relation between aggressive pro forma reporting and both abnormal accruals and real earnings management. Finally, we find evidence that investors appear to understand these tradeoffs as they discount pro forma disclosures in the presence of higher levels of prior earnings management.
Related Party Transactions: A "Real" Means of Earnings Management and Tunneling During the IPO Process in China *

Using related party transactions (RPTs) between 198 Chinese IPOs during 1999-2001 and their parent companies, we provide evidence on both the “real” means used by parent company managers to manipulate the earnings of their newly issued firms during the IPO period, and their motivation for this opportunistic behavior – tunneling economic resources in the post-IPO period. Furthermore, we find a significant negative association between the IPO firms’ post-IPO abnormal stock return performance and the extent of abnormal RPTs with their parent companies during the IPO process. We also show that the higher the quality of the IPO firms’ corporate governance mechanisms, the lower the intensity of tunneling activities via RPTs by their parent companies in the post-IPO period.
Elevated Myeloid: Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Ratio Associates With Late, but Not Early, Liver Rejection in Children Induced With Rabbit Anti-Human Thymocyte Globulin

Background. Dendritic cells (DC) play an important role in the induction and regulation of immune responses. Methods. Myeloid CD11c+ DC (MDC), which may have inflammatory functions, and plasmacytoid CD123+ DC (PDC), which may have tolerogenic potential, were measured by flow cytometric analysis, cross-sectionally, once, in 48 children, and longitudinally (pretransplant and at days 1–60, 61–200, and 201–400 posttransplant) in 30 children after liver transplantation (LTx). All children received cadaveric (n=53) or live donor (n=25) liver allografts with rabbit anti-human thymocyte globulin induction and steroid-free tacrolimus therapy. Rejectors in both groups were those children (n=35), who experienced biopsy-proven acute cellular rejection (ACR) within 60 days of DC monitoring. Results. Among rejectors in the longitudinal and cross-sectional cohorts, the MDC:PDC ratio was higher and was associated with decreased PDC frequencies. Logistic regression analysis, leave-one-out cross-validation, and receiver operating characteristic analysis applied to 30 cross-sectional subjects revealed that an MDC:PDC ratio more than or equal to 1.78 was associated with rejector status with sensitivity and specificity of 76.9% and 88.2%, respectively. Sensitivity and specificity were replicated in the 18 remaining cross-sectional subjects (88.8% and 78.8%, respectively), but not in longitudinally monitored subjects, during the early 60-day period after LTx (30.76% and 62.50%, respectively). A significant negative correlation was observed between tacrolimus whole blood concentrations and PDC frequencies (Spearman r=−0.370, P=0.005) in 48 cross-sectional subjects in whom DC subsets were monitored 1 to 3 years after LTx, but not during the early post-LTx period. Conclusions. We conclude that an elevated MDC:PDC ratio associates with liver graft rejection, which occurs after first year in children induced with rabbit anti-human thymocyte globulin.
A phase I/IIa clinical trial of CLAOP21 and CLAOP14 in patients with high grade non-Hodgkins lymphoma

This study was performed to investigate hematotoxicity and occurrence of PPE in patients with high-grade non-Hodgkins lymphoma treated with a modified CHOP regimen (CLAOP), where doxorubicin had been substituted by a noncardiotoxic pegliposomal doxorubicin. An open-label phase I/IIa study was performed evaluating CLAOP21/20 with 20 mg/m2 of pegliposomal doxorubicin every 21 days (12 patients), and a dose-dense filgrastim supported CLAOP14 regimen every 14 days with escalating doses of pegliposomal doxorubicin (24 patients) in elderly high-grade lymphoma patients or patients with comorbidity interfering with cardiac function. CLAOP21/20 was well tolerated. Hematotoxicity was similar to that reported with regular CHOP. In the CLAOP14 cohort, a pegliposomal doxorubicin dose of 25 mg/m2 was associated with dose-limiting hematotoxicity, febrile episodes, and PPE. Both regimens were active with an overall response rate of 60% and 77%, respectively. The recommended dose of pegliposomal doxorubicin in the biweekly regimen for Phase II/III testing is 20 mg/m2.
The Effect of Risk Governance in the Insurance Sector During the Financial Crisis - Empirical Evidence from an International Sample

In this study, we analyze the relation between risk governance and risk and performance measures for a global sample of 107 insurance companies from 2004 to 2012. Our risk governance index covers several Solvency II provisions and includes the existence of chief risk officer on the executive board, risk committee characteristics and board industry experience. We find that, in general, during the asset meltdown phase in 2008, firms with a higher risk governance index have lower tail risk and lower expected default frequency (Moody’s EDF). Controlling for time-invariant heterogeneity across firms using a fixed effects approach, we identify that during our sample period risk governance does not have a risk-reducing effect in general but is positively associated with risk-adjusted performance measures and Tobin’s Q. Our findings challenge the notion that risk governance is typically risk reducing but rather support the role of risk governance as a business enabler. During our sample period risk governance increased and our findings should encourage insurers to continue enforcing their group wide risk governance structures.
The customer experience.

