667 research outputs found
The More, The Better? A Case History Of Audit Committee Regulations
An understanding of changing auditing regulatory environment is vital in preparing students for the challenges in the accounting profession. The revised requirements for audit committees are one of the significant changes after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Presenting a case history of regulatory changes for audit committees, this study requires students to critically analyze information and to conduct research on auditing topics. Meanwhile, integrating further discussion on corporate governance into auditing class can enrich students learning experience by stimulating critical thinking
Equity pledge of controlling shareholders, property right structure and enterprise innovation efficiency: evidence from Chinese firms
The innovation efficiency of an enterprise is subject to the behavior
of the innovation subject, while the equity pledge behavior of
the controlling shareholder not only brings convenience for
innovation investment and financing, but also brings risks which
has an impact on the innovation output of the enterprise. In this
paper, we investigate how equity pledge of controlling shareholders
affect the enterprise innovation efficiency using the data of
China’s A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2020, and examine
the effect of property right structure on the relationship between
them from the two dimensions of equity nature and equity concentration.
We find that equity pledge of controlling shareholders
are signifcantly negatively related to innovation efficiency, meaning
that equity pledge inhibits the innovation behavior of enterprises
and reduces the innovation efficiency. We further provide
evidence to show that the impediment effect of equity pledge of
controlling shareholder on enterprise innovation efficiency is
more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises and decentralized
equity enterprises. Moreover, our analysis shows that different
equity concentration levels have different effects in the
process of equity pledge affecting enterprise innovation efficiency
and the effect of concentrated equity enterprises is lower than
that of decentralized enterprises
Measuring psi(3770) -> Kshort Klong as a test of the S- and D-wave mixing of charmonia
Adding to the long standing "rho-pi puzzle" in psi(3686) and J/psi decays,
recently BES reported the branching ratio of psi(3686) -> Kshort Klong which is
enhanced relative to the pQCD " 12% rule" expectation from the branching ratio
of J/psi -> Kshort Klong. If the enhancement is due to the mixing of the S- and
D-wave charmonium states as in the rho-pi case, the newly measured branching
ratio of psi(3686) -> Kshort Klong gives a constraint on the psi(3770) ->
Kshort Klong. It serves as a good test for the scenario of the S- and D-wave
mixing in the psi(3686) and psi(3770).Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
Organizational Resilience in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Critical Role of Inclusion Management
Impact of Outpatient vs Inpatient ABSSSI Treatment on Outcomes: A Retrospective Observational Analysis of Medical Charts Across US Emergency Departments
Background
The objective of this study was to characterize treatment of patients with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSIs) and describe the association between hospital admission and emergency department (ED) visits or readmissions within 30 days after initial episode of care (IEC).
Methods
This was a retrospective, observational, cohort study of adults with ABSSSI who presented to an ED between July 1, 2012, and June 30, 2013. Patient, health care facility, and treatment characteristics, including unplanned ED visits or readmissions, were obtained through manual chart review and abstraction. Adjusted logistic regression analysis examined likelihood of all-cause unplanned ED visits or readmissions between admitted and nonadmitted patients.
Results
Records from 1527 ED visits for ABSSSI from 40 centers were reviewed (admitted, n = 578 [38%]; nonadmitted, n = 949 [62%]). Admitted patients were typically older (mean age, 52.2 years vs 43.0 years), more likely to be morbidly obese (body mass index \u3e 40 kg/m2; 17.3% vs 9.1%), and had more comorbidities (Charlson Comorbidity Index ≥ 4; 24.4% vs 6.8%) compared with those not admitted. In the primary analysis, adjusted logistic regression, controlling for comorbidities and severity of illness, demonstrated that there was a similar likelihood of all-cause unplanned ED visits or readmissions between admitted and nonadmitted patients (odds ratio, 1.03; 95% confidence interval, 0.74–1.43; P = .87).
