bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Tax avoidance and firm value: evidence from China
Authors: Chen Xudong , Hu Na , Wang Xue , Tang Xiaofei 
Published: February 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to examine whether corporate tax avoidance behavior increases firm value in Chinese context. A large number of studies conduct their designs on the consumption that tax avoidance represents wealth transfer from government to enterprises and therefore enhances firm value. This study argues that, contrast to developed countries, tax avoidance does not necessarily add value to opaque Chinese firms relative to transparent counterparts due to higher agency costs.Design/methodology/approach– Using a large sample of Chinese listed-firms data for the period 2001-2009 and fixed effects regression model, this study examines the relation between tax avoidance and firm value. A series of robustness checks are conducted to alleviate the concern of endogeneity.Findings– The authors find that tax avoidance behavior increases agency costs and reduces firm value. The authors further find that information transparency interacts with corporate tax avoidance, moderating the relation between tax avoidance and firm value. Investors in China react negatively to corporate tax avoidance behavior, but this negative reaction could be mitigated by information transparency. The results are robust to a series of alternative treatments, including varied measures, first-order differential approach and 2SLS.Originality/value– The results suggest that tax avoidance does not necessarily increase firm value, part of gains are encroached by self-serving managers. Moreover, investors in China downplay the significance of tax avoidance, although corporate information transparency could soften their negative tone.
Share repurchases: does frequency matter?
Authors: De Ridder Adri , Råsbrant Jonas 
Published: February 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in market performance of Swedish firms that initiate repurchase programs infrequently (1-2 programs), occasionally (3-4 programs) and frequently (5 or more programs) over the sample period and examine the relationship between abnormal return and repurchase size in repurchase months.

Design/methodology/approach
– Standard event study methodology is used to detect abnormal return surrounding initiation announcements of repurchase programs. Ibbotson's RATS-methodology and the calendar-time portfolio methodology are used to estimate long-term abnormal performance.

Findings
– The authors find differences in market performance of firms that initiate repurchase programs infrequently, occasionally and frequently. As with Jagannathan and Stephens, the authors find that infrequent repurchase programs are greeted with a stronger positive reaction than occasional and frequent programs. However, over long term, infrequent repurchase programs show no abnormal return, while occasional and frequent repurchase programs show a significant positive abnormal return. A positive relationship between abnormal return and repurchase size in repurchase months is documented on average for all types of repurchase programs.

Originality/value
– By using the detailed data on repurchase activities, the authors are able to examine share repurchases with high precision and relate the performance to repurchase size. Since the duration of a repurchase program is pre-determined in Sweden, the authors are able to classify the programs by frequency and study market performance within the programs.
The use of discretionary loan loss provisions by Islamic banks and conventional banks in the Middle East region
Authors: Ben Othman Hakim , Mersni Hounaida 
Published: February 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to study earnings management practices of Islamic banks and conventional banks in the Middle East region. First, the authors examine factors that may influence Islamic banks managers' use of discretion in reporting loan loss provisions (LLP). Second, the authors investigate differences that may exist between Islamic banks and non-Islamic banks in terms of discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLP) used to manipulate accounting earnings.

Design/methodology/approach
– This empirical study uses an unbalanced panel data of 21 Islamic banks, 18 conventional banks with Islamic windows and 33 conventional banks, from seven Middle East countries during a period that ranges from 2000 to 2008. The authors use a two-stage approach in order to examine factors that may influence the use of discretion by Islamic banks' managers.

Findings
– The empirical results reveal that Islamic banks use DLLP for both earnings and capital management. External financing is also found to be a determinant of DLLP. Additional findings show no significant differences among Islamic banks, conventional banks with Islamic windows and conventional banks in using DLLP. These three groups of banks behave similarly in terms of discretion based on DLLP.

