Gift card value when issuers go bankrupt

What value does a prepaid gift card retain when the company where it can be spent files for bankruptcy? A legal intern looks at the law and recent cases and offers advice to consumers.Stored-value cards ; Bankruptcy ; Retail trade

The Generalizability and Reliability of Scores on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale Over Forty-Eight Years

The objective of this study is to test the reliability of scores on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965) from 1971 to 2019. Self-esteem is how highly one thinks of themselves and how much worth they feel they possess. The RSES is not the only measure of global self-esteem, but it is the most widely used (Whiteside-Mansell & Corwyn, 2003). In the late 1980’s and 1990’s, the self-esteem movement was enacted in the United States as an effort to improve the lives of adults and children, which may have changed the way self-esteem is interpreted (Humphrey, 2004). For example, items on the RSES may now be measuring narcissism or self-efficacy more so than self-esteem. Thirteen existing item-level datasets that used the RSES were obtained. Sample sizes varied, but all samples contained young adults in the United States between the ages of 15 and 26. Two Classical Test Theory (CTT; Meyer, 2010) coefficients were used, Cronbach’s α and Guttman’s λ_2. to test the reliability of scores on the RSES by finding the ratio of true score variance to observed score variance. Generalizability Theory (G-Theory; Shavelson & Webb, 1991) components, specifically G-studies and D-studies, were then used to identify the sources of variance present in scores on the RSES (i.e., variance from persons, variance from items, and remaining unexplained and error variance). The CTT coefficients and G-theory methods indicated scores on the RSES were reliable and, if anything, have increased slightly in reliability over the last 48 years. Despite the reliability of the scores on the RSES, the validity of the scores are still in question. It is important to periodically test the reliability of scores on widely used measures like the RSES to determine the extent to which they can be used for various forms of decision-making (Meyer, 2010) and for various research aims

Funding, repo and credit inclusive valuation as modified option pricing

We take the holistic approach of computing an OTC claim value that incorporates credit and funding liquidity risks and their interplays, instead of forcing individual price adjustments: CVA, DVA, FVA, KVA. The resulting nonlinear mathematical problem features semilinear PDEs and FBSDEs. We show that for the benchmark vulnerable claim there is an analytical solution, and we express it in terms of the Black-Scholes formula with dividends. This allows for a detailed valuation analysis, stress testing and risk analysis via sensitivities.Comment: 1 figur

Evaluasi Pengaruh Kompetensi Sumber Daya Manusia, Pemanfaatan Sistem Informasi Akuntansi Keuangan Daerah, dan Peran Sistem Pengendalian Internal Terhadap Kualitas Laporan Keuangan Pemerintah Daerah Semarang

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh kompetensi sumber daya manusia, pemanfaatan sistem informasi akuntansi keuangan daerah, dan peran sistem pengendalian internal terhadap kualitas laporan keuangan pemerintah daerah Kota Semarang. Populasi penelitian yaitu pegawai Dinas Pengelolaan Keuangan dan Aset Daerah Pemerintah Kota Semarang yang melaksanakan fungsi akuntansi/ penatausahaan keuangan, dan memiliki masa kerja lebih dari empat tahun. Sampel penelitian berjumlah 82 responden. Metode analisis data penelitian yaitu metode kualitatif dan kuantitatif. Metode kualitatif adalah instrumen penelitian dan metode kuantitatif adalah pengujian hasil instrumen penelitian menggunakan software SPSS 20.0. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan semua variabel independen berpengaruh signifikan terhadap kualitas laporan keuangan pemerintah daerah Kota Semarang

Academic Performance of Children with Social-Emotional Difficulties: Examining the Role of Self-Regulation