The concept of the ‘customer experience’ is not new. The idea is a simple one – that a customer, whether existing or potential, forms an impression of a company based on what he/she sees, hears, feels, touches and even smells. This chapter discusses points of customer interaction; client interactions; the eight-step experience process; why the customer experience cannot just be ‘good enough’; measuring the customer experience; using customer experience to build business; and playing the long game.
Significant Genetic and Antigenic Variability within the env Gene of Systemic Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Group O Populations during the Natural Course of a Heterosexual Infection: a Pilot Study

ABSTRACT We assessed the genetic and the antigenic variability within the env gene of peripheral blood human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1 (HIV-1) group O populations during the natural course of a female heterosexual infection. Our data revealed the existence of a significant increase in amino acid sequence variability within the C2-V3 and gp41 regions (P = 0.023 and P < 0.001, respectively) in association with substitutions within neutralizing epitope sequences usually selected for HIV serological assays. These antigenic variations might significantly decrease the sensitivity of classical HIV enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays with blood samples of subjects heterosexually infected by HIV-1 group O strains. These findings may be of significant use both to devise diagnostic tools and to pursue suitable therapeutic modalities in cases of heterosexual infection by outlier HIV-1 strains.
Cytokeratin 19 immunoreactivity in the diagnosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma

Context: The diagnosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is based on nuclear features. These features may be present in focal areas in benign thyroid diseases and follicular adenoma (FA), leading to diagnostic difficulty. Aims: To evaluate the expression and pattern of the distribution of cytokeratin 19 (CK19) in PTC and compare its reactivity with other neoplastic and non-neoplastic conditions to assess its potential as a useful marker for PTC. Materials and Methods: Twenty two cases of papillary carcinoma (usual type, follicular and diffuse sclerosing variant), eight follicular adenomas, eight multinodular goiters (MNG) were collected for a period of two years and six months. Sections were taken from thyroidectomy specimens fixed in 10% buffered neutral formalin. Hematoxylin and eosin staining and immunohistochemical staining for CK19 were done using standard protocol. Results were semiquantitatively scored as follows: 1+ (<5% positively stained cells), 2+ (5-25%), 3+ (25-75%) and 4+ (>75%), and then analyzed. Statistical Analysis and Results: All 22 (100%) papillary carcinomas showed diffuse and strong (3+ and 4+) CK19 expression. Six out of eight (75%) FAs and four out of eight (50%) MNG were positive for CK19, but it was of weaker intensity (1+ and 2+) and focal in distribution. Conclusion: Focal CK19 staining may be found in benign disease, but diffuse and strong positivity is characteristic of PTC, which can be used in the diagnosis of PTC in lesions of equivocal morphological appearances.
Clinical Significance of Vestibular Aqueduct ’ s Width in Pediatric Patients with Sensorineural Hearing Loss

OBJECTIVE: To assess the clinical significance of vestibular aqueduct (VA) width measurement on high resolution CT images in pediatric patients with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). MATERIALS AND METHODS: 34 pediatric patients with sensorineural hearing loss (Group I) and 42 controls without SNHL (Group II) underwent otorhinolaryngological, otoneurological examinations, full audiological, sinusoidal harmonic acceleration evaluation and high resolution CT scan of temporal bone. VA width was measured at coronal and axial planes (at both midpoint and opercular levels). RESULTS: In control group, vestibular aqueduct mean width was [0.80 and 0.71] at right and left midpoint, [1.6 mm] at opercular level and (1.4 mm at right and 1.5 at left side) on coronal image. Enlarged vestibular aqueduct was in nineteen (55.9%) patients with SNHL. VA mean width was [2.62 and 2.35] at midpoint, [3.31 and 3.27 mm] at opercular level, and (2.8 mm and 3.24) on coronal images at right and left sides respectively. Sinusoidal Harmonic Acceleration (SHA) was abnormal in (47%) of children with SNHL; (68.8%) of them had enlarged VA. CONCLUSION: VA is enlarged; if it exceeded (1.2), (2.1) and (1.5) mm at midpoint, opercular level and on coronal images respectively. Incidence of enlarged vestibular aqueduct is higher with severe to profound hearing loss. Incidence of gain abnormality in rotational testing is common in patients with enlarged vestibular aqueduct. Most children with enlarged vestibular aqueduct have combined audio-vestibular dysfunction. From the Departments of Radiology (E. Hassanein, M.A. Ghaffar); Otorhinolaryngology (M. Taha, H. Taha); AinShams University Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo-Egypt
‘The Score Matters’: wide variations in predictive performance of 18 paediatric track and trigger systems

