The Impact of Pension Obligations on Firm Decisions.

Employer-sponsored defined benefit pensions are declining in popularity, yet these long-term obligations will influence firm decisions for decades to come. The first chapter models how the tax and other incentives posed by sponsoring a defined benefit pension interact with traditional moral hazard between stockholders and bondholders. While the contracting problems associated with each may be manageable, moral hazards arising from investment risk and from contributing to a pension plan together lead to first-order distortions. The second chapter describes how this dynamic leads to higher borrowing rates among firms with defined benefit pensions. Like traditional corporate bonds, pension debt is a long-term liability that influences default risk and firm value -- two important determinants of bond spreads. Yet pension debt magnifies default risk stemming from agency problems, implying that a ten percentage point increase in unfunded pension liabilities raises defined benefit firms' bond spreads by 23 basis points, while an equivalent increase in standard external leverage increases bond spreads by only 2.6 basis points. Finally, the third chapter looks at how sponsoring a defined benefit pension influenced firm performance in the Great Recession. Many firms with defined benefit pensions experienced dramatic losses in the value of pension assets between 2007 and 2009 that led to high required pension payments. A general concern was that those payments prevented firms from making productive investments that could assist economic recovery. This paper suggests, instead, that pension losses allowed firms to borrow from their pensioners, while the credit crunch prevented those firms from taking on sub-optimally high leverage ratios and investment risk that are usually motivated by costly pensions. Indeed, firms making minimum required contributions from 2000 through 2007 supported leverage ratios that were 4.6 percentage points higher and default premiums that were 22 percent higher than their counterparts with less costly pensions. This wedge did not exist during the Great Recession.PhDEconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133288/1/laymarga_1.pd

Normal Enough? Tools to Aid Decision Making

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Neil H. Spencer, Margaret Lay and Lindsey Kevan de Lopez, ‘Normal enough? Tools to aid decision making’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Vol. 20(2): 167-179, 2017, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2016.1155379. Published by Taylor & Francis.When undertaking quantitative hypothesis testing, social researchers need to decide whether the data with which they are working is suitable for parametric analyses to be used. When considering the relevant assumptions they can examine graphs and summary statistics but the decision making process is subjective and must also take into account the robustness of the proposed tests to deviations from the assumptions. We review the contemporary advice on this issue available to researchers and look back to the roots of hypothesis testing and associated work undertaken by eminent statisticians since the 1930s. From this we create a set of flow charts to give researchers tools they can use to make decisions in a more objective manner.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Prevalence and quantification of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in raw salad vegetables at retail level

The purpose of this study was to investigate the biosafety of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in raw salad vegetables at wet markets and supermarkets in Malaysia. A combination of the most probable number -polymerase chain reaction (MPN- PCR) method was applied to detect the presence of V. parahaemolyticus and to enumerate their density in the\ud food samples. The study analyzed 276 samples of common vegetables eaten raw in Malaysia (Wild cosmos=8; Japanese parsley=21; Cabbage=30; Lettuce=16; Indian pennywort=17; Carrot=31; Sweet potato=29; Tomato=38; Cucumber=28; Four-winged bean=26; Long bean=32). The samples were purchased from two supermarkets (A and B) and two wet markets (C and D). The occurrence of V. parahaemolyticus detected was 20.65%, with a higher frequency of V. parahaemolyticus in vegetables obtained from wet markets (Wet market C=27.27%; Wet Market D=32.05%) compared with supermarkets (Supermarket A=1.64%; Supermarket B=16.67%). V. parahaemolyticus was most prevalent in Indian pennywort (41.18%). The density of V. parahaemolyticus in all the samples ranged from 2,400 MPN/g, mostly <3 MPN/g concentration. Raw vegetables from wet markets contained higher levels of V. parahaemolyticus compared with supermarkets. Although V. parahaemolyticus was present in raw vegetables, its numbers were low. The results suggest that raw vegetables act as a transmission route for V. parahaemolyticus. This study will be the first biosafety assessment of V. parahaemolyticus in raw vegetables in Malaysia