Practical implications
– The findings are potentially useful for regulators, auditors and investors. This study provides regulators with insights to strengthen their financial regulations in order to improve accounting quality. In addition, it helps auditors when considering the provisioning policies adopted by banks in order to detect specific manipulations of accounting earnings. The results may also help investors to focus on the impact of managerial discretion on accounting earnings for evaluation purposes.

Originality/value
– This study contributes to the literature on Islamic banking. On the one hand, it extends prior research by examining the discretionary component of LLP, instead of being restricted to total LLP. On the other hand, it compares the use of discretion among three groups of banks: full Islamic banks, conventional banks with Islamic windows and full conventional banks.
Quality management systems development based on a production systems taxonomy
Authors: Leopoulos Vrassidas , Chatzistelios Georgios 
Published: February 2014

Purpose
– This paper aims to propose a method for the development of quality management systems (QMS) that allows the consultant that undertakes the support of the organisation to take advantage of a corporate memory. The consultant develops a new QMS based on a preliminary draft that is created using suitable reference processes from a library, selected according to the features of the organisation's production system.

Design/methodology/approach
– The method adopts a taxonomy of production systems, based on a set of features (e.g. degree of the products’ customisation, form of purchasing, etc.) and creates a library of reference processes that satisfy the requirements of the standard and are suitable for each particular type of production system.

Findings
– The QMS developed according to the proposed method satisfy both the requirements of the standard ISO 9001 and the needs of the organisation in which the QMS is installed in the biggest possible degree. The duration and cost of the project for the new QMS is reduced and the effort is oriented towards the process adaptation and improvement.

Research limitations/implications
– The proposed approach is general and can be applied to several types of industries. However, the proposed taxonomy is applicable to manufacturing companies. For other types of organisations specific taxonomies should be developed.

Originality/value
– The originality of the paper stems from the development of a QMS based on reference processes rather than the modelling and reviewing of as-is processes.
A generic model for integration of Quality, Environment and Safety Management Systems
Authors: Ferreira Rebelo Manuel , Santos Gilberto , Silva Rui 
Published: February 2014

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to propose a generic model of Integrated Management System of Quality, Environment and Safety (IMS-QES) that can be adapted and progressively to assimilate various Management Systems, of which highlights: ISO 9001 for Quality; ISO 14001 for Environment; OHSAS 18001 for Occupational Health and Safety.

Design/methodology/approach
– The model was designed in the real environment of a Portuguese Organization and 160 employees were surveyed. The rate response was equal to 86 percent. The conceived model was implemented in a first phase for the integration of Quality, Environment and Safety Management Systems.

Findings
– Among the main findings of the survey the paper highlights: the elimination of conflicts between individual systems with resources optimization; creation of added value to the business by eliminating several types of wastes; the integrated management of sustainability components in a global market; the improvement of partnerships with suppliers of goods and services; reducing the number of internal and external audits.

Originality/value
– This case study is one of the first Portuguese empirical researches about IMS-QES and the paper believes that it can be useful in the creation of a Portuguese guideline for integration, namely the Quality Management Systems; Environmental Management Systems and Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems among others.
Perturbation methods for two special cases of the time‐lapse seismic inverse problem
Authors:  Innanen Kristopher A. , Naghizadeh Mostafa , Kaplan Sam T.  
Published: February 2014

