Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors Related to Auditor-Client Disagreements over Income-Increasing Accounting Methods*

The Securities and Exchange Commission requires disclosure of auditorâ€ client disagreements that precede a change in auditor. Although prior research has documented that disclosure of disagreements is associated with a decline in equity value, no empirical work has examined factors that result in auditorâ€ client disagreements. We hypothesize that managers are motivated by debt and compensation arrangements to propose methods that are objected to by their auditors (resulting in a disagreement). Because of their greater independence, we also hypothesize that reported disagreements will be more likely for Big Eight (now Big Six) auditors, A comparison of 40 firms that changed auditors and reported a disagreement with a control group of 40 firms that simply changed auditors revealed that disagreement firms are more likely to have debt covenant violations. Disagreement firms are also more likely to have higher leverage, a decline in earnings, and Big Eight auditors. For firms that disclosed the magnitude of the disagreement's effect on earnings, the use of the questionable procedure tended to enhance â€œflatâ€ earnings growth. RA©sumA©. La Securities and Exchange Commission exige que soit publiA©e l'information relative aux dA©saccords vA©rificateurâ€ client qui prA©cA¨dent un changement de vA©rificateurs. Bien que les recherches antA©rieures aient dA©montrA© que la publication de cette information est accompagnA©e d'un dA©clin de la valeur des titres, aucun travail empirique n'a examinA© les facteurs qui sont A l'origine des dA©saccords vA©rificateurâ€ client. Les auteurs posent l'hypothA¨se selon laquelle ce sont le passif et les rA©gimes de rA©munA©ration qui motivent les gestionnaires A proposer des mA©thodes auxquelles s'opposent les vA©rificateurs (et qui donnent lieu A un dA©saccord). Les auteurs posent A©galement l'hypothA¨se selon laquelle il est plus probable que les dA©saccords dA©clarA©s mettent en cause les huit grands cabinets d'expertsâ€ comptables (maintenant les six grands), A©tant donnA© leur indA©pendance plus grande. La comparaison de 40 entreprises ayant changA© de vA©rificateurs et fait A©tat d'un dA©saccord A un groupe de contrA´le de 40 entreprises ayant simplement changA© de vA©rificateurs a rA©vA©lA© que les entreprises en dA©saccord sont davantage susceptibles d'avoir dA©rogA© A des clauses restrictives. Les entreprises qui dA©clarent Aatre en dA©saccord avec leurs vA©rificateurs sont aussi davantage susceptibles d'Aatre caractA©risA©es par un levier financier A©levA©, un dA©clin dans les bA©nA©fices et le recours aux services d'un cabinet d'expertsâ€ comptables appartenant aux huit grands. Dans le cas des entreprises qui ont fait A©tat de l'ampleur des consA©quences du dA©saccord sur les bA©nA©fices, l'utilisation du procA©dA© discutable a eu tendance A favoriser une croissance Â« horizontale Â» des bA©nA©fices.
The relationship between transparent and participative government: A study of local governments in the United States

The relationship between transparency and participation of government is not well articulated in the literature. Transparency provides stakeholders with knowledge about the processes, structures and products of government. Participation refers to the quantity, quality and diversity of input of stakeholders into government decision-making. Greater transparency and participation are often considered to operate side by side. However, in the Internet age the change in the magnitude of information disclosure may outweigh the change in the level of participative government. This article uses data from a 2010 national survey of five US local government agencies to test hypotheses about the relationship between transparency and participation and the factors that affect them. Findings show that participation is positively associated with transparency, but transparency does not lead to participation. In addition, organizations that are under stronger influence from external stakeholders report higher levels of participation but in some cases higher levels of external influence dampen transparency. Points for practitioners For practitioners, the article provides a framework for understanding the relationship between transparency and participation as two dimensions of open government. While in some departments these two dimensions are present at similar levels, in others they are not. For example, among five departments, police report the lowest overall participation and transparency levels, while parks and recreation and the mayor’s office report the highest transparency and participation levels, respectively. In addition, police departments report significantly higher transparency than participation, while the reverse is true for community development departments. The article provides public administrators with greater insight into causes of and relationships between transparency and participation.
L‐DOPA‐induced dyskinesia in adult rats with a unilateral 6‐OHDA lesion of dopamine neurons is paralleled by increased c‐fos gene expression in the subthalamic nucleus

