Tilinpäätösraportoinnin viiveet pienten yritysten epäonnistumisen oireena

Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan suomalaisten pienten epäonnistuvien yritysten tilinpäätösraportoinnin viiveitä niiden tulevan epäonnistumisen oireena sekä näihin viiveisiin liittyviä laadullisia tekijöitä. Aikaisemman aihealueen teorian (mm. Argenti 1976; Keasey & Watson 1987, 1988, 1991b) mukaan tilinpäätösraportoinnin viiveet ovat yksi luotettavimmista oireista yritysten tulevasta epäonnistumisesta, minkä lisäksi niiden on havaittu olevan erityisen käyttökelpoisia pienten yritysten epäonnistumisen ennustamisessa. Kuitenkin tilinpäätösraportoinnin viiveiden hyödyntämiseen liittyvä aikaisempi teoria on luotu suurelta osin 1980-luvun kansainvälisessä tutkimuksessa, jonka jälkeen muutokset mm. pienten yritysten taloushallinnon toteutuksessa ja lainsäädännössä ovat voineet muuttaa tilannetta. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on siten testata aiemmin luotua teoriaa ja sen soveltuvuutta nykyiseen suomalaiseen tilinpäätösraportoinnin toimintaympäristöön. Tutkimuksen näkökulmaksi on valittu yrityksen ulkopuolisen havainnoijan näkökulma, mikä näkyy tutkimuksessa käytettyinä julkisina tietolähteinä. Tällöin nämä tietolähteet olisivat myös yritysten ulkopuolisten havainnoijien käytettävissä heidän pyrkiessään arvioimaan yritysten taloudellista tilannetta ja tulevaisuutta. Tässä tutkimuksessa käytettävät tietolähteet, joista tutkimuksen empiirinen aineisto on koottu ja hankittu, ovat olleet Suomen Asiakastiedon TOP100 -konkurssilistaus vuodelta 2013, Kauppalehden WWW-sivut sekä Patentti- ja rekisterihallituksen Virre-tietopalvelu. Tutkimuksessa hyödynnetty tutkimusmenetelmä on suomalaisiin olosuhteisiin mukautettu versio Beaverin (1966) kehittämästä vastinparimenettelystä, joka on ollut yleisesti käytetty menetelmä epäonnistuvien yritysten ennustamistutkimuksessa (Zmijewski 1984; Keasey & Watson 1991b). Epäonnistuvien yritysten vastinpariryhmänä ovat tässä tutkimuksessa toimineet menestyvät yritykset, mikä eroaa osin perinteisestä vastinparimenettelyn toteutuksesta (ks. Taffler 1982; Keasey & Watson 1991b). Vastinparimenettelyn avulla muodostettua empiiristä aineistoa on testattu epäparametristen Wilcoxon signed rank -testin ja McNemar-testin avulla. Tutkimuksen empiirisen aineiston analyysissä epäonnistuvien ja menestyvien pienten yritysten tilinpäätösraportoinnin viiveiden ei pääosin havaittu eroavan toisistaan, mutta tutkimuksen tulokset ovat osin ristiriitaiset. Lisäksi tutkimuksen toteutuksessa törmättiin useisiin aikaisemman teorian esille tuomista harhaa aiheuttavista ongelmista mm. aineiston saatavuuden ja epätäydellisten tietojen osalta. Erityisiä eroja tutkimuksessa havaittiin vastinpariryhmien välillä tilinpäätösraportoinnin viiveisiin liittyvissä laadullisissa tekijöissä. Tutkimuksessa myös havaittiin, että täydellisten tilinpäätöstietojen saantiin kaupparekisteristä Patentti- ja rekisterihallituksen Virre-tietopalvelun kautta liittyy ongelmia sekä epäonnistuvien että menestyvien pienten yritysten osalta

Human endogenous retroviruses of the HERV-K (HML-2) family are expressed in the brain of healthy individuals and modify the composition of the brain-infiltrating immune cells