ABSTRACTScattering theory, a form of perturbation theory, is a framework from within which time‐lapse seismic reflection methods can be derived and understood. It leads to expressions relating baseline and monitoring data and Earth properties, focusing on differences between these quantities as it does so. The baseline medium is, in the language of scattering theory, the reference medium and the monitoring medium is the perturbed medium. The general scattering relationship between monitoring data, baseline data, and time‐lapse Earth property changes is likely too complex to be tractable. However, there are special cases that can be analysed for physical insight. Two of these cases coincide with recognizable areas of applied reflection seismology: amplitude versus offset modelling/inversion, and imaging. The main result of this paper is a demonstration that time‐lapse difference amplitude versus offset modelling, and time‐lapse difference data imaging, emerge from a single theoretical framework. The time‐lapse amplitude versus offset case is considered first. We constrain the general time‐lapse scattering problem to correspond with a single immobile interface that separates a static overburden from a target medium whose properties undergo time‐lapse changes. The scattering solutions contain difference‐amplitude versus offset expressions that (although presently acoustic) resemble the expressions of Landro (). In addition, however, they contain non‐linear corrective terms whose importance becomes significant as the contrasts across the interface grow. The difference‐amplitude versus offset case is exemplified with two parameter acoustic (bulk modulus and density) and anacoustic (P‐wave velocity and quality factor Q) examples. The time‐lapse difference data imaging case is considered next. Instead of constraining the structure of the Earth volume as in the amplitude versus offset case, we instead make a small‐contrast assumption, namely that the time‐lapse variations are small enough that we may disregard contributions from beyond first order. An initial analysis, in which the case of a single mobile boundary is examined in 1D, justifies the use of a particular imaging algorithm applied directly to difference data shot records. This algorithm, a least‐squares, shot‐profile imaging method, is additionally capable of supporting a range of regularization techniques. Synthetic examples verify the applicability of linearized imaging methods of the difference image formation under ideal conditions.
Leaf life span and the leaf economic spectrum in the context of whole plant architecture
Authors: Edwards Erika J. , Chatelet David S. , Sack Lawren , Donoghue Michael J. 
Published: February 2014

Summary

The leaf economics spectrum (LES) has been an organizing framework of plant functional ecology for the past decade. The LES describes a set of trade‐offs among traits related to plant carbon balance. Species with a long leaf life span (LLS) invest additional material for leaf protection and structural support and consequently tend to have a lower leaf photosynthetic rate per unit mass than species with a shorter LLS.

While the LES is most apparent in comparing species with extreme differences in their traits, it has nonetheless been adopted as a general explanation of leaf trait variation at all scales and in all plants. It highlights the ‘trait‐based’ approach to plant ecology, which has generally used a small set of traits to predict whole organism and even whole ecosystem attributes. Few studies have investigated the relationships between LES traits and organismal attributes not directly related to carbon economy.

We explored the LES in 32 deciduous woody species of Viburnum (Adoxaceae). We found no evidence for any mass‐based LES trade‐offs. Rather, on an area basis, photosynthetic rates were positively correlated with leaf mass per area (LMA); higher LMA was associated with greater investment in photosynthetic tissue, with most of the variation due to changes in the thickness of photosynthetic mesophyll.

Species’ mean LLS varied between 19 and 26 weeks and was not correlated with other LES traits. Instead, LLS was strongly associated with the diverse set of whole‐plant branching patterns in Viburnum. In the most common growth pattern, LLS was significantly correlated with flowering time, because branches end in terminal inflorescences, and all leaves and inflorescences are pre‐formed in overwintering buds.

Synthesis. Plants may recover the cost of their leaves early in the growing season, allowing LLS to vary independently of the plant carbon budget. In deciduous species, LLS may be strongly influenced by whole plant architecture, which, in Viburnum, is evolutionarily conserved. In general, positive area‐based LES trait relationships will limit the relevance of LLS to this spectrum and allow LLS to vary for reasons that are not directly related to carbon economy.
Identifying genetic loci controlling neonatal passive transfer of immunity using a hybrid genotyping strategy
Authors: Rohrer G. A. , Rempel L. A. , Miles J. R. , Keele J. W. , Wiedmann R. T. , Vallet J. L. 
Published: February 2014

