Has IFRS resulted in information overload?

The move to NZ IFRS has been surrounded by complaints of too much information being provided. This is not simply a matter of the cost of providing the information, but the possibility of data overload. Data overload is an important issue as it impacts information search strategies and decision outcomes. This relevant for the current debate on differential reporting and for assessing whether NZ IFRS has achieved its goals of reducing the cost of financial analysis. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the move to international financial reporting by New Zealand listed entities on the quantity of data provided in the annual report. Our analysis shows that the annual report increased for 92% of our sample firms. The average increase in size was 29% of the prior years‟ annual report and arose through notes to the accounts and accounting policies. Even after transitional information (e.g., accounting policies and reconciliations) the increase is 15%

The Chromatin Structure of Well-Spread Demembranated Human Sperm Nuclei Revealed by Atomic Force Microscopy

The fundamental structure formed when genomic DNA is packaged by protamine in the human sperm nucleus still remains essentially unresolved. It is known that the binding of protamine, a small arginine-rich protein, to DNA generates a large dense, hydrophobic complex making the sperm chromatin structure difficult to study microscopically. To visualize the internal nuclear structures, isolated human sperm nuclei were swollen extensively in saline buffer using only a reducing agent. The nuclei were swollen during deposition onto coverglass and then imaged in the atomic force microscope (AFM). The two main results obtained from imaging individual well-spread nuclei indicate that native human sperm chromatin is: (1) particulate, consisting primarily of large nodular structures averaging 98 nm in diameter, and (2) also composed of smaller, nucleosome-like particles observed to form linear chains near the nuclear periphery. These two types of chromatin particles imaged by AFM are remarkably similar to other AFM measurements made on native and reconstituted sperm and somatic chromatin

Echolocation detections and digital video surveys provide reliable estimates of the relative density of harbour porpoises

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Erik Rexstad and Rob Williams for useful reviews of this manuscript. The collection of visual and acoustic data was funded by the UK Department of Energy & Climate Change, the Scottish Government, Collaborative Offshore Wind Research into the Environment (COWRIE) and Oil & Gas UK. Digital aerial surveys were funded by Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd and additional funding for analysis of the combined datasets was provided by Marine Scotland. Collaboration between the University of Aberdeen and Marine Scotland was supported by MarCRF. We thank colleagues at the University of Aberdeen, Moray First Marine, NERI, Hi-Def Aerial Surveying Ltd and Ravenair for essential support in the field, particularly Tim Barton, Bill Ruck, Rasmus Nielson and Dave Rutter. Thanks also to Andy Webb, David Borchers, Len Thomas, Kelly McLeod, David L. Miller, Dinara Sadykova and Thomas Cornulier for advice on survey design and statistical approache. Data Accessibility Data are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.cf04gPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Hyperuniversality of Fully Anisotropic Three-Dimensional Ising Model

For the fully anisotropic simple-cubic Ising lattice, the critical finite-size scaling amplitudes of both the spin-spin and energy-energy inverse correlation lengths and the singular part of the reduced free-energy density are calculated by the transfer-matrix method and a finite-size scaling for cyclic L x L x oo clusters with L=3 and 4. Analysis of the data obtained shows that the ratios and the directional geometric means of above amplitudes are universal.Comment: RevTeX 3.0, 24 pages, 2 figures upon request, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Observations of TeV gamma rays from Markarian 501 at large zenith angles

TeV gamma rays from the blazar Markarian 501 have been detected with the University of Durham Mark 6 atmospheric Cerenkov telescope using the imaging technique at large zenith angles. Observations were made at zenith angles in the range 70 - 73 deg during 1997 July and August when Markarian 501 was undergoing a prolonged and strong flare.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys. G.: Nucl. Part. Phy

Histone-DNA contacts in structure/function relationships of nucleosomes as revealed by crosslinking

The magnitude of the problem of understanding the structure/function relationships of eukaryotic chromosomes can be appreciated from the fact that the human diploid genome contains more than 2 meters of DNA packaged into 46 chromosomes, each at metaphase being several microns in length. Each chromatid of a chromosome contains a single DNA molecule several centimeters in length. In addition to the DNA, chromosomes contain an equal weight of histones and an equal weight of non-histone chromosomal proteins. These histones are the major chromosomal structural proteins. The non-histone chromosomal proteins are involved in the DNA processes of transcription and replication, in chromosome organization and in nuclear architecture. Polytene chromosomes with their bands and interbands and puffs of active genetic loci provide visual evidence for long range order as do the bands and interbands of mammalian metaphase chromosomes. The gentle removal of histones and all but the most tightly bound 2--3% of non-histone proteins from metaphase chromosomes revealed by electron microscopy a residual protein scaffold constraining a halo of DNA loops extending out from the scaffold

Restriction enzyme digestion of host DNA enhances universal detection of parasitic pathogens in blood via targeted amplicon deep sequencing.

BACKGROUND: Targeted amplicon deep sequencing (TADS) of the 16S rRNA gene is commonly used to explore and characterize bacterial microbiomes. Meanwhile, attempts to apply TADS to the detection and characterization of entire parasitic communities have been hampered since conserved regions of many conserved parasite genes, such as the 18S rRNA gene, are also conserved in their eukaryotic hosts. As a result, targeted amplification of 18S rRNA from clinical samples using universal primers frequently results in competitive priming and preferential amplification of host DNA. Here, we describe a novel method that employs a single pair of universal primers to capture all blood-borne parasites while reducing host 18S rRNA template and enhancing the amplification of parasite 18S rRNA for TADS. This was achieved using restriction enzymes to digest the 18S rRNA gene at cut sites present only in the host sequence prior to PCR amplification. RESULTS: This method was validated against 16 species of blood-borne helminths and protozoa. Enzyme digestion prior to PCR enrichment and Illumina amplicon deep sequencing led to a substantial reduction in human reads and a corresponding 5- to 10-fold increase in parasite reads relative to undigested samples. This method allowed for discrimination of all common parasitic agents found in human blood, even in cases of multi-parasite infection, and markedly reduced the limit of detection in digested versus undigested samples. CONCLUSIONS: The results herein provide a novel methodology for the reduction of host DNA prior to TADS and establish the validity of a next-generation sequencing-based platform for universal parasite detection