4,517 research outputs found
APPLYNG THE PRINCIPLES OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, THE NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND PARTICULARITIES OF CORPORATE GOVERNING IN THE ROMANIAN ECONOMY
With direct support of the OECD and the World Bank the East-Central European stateshave been encouraged to adopt and implement codes of conduct and corporate governance principlesto minimize risk, boost performance, improve business access on stock markets, strengthening themarket position of firms, professional management, demonstrating transparency and socialresponsibility.corporate governance, governance principles, stakeholders, Romanian companies
THE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE OF PUBLIC ENTITIES IN ROMANIA
The paper aims to examine the application of principles of corporate governance fortransparency and efficiency of decision and control at the level of local public entities. We intend toargue the importance of these principles of governance in the public entities to determineresponsibility and management decision-making bodies in achieving the objectives in terms ofreliability of financial reporting, effectiveness and efficiency of operations, compliance withapplicable legislation.corporate governance, public efficiency, public governance.
Investigation of adaptive optics imaging biomarkers for detecting pathological changes of the cone mosaic in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus
Purpose
To investigate a set of adaptive optics (AO) imaging biomarkers for the assessment of
changes of the cone mosaic spatial arrangement in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus
(DM1).
Methods
16 patients with 20/20 visual acuity and a diagnosis of DM1 in the past 8 years to 37 years
and 20 age-matched healthy volunteers were recruited in this study. Cone density, cone
spacing and Voronoi diagrams were calculated on 160x160 μm images of the cone mosaic
acquired with an AO flood illumination retinal camera at 1.5 degrees eccentricity from the
fovea along all retinal meridians. From the cone spacing measures and Voronoi diagrams,
the linear dispersion index (LDi) and the heterogeneity packing index (HPi) were computed
respectively. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to discriminate DM1 patients without
diabetic retinopathy from controls using the cone metrics as predictors.
Results
Of the 16 DM1 patients, eight had no signs of diabetic retinopathy (noDR) and eight had
mild nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) on fundoscopy. On average, cone density,
LDi and HPi values were significantly different (P<0.05) between noDR or NPDR eyes
and controls, with these differences increasing with duration of diabetes. However, each
cone metric alone was not sufficiently sensitive to discriminate entirely between membership
of noDR cases and controls. The complementary use of all the three cone metrics in
the logistic regression model gained 100% accuracy to identify noDR cases with respect to
controls.
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0151380 March 10, 2016 1 / 14
OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Lombardo M, Parravano M, Serrao S,
Ziccardi L, Giannini D, Lombardo G (2016)
Investigation of Adaptive Optics Imaging Biomarkers
for Detecting Pathological Changes of the Cone
Mosaic in Patients with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus.
PLoS ONE 11(3): e0151380. doi:10.1371/journal.
pone.0151380
Editor: Knut Stieger, Justus-Liebig-University
Giessen, GERMANY
Received: December 17, 2015
Accepted: February 27, 2016
Published: March 10, 2016
Copyright: © 2016 Lombardo et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original author and source are
credited.
Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are
within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Funding: Research for this work was supported by
the Italian Ministry of Health (5x1000 funding), by the
National Framework Program for Research and
Innovation PON (grant n. 01_00110) and by
Fondazione Roma. The funders had no role in study
design, data collection and analysis, decision to
publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Vision
Engineering Italy srl funder provided support in the
form of salaries for author GL, but did not have any
Conclusion
The present set of AO imaging biomarkers identified reliably abnormalities in the spatial
arrangement of the parafoveal cones in DM1 patients, even when no signs of diabetic retinopathy
were seen on fundoscopy
Random mutagenesis of PDZOmi domain and selection of mutants that specifically bind the Myc proto-oncogene and induce apoptosis
peer reviewedOmi is a mammalian serine protease that is localised in the mitochondria and released to the cytoplasm in response to apoptotic stimuli. Omi induces cell death in a caspase-dependent manner by interacting with the Xchromosome linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein, as well as in a caspase-independent way that relies on its proteolytic activity. Omi is synthesized as a precursor polypeptide and is processed to an active serene protease with a unique PDZ domain. PDZ domains recognise the extreme carboxyl terminus of target proteins. Internal peptides that are able to fold into a b-finger are also reported to bind some PDZ domains. Using a modified yeast two-hybrid system, PDZOmi mutants were isolated by their ability to bind the carboxyl terminus of human Myc oncoprotein in yeast as well as in mammalian cells. One such PDZm domain (PDZ-M1), when transfected into mammalian cells, was able to bind to endogenous Myc protein and induce cell death. PDZ-M1-induced apoptosis was entirely dependent on the presence of Myc protein and was not observed when c-myc null fibroblasts were used. Our studies indicate that the PDZ domain of
