63 research outputs found
Industry, firm, year, and country effects on profitability: Evidence from a large sample of EU food processing firms
This paper analyzes the variance in accounting profitability within the European food industry. Based on a large panel data set, the variance in return on assets (ROA) is decomposed into year, country, industry, and firm effects. Further on, we include all possible interactions between year, country, and industry and discuss the theoretical foundations for these effects. After singling out the significant effect classes in a nested ANOVA with a thoroughly designed rotation regarding the order of effect introduction, we determine effect magnitude using components of variance (COV). Our results show that firm characteristics seem to be far more important than industry structure in determining the level of economic return within the food industry. Year and country effects, as well as their interactions were weak or insignificant, indicating that macroeconomics and trade theory offer little potential to serve as a basis for the explanation of performance differentials. While neither national nor industry-specific cycles were significant, EU-wide fluctuations significantly contributed to explaining differences in performance, suggesting that economic cycles in the EU are by and large synchronized.variance components, abnormal profit, EU-27, MBV, RBV, comparative advantage, Agribusiness, Agricultural Finance, Financial Economics, Industrial Organization, Marketing,
Industry, firm, year and country effects on profitability in EU food processing
We decompose the variance of food industry return-on-assets into industry, firm, year and country effects. After determining significance in a nested ANOVA, we estimate the magnitude using components of variance in a large sample of corporations. As a robustness check, we estimate a multilevel model that additionally allows us to estimate the impact of several covariates at each level. The results show that firm characteristics are more important than industry structure in determining food industry profitability. In particular, firm size seems to be an important driver of profitability while firm risk, age and, surprisingly market share have a negative influence
How should novelty be valued in science?
<p>Box plot analysis of serum concentrations of sRAGE (A), esRAGE (B), S100A9 (C) and HMGB1 (D) in patients with CTEPH (n = 26) and controls (n = 33). Independent Student’s t-test was used to compare groups. <i>RAGE</i> receptor for advanced glycation endproducts, <i>sRAGE</i> soluble RAGE, <i>esRAGE</i> endogenous secretory RAGE, <i>S100A9</i> member of S100 family of Ca+ binding proteins, <i>HMGB1</i> high mobility group box1, <i>CTEPH</i> chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension.</p
Elaborations on Corallopyronin A as a Novel Treatment Strategy Against Genital Chlamydial Infections
Ascending Chlamydia trachomatis infection causes functional damage to the fallopian tubes, which may lead to ectopic pregnancy and infertility in women. Treatment failures using the standard regimens of doxycycline and azithromycin have been observed. We tested the polyketide-derived α-pyrone antibiotic Corallopyronin A (CorA) that inhibits the bacterial DNA dependent RNA polymerase and has strong activity against various extracellular and some intracellular bacteria. Extensive testing in cell culture infection models and in an ex vivo human fallopian tube model under different oxygen concentrations was performed to assess the anti-chlamydial efficacy of CorA at physiological conditions. CorA showed high efficacy against C. trachomatis (MICN/H: 0.5 μg/mL for serovar D and L2), C. muridarum (MICN/H: 0.5 μg/mL), and C. pneumoniae (MICN/H: 1 μg/mL) under normoxic (N) and hypoxic (H) conditions. Recoverable inclusion forming units were significantly lower already at 0.25 μg/mL for all tested chlamydiae. CorA at a concentration of 1 μg/mL was also effective against already established C. trachomatis and C. pneumoniae infections (up to 24 h.p.i.) in epithelial cells, while efficacy against C. muridarum was limited to earlier time points. A preliminary study using a C. muridarum genital infection model revealed corresponding limitations in the efficacy. Importantly, in an ex vivo human fallopian tube model, the growth of C. trachomatis was significantly inhibited by CorA at concentrations of 1–2 μg/mL under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. The overall high efficacies of CorA against C. trachomatis in cell culture and an ex vivo human fallopian tube model under physiological oxygen concentrations qualifies this drug as a candidate that should be further investigated
Question Decomposition Improves the Faithfulness of Model-Generated Reasoning
As large language models (LLMs) perform more difficult tasks, it becomes
harder to verify the correctness and safety of their behavior. One approach to
help with this issue is to prompt LLMs to externalize their reasoning, e.g., by
having them generate step-by-step reasoning as they answer a question
(Chain-of-Thought; CoT). The reasoning may enable us to check the process that
models use to perform tasks. However, this approach relies on the stated
reasoning faithfully reflecting the model's actual reasoning, which is not
always the case. To improve over the faithfulness of CoT reasoning, we have
models generate reasoning by decomposing questions into subquestions.