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are remnants of ancient retroviral infections in the human genome. RNA expression of individual HERVs has frequently been observed in various pathologic conditions, but some activity can also be seen in healthy individuals, e.g. in the blood. To quantitate the basal expression levels of HERVs in the brain, we now used high-throughput sequencing-based metagenomic analysis to characterize the expression profiles of the HERV-K (HML-2) family proviruses in different brain regions of healthy brain tissue. To this end, RNA-seq data from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project was used. The GTEx project is a public resource to study tissue-specific gene expression and regulation, consisting of a large selection of sequenced samples from different tissues. The GTEx data used in this study consisted of 378 samples taken from 13 brain regions from 55 individuals. The data demonstrated that out of 99 intact proviruses in the family 58 were expressed, but the expression profiles were highly divergent and there were no significant differences in the expression profiles between the various anatomic regions of the brain. It is known that the brain contains a variety of infiltrating immune cells, which are probably of great importance both in the normal defense mechanisms as well as in the various pathogenic processes. Digital cytometry (CIBERSORTx) was used to quantify the proportions of the infiltrating immune cells in the same brain samples. Six most abundant (>5 % of the total population) cell types were observed to be CD4 memory resting T cells, M0 macrophages, plasma cells, CD8 T cells, CD4 memory activated T cells, and monocytes. Analysis of the correlations between the individual HERVs and infiltrating cell types indicated that a cluster of 6 HERVs had a notable correlation signature between T cell type infiltrating cell proportions and HERV RNA expression intensity. The correlations between inflammatory type infiltrating cells were negative or weak. Taken together, these data indicate that the expression of HERVs is associated with a T cell type immunity.Peer reviewe

Composition of the infiltrating immune cells in the brain of healthy individuals : effect of aging

Immune cells infiltrating the central nervous system (CNS) are involved in the defense against invading microbes as well as in the pathogenesis of neuroinflammatory diseases. In these conditions, the presence of several types of immune and inflammatory cells have been demonstrated. However, some studies have also reported low amounts of immune cells that have been detected in the CNS of healthy individuals, but the cell types present have not been systematically analyzed. To do this, we now used brain samples from The Genotype- Tissue Expression (GTEx) project to analyze the relative abundance of 22 infiltrating leukocyte types using a digital cytometry tool (CIBERSORTx). To characterize cell proportions in different parts of the CNS, samples from 13 different anatomic brain regions were used. The data obtained demonstrated that several leukocyte types were present in the CNS. Six leukocyte types (CD4 memory resting T cells, M0 macrophages, plasma cells, CD8 T cells, CD4 memory activated T cells, and monocytes) were present with a proportion higher than 0.05, i.e. 5%. These six cell types were present in most brain regions with only insignificant variation. A consistent association with age was seen with monocytes, CD8 T cells, and follicular helper T cells. Taken together, these data show that several infiltrating immune cell types are present in the non-diseased CNS tissue and that the proportions of infiltrating cells are affected by age in a manner that is consistent with literature on immunosenecence and inflammaging.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Herpesviruses and their genetic diversity in the blood virome of healthy individuals : effect of aging

Background: As we age, the functioning of the human immune system declines. The results of this are increases in morbidity and mortality associated with infectious diseases, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegenerative disease in elderly individuals, as well as a weakened vaccination response. The aging of the immune system is thought to affect and be affected by the human virome, the collection of all viruses present in an individual. Persistent viral infections, such as those caused by certain herpesviruses, can be present in an individual for long periods of time without any overt pathology, yet are associated with disease in states of compromised immune function. To better understand the effects on human health of such persistent viral infections, we must first understand how the human virome changes with age. We have now analyzed the composition of the whole blood virome of 317 individuals, 21–70 years old, using a metatranscriptomic approach. Use of RNA sequencing data allows for the unbiased detection of RNA viruses and active DNA viruses. Results: The data obtained showed that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was the most frequently expressed virus, with other detected viruses being herpes simplex virus 1, human cytomegalovirus, torque teno viruses, and papillomaviruses. Of the 317 studied blood samples, 68 (21%) had EBV expression, whereas the other detected viruses were only detected in at most 6 samples (2%). We therefore focused on EBV in our further analyses. Frequency of EBV detection, relative EBV RNA abundance and the genetic diversity of EBV was not significantly different between age groups (21–59 and 60–70 years old). No significant correlation was seen between EBV RNA abundance and age. Deconvolution analysis revealed a significant difference in proportions of activated dendritic cells, macrophages M1, and activated mast cells between EBV expression positive and negative individuals. Conclusions: As it is likely that the EBV RNA quantified in this work is derived from reactivation of the latent EBV virus, these data suggest that age does not affect the rate of reactivation nor the genetic landscape of EBV. These findings offer new insight on the genetic diversity of a persistent EBV infection in the long-term.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Estimating the production time of a PCB assembly job without solving the optimised machine control

Production planning and control of the printed circuit board (PCB) assembly includes several decisions dealing with, for example, grouping of PCB jobs, allocation of PCB batches to machine lines, sequencing of batches and load balancing of lines. The production time of a PCB job for a given placement machine is a key factor in this context and it must be quickly and accurately estimated, possibly millions of times in a single planning task, to avoid erroneous decisions. The commonly used nominal tact time-based estimators are very rough and the machine simulators too slow. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to give better machine-specific estimators that avoid the construction the actual machine control program. Two new estimators are proposed for gantry machines, one based on the information given by the manufacturer about the operations of the placement head, and the other on the regularised least-squares regression method trained with a set of PCB placement jobs. In practical evaluation with 95 PCB jobs, the mean absolute percentage error of the first and second methods are 3.75% and 6.52%, respectively, while that of the tact time-based approach is more than 17%. This indicates a great potential of the proposed methods as production time estimators.</p