Omi can provide a prototype that could easily be exploited to target specifically and inactivate oncogenes by binding to their unique carboxyl terminus
Information Demand and Agriculture Commodity Prices
This paper investigates the effect of information flow on corn futures price variability for the period January 2004 -July 2011. The theoretical framework is the Mixture Distribution Hypothesis, that posits a joint dependence of return volatility and information. The main contribution of this article is that we use two different proxy for the observed component of information flow that allow to separate the effect of supply (News) and demand (Internet Search Volume) of information.Empirical estimates highlight that: i) results support the MDH since observed volatility persistence appears to be related to the information flow; ii) variation in information demand has a significant effect on volatility of futures corn returns even controlling for variation in information supply and such result can be interpreted in light of behavioural finance
Clean Energy Industries and rare Earth Materials: Economic and Financial Issues
In the last few years Rare Earth Materials (REMs) prices have experienced a strong increase, due to geopolitical policies and sustainability issues. Provided that these materials at risk of supply disruptions are largely employed in the development of new technologies - such as clean energy industries - financial markets may already have included these concerns into clean energy companies evaluation. We use a multifactor market model for the period January 2006-September 2012 to analyse the impact of REMs price changes – specifically Dysprosium and Neodymium - to six clean energy indexes (NYSE-BNEF) tracking the world’s most active quoted companies in the clean energy sector. Results show that during period of price increase there is a negative relation between REMs price changes and the stock market performance of clean energy indexes, specifically wind. The European clean energy index is also negatively affected and this may be relevant to policy makers considering that Europe is putting in place some relevant policy actions to support the development of the clean energy sector
Is Wine a Financial Parachute?
This paper analyzes the relationship between Global Wine Industry Share Price Indexes and composite stock market indexes using a Threshold Vector Error Correction Model (TVECM), aiming to investigate if investments in the wine sector play a role in determining financial risk and return to investors who include it in their portfolio. Whilst in most of the literature analyses the return of investments of fine wine, this paper places the focus to “normal” (i.e. non fine) wine, using data from the Mediobanca database covering companies in the wine industry listed on regulated stock market in France, US, Australia, Chile and China . The dataset cover the time period going from January 1, 2001, to the end of February 2009. The estimates of the TVECM lead to the following results: i) in more mature markets, like France and the US, the presence of a threshold in the relationship between wine index and composite index permit informed investors to make gainful investments; ii) in less mature markets, like Chile and China, there is evidence suggest that wine is not used as a financial parachute
Is Wine a Financial Parachute?
This paper analyzes the relationship between Global Wine Industry Share Price Indexes and composite stock market indexes using a Threshold Vector Error Correction Model (TVECM), aiming to investigate if investments in the wine sector play a role in determining financial risk and return to investors who include it in their portfolio. Whilst in most of the literature analyses the return of investments of fine wine, this paper places the focus to “normal” (i.e. non fine) wine, using data from the Mediobanca database covering companies in the wine industry listed on regulated stock market in France, US, Australia, Chile and China . The dataset cover the time period going from January 1, 2001, to the end of February 2009. The estimates of the TVECM lead to the following results: i) in more mature markets, like France and the US, the presence of a threshold in the relationship between wine index and composite index permit informed investors to make gainful investments; ii) in less mature markets, like Chile and China, there is evidence suggest that wine is not used as a financial parachute
Groundwater and earthquake: brief remarks about seismic effects on groundwater resources availability in Valnerina
Not available
Spot and Futures Prices of Agricultural Commodities: Fundamentals and Speculation
This paper investigates the long-run relationship between spot and futures prices for corn and soybeans, for the period January 2004 -September 2010. We apply cointegration methodology in the presence of potentially unknown structural breaks in the commodities prices and we then study the causality relationships between spot and futures prices within each specific sub-period identified, with the aim to analyze where changes in spot and futures price originate and how they spread. Empirical estimates highlight the following evidence: i) breaks relate to events that have significantly affected the supply and demand of corn and soybeans for food and energy purposes; ii) subperiods consequently identified express different dynamics in the causal relationship between spot and futures prices and support the idea that many factors contributed to the 2007-2008 food price increase
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