Conclusions
ABSSSI treatment pathways leveraging outpatient treatment vs hospital admission support similar likelihood of unplanned 30-day ED visits or readmissions, an important clinical outcome and quality metric at US hospitals. Further research regarding the decision criteria around hospital admission to avoid potentially unnecessary hospitalizations is warranted
Driver steering behaviour modelling based on neuromuscular dynamics and multi‑task time‑series transformer
Driver steering intention prediction provides an augmented solution to the design of an onboard collaboration mechanism between human driver and intelligent vehicle. In this study, a multi-task sequential learning framework is developed to predict future steering torques and steering postures based on upper limb neuromuscular electromyography signals. The joint representation learning for driving postures and steering intention provides an in-depth understanding and accurate modelling of driving steering behaviours. Regarding different testing scenarios, two driving modes, namely, both-hand and single-right-hand modes, are studied. For each driving mode, three different driving postures are further evaluated. Next, a multi-task time-series transformer network (MTS-Trans) is developed to predict the future steering torques and driving postures based on the multi-variate sequential input and the self-attention mechanism. To evaluate the multi-task learning performance and information-sharing characteristics within the network, four distinct two-branch network architectures are evaluated. Empirical validation is conducted through a driving simulator-based experiment, encompassing 21 participants. The proposed model achieves accurate prediction results on future steering torque prediction as well as driving posture recognition for both two-hand and single-hand driving modes. These findings hold significant promise for the advancement of driver steering assistance systems, fostering mutual comprehension and synergy between human drivers and intelligent vehicles
One-step Method to Fabricate Poly(ethylene terephthalate)/Gd(OH)3 Magnetic Nanofibers tTowards MRI-active Materials with High T1 Relaxivity and Long-term Visibility
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-active polymers exhibit unique advantages for in vivo diagnosis. Here, in order to endow electrospun fibers with long-term T1 positive MRI visibility, MRI contrast agent (CA), Gd(OH)3, is introduced in a new, extremely convenient method. Crucially, GdCl3 is reacted with NaOH in situ during electrospinning, with flexibility to deliver both well-dispersed and aggregated Gd(OH)3 clusters within a poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) matrix. T1 and T2 relaxivities of Gd(OH)3 in PET nanofibers are studied. Well-dispersed Gd(OH)3 (sub-nanometer in size) exhibits 34 times higher T1 relaxivity than aggregated nanoparticles when embedded within the fibers. The morphology, structure, magnetic properties, tensile properties, imaging performance and biosafety of the PET/Gd(OH)3 composite fibers are evaluated to identify the optimum conditions to produce new materials with balanced properties, excellent in vivo positive contrast and approximately 139 days imaging lifetime. Comparing this sample with a commercial CA, only 0.32 wt.% Gd loading is needed to attain similar MRI signal intensity. In summary, PET/Gd(OH)3 long-term MRI-active fibers show great potential for future biomedical applications and the study also provides a promising new general strategy to enhance the MRI T1 positive contrast of electrospun fibers of a whole host of other systems
Impact of Outpatient vs Inpatient ABSSSI Treatment on Outcomes: A Retrospective Observational Analysis of Medical Charts Across US Emergency Departments
Background: The objective of this study was to characterize treatment of patients with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSIs) and describe the association between hospital admission and emergency department (ED) visits or readmissions within 30 days after initial episode of care (IEC). Methods: This was a retrospective, observational, cohort study of adults with ABSSSI who presented to an ED between July 1, 2012, and June 30, 2013. Patient, health care facility, and treatment characteristics, including unplanned ED visits or readmissions, were obtained through manual chart review and abstraction. Adjusted logistic regression analysis examined likelihood of all-cause unplanned ED visits or readmissions between admitted and nonadmitted patients. Results: Records from 1527 ED visits for ABSSSI from 40 centers were reviewed (admitted, n = 578 [38%]; nonadmitted, n = 949 [62%]). Admitted patients were typically older (mean age, 52.2 years vs 43.0 years), more likely to be morbidly obese (body mass index \u3e 40 kg/m; 17.3% vs 9.1%), and had more comorbidities (Charlson Comorbidity Index ≥ 4; 24.4% vs 6.8%) compared with those not admitted. In the primary analysis, adjusted logistic regression, controlling for comorbidities and severity of illness, demonstrated that there was a similar likelihood of all-cause unplanned ED visits or readmissions between admitted and nonadmitted patients (odds ratio, 1.03; 95% confidence interval, 0.74-1.43; = .87). Conclusions: ABSSSI treatment pathways leveraging outpatient treatment vs hospital admission support similar likelihood of unplanned 30-day ED visits or readmissions, an important clinical outcome and quality metric at US hospitals. Further research regarding the decision criteria around hospital admission to avoid potentially unnecessary hospitalizations is warranted
Observation of in
Using a sample of events recorded with
the BESIII detector at the symmetric electron positron collider BEPCII, we
report the observation of the decay of the charmonium state
into a pair of mesons in the process
. The branching fraction is measured for the first
time to be , where the first uncertainty is
statistical, the second systematic and the third is from the uncertainty of
. The mass and width of the are
determined as MeV/ and
MeV.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
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