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Measurement alternatives for earnings, total assets, and total liabilities: The value-relevance of adjusting financial statement summary measures by a comprehensive financial reporting analysis.

A secondary research question of interest to this thesis is that of differential valuation by investors between recognized versus alternatively disclosed financial data. These results offer inconsistent evidence on this question. Although similarities are occasionally evident, more often the alternative disclosures (as operationalized in this study) are valued differently from GAAP-based representations. However, several limitations of the present design and the research design of other studies that investigate the value-relevance of alternative and GAAP-based financial reporting warrant mentioning. Measurement error in the reporting of alternative forms of disclosures or the operationalization process used to quantify alternative disclosures can induce differences in valuation or create sufficient noise to mask how investors use the data. Also, the proposed adjustments and the methods of operationalizing the alternative disclosures are not meant to be exhaustive attempts to explain the way each adjustment might be done by investors. Nevertheless, this research is meant to add to the small body of research that quantifies off-financial-statement information and examines the value-relevance to stock prices of each and as aggregated with financial statement representations. To that end, this study contributes initial empirical evidence on how investors apparently perceive alternative financial reporting disclosures and impound those alternative disclosures into firms' common equity values.This thesis tests whether investors consider alternative forms of financial reporting than financial statement representations (e.g., information on operating leases or disclosures of the fair market value of pension plan assets) to be value-relevant. In this study, alternative disclosures are conditioned on and also aggregated with their related GAAP-based summary measures (i.e., financial statement representations of assets, liabilities, and earnings) to investigate their usefulness as joint inputs into the market value of common equity. The thesis predicts that the data from alternative disclosures, individually and in aggregation with GAAP-based summary measures (i.e., financial statement representations of assets, liabilities, and earnings), are informative to investors' assessment of equity values. In addition to providing empirical evidence on the value-relevance of each alternative disclosure and adjusted summary measures, this study tests the question of valuation equivalency between recognized and disclosed (but unrecognized) data.The results of this study's empirical tests on the value-relevance of alternative disclosures conditioned on GAAP-based information are consistent with the predictions on four of the five asset adjustments, three of the four liability adjustments, and the three types of adjustments to earnings. This suggests that most of the alternative disclosures, as operationalized in this thesis, are incrementally informative to GAAP-based summary information on firms' resources, obligations, and performance. For the tests of the aggregation process to describe alternative summary financial signals, the empirical results support the prediction that summary measures of resources and obligations better reflect the data generating process in equity values using either an asset-and-liability-based or Feltham-Ohlson valuation model than do reported measures of resources and obligations. However, for an earnings-based valuation model, the results do not support the prediction that adjusted earnings better reflects the data generating process in market values (or returns) than does reported earnings

Impacts of a Manure Composting Program on Stream Water Quality

In February 2001, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) adopted a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) along the North Bosque River. Within this TMDL, dairy waste application fields were identified as the major nonpoint-source contribution of nutrients. In September 2000, a manure composting program was initiated that resulted in about 500,000 metric tons of dairy manure being hauled to composting facilities and exported from the watershed through December 2004. To evaluate the impact of the manure composting program on stream water quality, storm event mean concentrations of nutrients and total suspended solids were compared before and after the start of the program at seven stream sites representing a range of land uses and levels of participation in the program. Data were analyzed as a before/after monitoring design using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with flow as the covariate and Wilcoxon rank sum (WRS) procedures with flow-adjusted data because flow was positively correlated to concentration. Although the manure composting program has only been in place about four years, water quality appeared to be improving at sites with the highest levels of manure removed per cow and watershed area. At these sites, SRP concentrations decreased from 19% to 23%. Significant decreases in SRP were not seen at stream sites with lower levels of manure hauled off, normalized on a per area and cow basis, indicating that the level of participation in the manure composting program might be a major determinant of the level of impact

Peripheral Blood Cell Gene Expression Diagnostic for Identifying Symptomatic Transthyretin Amyloidosis Patients: Male and Female Specific Signatures

BACKGROUND: Early diagnosis of familial transthyretin (TTR) amyloid diseases remains challenging because of variable disease penetrance. Currently, patients must have an amyloid positive tissue biopsy to be eligible for disease-modifying therapies. Endomyocardial biopsies are typically amyloid positive when cardiomyopathy is suspected, but this disease manifestation is generally diagnosed late. Early diagnosis is often difficult because patients exhibit apparent symptoms of polyneuropathy, but have a negative amyloid biopsy. Thus, there is a pressing need for an additional early diagnostic strategy for TTR-aggregation-associated polyneuropathy and cardiomyopathy. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Global peripheral blood cell mRNA expression profiles from 263 tafamidis-treated and untreated V30M Familiar Amyloid Neuropathy patients, asymptomatic V30M carriers, and healthy, age- and sex-matched controls without TTR mutations were used to differentiate symptomatic from asymptomatic patients. We demonstrate that blood cell gene expression patterns reveal sex-independent, as well as male- and female-specific inflammatory signatures in symptomatic FAP patients, but not in asymptomatic carriers. These signatures differentiated symptomatic patients from asymptomatic V30M carriers with >80% accuracy. There was a global downregulation of the eIF2 pathway and its associated genes in all symptomatic FAP patients. We also demonstrated that the molecular scores based on these signatures significantly trended toward normalized values in an independent cohort of 46 FAP patients after only 3 months of tafamidis treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This study identifies novel molecular signatures that differentiate symptomatic FAP patients from asymptomatic V30M carriers as well as affected males and females. We envision using this approach, initially in parallel with amyloid biopsies, to identify individuals who are asymptomatic gene carriers that may convert to FAP patients. Upon further validation, peripheral blood cell mRNA expression profiling could become an independent early diagnostic. This quantitative gene expression signature for symptomatic FAP could also become a biomarker to demonstrate significant disease-modifying effects of drugs and drug candidates. For example, when new disease modifiers are being evaluated in a FAP clinical trial, such surrogate biomarkers have the potential to provide an objective, quantitative and mechanistic molecular diagnostic of disease response to therapy.We acknowledge the following sources of research funding: NIH U19 A1063603 (DRS, SMK), NIH DK46335 (JWK) and NIH R01AG19259 (JNB)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A synthesis of the effects of cheatgrass invasion on the US Great Basin carbon storage

