What Causes the Target Stock Price Run-Up Prior to M&A Announcements?

We investigate the target stock price run-up prior to M&A announcements between 1981 and 2011. About one third of the total price run-up occurs before announcements, and the pre-announcement run-up does not seem to be caused by market anticipation of M&As, toehold acquisitions or reported insider trading. Instead, the pre-announcement run-up is significantly larger when media attention on insider trading is lower, when institutional ownership is lower, and when probability of informed trading is higher. The findings are consistent with the view that the target stock price run-up prior to M&A announcements is caused by unreported insider trading

Understanding the Drivers’ Continuous Intention of Online Car Booking Service

Based upon commitment theory, this study explores the effect of organizational commitment on drivers’ continuous intention to provide online car booking service. We further investigate the antecedent factors of the drivers’ organizational commitment. Online survey is utilized to collect data from the drivers who are providing service current from various companies in China. The results show that affective commitment and normative commitment serve as the crucial determinants to affect drivers’ continuous intention. Besides, social interaction ties with company, with customers, drivers’ rewards, as well as their sense of self-value cultivate their organizational commitment perception. We then propose our theoretical and practical implications according to the findings of this study

The Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Rabies in China

Rabies is a major problem in developing countries and responsible for more than 55,000 deaths annually. More than half of the cases occur in Asia and China has the second highest incidence of rabies after India. Human rabies cases in China decreased during the early 1990s but the virus began to re-emerge in the latter half of the decade and spread rapidly across the country with a corresponding increase in cases. To try and learn more about the epidemic, in 2006 the government implemented a trial surveillance program to sample and screen canine populations in locations where human cases were reported. In this work we selected a subset of samples (representative of the entire epidemic region) for sequencing and investigated the history and origin of the virus in China and examined the variation from a geographical perspective. Our results indicate that the epidemic is primarily composed of a younger strain with a geographical dispersion that was consistent with the recorded spread of the virus and a second older strain that corresponds to a previous epidemic. This second group exhibits a different geographical pattern, and it appears that this strain remained at low levels throughout the country and was able to re-emerge as the epidemic took hold

Thiophene Disubstituted Benzothiadiazole Derivatives: An Effective Planarization Strategy Toward Deep-Red to Near-Infrared (NIR) Organic Light-Emitting Diodes

As one of the three primary colors that are indispensable in full-color displays, the development of red emitters is far behind the blue and green ones. Here, three novel orange-yellow to near-infrared (NIR) emitters based on 5,6-difluorobenzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole (BTDF) namely BTDF-TPA, BTDF-TTPA, and BTDF-TtTPA were designed and synthesized. Density functional theory analysis and photophysical characterization reveal that these three materials possess hybridized local and charge-transfer (HLCT) state feature and a feasible reverse intersystem crossing (RISC) from the high-lying triplet state to the singlet state may conduce to an exciton utilization exceeding the limit of 25% of traditional fluorescence materials under electrical excitation. The insertion of thiophene with small steric hindrance as π-bridge between the electron-donating (D) moiety triphenylamine (TPA) and the electron-accepting (A) moiety BTDF not only results in a remarkable 67 nm red-shift of the emission peak but also brings about a large overlap of frontier molecular orbitals to guarantee high radiative transition rate that is of great significance to obtain high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) in the “energy-gap law” dominated long-wavelength emission region. Consequently, an attractive high maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 5.75% was achieved for the doped devices based on these thiophene π-bridged emitters, giving a deep-red emission with small efficiency roll-off. Remarkably, NIR emission could be obtained for the non-doped devices, achieving an excellent maximum EQE of 1.44% and Commission Internationale de l'Éclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.71, 0.29). These results are among the highest efficiencies in the reported deep-red to NIR fluorescent OLEDs and offer a new π-bridge design strategy in D-π-A and D-π-A-π-D red emitter design

Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use in early acute respiratory distress syndrome : Insights from the LUNG SAFE study

Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s). Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Background: Concerns exist regarding the prevalence and impact of unnecessary oxygen use in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). We examined this issue in patients with ARDS enrolled in the Large observational study to UNderstand the Global impact of Severe Acute respiratory FailurE (LUNG SAFE) study. Methods: In this secondary analysis of the LUNG SAFE study, we wished to determine the prevalence and the outcomes associated with hyperoxemia on day 1, sustained hyperoxemia, and excessive oxygen use in patients with early ARDS. Patients who fulfilled criteria of ARDS on day 1 and day 2 of acute hypoxemic respiratory failure were categorized based on the presence of hyperoxemia (PaO2 > 100 mmHg) on day 1, sustained (i.e., present on day 1 and day 2) hyperoxemia, or excessive oxygen use (FIO2 ≥ 0.60 during hyperoxemia). Results: Of 2005 patients that met the inclusion criteria, 131 (6.5%) were hypoxemic (PaO2 < 55 mmHg), 607 (30%) had hyperoxemia on day 1, and 250 (12%) had sustained hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use occurred in 400 (66%) out of 607 patients with hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use decreased from day 1 to day 2 of ARDS, with most hyperoxemic patients on day 2 receiving relatively low FIO2. Multivariate analyses found no independent relationship between day 1 hyperoxemia, sustained hyperoxemia, or excess FIO2 use and adverse clinical outcomes. Mortality was 42% in patients with excess FIO2 use, compared to 39% in a propensity-matched sample of normoxemic (PaO2 55-100 mmHg) patients (P = 0.47). Conclusions: Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use are both prevalent in early ARDS but are most often non-sustained. No relationship was found between hyperoxemia or excessive oxygen use and patient outcome in this cohort. Trial registration: LUNG-SAFE is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02010073publishersversionPeer reviewe

Price competition in the mutual fund industry

We find a puzzling fact about mutual fund industry that funds operating in more competitive segments charge higher fees. We argue that this surprising positive relation between competition and fund fees is consistent with strategic fee setting by funds. Fund performance is better and more persistent in less competitive segments, which attracts relatively more performance-sensitive investors. This leaves relatively less performance-sensitive investors in more competitive markets. Hence, funds operating in more competitive markets face a relatively inelastic demand curve and take advantage of it by increasing their fees (which reduces investors’ net returns). Our findings have important policy implications that market competition on its own may not be sufficient to decrease fund fees and regulatory interventions are required to increase investor awareness of mutual fund fees and their adverse impacts on net fund performance

Religion and the Method of Earnings Management: Evidence from China

Previous studies argue that religious firms are more ethical and thus engage less in accrual earnings management. At odds with the ethical view, we use a sample of Chinese listed firms and show that firms in religious regions use more real earnings management. We postulate that besides ethics, religion also proxies for risk aversion, which motivates firms to substitute accrual earnings management with real earnings management. Consistent with this view, we show that the positive (negative) association between religiosity and real (accrual) earnings management is more pronounced for firms with lower litigation risk and for firms with less reputable auditors. In addition, we use a mediation model introduced by Baron and Kenny (J Pers Soc Psychol 51(6):1173–1182, 1986) to show that religiosity affects earnings management through the channel of risk aversion. We conclude that firms choose real earnings management over accrual-based earnings management because of risk aversion, rather than ethical reasons

A New BCN Compound with Monoclinic Symmetry: First-Principle Calculations

In this study, we predicted and investigated a new light-element compound B-C-N in Pm phase, denoted as Pm-BCN, using density functional theory. Pm-BCN is mechanically, dynamically, and thermodynamically stable. The elastic moduli of Pm-BCN are larger than those of other B-C-N and light-element compounds, such as P213 BN, B2C3, P4/m BN, Pnc2 BN, and dz4 BN. By studying the mechanical anisotropy of elastic moduli, we proved that Pm-BCN is a mechanically anisotropic material. In addition, the shear anisotropy factors A2 and ABa of Pm-BCN are smaller than those of the seven B-C-N compounds mentioned in this paper. Pm-BCN is a semiconductor material with an indirect and wide band gap, suggesting that Pm-BCN can be applied in microelectronic devices