Studies of UK Director Trading: In Aggregate and by Director Role

The topic of insider/director trading raises interesting questions and has generated much attention from researchers, market participants and regulators. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the long-run director trading performance in the UK market. It examines relationship between aggregate director trading and indicators of the UK macroeconomy focus on the macro-aspects in Chapter 4 and 5. The extant empirical literature on aggregate director trading can be categorized into two parts: the first is the relationship between director trading and the stock market; and the second is the link between stock returns and future aggregate economic activities. Having examined the macro-picture, it goes to examine a more micro-picture. Chapter 6 examines long-run relationship between director trading and market reactions. This thesis is organized around three research studies which are presented in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 and which examine long-run director trading activities in the UK. Chapters 4 and 5 together investigate the evidence for director trading activities and the macroeconomy. There is little literature on aggregate director trading and the macro-economy: therefore Chapter 4 examines the relationship between aggregate director trading and future market excess returns. Empirical evidence is presented which demonstrates that the returns on stock market are significantly correlated to future economic growth. Chapter 5 then examines whether the forecasting ability can be improved by adding aggregate director trading as a measurement of business confidence into the forecasting model. Chapter 6 examines the long-run performance of market reaction to director roles. In order to examine the relationship between aggregate director trading and the macro-economy, the link between aggregate director trading and future market excess returns is investigated. This thesis considers the importance of the seasonality issue in UK director trading and employs a number of alternative seasonality adjustments to adjust the raw data on aggregate director trading. The positive correlation between aggregate director trading and future market excess returns is confirmed and evidence is provided that indicates directors are contrarian: in aggregate they purchase (sell) their own-company stock prior to general stock market increases (decreases). In the long-run, the empirical work demonstrates that aggregate director trading has forecasting power in terms of predicting future stock market excess returns. Additional findings are that aggregate director trading in large firms has a positive significant predictive ability for identifying future excess returns of large firms and aggregate director trading of some industries has positive significant forecasting ability for future excess returns of these industries. Having confirmed the relationship between aggregate director trading and future market movement, this thesis turns to examine the link between aggregate director trading and future UK economic growth. It measures economic growth of future real economic activity by the change in gross domestic product (GDP) and it documents a strong correlation between past aggregate director trading and future real economic activity. The predictability of future economic growth increases with both the length of forecasting horizon and past net number of director trading. In a multivariate regression analysis this thesis finds that aggregate director trading retains predicting power with respect to future GDP growth even after including popular business cycle variables (dividend yield of FTSE All share, growth rate of industrial production and term spread) as explanatory variables. This finding suggests that aggregate director trading captures things related to changes in real activity but not captured by market factors (Fama-French 3 factors: SMB, HML and RMRF) and business cycle variables. After examining the relationship between aggregate director trading, market returns and changes in GDP, the last empirical Chapter of the thesis concentrates director trading on the micro-aspects of director trading and stock movement. It examines the stock market reaction to director trading with firm characteristics and the effects of director trading pattern. Using long-run calendar-time abnormal returns (CTAR) methodology with Fama-French 3-factor model, evidence is presented that directors do have more valuable information allowing them to make significant abnormal returns than other market participants, the performance of CFOs supports the information hierarchy hypothesis in 1- and 6-month post-purchase trading time, and the director trading with firm characteristics has a significant effect on stock abnormal returns

Research progress and management strategies of fungal diseases in Camellia oleifera

Camellia oleifera Abel, a woody oil plant, that is endemic to China. Tea oil, also referred to as “oriental olive oil,” is a superior quality plant-based cooking oil. The production of tea oil accounts for 8% of the total edible vegetable oil production in the country. Since 2022, the annual output value of C. oleifera industry has exceeded 100 billion yuan, making it one of the major economic contributors to China’s rural revitalization development strategy. In recent years, demand and production have grown in parallel. However, this has led to an increase in the incidence levels of pest and diseases. Pests and diseases significantly reduce the quality and yield of C. oleifera. C. oleifera diseases are mainly caused by pathogenic fungi. C. oleifera anthracnose, soft rot, leaf spot, coal stain, leaf gall disease, and root rot are the most important fungal diseases affecting the C. oleifera industry. However, the same disease may be caused by different pathogenic fungi. C. oleifera can be found in half of China and is found in several climatic zones. The geographical distribution of woody plant diseases is consistent with the distribution of the tree species and the ecology of the range, which also results in a highly complex distribution of fungal diseases of C. oleifera. The management of fungal diseases in C. oleifera is extremely challenging due to the variety of pathogenic fungal species, multiple routes of transmission, the lack of resistant plants, and the environmental safety of chemical measures. The optimal strategy for addressing fungal diseases in C. oleifera is to develop and apply an integrated disease management plan. This review provides a brief overview of the pathogenic species, pathogenesis, pathogenesis, geographical distribution, current management strategies, and potentially new methods of C. oleifera fungal diseases, to provide direction for the development of comprehensive management measures for C. oleifera fungal diseases in the future

Recent progress on harm, pathogen classification, control and pathogenic molecular mechanism of anthracnose of oil-tea