Levodopa (L‐DOPA), the metabolic precursor of dopamine, is widely used as a pharmacological agent for the symptomatic treatment of Parkinson's disease. However, long‐term L‐DOPA use results in abnormal involuntary movements such as dyskinesias. There is evidence that abnormal cell signaling in the basal ganglia is involved in L‐DOPA‐induced dyskinesia. The subthalamic nucleus (STN) plays a key role in the circuitry of the basal ganglia and in the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease. However, the contribution of the STN to L‐DOPA‐induced dyskinesias remains unclear. The objective of this work was to study the effects of acute or chronic systemic administration of L‐DOPA to adult rats with a unilateral 6‐hydroxydopamine (6‐OHDA) lesion of dopamine neurons on c‐fos expression in the STN and test the hypothesis that these effects correlate with L‐DOPA‐induced dyskinesias. c‐fos mRNA expression was measured in the STN by in situ hybridization histochemistry at the single cell level. Our results confirm earlier evidence that the chronic administration of L‐DOPA to rats with a unilateral 6‐OHDA lesion increases c‐fos expression in the STN. We also report that c‐fos expression can be increased following an acute injection of L‐DOPA to 6‐OHDA‐lesioned rats but not following a chronic injection of L‐DOPA to sham‐operated, unlesioned rats. Finally, we provide evidence that the occurrence and severity of dyskinesia is correlated with c‐fos mRNA levels in the ipsilateral STN. These results suggest that altered cell signaling in the STN is involved in some of the behavioral effects induced by systemic L‐DOPA administration.
A SURVEY ON BANK EFFICIENCY RESEARCH WITH DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS AND STOCHASTIC FRONTIER ANALYSIS

The banking industry from all over the world has been the object of DEA and SFA analysis by a significant number of researchers. Various type of DEA and SFA models have been applied in performance assessing problems and the banks production processes have further motivated the improvement of this models. This paper surveys 30+ published applications in various countries.
Implementation and integration of EU environmental directives. Experiences from The Netherlands

European integration has consequences for environmental planning in the European Union. Recent evaluations of the European Commission show that implementation of environmental directives proves to be a challenging task for the responsible authorities. This paper discusses the relation between the implementation of the Water Framework Directive and the Birds and Habitats Directives in The Netherlands. Studies from this member state show that legal and procedural aspects of planning and decision making gain the most attention and that environmental goals are fading into the background. We study the integration of the two directives from a policy and practice perspective and discuss the difficulties that arise in the implementation process. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
A MODEL FOR HIGH FREQUENCY DATA UNDER PARTIAL INFORMATION: A FILTERING APPROACH

A general model for intraday stock price movements is studied. The asset price dynamics is described by a marked point process Y, whose local characteristics (in particular the jump-intensity) depend on some unobservable hidden state variable X. The dynamics of Y and X may be strongly dependent. In particular the two processes may have common jump times, which means that the actual trading activity may affect the law of X and could be also related to the possibility of catastrophic events. The agents, in this model, are restricted to observing past asset prices. This leads to a filtering problem with marked point process observations. The conditional law of X given the past asset prices (the filter) is characterized as the unique weak solution of the Kushner–Stratonovich equation. An explicit representation of the filter is obtained by the Feyman–Kac formula using a linearization method. This representation allows us to provide a recursive algorithm for the filter computation.
Coordinate Ranking Regularized Non-negative Matrix Factorization

Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) has become increasingly popular in many applications that require data mining techniques such as information retrieval, computer vision, and pattern recognition. NMF aims at approximating the original data matrix in a high dimensional space with the product of two non-negative matrices in a lower dimensional space. In many applications with high dimensional data such as text, data often have a global geometric structure, which typically may not be directly derived from the local information. But the existing literature of NMF completely ignores this problem. This paper proposes a novel matrix factorization algorithm called Coordinate Ranking regularized NMF (CR-NMF) in order to address this problem. The idea of the proposed algorithm is to combine NMF and manifold ranking to encode both local and global geometric structures of the data. Experimental results on two real-world datasets demonstrate the superiority of this algorithm.
Food Demand in Mexico: An Application of the Amemiya‐Tobin Approach to the Estimation of a Censored Food System

The modeling of micro-level food demand patterns requires not only allowing for household heterogeneity, but also addressing the problem of censoring. In this article, we present a variation of the Amemiya-Tobin framework for estimating a censored demand system that allows for household heterogeneity. The unique aspect of our approach is the use of a procedure that ensures the adding up of both latent and observed expenditure shares and also imposes expenditure share nonnegativity. This system is applied to an analysis of food demand based on a random sample of urban Mexican households.
Project Appraisal and Capital Investment Decision Making in the Scottish Water Industry

Restructuring the Scottish water industry has changed the way in which both project appraisal and capital investment decisions are performed. This article examines the project appraisal and subsequent capital investment decision in the case of a reed bed sewage treatment scheme which is compared with a more traditional scheme. Although the capital profiles of the schemes are similar there are major differences in the revenue costs. In addition, there are potential public benefits to the reed bed scheme. A comparison is made of management mechanisms in the pre-1996 water industry with that of restructured water authorities. In the pre-1996 water industry, local authorities had a broad remit which encouraged them to value these factors, in effect an implicit social account. The creation of water authorities with narrow remits and specific performance measures, constructed a framework that does not support the integration of social accounts into the decision making process. The paper demonstrates that investment appraisal is a product of the institutional framework in which the decisions are made. As that framework changes, mechanisms and measures of accountability shift in parallel.
Epidermal growth factor receptor is associated with the onset of skeletal related events in non-small cell lung cancer

