Leases on balance, a level playing field?

Due to changes in lease agreements accounting standards, firms will soon have to recognize operating lease obligations that historically have been kept off-balance sheets (OBS). Research indicates that this change will have substantial effects on the presentation of the financial position and results of firms involved. It is also expected that this will affect decision-making by stakeholders such as boards, managers, bankers and financial analysts. Although it is assumed that these professionals consider all relevant information, it is also known that the smaller the chance of relevant information being overlooked, the better the decision-making. In this study we examine whether IFRS 16 has that positive effect. The results from this research suggest that the accounting treatment under IFRS 16 contributes to the quality but not necessarily to the ease of making investment financing decisions

A method for evaluating transport energy consumption in suburban areas

peer reviewedUrban sprawl is a major issue for sustainable development. It represents a significant contribution to energy consumption of a territory especially due to transportation requirements. However, transport energy consumption is rarely taken into account when the sustainability of suburban structures is studied. In this context, the paper presents a method to estimate transport energy consumption in residential suburban areas. The study aimed, on this basis, at highlighting the most efficient strategies needed to promote awareness and to give practical hints on how to reduce transport energy consumption linked to urban sprawl in existing and future suburban neighborhoods. The method uses data collected by using empirical surveys and GIS. An application of this method is presented concerning the comparison of four suburban districts located in Belgium to demonstrate the advantages of the approach. The influence of several parameters, such as distance to work places and services, use of public transport and performance of the vehicles, are then discussed to allow a range of different development situations to be explored. The results of the case studies highlight that travelled distances, and thus a good mix between activities at the living area scale, are of primordial importance for the energy performance, whereas means of transport used is only of little impact. Improving the performance of the vehicles and favoring home-work give also significant energy savings. The method can be used when planning new areas or retrofitting existing ones, as well as promoting more sustainable life styles regarding transport habits.SAFE (Suburban Areas Favoring Energy efficiency

A Summary of Neural Radiance Fields for Shadow Removal and Relighting of Satellite Imagery

Multi-view stereo photogrammetric techniques are conventionally utilized to generate Global Digital Elevation Models (GDEM) of planetary and lunar surfaces. However, these methods, relying on conventional feature detectors, are often subject to inaccuracies caused by changes in lighting conditions, including diffuse reflection and harsh shading. This has limited the ability of these methods to accurately reconstruct shadowed regions in orbital imagery, such as highly shaded urban areas and the permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) located on the lunar surface, which are critical targets for NASA’s Artemis program. Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) offer a novel solution to these limitations by breaking away from traditional photogrammetric assumptions of ridged, opaque surfaces. NeRFs are capable of reconstructing 3D objects with variably transmissive properties and reflective surfaces. In this summary analysis, we articulate the robustness of NeRFs in generating high-fidelity 3D models of terrain from highly shaded orbital imagery acquired from satellites in low earth orbit (LEO) and emphasize their applicability to a lunar environment. We showcase emerging NeRF-derived methods that overcome the limitations of traditional photogrammetric methods and provide a promising solution for reconstructing complex scenes in challenging lighting conditions

Design and Development of a Neural Surface Rendering Model for Lunar Satellite Photogrammetry

Neural volumetric scene representations encode the color and density of points in 3D space by optimizing an underlying continuous volumetric scene function. These methods are focused on synthesizing novel views of objects and on-ground scenes from a set of sparse input views. However, they under-perform at photogrammetric tasks of geometric reconstruction from multi-view satellite imagery in environments with diffuse reflection and harsh shading. This limits the ability of these methods to accurately generate Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of the permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) using multi-view satellite imagery. By incorporating techniques such as a learned distance function of the surface geometry and an explicit illumination model, we aim to present a new neural rendering scheme for surface reconstruction tailored specifically to the lunar environment

Changes in the atmospheric CH4 gradient between Greenland and Antarctica during the Holocene

High-resolution records of atmospheric methane over the last 11,500 years have been obtained from two Antarctic ice cores (D47 and Byrd) and a Greenland core (Greenland Ice Core Project). These cores show similar trapping conditions for trace gases in the ice combined with a comparable sampling resolution; this together with a good relative chronology, provided by unequivocal CH4 features, allows a direct comparison of the synchronized Greenland and Antarctic records, and it reveals significant changes in the interpolar difference of CH4 mixing ratio with time. On the average, over the full Holocene records, we find an interpolar difference of 44±7 ppbv. A minimum difference of 33±7 ppbv is observed from 7 to 5 kyr B.P. whereas the maximum gradient (50±3 ppbv) took place from 5 to 2.5 kyr B.P. A gradient of 44±4 ppbv is observed during the early Holocene (11.5 to 9.5 kyr B.P). We use a three-box model to translate the measured differences into quantitative contributions of methane sources in the tropics and the middle to high latitudes of the northern hemisphere. The model results support the previous interpretation that past natural CH4 sources mainly lay in tropical regions, but it also suggests that boreal regions provided a significant contribution to the CH4 budget especially at the start of the Holocene. The growing extent of peat bogs in boreal regions would also have counterbalanced the drying of the tropics over the second half of the Holocene. Finally, our model results suggest a large source increase in tropical regions from the late Holocene to the last millennium, which may partly be caused by anthropogenic emissions

De classificatie van varkenskarkassen nader bekeken

Er is onderzoek gedaan naar trends in de classificatieresultaten van vleesvarkens over de periode na invoering van het classificatieapparaat tot de overgang op de nieuwe berekeningsformule voor het mager vleespercentage (1988-1991)

Hemangiopericytoma of the neck

Hemangiopericytoma (HPC) is an exceedingly rare tumor of uncertain malignant potential. Approximately 300 cases of HPC have been reported since Stout and Murray described HPCs as "vascular tumors arising from Zimmerman's pericytes" in 1942. After further characterization, the WHO reclassified HPC as a fibroblastic/myofibroblastic tumor. Long term follow up is mandatory because the histologic criteria for prediction of biologic behavior are imprecise. There are reports of recurrence and metastasis many years after radical resection. The head and neck incidence is less than 20%, mostly in adults