EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AS AN EXPLANATION OF THE EQUITY ISSUE PUZZLE

The poor stock price performance of firms that raise capital through seasoned equity offerings is one of the recent puzzles in financial literature. In this study we investigate whether pre-issue earnings management can explain these results for rights issues in Spain. Consistent with this explanation, we notice that firms¿ issuing rights make use of discretionary accruals to report higher earnings prior to the offering. Most interestingly, the decrease in discretionary accruals the years following the offering explains the underperformance in stock returns.Corporate Finance, Seasoned Equity Offerings, Earnings Management, Accounting Accruals

Representaciones cartográficas de la ciudad de Valencia: del manuscrito a la reproducción seriada

La major part de les representacions cartogràfiques que han arribat fins a nosaltres, ho han fet mitjançant gravats o litografies que reprodueixen, generalment en una escala diferent, el dibuix original. Són ben pocs els casos on es conserven original i còpia reproduïda, la qual cosa no ens permet comparar si existeixen diferències entre elles o, simplement, si la seua coincidència cronològica és vertadera. La complexitat i el cost dels sistemes d'edició dificultaven les reproduccions, les quals de vegades es feien amb notable posterioritat al dibuix primitiu i, freqüentment, s'hi procedia a fer diverses actualitzacions i simplificacions notòries. A la sèrie de plànols històrics de la ciutat de València, hi ha dos exemples fonamentals que il·lustren la complexitat del procés de transformació del dibuix primitiu fins a la còpia final: el plànol de Tomàs Vicente Tosca, del 1704, i el del Projecte de l'Eixample, del 1858, dels arquitectes Antonino Sancho, Sebastián Monleón i Timoteo Calvo.Most of the cartographies that survived up to our times are engravings or lithographs, which in most cases reproduced the original drawing at a different scale. Unfortunately, we hardly have today the original and the reproduced copy and therefore, it is not possible to compare whether there are any differences between them or their chronology matching. In the past, the complexity and the high price of edition systems made the production of copies a difficult task. Sometimes, prints were produced noticeably later than the primitive drawing, and in consequence many updates and evident simplifications were frequently made. In the series of historical maps of the city of Valencia, there are two great examples that show the complexity of the process of transformation from the original drawing to the final copy: the map by Tomas Vicente Tosca in1704, and the Valencia City Expansion Project, by Antonino Sancho, Sebastián Monleón and Timoteo Calvo in 1858.La mayor parte de las representaciones cartográficas que han llegado hasta nosotros, lo han hecho a través de grabados o litografías que reproducen, generalmente a distinta escala, el dibujo original. En pocos casos se conservan tanto el original como la copia reproducida, lo que no nos permite comparar las posibles diferencias entre ambas o su posible coincidencia cronológica. La complejidad y el costo de los sistemas de edición dificultaban las reproducciones, que en ocasiones se producían con notable posterioridad al dibujo primitivo, procediéndose, frecuentemente, a diversas actualizaciones y notorias simplificaciones. Hay en la serie de planos históricos de la ciudad de Valencia dos ejemplos fundamentales que ilustran la complejidad del proceso de transformación del dibujo primitivo hasta la copia final: el plano de Tomás Vicente Tosca, de 1704, y el del Proyecto de Ensanche, de 1858, de los arquitectos Antonino Sancho, Sebastián Monleón y Timoteo Calvo

Experimental Validation of a Robotic Stretcher for Casualty Evacuation in a Man-Made Disaster Exercise

This paper describes a cooperative search and rescue exercise where an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is used by a military rescue team for extraction and evacuation of a casualty from an unsafe man-made disaster area. This experimental validation was performed within a full-scale emergency response exercise organized on June 2019 by the Chair of Safety, Emergencies and Disasters at Universidad de Málaga (Spain). With this purpose, we adapted the skid-steer Rambler robot to carry a stretcher with appropriate roll-in and locking mechanisms. The mission consisted of two phases: first, extraction from the hot zone was performed with remote teleoperation using a dummy; second, casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) to an aeromedical evacuation point was done with sightline teleoperation moving an actual volunteer. The realistic one-shot exercise was performed by actual rescue personnel with no previous experience with the robotic system. The paper shares insight and lessons learned from this concept validation experience.This work was partially supported by the project ``TRUST-ROB: Towards Resilient UGV and UAV Manipulator Teams for Robotic Search and Rescue Tasks'', funded by the Spanish Government (RTI2018-093421-B-I00). Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Estudio de métodos de construcción de ensembles de clasificadores y aplicaciones