Background Bone metastasis and skeletal related events (SREs) are common in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Patients with mutant epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) could benefit from tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). However, it is unclear whether SRE is influenced by EGFR status. We aimed to evaluate the correlation of EGFR status and TKIs with the incidence of SREs. Methods We conducted a retrospective study of stage IV NSCLC patients with bone metastasis. Incidence rate of SREs was collected and was compared using chi-square test. Logistic-regression analysis was used to identify the risk factors predicting the incidence of SREs. Results 410 eligible patients were enrolled in the study. 49.0% were detected with EGFR mutation. 49.8% of patients received EGFR-TKIs therapy prior to the onset of SREs. 42.7% experienced at least one SRE. Patients who were treated with TKIs held lower incidence of SREs than patients who were not treated with TKIs (23.5% vs 61.7%, p<0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that poor performance status (OR 5.550, 95%CI 2.290-13.450; p<0.001) and mutant EGFR (OR 3.050, 95%CI 1.608-5.787, p=0.001) were independent risk factors predicting the onset of SREs, while the usage of TKIs (OR 0.102, 95%CI 0.054-0.193, p<0.001) was a protective factor of SREs in NSCLC patients with bone metastasis. Conclusions This study indicates that the incidence of SREs is common in both patients with and without EGFR mutation. Poor performance ability and mutant EGFR imply higher risks of SREs, while the usage of TKIs may be a protective factor of SREs.
Sequenzgenerierung aus Klassifikationsbäumen

Die weit verbreitete Klassifikationsbaum-Methode [1] erlaubt, unter Verwendung des CTE XL Professional [2] oder des CTE XL [3], die automatische Generierung von Testfallmengen fur underschiedliche Testobjekte. Die in der Praxis ebenso wichtige Erstellung von Testsequenzen wird von den genannten Werkzeugen bislang nur manuell unterstutzt. Berner & Mattner arbeitet daher an Generierungsmechanismen fur die automatische Erzeugung sinnvoller, fehlersensitiver Testsequenzen. Erste Ergebnisse dieser Arbeiten und die sich daraus fur die KlassifikationsbaumMethode ergebenden Erweiterungen werden in diesem Beitrag vorgestellt.
Anticompetitive Product Design in the New Economy

Claims alleging anticompetitive product design and redesign lie at the very core of one of antitrust law’s most challenging dilemmas: the intersection between innovation and regulation, invention and intervention. For over three decades, courts and scholars have struggled to determine the proper analytical framework within which to address such cases. Meanwhile, the very industries in which challenged conduct occurs have been undergoing fundamental changes. As demonstrated by the ongoing and recent antitrust litigation involving high-technology firms Apple, Intel, and Microsoft, distinctive features characterize most product markets in what has been called the “New Economy” - and increasingly has become simply “the economy. ” Many of these features not only uniquely incentivize anticompetitive design-related conduct, but also render such conduct uniquely susceptible to antitrust scrutiny. Accordingly, this Article both supplies a proper understanding of code-based product markets and, perhaps more importantly, provides a structured, efficient, and rational method of analyzing design-related conduct in those markets.
Molecular Basis for Dissimilar Nuclear Trafficking of the Actin‐Bundling Protein Isoforms T‐ and L‐Plastin

T‐ and L‐plastin are highly similar actin‐bundling proteins implicated in the regulation of cell morphology, lamellipodium protrusion, bacterial invasion and tumor progression. We show that T‐plastin localizes predominantly to the cytoplasm, whereas L‐plastin distributes between nucleus and cytoplasm in HeLa or Cos cells. T‐plastin shows nuclear accumulation upon incubation of cells with the CRM1 antagonist leptomycin B (LMB). We identified a Rev‐like nuclear export sequence (NES) in T‐plastin that is able to export an otherwise nuclear protein in an LMB‐dependent manner. Deletion of the NES promotes nuclear accumulation of T‐plastin. Mutation of residues L17, F21 or L26 in the T‐plastin NES inhibits nuclear efflux. L‐plastin harbors a less conserved NES and lacks the F21 T‐plastin residue. Insertion of a Phe residue in the L‐plastin NES specifically enhances its export activity. These findings explain why both isoforms exhibit specific distribution patterns in eukaryotic cells.
Career guidance, education, and dialogues for a fair and sustainable human development (*)

How could career interventions promote a fair and sustainable human development? In order to answer this question, first an account is provided of the factors that contributed to defining the first general model for career interventions and to the emergence of the second one. One such factor was a political dispute over the purpose of these interventions: should they aim only to provide companies with the required workforce, or should they both foster the optimal individual development and promote a richer and fairer social organization? In the current model, these interventions are supposed to help people manage their careers and, more generally, their lives. Designed with this objective in mind, such interventions meet the needs of people who live in postmodern societies. Nevertheless, to effectively prepare people for coping with the major challenges that humanity confronts today (such as decent work deficit, economic and social precarity affecting billions of young people, serious environmental and technological hazards, etc.), such interventions definitely need developing. Various proposals are made to contribute to solving these serious problems.
Successes in social protection: what lessons can be learned?

