Value relevance of alternative methods of accounting for actuarial gains and losses

In 2010, IASB published an exposure draft about defined benefit plans where it proposed to eliminate the deferred recognition of actuarial gains and losses. IASB aimed to make fundamental improvements to the recognition, presentation and disclosures of defined benefit plans by mid-2011. To shed light on the debate on the recognition of actuarial gains and losses of defined benefit plans, this paper investigates the value relevance of financial information under three alternative methods of recognising actuarial gains and losses allowed by IAS 19: employee benefits (2004): the profit or loss method, the equity recognition method and the corridor method. Findings suggest that the equity recognition method, i.e., the recognition of all actuarial gains and losses in equity, best reflects the market’s valuation of actuarial gains and losses of defined benefit plans

Kounis Syndrome Associated With Selective Anaphylaxis to Cefazolin.

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Phase Transition in Asymmetrical Superfluids I: Equal Fermi Surfaces

In this paper, we study phase transitions in asymmetrical fermion superfluids. In this scenario, the candidates to form pair are particles with mismatched masses and chemical potentials. We derive an expression for the critical temperature in terms of the gap and masses (or chemical potentials) when the constraint of equal Fermi surfaces $m_a\mu_a = m_b\mu_b$ is imposed.Comment: RevTex, 11 pages, 2 figures, typos corrected and an appendix added, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

The effect of IFRS adoption on the business climate: A country perspective

Based on the ten areas that are measured by the ease of doing business (EDB) and based on the getting credit (GC) indicator, this study seeks to analyze factors that lead to a more favorable business climate in different countries. The methodology of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to determine the paths taken by configurations or conditions in which variables affect an outcome. The results showed that high EDB and GC scores may be obtained under specified levels of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) adoption degree and user experience requirements. Therefore, the adoption of IFRS could result in a better business climate in a nation since it would increase the comparability of financial statements, which will lower costs for investors, draw in foreign investors, and boost trust. Finally, the findings indicated that, depending on the presence of specific levels of GDP per capita, entrepreneurship, income group, and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, low or high values of IFRS adoption and high experience in applying IFRS are necessary to achieve high GC scores.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Chern-Simons theory of multi-component quantum Hall systems

The Chern-Simons approach has been widely used to explain fractional quantum Hall states in the framework of trial wave functions. In the present paper, we generalise the concept of Chern-Simons transformations to systems with any number of components (spin or pseudospin degrees of freedom), extending earlier results for systems with one or two components. We treat the density fluctuations by adding auxiliary gauge fields and appropriate constraints. The Hamiltonian is quadratic in these fields and hence can be treated as a harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian, with a ground state that is connected to the Halperin wave functions through the plasma analogy. We investigate several conditions on the coefficients of the Chern-Simons transformation and on the filling factors under which our model is valid. Furthermore, we discuss several singular cases, associated with symmetric states.Comment: 11 pages, shortened version, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

The impact of media pressure on corporate sustainability in the cement industry: a Portuguese case study

In this study we examine the sustainability reporting practices and sustainability strategies of a leading Portuguese cement company. The Portuguese cement industry had to deal since 1997 with scrutiny and pressure because of its involvement in co-incineration of hazardous industrial waste. Grounded on a lens of analysis combining legitimacy theory and media agenda-setting theory and based on a content analysis of sustainability reports and semi-structured interviews, we analyse the strategies used by the company to deal with said scrutiny and pressure and present its sustainability performance. Media pressure does seem to have impacted sustainability reporting and sustainability strategies as tools for the company to restore its legitimacy. Findings generally suggest that strategies of communication designed to legitimate the company actions were used. In particular, we suggest that the company managed its legitimacy by using simultaneously two sustainability reporting strategies: one of image enhancement and other of avoidance of threatening topics.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Finite-momentum condensate of magnetic excitons in a bilayer quantum Hall system

We study the bilayer quantum Hall system at total filling factor \nu_T = 1 within a bosonization formalism which allows us to approximately treat the magnetic exciton as a boson. We show that in the region where the distance between the two layers is comparable to the magnetic length, the ground state of the system can be seen as a finite-momentum condensate of magnetic excitons provided that the excitation spectrum is gapped. We analyze the stability of such a phase within the Bogoliubov approximation firstly assuming that only one momentum Q0 is macroscopically occupied and later we consider the same situation for two modes \pm Q0. We find strong evidences that a first-order quantum phase transition at small interlayer separation takes place from a zero-momentum condensate phase, which corresponds to Halperin 111 state, to a finite-momentum condensate of magnetic excitons.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, final versio