La inteligencia artificial se dedica a la creación de sistemas informáticos con un comportamiento inteligente. Dentro de este área el aprendizaje computacional estudia la creación de sistemas que aprenden por sí mismos. Un tipo de aprendizaje computacional es el aprendizaje supervisado, en el cual, se le proporcionan al sistema tanto las entradas como la salida esperada y el sistema aprende a partir de estos datos. Un sistema de este tipo se denomina clasificador. En ocasiones ocurre, que en el conjunto de ejemplos que utiliza el sistema para aprender, el número de ejemplos de un tipo es mucho mayor que el número de ejemplos de otro tipo. Cuando esto ocurre se habla de conjuntos desequilibrados. La combinación de varios clasificadores es lo que se denomina "ensemble", y a menudo ofrece mejores resultados que cualquiera de los miembros que lo forman. Una de las claves para el buen funcionamiento de los ensembles es la diversidad. Esta tesis, se centra en el desarrollo de nuevos algoritmos de construcción de ensembles, centrados en técnicas de incremento de la diversidad y en los problemas desequilibrados. Adicionalmente, se aplican estas técnicas a la solución de varias problemas industriales.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, proyecto TIN-2011-2404

The Distinctive Regulation of Cyanobacterial Glutamine Synthetase

Glutamine synthetase (GS) features prominently in bacterial nitrogen assimilation as it catalyzes the entry of bioavailable nitrogen in form of ammonium into cellular metabolism. The classic example, the comprehensively characterized GS of enterobacteria, is subject to exquisite regulation at multiple levels, among them gene expression regulation to control GS abundance, as well as feedback inhibition and covalent modifications to control enzyme activity. Intriguingly, the GS of the ecologically important clade of cyanobacteria features fundamentally different regulatory systems to those of most prokaryotes. These include the interaction with small proteins, the so-called inactivating factors (IFs) that inhibit GS linearly with their abundance. In addition to this protein interaction-based regulation of GS activity, cyanobacteria use alternative elements to control the synthesis of GS and IFs at the transcriptional level. Moreover, cyanobacteria evolved unique RNA-based regulatory mechanisms such as glutamine riboswitches to tightly tune IF abundance. In this review, we aim to outline the current knowledge on the distinctive features of the cyanobacterial GS encompassing the overall control of its activity, sensing the nitrogen status, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation, as well as strain-specific differences.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft KL 3114/2-1Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BIO2016-75634-PFEDER BIO2016-75634-

Surface discretisation with rectifying strips on Geodesics

The use of geodesic curves of surfaces has enormous potential in architecture due to their multiple properties and easy geometric control using digital graphic tools. Among their numerous properties, the geodesic curves of a surface are the paths along which straight strips can be placed tangentially to the surface. On this basis, a graphical method is proposed to discretize surfaces using straight strips, which optimizes material consumption since rectangular straight strips take advantage of 100% of the material in the cutting process. The contribution of the article consists of presenting the geometric constraints that characterize this type of panelling from the idea of “rectifying surface”, considering the material inextensible. Experimental prototypes that have been part of the research are also described and the final theoretical results are presented

Intrinsically disordered inhibitor of glutamine synthetase is a functional protein with random-coil-like pKa values

The sequential action of glutamine synthetase (GS) and glutamate synthase (GOGAT) in cyanobacteria allows the incorporation of ammonium into carbon skeletons. In the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, the activity of GS is modulated by the interaction with proteins, which include a 65-residue-long intrinsically disordered protein (IDP), the inactivating factor IF7. This interaction is regulated by the presence of charged residues in both IF7 and GS. To understand how charged amino acids can affect the binding of an IDP with its target and to provide clues on electrostatic interactions in disordered states of proteins, we measured the pKa values of all IF7 acidic groups (Glu32, Glu36, Glu38, Asp40, Asp58, and Ser65, the backbone C-terminus) at 100 mM NaCl concentration, by using NMR spectroscopy. We also obtained solution structures of IF7 through molecular dynamics simulation, validated them on the basis of previous experiments, and used them to obtain theoretical estimates of the pKa values. Titration values for the two Asp and three Glu residues of IF7 were similar to those reported for random-coil models, suggesting the lack of electrostatic interactions around these residues. Furthermore, our results suggest the presence of helical structure at the N-terminus of the protein and of conformational changes at acidic pH values. The overall experimental and in silico findings suggest that local interactions and conformational equilibria do not play a role in determining the electrostatic features of the acidic residues of IF7.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CTQ 2015-64445-R, BFU2013- 41712-P, BIO2016-75634PJunta de Andalucía BIO-284Generalitat Valenciana Prometeo 018/201