Selecting The Appropriate Artificial Neural Network To Minimize Audit Costs When Assessing The Financial Viability Of Audit Clients

As part of an audit engagement, auditors must assess the financial viability of the audit client (SAS Nos. 58, 59, 96).  If the auditor thinks that the client is financially healthy, no action is required. However, if the auditor believes that the audit client will fail within a year from the financial statement date, then the auditor must include explanatory language stating that belief as part of the auditor’s report

Using Artificial Neural Networks To Examine Semiotic Theories Of Accounting Accruals

Although the primary purpose of accounting is to communicate information, few studies have investigated the communicative nature of accounting.  This study uses semiotics, a theory of signs and signals, to examine the purpose and usefulness of accounting accruals with a popular tool in forecasting--artificial neural networks.  Two primary theories are proposed by this study.  The Theory of the Functions of Accounting Accruals categories accounting accruals by their basic functions and states that two general types of accounting accruals exist: syntactic accruals and semantic accruals.  Syntactic accounting accruals reflect incomplete transactions under a system of cash receipts and cash disbursements.  Semantic accounting accruals present messages in a different format than their counterparts in a system of cash receipts and cash disbursements.  The Theory of the Pragmatic Information of Accounting Accruals states that accounting accruals contain pragmatic information (value) because of their functions.  The pragmatic information (value) of accounting accruals is examined by comparing the ability of accrual accounting data to forecast future cash flows compared to that of cash-flow accounting data.  Forecasts are made using backpropagation neural networks.  The results indicate that both syntactic  and semantic accounting accruals contain pragmatic information (have value when forecasting future cash flows).  The study provides evidence of the pragmatic information (value) of annual accounting accruals.  However, no evidence was found in support of the pragmatic information (value) of quarterly accounting accruals.  This result implies that annual accrual accounting data is a better predictor of future cash flows than cash-flow data while quarterly accrual accounting data is not

Negative Earnings In International Equity Valuation

The openness of international capital markets has encouraged investors to look beyond their own national boundary for investment opportunities.  Foreign direct investment flow has increased in recent years around the world in all major and emerging markets.  International equity valuation, as a result, has gained much attention from practitioners and academic researchers alike.  Motivated by evidence that the price-earnings relation is not homogeneous across profit and loss firms and by the growing body of international accounting literature that documents and compares the value relevance of earnings and book value across national boundaries, this study illustrates the potential impact of negative earnings (loss firms) on comparing the relative value relevance of earnings and book value across national boundaries.   Our results show that removal of negative earnings observations (1) changes the total value relevance of earnings and book value combined (2) changes the relative value relevance of earnings and book value within each country in our study, and (3) changes the relative incremental value relevance of earnings (book value) between the two countries in the study

Mitochondrial dysfunction causes Ca2+ overload and ECM degradation-mediated muscle damage in C. elegans

This is the final version. Available on open access from the Federation of American Society of Experimental Biology via the DOI in this recordMitochondrial dysfunction impairs muscle health and causes subsequent muscle wasting. This study explores the role of mitochondrial dysfunction as an intramuscular signal for the extracellular matrix (ECM)-based proteolysis and, consequentially, muscle cell dystrophy. We found that inhibition of the mitochondrial electron transport chain causes paralysis as well as muscle structural damage in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. This was associated with a significant decline in collagen content. Both paralysis and muscle damage could be rescued with collagen IV overexpression, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP), and Furin inhibitors in Antimycin A-treated animal as well as in the C. elegans Duchenne muscular dystrophy model. Additionally, muscle cytosolic calcium increased in the Antimycin A-treated worms, and its down-regulation rescued the muscle damage, suggesting that calcium overload acts as one of the early triggers and activates Furin and MMPs for collagen degradation. In conclusion, we have established ECM degradation as an important pathway of muscle damage.-Sudevan, S., Takiura, M., Kubota, Y., Higashitani, N., Cooke, M., Ellwood, R. A., Etheridge, T., Szewczyk, N. J., Higashitani, A. Mitochondrial dysfunction causes Ca2+ overload and ECM degradation-mediated muscle damage in C. elegans.Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT)Cross-Ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion ProgramAdvanced Research and Development Programs for Medical Innovation (AMED-CRESTBiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)UK Space AgencyScience and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)Otsuka Toshimi FoundationTohoku UniversityJapan Student Services Organizatio

Optimisation of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe urg1 expression system

The ability to study protein function in vivo often relies on systems that regulate the presence and absence of the protein of interest. Two limitations for previously described transcriptional control systems that are used to regulate protein expression in fission yeast are: the time taken for inducing conditions to initiate transcription and the ability to achieve very low basal transcription in the "OFF-state". In previous work, we described a Cre recombination-mediated system that allows the rapid and efficient regulation of any gene of interest by the urg1 promoter, which has a dynamic range of approximately 75-fold and which is induced within 30-60 minutes of uracil addition. In this report we describe easy-to-use and versatile modules that can be exploited to significantly tune down P urg1 "OFF-levels" while maintaining an equivalent dynamic range. We also provide plasmids and tools for combining P urg1 transcriptional control with the auxin degron tag to help maintain a null-like phenotype. We demonstrate the utility of this system by improved regulation of HO-dependent site-specific DSB formation, by the regulation Rtf1-dependent replication fork arrest and by controlling Rhp18(Rad18)-dependent post replication repair

Extinction threshold in the spatial stochastic logistic model: space homogeneous case

We consider the extinction regime in the spatial stochastic logistic model in R^d (a.k.a. Bolker–Pacala–Dieckmann–Law model of spatial populations) using the first-order perturbation beyond the mean-field equation. In space homogeneous case (i.e. when the density is non-spatial and the covariance is translation invariant), we show that the perturbation converges as time tends to infinity; that yields the first-order approximation for the stationary density. Next, we study the critical mortality – the smallest constant death rate which ensures the extinction of the population – as a function of the mean-field scaling parameter ε>0. We find the leading term of the asymptotic expansion (as ε→0) of the critical mortality which is apparently different for the cases d≥3, d = 2, and d = 1

PCNA ubiquitylation ensures timely completion of unperturbed DNA replication in fission yeast

PCNA ubiquitylation on lysine 164 is required for DNA damage tolerance. In many organisms PCNA is also ubiquitylated in unchallenged S phase but the significance of this has not been established. Using Schizosaccharomyces pombe, we demonstrate that lysine 164 ubiquitylation of PCNA contributes to efficient DNA replication in the absence of DNA damage. Loss of PCNA ubiquitylation manifests most strongly at late replicating regions and increases the frequency of replication gaps. We show that PCNA ubiquitylation increases the proportion of chromatin associated PCNA and the co-immunoprecipitation of Polymerase δ with PCNA during unperturbed replication and propose that ubiquitylation acts to prolong the chromatin association of these replication proteins to allow the efficient completion of Okazaki fragment synthesis by mediating gap filling