Oil tea (Camellia oleifera), mainly used to produce high-quality edible oil, is an important cash crop in China. Anthracnose of oil tea is a considerable factor that limits the yield of tea oil. In order to effectively control the anthracnose of oil tea, researchers have worked hard for many years, and great progress has been made in the research of oil tea anthracnose. For instance, researchers isolated a variety of Colletotrichum spp. from oil tea and found that Colletotrichum fructicola was the most popular pathogen in oil tea. At the same time, a variety of control methods have been explored, such as cultivating resistant varieties, pesticides, and biological control, etc. Furthermore, the research on the molecular pathogenesis of Colletotrichum spp. has also made good progress, such as the elaboration of the transcription factors and effector functions of Colletotrichum spp. The authors summarized the research status of the harm, pathogen types, control, and pathogenic molecular mechanism of oil tea anthracnose in order to provide theoretical support and new technical means for the green prevention and control of oil tea anthracnose

Quasi-Free Electron States Responsible for Single-Molecule Conductance Enhancement in Stable Radical

Stable organic radicals, which possess half-filled orbitals in the vicinity of the Fermi energy, are promising candidates for electronic devices. In this Letter, using a combination of scanning-tunneling-microscopy-based break junction (STM-BJ) experiments and quantum transport theory, a stable fluorene-based radical is investigated. We demonstrate that the transport properties of a series of fluorene derivatives can be tuned by controlling the degree of localization of certain orbitals. More specifically, radical has a delocalized half-filled orbital resulting in Breit-Wigner resonances, leading to an unprecedented conductance enhancement of 2 orders of magnitude larger than the neutral nonradical counterpart ( ). In other words, conversion from a closed-shell fluorene derivative to the free radical in opens an electron transport path which massively enhances the conductance. This new understanding of the role of radicals in single-molecule junctions opens up a novel design strategy for single-molecule-based spintronic devices

Increased Mortality Associated with Well-Water Arsenic Exposure in Inner Mongolia, China

We conducted a retrospective mortality study in an Inner Mongolian village exposed to well water contaminated by arsenic since the 1980s. Deaths occurring between January 1, 1997 and December 1, 2004 were classified according to underlying cause and water samples from household wells were tested for total arsenic. Heart disease mortality was associated with arsenic exposure, and the association strengthened with time exposed to the water source. Cancer mortality and all-cause mortality were associated with well-water arsenic exposure among those exposed 10–20 years. This is the first study to document increased arsenic-associated mortality in the Bayingnormen region of Inner Mongolia

Evaluation of EEG, EMG and clinical semiology in the lateral location of bilateral extremities tonic seizures of focal epilepsy

Objective To evaluate the lateralizing value of electrical and clinical semiology in patients with bilateral extremities tonic seizure (BETS). Methods Ninety-two times of BETS were retrospectively observed from 26 patients with focal epilepsy, based on the surgery and follow-up results. The ictal electroencephalography(EEG),synchronous surface electromyography(EMG) and clinical symptoms were collected. Results The EEGs were correctly lateralizing in 59.8%(55/92)seizures.The accompanying lateral signs were correctly lateralized in 64.1%(59/92)seizures. The tonic joint movement lateralization was correct in 81.5%(75/92)seizures. The surface EMGs were 85.9%(79/92)correctly lateralized. The positivity rate of the latter two was higher than that of the first two, which was statistically significant. Conclusions Both the tonic joint movement and surface EMG have better lateralization value and guiding significance for preoperative evaluation of patients with epilepsy

Structure–activity relationship studies of 5-(Pyridin-3-yl)-1H-indole-4,7-diones as indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 inhibitors

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) is the key enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of l-tryptophan (Trp) to N-formyl-kynurenine in the tryptophan-kynurenine (Trp-Kyn) pathway. Overexpression of IDO1 contributes to the depletion of Trp and the accumulation of Kyn, which can result in tumor immune escape. Inhibition of IDO1 can restore the host immune response to eradicate cancer cells. 5-(Pyridin-3-yl)-1H-indole-4,7-dione was developed as the scaffold for a type of IDO1 inhibitors from simplification of the structure of exiguamine A in our previous work. In the present study, we designed and synthesized a series of compounds with different side-chain substituents, and linkers of varying lengths, at the 3-position, to design compounds with an aryl motif that can occupy pocket B of the IDO1 protein. Most compounds exhibited potent IDO1 inhibitory activity with IC50 values at the micromolar level, and 3-(2-((4-fluorobenzyl)amino)ethyl)-5-(3-pyridyl)-1H-indole-4,7-dione (1d) displayed the most potent inhibition with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) value of 0.125 μM in an enzymatic assay and a half-maximal effective concentration (EC50) value of 0.821 μM in a cellular assay. Compound 1d showed higher selectivity for IDO1 over indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 2 and tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase at the effective concentration. Molecular docking studies and molecular dynamic simulations suggested that the phenyl ring of these inhibitors can enter into pocket B of IDO1 and interact with the residue Phe 226 through hydrophobic interactions