Automatic detection of cereal rows by means of pattern recognition techniques

Automatic locating of weeds from fields is an active research topic in precision agriculture. A reliable and practical plant identification technique would enable the reduction of herbicide amounts and lowering of production costs, along with reducing the damage to the ecosystem. When the seeds have been sown row-wise, most weeds may be located between the sowing rows. The present work describes a clustering-based method for recognition of plantlet rows from a set of aerial photographs, taken by a drone flying at approximately ten meters. The algorithm includes three phases: segmentation of green objects in the view, feature extraction, and clustering of plants into individual rows. Segmentation separates the plants from the background. The main feature to be extracted is the center of gravity of each plant segment. A tentative clustering is obtained piecewise by applying the 2D Fourier transform to image blocks to get information about the direction and the distance between the rows. The precise sowing line position is finally derived by principal component analysis. The method was able to find the rows from a set of photographs of size 1452 x 969 pixels approximately in 0.11 s, with the accuracy of 94 per cent

Autocrine prolactin promotes prostate cancer cell growth via Janus kinase-2-signal transducer and activator of transcription-5a/b signaling pathway.

The molecular mechanisms that promote progression of localized prostate cancer to hormone-refractory and disseminated disease are poorly understood. Prolactin (Prl) is a local growth factor produced in high-grade prostate cancer, and exogenously added Prl in tissue or explant cultures of normal and malignant prostate is a strong mitogen and survival factor for prostate epithelium. The key signaling proteins that mediate the biological effects of Prl in prostate cancer are Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription (Stat)-5a/5b via activation of Janus kinase-2. Importantly, inhibition of Stat5a/b in prostate cancer cells induces apoptotic death. Using a specific Prl receptor antagonist (Delta1-9G129R-hPRL), we demonstrate here for the first time that autocrine Prl in androgen-independent human prostate cancer cells promotes cell viability via Stat5 signaling pathway. Furthermore, we examined a unique clinical material of human hormone refractory prostate cancers and metastases and show that autocrine Prl is expressed in 54% of hormone-refractory clinical human prostate cancers and 62% prostate cancer metastases. Finally, we demonstrate that autocrine Prl is expressed from both the proximal and distal promoters of the Prl gene in clinical human prostate cancers and in vivo and in vitro human prostate cancer models, independently of pituitary transcription factor-1 (Pit-1). Collectively, the data provide novel evidence for the concept that autocrine Prl signaling pathway is involved in growth of hormone-refractory and metastatic prostate cancer. The study also provides support for the use of Prl receptor antagonists or other therapeutic strategies to block the Prl-Janus kinase-2-Stat5 signaling pathway in advanced prostate cancer

Aging-associated DNA methylation changes in middle-aged individuals: the Young Finns study

Background Chronological aging-associated changes in the human DNA methylome have been studied by multiple epigenome-wide association studies (EWASs). Certain CpG sites have been identified as aging-associated in multiple studies, and the majority of the sites identified in various studies show common features regarding location and direction of the methylation change. However, as a whole, the sets of aging-associated CpGs identified in different studies, even with similar tissues and age ranges, show only limited overlap. In this study, we further explore and characterize CpG sites that show close relationship between their DNA methylation level and chronological age during adulthood and which bear the relationship regardless of blood cell type heterogeneity. Results In this study, with a multivariable regression model adjusted for cell type heterogeneity, we identified 1202 aging-associated CpG sites (a-CpGs, FDR < 5 %), in whole blood in a population with an especially narrow age range (40 - 49 years). Repeatedly reported a-CpGs located in genes ELOVL2, FHL2, PENK and KLF14 were also identified. Regions with aging-associated hypermethylation were enriched regarding several gene ontology (GO) terms (especially in the cluster of developmental processes), whereas hypomethylated sites showed no enrichment. The genes with higher numbers of a-CpG hits were more often hypermethylated with advancing age. The comparison analysis revealed that of the 1202 a-CpGs identified in the present study, 987 were identified as differentially methylated also between nonagenarians and young adults in a previous study (The Vitality 90+ study), and importantly, the directions of changes were identical in the previous and in the present study. Conclusions Here we report that aging-associated DNA methylation features can be identified in a middle-aged population with an age range of only 9 years. A great majority of these sites have been previously reported as aging-associated in a population aged 19 to 90 years. Aging is associated with different types of changes in DNA methylation, clock-like as well as random. We speculate that the a-CpGs identified here in a population with a narrow age-range represent clock-like changes, as they showed concordant methylation behavior in population spanning whole adulthood as well.BioMed Central open acces