Non‐native, invasive Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass) is pervasive in sagebrush ecosystems in the Great Basin ecoregion of the western United States, competing with native plants and promoting more frequent fires. As a result, cheatgrass invasion likely alters carbon (C) storage in the region. Many studies have measured C pools in one or more common vegetation types: native sagebrush, invaded sagebrush and cheatgrass‐dominated (often burned) sites, but these results have yet to be synthesized. We performed a literature review to identify studies assessing the consequences of invasion on C storage in above‐ground biomass (AGB), below‐ground biomass (BGB), litter, organic soil and total soil. We identified 41 articles containing 386 unique studies and estimated C storage across pools and vegetation types. We used linear mixed models to identify the main predictors of C storage. We found consistent declines in biomass C with invasion: AGB C was 55% lower in cheatgrass (40 ± 4 g C/m2) than native sagebrush (89 ± 27 g C/m2) and BGB C was 62% lower in cheatgrass (90 ± 17 g C/m2) than native sagebrush (238 ± 60 g C/m2). In contrast, litter C was \u3e4× higher in cheatgrass (154 ± 12 g C/m2) than native sagebrush (32 ± 12 g C/m2). Soil organic C (SOC) in the top 10 cm was significantly higher in cheatgrass than in native or invaded sagebrush. SOC below 20 cm was significantly related to the time since most recent fire and losses were observed in deep SOC in cheatgrass \u3e5 years after a fire. There were no significant changes in total soil C across vegetation types. Synthesis and applications. Cheatgrass invasion decreases biodiversity and rangeland productivity and alters fire regimes. Our findings indicate cheatgrass invasion also results in persistent biomass carbon (C) losses that occur with sagebrush replacement. We estimate that conversion from native sagebrush to cheatgrass leads to a net reduction of C storage in biomass and litter of 76 g C/m2, or 16 Tg C across the Great Basin without management practices like native sagebrush restoration or cheatgrass removal

Morphoecological characteristics of grasses used to restore degraded semi‐arid African rangelands

Peer reviewe

Supporting Clinical Decision-Making during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic through a Global Research Commitment: The TERAVOLT Experience.

To understand the real impact of COVID-19 on cancer patients, an entirely new data collection effort was initiated within the Thoracic Cancers International COVID-19 Collaboration (TERAVOLT). TERAVOLT reported high mortality related to COVID-19 infection in thoracic cancer patients and identified several negative prognostic factors. In this commentary, we discuss the importance and limits of patient registries to support decision-making in thoracic cancer during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

TERAVOLT: Thoracic Cancers International COVID-19 Collaboration.

Prior publications on small subsets of cancer patients infected with SARS CoV-2 have shown an increased risk of mortality compared to the general population. Furthermore, patients with thoracic malignancies are thought to be at particularly high risk given their older age, smoking habits, and pre-existing cardio-pulmonary comorbidities. For this reason, physicians around the world have formed TERAVOLT, a global consortium dedicated to understanding the impact of COVID-19 on patients with thoracic malignancies

The initial U.S. experience with the Tempo active fixation temporary pacing lead in structural heart interventions

ObjectivesThis multicenter retrospective study of the initial U.S. experience evaluated the safety and efficacy of temporary cardiac pacing with the Tempo® Temporary Pacing Lead.BackgroundDespite increasing use of temporary cardiac pacing with the rapid growth of structural heart procedures, temporary pacing leads have not significantly improved. The Tempo lead is a new temporary pacing lead with a soft tip intended to minimize the risk of perforation and a novel active fixation mechanism designed to enhance lead stability.MethodsData from 269 consecutive structural heart procedures were collected. Outcomes included device safety (absence of clinically significant cardiac perforation, new pericardial effusion, or sustained ventricular arrhythmia) and efficacy (clinically acceptable pacing thresholds with successful pace capture throughout the index procedure). Postprocedure practices and sustained lead performance were also analyzed.ResultsThe Tempo lead was successfully positioned in the right ventricle and achieved pacing in 264 of 269 patients (98.1%). Two patients (0.8%) experienced loss of pace capture. Procedural mean pace capture threshold (PCT) was 0.7 ± 0.8 mA. There were no clinically significant perforations, pericardial effusions, or sustained device‐related arrhythmias. The Tempo lead was left in place postprocedure in 189 patients (71.6%) for mean duration of 43.3 ± 0.7 hr (range 2.5–221.3 hr) with final PCT of 0.84 ± 1.04 mA (n = 80). Of these patients, 84.1% mobilized out of bed with no lead dislodgment.ConclusionThe Tempo lead is safe and effective for temporary cardiac pacing for structural heart procedures, provides stable peri and postprocedural pacing and allows mobilization of patients who require temporary pacing leads.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154941/1/ccd28476.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154941/2/ccd28476_am.pd