Decomposition-based methods achieve strong performance on question-answering
tasks, sometimes approaching that of CoT while improving the faithfulness of
the model's stated reasoning on several recently-proposed metrics. By forcing
the model to answer simpler subquestions in separate contexts, we greatly
increase the faithfulness of model-generated reasoning over CoT, while still
achieving some of the performance gains of CoT. Our results show it is possible
to improve the faithfulness of model-generated reasoning; continued
improvements may lead to reasoning that enables us to verify the correctness
and safety of LLM behavior.Comment: For few-shot examples and prompts, see
https://github.com/anthropics/DecompositionFaithfulnessPape
Sleeper Agents: Training Deceptive LLMs that Persist Through Safety Training
Humans are capable of strategically deceptive behavior: behaving helpfully in
most situations, but then behaving very differently in order to pursue
alternative objectives when given the opportunity. If an AI system learned such
a deceptive strategy, could we detect it and remove it using current
state-of-the-art safety training techniques? To study this question, we
construct proof-of-concept examples of deceptive behavior in large language
models (LLMs). For example, we train models that write secure code when the
prompt states that the year is 2023, but insert exploitable code when the
stated year is 2024. We find that such backdoor behavior can be made
persistent, so that it is not removed by standard safety training techniques,
including supervised fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, and adversarial
training (eliciting unsafe behavior and then training to remove it). The
backdoor behavior is most persistent in the largest models and in models
trained to produce chain-of-thought reasoning about deceiving the training
process, with the persistence remaining even when the chain-of-thought is
distilled away. Furthermore, rather than removing backdoors, we find that
adversarial training can teach models to better recognize their backdoor
triggers, effectively hiding the unsafe behavior. Our results suggest that,
once a model exhibits deceptive behavior, standard techniques could fail to
remove such deception and create a false impression of safety.Comment: updated to add missing acknowledgement
The effect of cataract on early stage glaucoma detection using spatial and temporal contrast sensitivity tests
Background:
To investigate the effect of cataract on the ability of spatial and temporal contrast sensitivity tests used to detect early glaucoma.
Methods:
Twenty-seven glaucoma subjects with early cataract (mean age 60 ±10.2 years) which constituted the test group were recruited together with twenty-seven controls (cataract only) matched for age and cataract type from a primary eye care setting. Contrast sensitivity to flickering gratings at 20 Hz and stationary gratings with and without glare, were measured for 0.5, 1.5 and 3 cycles per degree (cpd) in central vision. Perimetry and structural measurements with the Heidelberg Retinal Tomograph (HRT) were also performed.
Results:
After considering the effect of cataract, contrast sensitivity to stationary gratings was reduced in the test group compared with controls with a statistically significant mean difference of 0.2 log units independent of spatial frequency. The flicker test showed a significant difference between test and control group at 1.5 and 3 cpd (p = 0.019 and p = 0.011 respectively). The percentage of glaucoma patients who could not see the temporal modulation was much higher compared with their cataract only counterparts. A significant correlation was found between the reduction of contrast sensitivity caused by glare and the Glaucoma Probability Score (GPS) as measured with the HRT (p<0.005).
Conclusions:
These findings indicate that both spatial and temporal contrast sensitivity tests are suitable for distinguishing between vision loss as a consequence of glaucoma and vision loss caused by cataract only. The correlation between glare factor and GPS suggests that there may be an increase in intraocular stray light in glaucoma
Identification of regulatory variants associated with genetic susceptibility to meningococcal disease.
Non-coding genetic variants play an important role in driving susceptibility to complex diseases but their characterization remains challenging. Here, we employed a novel approach to interrogate the genetic risk of such polymorphisms in a more systematic way by targeting specific regulatory regions relevant for the phenotype studied. We applied this method to meningococcal disease susceptibility, using the DNA binding pattern of RELA - a NF-kB subunit, master regulator of the response to infection - under bacterial stimuli in nasopharyngeal epithelial cells. We designed a custom panel to cover these RELA binding sites and used it for targeted sequencing in cases and controls. Variant calling and association analysis were performed followed by validation of candidate polymorphisms by genotyping in three independent cohorts. We identified two new polymorphisms, rs4823231 and rs11913168, showing signs of association with meningococcal disease susceptibility. In addition, using our genomic data as well as publicly available resources, we found evidences for these SNPs to have potential regulatory effects on ATXN10 and LIF genes respectively. The variants and related candidate genes are relevant for infectious diseases and may have important contribution for meningococcal disease pathology. Finally, we described a novel genetic association approach that could be applied to other phenotypes
- …