Objective To compare the predictive performance of 18 paediatric early warning systems (PEWS) in predicting critical deterioration. Design Retrospective case-controlled study. PEWS values were calculated from existing clinical data, and the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUROC) compared. Setting UK tertiary referral children's hospital. Patients Patients without a ‘do not attempt resuscitation’ order admitted between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2012. All patients on paediatric wards who suffered a critical deterioration event were designated ‘cases’ and matched with a control closest in age who was present on the same ward at the same time. Main outcome measures Respiratory and/or cardiac arrest, unplanned transfer to paediatric intensive care and/or unexpected death. Results 12 ‘scoring’ and 6 ‘trigger’ systems were suitable for comparative analysis. 297 case events in 224 patients were available for analysis. 244 control patients were identified for the 311 events. Three PEWS demonstrated better overall predictive performance with an AUROC of 0.87 or greater. Comparing each system with the highest performing PEWS with Bonferroni's correction for multiple comparisons resulted in statistically significant differences for 13 systems. Trigger systems performed worse than scoring systems, occupying the six lowest places in the AUROC rankings. Conclusions There is considerable variation in the performance of published PEWS, and as such the choice of PEWS has the potential to be clinically important. Trigger-based systems performed poorly overall, but it remains unclear what factors determine optimum performance. More complex systems did not necessarily demonstrate improved performance.
Automatic Camera-work Control For Intelligent Monitoring Of Telerobotic Tasks

In t elerobot ic task execii t ion visual inforinat ion, such as TV monitors, is most important. However, in order that TV monitor supports human operator effectively, the monitor should display scenes relevant to task situation. In converitiorial systems, the human operator controls camera direction and viewing range (zooming) manually along with robot task control. It severely increases the burden of the operator. In this paper, we propose an intelligent control system of the monitoring camera for telerobotic task execution. The system supports the human operator by offering automated camera control synchronized with the process of the task execution. The robot tasks are commanded and executed using teleoperation-oriented robot-language. The proposed framework for the intelligent control system utilizes the hierarchical structiire of the language system. Prototype system with two cameras has been built up. Some results from experiments are also included.
Bank Competition, Financing Obstacles, and Access to Credit

Theory makes ambiguous predictions about the effects of bank concentration on access to external finance. Using a unique data base for 74 countries of financing obstacles and financing patterns for firms of small, medium, and large size, the authors assess the effects of banking market structure on financing obstacles and the access of firms to bank finance. The authors find that bank concentration increases financing obstacles and decreases the likelihood of receiving bank finance, with the impact decreasing in size. The relation of bank concentration and financing obstacles is dampened in countries with well developed institutions, higher levels of economic and financial development, and a larger share of foreign-owned banks. The effect is exacerbated by more restrictions on banks' activities, more government interference in the banking sector, and a larger share of government-owned banks. Finally, it is possible to alleviate the negative impact of bank concentration on access to finance by reducing activity restrictions.
Is there a Need for Recombinant Human Luteinizing Hormone (Lutropin Alfa) Supplementation in Ovarian Stimulation for Assisted Reproduction?

Luteinizing hormone is now available as the recombinant product, lutropin alfa for the treatment of female infertility. It is necessary in the natural process of follicular growth and maturation. It is not yet clear which patients really benefit from the addition of this medication to conventional gonadotropin stimulation procedures in infertility treatment. Certainly, it has a proven benefit in patients suffering from hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (WHO I). Others may be older patients, patients with a profound gonadotropin suppression stimulated in long gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist protocols, or patients with poor ovarian response to conventional stimulation strategies. The available data are reviewed herein.
Venture Capitalists in Mature Public Firms

Using data on the backgrounds of board members of S&P companies, we show that venture capitalists (VCs) play an important role in mature public firms long after their initial public offering (IPO). Almost one-third of mature public companies have at least one VC director on their board. VC presence on the board is not limited to mature companies that were VC-backed at the time of their IPO – over one-third of mature firms with VC directors were not VC-backed at the time of their IPO. Appointments of VC directors to the board are followed by increases in R&D intensity, innovation output, and greater deal activity with other VC-backed firms. VC director appointments are associated with positive announcement returns and are followed by an improvement in operating performance. Finally, firms experience higher announcement returns from acquisitions of VC-backed targets following the appointment of a VC director to the board. Our results show that in addition to their function as providers of finance, monitoring and advice for small private firms, VCs play a significant role in mature public firms as well. Hence, we illustrate a much broader role for VCs than has been established in the literature.
Evaluation of serum haptoglobin, ceruloplasmin and pseudocholinesterase levels in cows with botulism.