Student with social-emotional difficulties are at increased risk for many adverse outcomes, including school dropout, serious mental health concerns, justice-involved behavior, and decreased quality of life. Thus, considerable attention needs to be directed toward identifying ways to bolster resilience and mitigate these risks for these students. Research suggests that self-regulation skills, including attention, inhibitory control and emotion regulation, are critical for success across a variety of areas including academic performance; however, there are many questions about which specific facets of self-regulation are most critical for academic performance more broadly as well as in specific areas like reading and mathematics. Moreover, most of the prior literature has focused on early childhood, overlooking the critical learning opportunities in early elementary school. Little is also known about the impact of these factors for higher risk students with clear social-emotional difficulties. As such, this study utilized an integrative theoretical framework of self-regulation to examine how self-regulation factors influence academic performance, specifically for early elementary students with social-emotional difficulties. The student sample consisted of 129 first and second grade students nominated by 68 teachers for a self-regulation intervention. Using baseline data collected as part of a federally-funded study, multilevel modeling was used to determine the extent to which various cognitive and emotional mechanisms of self-regulation were associated with teacher-rated academic performance, reading proficiency, and mathematics proficiency, after controlling for gender and socioeconomic status. Results indicated that attention, inhibitory control, and emotion regulation were significant predictors of teacher-rated academic performance. Attention was the only significant predictor of reading proficiency and inhibitory control was the only significant predictor of mathematics proficiency. Results also indicated that attention was the strongest predictor of teacher-rated academic performance and reading proficiency, whereas inhibitory control was the strongest predictor of mathematics performance. Socioeconomic status, one of the control variables, also accounted for significant variance in reading and mathematics proficiency as indicated by report card grades but not teacher-rated academic performance. These results add to the evidence that self-regulation is important for school success, and functions in a manner expected for early elementary students with social-emotional difficulties. Results suggest that both self-regulation and academic performance should be considered in interventions to help foster positive outcomes for students, particularly those with social-emotional difficulties who are most in need.Doctor of Educatio

Illustrating a problem in the self-financing condition in two 2010-2011 papers on funding, collateral and discounting

We illustrate a problem in the self-financing condition used in the papers "Funding beyond discounting: collateral agreements and derivatives pricing" (Risk Magazine, February 2010) and "Partial Differential Equation Representations of Derivatives with Counterparty Risk and Funding Costs" (The Journal of Credit Risk, 2011). These papers state an erroneous self-financing condition. In the first paper, this is equivalent to assuming that the equity position is self-financing on its own and without including the cash position. In the second paper, this is equivalent to assuming that a subportfolio is self-financing on its own, rather than the whole portfolio. The error in the first paper is avoided when clearly distinguishing between price processes, dividend processes and gain processes. We present an outline of the derivation that yields the correct statement of the self-financing condition, clarifying the structure of the relevant funding accounts, and show that the final result in "Funding beyond discounting" is correct, even if the self-financing condition stated is not.Comment: added references, a footnote and updated abstrac

Insulin Patch Pumps in Type 2 Diabetes

• DM is a leading cause of death in Americans • A HbA1c above 6.5% is diagnostic for DM because it is at this level the patient is at risk for retinopathy and other microvascular disease • The purpose of this study is to determine alternative methods of maintaining tighter control on HbA1c to lessen the effects of type II diabetes.https://commons.und.edu/pas-grad-posters/1107/thumbnail.jp

THE SEARCH FOR NEUTRALITY: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE USE IN HIGHER EDUCATION TITLE IX SEXUAL MISCONDUCT POLICIES

Title IX, a federal law passed in 1972, was designed to ensure that equal access to any educational environment receiving federal assistance (20 U.S.C. § 1681). Title IX forced institutions of higher education (IHE) to address the pervasive nature of sex discrimination within their educational environments, prevent the recurrence of sex discrimination, and remedy any effects of sex discrimination. To do this IHEs developed Title IX sexual misconduct policies. These policies are required by federal law to be impartial, neutral, and equitable to all parties accessing or participating in the resolution process addressing sexual misconduct. The purpose of this study was to explore how language is used in sexual misconduct policies and how it affects the neutral role of Title IX. This study focused on eleven southeastern flagship institutions’ Title IX sexual misconduct policies. The study identified five types of language used within Title IX sexual misconduct policies. This research found a lack of neutrality and multiple incidents of bias. Bias was identified in all analyzed policies when assessing the use of gendered language and the situated meaning of the terms victim, advocate, advocacy, and survivor. This research also found the policies contained neutral language, the existence of multiple processes for adjudicating sexual misconduct violations, unequal rights throughout the process, unequal access to interim measures and resources, and unequal retaliation protections illustrated how the collected policies were not neutral. This study has significant implications for those developing Title IX sexual misconduct policies. It revealed space for alternative reflections that can lead to institutional change regarding the future development of institutional sexual misconduct policy