SummaryColostrum intake is critical to a piglet's survival and can be measured by precipitating out the γ‐immunoglobulins from serum with ammonium sulfate (immunocrit). Genetic analysis of immunocrits on 5312 piglets indicated that the heritabilities (se) for direct and maternal effects were 0.13 (0.06) and 0.53 (0.08) respectively. To identify QTL for direct genetic effects, piglets with the highest and lowest immunocrits from 470 litters were selected. Six sets of DNA pools were created based on sire of the litter. These 12 DNA pools were applied to Illumina Porcine SNP60 BeadChips. Normalized X and Y values were analyzed. Three different SNP selection methods were used: deviation of the mean from high vs. low pools, the deviation adjusted for variance based on binomial theory and ANOVA. The 25 highest ranking SNPs were selected from each evaluation for further study along with 12 regions selected based on a five‐SNP window approach. Selected SNPs were individually genotyped in the 988 piglets included in pools as well as in 524 piglets that had intermediate immunocrits. Association analyses were conducted fitting an animal model using the estimated genetic parameters. Nineteen SNPs were nominally associated (P < 0.01) with immunocrit values, of which nine remained significant (P < 0.05) after Bonferroni correction, located in 16 genomic regions on 13 chromosomes. In conclusion, the pooling strategy reduced the cost to scan the genome by more than 80% and identified genomic regions associated with a piglet's ability to acquire γ‐immunoglobulin from colostrum. Each method to rank SNPs from the pooled analyses contributed unique validated markers, suggesting that multiple analyses will reveal more QTL than a single analysis.
Evidence for ethnic and environmental contributions to frequency of ovarian clear cell carcinoma
Authors: Tay Sun Kuie , Cheong May Anne 
Published: February 2014

BackgroundOvarian clear cell carcinoma (OCCC) is reportedly more common in Asians than Caucasians. We investigated the epidemiology of OCCC in an Asian population.Materials and MethodsCases of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) diagnosed between January 2004 and December 2009 in a gynaecologic oncology unit were studied retrospectively. Patient details and tumour characteristics were retrieved from hospital records and tested for their association with OCCC by univariate and binomial logistic regression analysis. A time trend in the proportion of OCCC among EOC was computed with data from the National Cancer Registry of Singapore (1968–2006).ResultsThe institutional cohort of 341 cases included 81 OCCC and 260 non‐OCCC EOC. Independent risk factors for OCCC were nulliparity (OR = 1.36) and endometriosis (OR = 4.87). Compared with other EOC, OCCC was significantly larger in tumour size (13.5 vs. 11.3 cm), more frequently located unilaterally (84.3 vs. 65.5%), diagnosed at FIGO stage‐1 (63.0 vs. 33.9%) and negative for serum CA125 (34.2 vs. 8.2%), and less often (53 vs. 85%) associated with a positive Risk of Malignancy Index. Nation‐wide statistics revealed a steady increase in the proportion of OCCC among EOC from 5.2 to 13.4% between 1968 and 2006. The frequency of OCCC in Singapore was higher than American Whites, similar to American Asians but lower than Japanese.ConclusionThe difference in epidemiologic and tumour characteristics between OCCC and other EOC was nondiscriminatory. Three distinct ethnic‐related clusters of frequency distribution globally and the rising trend in proportion of OCCC in Singapore suggested that ethnic–genetic predisposition and economy‐related environmental factors contributed to development of OCCC.
Gleason inflation 1998–2011: a registry study of 97 168 men
Authors: Danneman Daniela , Drevin Linda , Robinson David , Stattin Pär , Egevad Lars 
Published: February 2014