The recent food, fuel and financial crises have triggered innovation in social protection programmes around the world. Existing evidence suggests that such programmes both protect people from shocks and enable them to participate in economic growth. This paper explores lessons learned in social protection initiatives across countries and contexts, and identifies a set of ‘success conditions’ for social protection programmes, focusing mainly on sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana's national health insurance illustrates well three key features of an enabling environment: political commitment at the top; high administrative capacity; and financial sustainability and commitment to programme spending controls. To influence policy, these lessons need specification to the given context. Résumé La crise récente de nourriture, carburant et finance a déclenché l'innovation des programmes de protection sociale autour du monde. La preuve actuelle démontre que ce genre de programmes protège les gens des chocs et les permet de contribuer à la croissance économique. Cet article examine les leçons apprises par des initiatives de protection sociale dans divers pays et contextes. Nous identifions quelques conditions de succès pour les programmes de protection sociale, tout en mettant l'emphase sur l'Afrique subsaharienne. Le programme d'assurance de santé nationale du Ghana illustre bien trois éléments clé d'un environnement favorable : l'engagement politique; une grande capacité administrative; le soutien financier et la régulation continue des dépenses. Pour avoir une influence sur la politique, ces leçons doivent être adaptées au contexte particulier en question.
Immunomodulatory effects of mesenchymal stromal cells in solid organ transplantation

Purpose of reviewMultipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) possess powerful immunomodulatory activity highlighting the potential for their clinical translation in solid organ transplantation. In this review, we summarize recent advances in understanding MSC immunomodulatory effect in vitro and in experimental transplant models and discuss topics of crucial importance for the future clinical use of MSCs as immunotherapy in solid organ transplantation. Recent findingsMSCs strongly inhibited T-cell activity in vitro and exerted similar inhibitory effects on other cells of the immune system. MSC-mediated immune suppression has been attributed mainly to the secretion of soluble factors; however, cell-contact mechanisms cannot be excluded. Available studies in animal transplant models raised variable results, but overall indicate that MSCs could be useful to modulate recipient immune cells. The timing of cell application and the origin of MSCs (autologous or allogeneic) seem to be the most crucial factors impacting the in-vivo efficacy of MSCs. SummaryA better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the immunomodulatory effects of MSCs in vitro and in vivo is needed to define the optimal condition for the use of MSCs as immunotherapy in solid organ transplantation.
Children in Apartments: Implications for the Compact City

Apartments are often portrayed as the domain of young singles, couples and ‘empty nesters’. This article focuses on research undertaken in Sydney (Australia) where a disparity exists between identified planning assumptions regarding apartment residents and the actual apartment population. This article presents an innovative analysis of Australian Census data that identifies lower income households with children as a significant sub-sector of the resident apartment population, geographically concentrated in the lower value middle-ring suburbs of Sydney. An examination of one middle-ring urban renewal site (the Sydney Olympic Park site) provides evidence to suggest that new residential developments adjacent to areas dominated by an apartment market with a significant proportion of lower income families with children are themselves likely to see an influx of these households. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for planners and developers, as well as for service provision at a local council level.
Exploring the parameter space of a rabbit ventricular action potential model to investigate the effect of variation on action potential and calcium transients

Computational models for cardiomyocyte action potentials (AP) often make use of a large parameter set. This parameter set can contain some elements that are fitted to experimental data independently of any other element, some elements that are derived concurrently with other elements to match experimental data, and some elements that are derived purely from phenomenological fitting to produce the desired AP output. Furthermore, models can make use of several different data sets, not always derived for the same conditions or even the same species. It is consequently uncertain whether the parameter set for a given model is physiologically accurate. Furthermore, it is only recently that the possibility of degeneracy in parameter values in producing a given simulation output has started to be addressed. In this study, we examine the effects of varying two parameters (the L-type calcium current (ICaL) and the delayed rectifier potassium current (IKs)) in a computational model of a rabbit ventricular cardiomyocyte AP on both the membrane potential (Vm) and calcium (Ca2+) transient. It will subsequently be determined if there is degeneracy in this model to these parameter values, which will have important implications on the stability of these models to cell-to-cell parameter variation, and also whether the current methodology for generating parameter values is flawed. The accuracy of AP duration (APD) as an indicator of AP shape will also be assessed.