Portfolio Vol. IV N 1

Phillips, Alison. Reflection. Poetry. 2. Rood, John. The Accused. Picture. 2. Lay, Mary Virginia. Irony. Poetry. 6. Lay, Mary Virginia. Not Know God? Poetry. 6. Shields, Margaret. Hope. Poetry. 6. Rogers, Tom. Football and Education. Prose. 7. Hammer, John. Red? Prose. 3-4. Brown, Kenneth I. The Christmas Guest. Prose. 5. Price III, Ira. Thomas Carlyle-Political Reactionary. Prose. 8-10. Tinnerman, Betty. Greater Love Hath No Man. Prose. 11. Hall, Jim. Gentlement--To Arms! Prose. 12-13. Benson, Virginia. Drop That Hammer! Prose. 14-15. Wilson, William. Thomas Wolfe--Volcano. Prose. 16. Seagrave, Leslie. Trelawney. Prose. 16. Chester, Bob. Keeping the Records Straight. Prose. 17. Wurdman, Audrey. I, II, XLIX. Poetry. 18. Auslander, Joseph. These Are the Wounds. Poetry. 19. Auslander, Joseph. Christmas Encyclical. Poetry. 19. Auslander, Joseph. Encounter With Keats. Poetry. 19. Koncana, Jean. Backstage at the Opera House. Prose. 20. Timrud, David. Ward Seventy Tonight. Prose. 21-22. Roach, Margaret. Wedding Bells. Prose. 23-26. Close, Dean. Back Country. Picture. 6

Portfolio Vol. IV N 2

Mahood, Danner L. War Sonnets. Poetry. 2. Lenser, Eugene. Landscape. Picture. 2. Lay, Mary Virginia. Damned Laughter. Prose. 3-4. Card, Dorothy. They Call It Love. Prose. 5. Kinney, John. Maestro. Prose. 7-9. Anstaett, Joe. Styleglance. Picture. 6. Beckham, Adela. Still the Echo. Poetry. 10. Bridge, Robert. Design for Life. Prose. 11. Seagrave, Dr. Gordon. Letter from Burma. Prose. 12-13. Chin, David K. To know their theatre is to know the Chinese people. Prose. 15. Jones, Charles. The Bookshelf. Prose. 16. Smith, Duke. Keeping the Records Straight. Prose. 17. Beckham, Adela. If Love Could Be. Prose. 19. Raymond, Toby. The Courtship of Miles Standish. Poetry. 20. King, Horace. The Case for Modern Art. Prose. 21-22. Elliot, Frances Gray. Black and White Dancers. Picture. 10

Predicting the risk of acute kidney injury in primary care: derivation and validation of STRATIFY-AKI

BACKGROUND: Antihypertensives reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease but are also associated with harms including acute kidney injury (AKI). Few data exist to guide clinical decision making regarding these risks. AIM: To develop a prediction model estimating the risk of AKI in people potentially indicated for antihypertensive treatment. DESIGN AND SETTING: Observational cohort study using routine primary care data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) in England. METHOD: People aged ≥40 years, with at least one blood pressure measurement between 130 mmHg and 179 mmHg were included. Outcomes were admission to hospital or death with AKI within 1, 5, and 10 years. The model was derived with data from CPRD GOLD (n = 1 772 618), using a Fine-Gray competing risks approach, with subsequent recalibration using pseudo-values. External validation used data from CPRD Aurum (n = 3 805 322). RESULTS: The mean age of participants was 59.4 years and 52% were female. The final model consisted of 27 predictors and showed good discrimination at 1, 5, and 10 years (C-statistic for 10-year risk 0.821, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.818 to 0.823). There was some overprediction at the highest predicted probabilities (ratio of observed to expected event probability for 10-year risk 0.633, 95% CI = 0.621 to 0.645), affecting patients with the highest risk. Most patients (>95%) had a low 1- to 5-year risk of AKI, and at 10 years only 0.1% of the population had a high AKI and low CVD risk. CONCLUSION: This clinical prediction model enables GPs to accurately identify patients at high risk of AKI, which will aid treatment decisions. As the vast majority of patients were at low risk, such a model may provide useful reassurance that most antihypertensive treatment is safe and appropriate while flagging the few for whom this is not the case

Atopic asthmatic patients have reduced airway inflammatory cell recruitment after inhaled endotoxin challenge compared with healthy volunteers

Atopic asthmatic patients are reported to be more sensitive to the effects of environmental endotoxin (LPS) than healthy volunteers (HVs). It is unknown whether this sensitivity is due to dysregulated inflammatory responses after LPS exposure in atopic asthmatic patients

Quantitative risk assessment of acquiring listeriosis from consumption of minimally processed vegetables

Listeriosis is a serious invasive disease with high fatality rates especially among the vulnerable population. Although the causative pathogen had been detected in several foods in Malaysia, there have so far been no reported cases of listeriosis in Malaysia. The aim of this study was to carry out a quantitative risk assessment to estimate the risk of acquiring listeriosis through the consumption of minimally processed salad vegetables in Malaysia. The probability of illness per serving was calculated using an exponential dose-response model for high-risk and low-risk groups of consumer using the stochastic approach. The risk estimate of acquiring listeriosis for the healthy population was 1.98 × 10–4 per 100,000 population. For susceptible population, the risk estimate was considerably higher, i.e., 0.172 per 100,000 population for AIDS patients, 0.00496 per 100,000 population for diabetics and 0.149 per 100,000 for the elderly population