ObjectivesTo study long‐term trends in Gleason grading in a nationwide population and to assess the impact of the International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) revision in 2005 of the Gleason system on grading practices, as in recent years there has been a shift upwards in Gleason grading of prostate cancer.Patients and MethodsAll newly diagnosed prostate cancers in Sweden are reported to the National Prostate Cancer Register (NPCR). In 97 168 men with a primary diagnosis of prostate cancer on needle biopsy from 1998 to 2011, Gleason score, clinical T stage (cT) and serum levels of prostate‐specific antigen (s‐PSA) at diagnosis were analysed.ResultsGleason score, cT stage and s‐PSA were reported to the NPCR in 97%, 99% and 99% of cases. Before and after 2005, Gleason score 7–10 was diagnosed in 52% and 57%, respectively (P < 0.001). After standardisation for cT stage and s‐PSA with 1998 as baseline these tumours increased from 59% to 72%. Among low‐risk tumours (stage cT1and s‐PSA 4–10 ng/mL) Gleason score 7–10 increased from 16% in 1998 to 40% in 2011 (P trend < 0.001), mean 19% and 33% before and after 2005 (P < 0.001). Among high‐risk tumours (stage T3 and s‐PSA 20–50 ng/mL) Gleason score 7–10 increased from 65% in 1998 to 94% in 2011 (P trend < 0.001), mean 78% and 90% before and after 2005 (P < 0.001). A Gleason score of 2–5 was reported in 27% in 1998 and 1% in 2011. Gleason score 5 decreased sharply after 2005 and Gleason score 2–4 was almost abandoned.ConclusionsThere has been a gradual shift towards higher Gleason grading, which started before 2005 but became more evident after the ISUP 2005 revision. Among low‐stage tumours reporting of Gleason score 7–10 was more than doubled during the study period. When corrected for stage migration upgrading is considerable over recent decades. This has clinical consequences for therapy decisions such as eligibility for active surveillance. Grading systems need to be as stable as possible to enable comparisons over time and to facilitate the interpretation of the prognostic impact of grade.
One‐stop clinic for ketamine‐associated uropathy: report on service delivery model, patients' characteristics and non‐invasive investigations at baseline by a cross‐sectional study in a prospective cohort of 318 teenagers and young adults
Authors: Tam Yuk‐Him , Ng Chi‐Fai , Pang Kristine Kit‐Yi , Yee Chi‐Hang , Chu Winnie Chiu‐Wing , Leung Vivian Yee‐Fong , Wong Grace Lai‐Hung , Wong Vincent Wai‐Sun , Chan Henry Lik‐Yuen , Lai Paul Bo‐San 
Published: February 2014

ObjectiveTo describe a service delivery model and report the baseline characteristics of patients investigated by a non‐invasive approach for ketamine‐associated uropathy.Patients and MethodsThis was a cross‐sectional study in a prospective cohort of patients who attended their first visit and underwent non‐invasive investigations at a dedicated centre to treat ketamine‐associated uropathy in Hong Kong from December 2011 to July 2013. Data on demographics, illicit ketamine use, symptoms scores and voiding function parameters at baseline were prospectively collected. Differences between active abusers and ex‐abusers, and risk factors for the most symptomatic group were investigated by univariate and multivariate analysis.ResultsIn all, 318 patients completed the non‐invasive assessment at their first visit and were eligible for inclusion. In all, 174 were female and the mean (sd) age of the entire cohort was 24.4 (3.1) years. Patients had used ketamine for a mean (sd) period of 81 (36) months. The mean (sd) ketamine use per week was 18.5 (15.8) g. In all, 214 patients were active abusers while 104 were ex‐abusers but had persistent lower urinary tract symptoms. The mean (sd) voided volume, bladder capacity, and bladder emptying efficiency were 111.5 (110) mL, 152.5 (126) mL and 73.3 (26.9)%, respectively. The ex‐abusers had a lower symptom score (19.3 vs 24.1; P < 0.001), a larger voided volume (126 vs 85 mL; P < 0.001), and a larger bladder capacity (204.8 vs 126.7 mL; P < 0.001) compared with active abusers. Multivariate analysis found female gender was associated with a higher symptom score (odds ratio [OR] 2.39; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.35–4.23; P = 0.003) and a smaller voided volume (OR 1.9; 95% CI 1.1–3.3; P = 0.02). Ketamine taken (g/week) was another risk factor for a higher symptom score (OR 1.03; 95% CI 1.01–1.05; P = 0.002). Status of ex‐abuser was the only protective factor associated with fewer symptoms, larger voided volume and bladder capacity.ConclusionsAn effective service model for recruiting patients with ketamine‐associated uropathy is possible. With such a service model as a platform, further prospective studies are warranted to investigate the appropriate choice of treatment for this new clinical entity.