The aim of this study was to determine serum pseudocholinesterase, rheumatoid factor, troponin I, C-reactive protein, caeruloplasmin, haptoglobin, urea, creatinin, creatinin kinase (CK), phosporus, calcium, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) in cows with or without botulism. The study included 15 holstein cows aged two to five years as the botulism group and control group consisting of 10 healthy cows. The group included both pregnant and dry period cattle. Serum concentration of all the parameters were measured using an autoanalyzer and Nefelometre equipment BNII. Mice inoculation test was performed to make diagnosis and Clostridium Botulinum type C and D toxins were determined in silage and blood that cows with botulism. Serum troponin I, C-reactive protein, rheumatoid factor, creatinine, creatinine kinase, phosphorus, calcium and AST did not differ significantly between two groups. Biochemistry analysis of serum showed that in the botulism group haptoglobin, caeruloplasmin and urea were higher and that pseudocholinesterase and alanine aminotransferase were lower than in the control group. Serum haptoglobin, caeruloplasmin, urea, alanine aminotransferase and especially pseudocholinesterase concentrations may prove beneficial to the prognosis of botulism.
Natural Selection and the Distribution of Identity-by-Descent in the Human Genome

There has recently been considerable interest in detecting natural selection in the human genome. Selection will usually tend to increase identity-by-descent (IBD) among individuals in a population, and many methods for detecting recent and ongoing positive selection indirectly take advantage of this. In this article we show that excess IBD sharing is a general property of natural selection and we show that this fact makes it possible to detect several types of selection including a type that is otherwise difficult to detect: selection acting on standing genetic variation. Motivated by this, we use a recently developed method for identifying IBD sharing among individuals from genome-wide data to scan populations from the new HapMap phase 3 project for regions with excess IBD sharing in order to identify regions in the human genome that have been under strong, very recent selection. The HLA region is by far the region showing the most extreme signal, suggesting that much of the strong recent selection acting on the human genome has been immune related and acting on HLA loci. As equilibrium overdominance does not tend to increase IBD, we argue that this type of selection cannot explain our observations.
First steps in the acquisition of Spanish stress

ABSTRACT This article uses longitudinal data from four Mexican-American children to explore two aspects of the acquisition of Spanish word stress that precede and accompany learning of the stress system itself. First, contrary to Allen & Hawkins' proposed universal ‘trochaic bias’ (Allen 1982, Allen & Hawkins 1977, 1979, 1980), it is shown that children have a ‘neutral start’ in stress learning: they approach the task of stress learning unbiased towards any particular stress type. Secondly, several examples are found in which children's attention to phonetic or semantic aspects of normatively unstressed syllables leads them to shift stress to that syllable.
Face Retrieval in Large-Scale News Video Datasets

SUMMARY Face retrieval in news video has been identiﬁed as a challenging task due to the huge variations in the visual appearance of the human face. Although several approaches have been proposed to deal with this problem, their extremely high computational cost limits their scalability to large-scale video datasets that may contain millions of faces of hundreds of characters. In this paper, we introduce approaches for face retrieval that are scalable to such datasets while maintaining competitive performances with state-of-the-art approaches. To utilize the variability of face appearances in video, we use a set of face images called face-track to represent the appearance of a character in a video shot. Our ﬁrst proposal is an approach for extracting face-tracks. We use a point tracker to explore the connections between detected faces belonging to the same character and then group them into one face-track. We present techniques to make the approach robust against common problems caused by ﬂash lights, partial occlusions, and scattered appearances of characters in news videos. In the second proposal, we introduce an e ﬃ cient approach to match face-tracks for retrieval. Instead of using all the faces in the face-tracks to compute their similarity, our approach obtains a representative face for each face-track. The representative face is computed from faces that are sampled from the original face-track. As a result, we signiﬁcantly reduce the computational cost of face-track matching while taking into account the variability of faces in face-tracks to achieve high matching accuracy. Experiments are conducted on two face-track datasets extracted from real-world news videos, of such scales that have never been considered in the literature. One dataset contains 1,497 face-tracks of 41 characters extracted from 370 hours of TRECVID videos. The other dataset provides 5,567 face-tracks of 111 characters observed from a television news program (NHK News 7) over 11 years. We make both datasets publically accessible by the research community. The experimental results show that our proposed approaches achieved a remarkable balance between accuracy and e ﬃ ciency.