Corporate Environmental Disclosure, Corporate Governance and Earnings Management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between corporate environmental disclosure (CED) and earnings management (EM) and the impact of corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on that association. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses performance-matched discretionary accruals (DA) as a measure of EM. The paper also uses ordinary least square regression with robust standard errors to examine the association between CED and EM for a sample of 245 UK non-financial firms for the financial year ended on March 2007. Three different theoretical frameworks are used to identify the expected association between CER and EM. These include: signalling, agency and stakeholder-legitimacy theories. Findings – The paper finds no significant statistical association between various measures of DA and environmental disclosure. The paper also finds that some CG attributes affect the relationship between CER and EM. Practical implications – The result suggests that UK corporate managers are not using environmental disclosure as a technique to reduce the probability that public policy actions will be taken against their companies. Originality/value – Since most empirical research is limited to the US setting, this paper provides a novel contribution to the existing literature, as one of the first to examine this issue in the UK

Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome Following Augmentation Cystoplasty

Superior mesenteric artery syndrome (SMAS) is a rare condition of external duodenal compression in the angle between the superior mesenteric artery and aorta. We report a case of SMAS following augmentation cystoplasty in a young patient. Superior mesenteric artery syndrome (SMAS) is a rare condition that usually presents with symptoms of upper gastrointestinal (GI) obstruction due to extrinsic compression of the third part of duodenum between the abdominal aorta posteriorly and superior mesenteric artery (SMA) anteriorly. Several predisposing factors have been described, however; severe weight loss is considered the most significant. Reduction in the angle and distance between the aorta and the SMA causes compression of the duodenum. Conservative treatment plays a major role in such cases; however, failure of such measures may warrant surgical intervention

Influence of body condition on the population dynamics of Atlantic salmon with consideration of the potential impact of sea lice

We thank Marine Scotland Science (MSS) for providing the studentship for this work. We are grateful to Alexander G Murray from MSS Aberdeen for providing data for model parameterization. We also want to thank Gordon Smith and Ian Simpson from MSS Montrose, as well as the owner and staff of the net fishery at North Esk for enabling data collection. We thank Peerage of Science and two anonymous referees for constructive comments and critique points which considerably improved earlier drafts.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Lactational responses of heat-stressed dairy goats to dietary L-carnitine supplementation

Heat stress causes significant losses in milk production, and nutritional strategies are needed to alleviate its effects. Endogenous carnitine synthesis is also reduced by heat stress (HS). Carnitine plays a central role in fatty acid oxidation and buffers the toxic effects of acyl groups. We hypothesized that carnitine supplementation would make up for any carnitine deficiencies during HS and improve lipid metabolism. The objective was to evaluate rumen-protected L-carnitine (CAR) supplementation in dairy goats under thermo-neutral (TN) or HS conditions. Four Murciano-Granadina dairy goats were used in a four × four Latin square design. Goats were allocated to one of four treatments in a two × two factorial arrangement. Factors were 1) diet: control (CON) or supplementation with CAR (1 g/d); and 2) ambient conditions: TN (15 to 20 °C) or HS (0900 to 2100 h at 35 °C, 2100 to 0900 h at 28 °C). Blood free-, acetyl-, and total-carnitine concentrations increased almost three times by supplementation. Despite this efficient absorption, CAR had no effect on feed intake, milk production or blood metabolites in TN or HS conditions. Heat stress increased rectal temperature and respiratory rate. Additionally, HS goats experienced 26% loss in feed intake, but they tended to eat longer particle sizes. Compared to TN, heat-stressed goats lost more subcutaneous fat (difference in fat thickness measured before and after each period = −0.72 vs. +0.64 mm). In conclusion, supplemented L-carnitine was efficiently absorbed, but it had no lactational effects on performance of goats under thermo-neutral or heat stress conditions

Effects of plant pathogens on population dynamics and community composition in grassland ecosystems: two case studies

Grassland ecosystems comprise a major portion of the earth’s terrestrial surface, ranging from high-input cultivated monocultures or simple species mixtures to relatively unmanaged but dynamic systems. Plant pathogens are a component of these systems with their impact dependent on many interacting factors, including grassland species population dynamics and community composition, the topics covered in this paper. Plant pathogens are affected by these interactions and also act reciprocally by modifying their nature. We review these features of disease in grasslands and then introduce the 150-year long-term Park Grass Experiment (PGE) at Rothamsted Research in the UK. We then consider in detail two plant-pathogen systems present in the PGE, Tragopogon pratensis-Puccinia hysterium and Holcus lanata-Puccinia coronata. These two systems have very different life history characteristics: the first, a biennial member of the Asteraceae infected by its host-specific, systemic rust; the second, a perennial grass infected by a host-non-specific rust. We illustrate how observational, experimental and modelling studies can contribute to a better understanding of population dynamics, competitive interactions and evolutionary outcomes. With Tragopogon pratensis-Puccinia hysterium, characterised as an “outbreak” species in the PGE, we show that pathogen-induced mortality is unlikely to be involved in host population regulation; and that the presence of even a short-lived seed-bank can affect the qualitative outcomes of the host-pathogen dynamics. With Holcus lanata-Puccinia coronata, we show how nutrient conditions can affect adaptation in terms of host defence mechanisms, and that co-existence of competing species affected by a common generalist pathogen is unlikely

The Role of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Ultraviolet Extinction. I. Probing small molecular PAHs

We have obtained new STIS/HST spectra to search for structure in the ultraviolet interstellar extinction curve, with particular emphasis on a search for absorption features produced by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The presence of these molecules in the interstellar medium has been postulated to explain the infrared emission features seen in the 3-13 $\mu$m spectra of numerous sources. UV spectra are uniquely capable of identifying specific PAH molecules. We obtained high S/N UV spectra of stars which are significantly more reddened than those observed in previous studies. These data put limits on the role of small (30-50 carbon atoms) PAHs in UV extinction and call for further observations to probe the role of larger PAHs. PAHs are of importance because of their ubiquity and high abundance inferred from the infrared data and also because they may link the molecular and dust phases of the interstellar medium. A presence or absence of ultraviolet absorption bands due to PAHs could be a definitive test of this hypothesis. We should be able to detect a 20 \AA wide feature down to a 3$\sigma$ limit of $\sim$0.02 A$_V$. No such absorption features are seen other than the well-known 2175 \AA bump.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure, ApJ in pres

Coupling Classical and Quantum Variables using Continuous Quantum Measurement Theory

We propose a system of equations to describe the interaction of a quasiclassical variable $X$ with a set of quantum variables $x$ that goes beyond the usual mean field approximation. The idea is to regard the quantum system as continuously and imprecisely measured by the classical system. The effective equations of motion for the classical system therefore consist of treating the quantum variable $x$ as a stochastic c-number \x (t) the probability distibution for which is given by the theory of continuous quantum measurements. The resulting theory is similar to the usual mean field equations (in which $x$ is replaced by its quantum expectation value) but with two differences: a noise term, and more importantly, the state of the quantum subsystem evolves according to the stochastic non-linear Schrodinger equation of a continuously measured system. In the case in which the quantum system starts out in a superposition of well-separated localized states, the classical system goes into a statistical mixture of trajectories, one trajectory for each individual localized state.Comment: 11 pages, plain Tex (with revised settings for \vsize and \voffset to accommodate US paper sizes