An Empirical Investigation in the Relationship between Corporate Governance and Integrated Reporting Quality

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the corporate governance and the integrated reporting quality. This dissertation collects data on the corporate governance variables, the IRQ performance and firm-level characteristics for 22 listed companies from the mining industry in China for three years from 2017 to 2019. The corporate governance was measured using the board composition and structure as well as the audit committee and use of Big Four auditor. The IRQ was based on the eight Content Elements recommended in the IRQ framework by the IIRC (2013) which was scored from 0 to 3 based on the quality of the disclosures by the researcher using the sustainability and annual reports. A random effects panel data regression with a robust options model has been used after conducting the specification and diagnostic tests. Overall, the IRQ in China has also been improving year on year across the eight Content Elements. The key findings found that the presence of the audit committee was the only variable that had a statistically significant impact on the IRQ of mining companies in China. Whereas, the board size and composition, gender diversity, and the presence of the independent risk committee did not have any statistical significance on mining companies’ IRQ. Key words: Integrated reporting quality, mining, China, panel data, corporate governanc

Examining Associations of Environmental Characteristics with Recreational Cycling Behaviour by Street-Level Strava Data

Policymakers pay much attention to effectively increasing frequency of people’s cycling in the context of developing sustainable and green cities. Investigating associations of environmental characteristics and cycling behaviour could offer implications for changing urban infrastructure aiming at encouraging active travel. However, earlier examinations of associations between environmental characteristics and active travel behaviour are limited by low spatial granularity and coverage of traditional data. Crowdsourced geographic information offers an opportunity to determine the fine-grained travel patterns of people. Particularly, Strava Metro data offer a good opportunity for studies of recreational cycling behaviour as they can offer hourly, daily or annual cycling volumes with different purposes (commuting or recreational) in each street across a city. Therefore, in this study, we utilised Strava Metro data for investigating associations between environmental characteristics and recreational cycling behaviour at a large spatial scale (street level). In this study, we took account of population density, employment density, road length, road connectivity, proximity to public transit services, land use mix, proximity to green space, volume of motor vehicles and traffic accidents in an empirical investigation over Glasgow. Empirical results reveal that Strava cyclists are more likely to cycle for recreation on streets with short length, large connectivity or low volume of motor vehicles or on streets surrounded by residential land

A novel treatment approach for retinoblastoma by targeting epithelial growth factor receptor expression with a shRNA lentiviral system

Objective(s): Non-invasive treatment options for retinoblastoma (RB), the most common malignant eye tumor among children, are lacking. Epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR) accelerates cell proliferation, survival, and invasion of many tumors including RB. However, RB treatment by targeting EGFR has not yet been researched. In the current study, we investigated the effect of EGFR down-regulation on RB progression using shRNA lentiviral vectors. Materials and Methods: EGFR expression in Weri-Rb-1 cells was down-regulated by EGFR shRNA-bearing lentiviral vectors. Cell death, proliferation, cell cycle as well as invasion after EGFR down-regulation were determined. Further signaling pathway analysis was done by Western blot. Results: Our results revealed that EGFR shRNA could specifically down-regulate EGFR expression and down-regulation of this protein promoted cell death. Further analysis on cell cycle demonstrated that EGFR down-regulation also suppressed cell proliferation by arresting cells at G1 phase. Invasion analysis showed that EGFR down-regulation suppressed cell invasion and was correlated with alteration in the expression of matrix metalloproteinases 2 and 9. Further signaling pathway analysis revealed that EGFR down-regulation mediated RB progression was through PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway. Conclusion: Our study revealed that EGFR down-regulation, through the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway, could inhibit RB progression by promoting cell death while suppressing cell proliferation and invasion. The findings of our study indicated that down-regulation of EGFR using shRNA lentiviral vectors may offer a novel non-invasive treatment for RB

Evaluation of the Observational Associations and Shared Genetics Between Glaucoma With Depression and Anxiety

PURPOSE: Glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness worldwide, is suspected to exhibit a notable association with psychological disturbances. This study aimed to investigate epidemiological associations and explore shared genetic architecture between glaucoma and mental traits, including depression and anxiety.METHODS: Multivariable logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards regression models were employed to investigate longitudinal associations based on UK Biobank. A stepwise approach was used to explore the shared genetic architecture. First, linkage disequilibrium score regression inferred global genetic correlations. Second, MiXeR analysis quantified the number of shared causal variants. Third, specific shared loci were detected through conditional/conjunctional false discovery rate (condFDR/conjFDR) analysis and characterized for biological insights. Finally, two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) was conducted to investigate bidirectional causal associations.RESULTS: Glaucoma was significantly associated with elevated risks of hospitalized depression (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.54; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01-2.34) and anxiety (HR = 2.61; 95% CI, 1.70-4.01) compared to healthy controls. Despite the absence of global genetic correlations, MiXeR analysis revealed 300 variants shared between glaucoma and depression, and 500 variants shared between glaucoma and anxiety. Subsequent condFDR/conjFDR analysis discovered 906 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) jointly associated with glaucoma and depression and two associated with glaucoma and anxiety. The MR analysis did not support robust causal associations but indicated the existence of pleiotropic genetic variants influencing both glaucoma and depression.CONCLUSIONS: Our study enhances the existing epidemiological evidence and underscores the polygenic overlap between glaucoma and mental traits. This observation suggests a correlation shaped by pleiotropic genetic variants rather than being indicative of direct causal relationships.</p

Evaluation of the Observational Associations and Shared Genetics Between Glaucoma With Depression and Anxiety

PURPOSE: Glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness worldwide, is suspected to exhibit a notable association with psychological disturbances. This study aimed to investigate epidemiological associations and explore shared genetic architecture between glaucoma and mental traits, including depression and anxiety.METHODS: Multivariable logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards regression models were employed to investigate longitudinal associations based on UK Biobank. A stepwise approach was used to explore the shared genetic architecture. First, linkage disequilibrium score regression inferred global genetic correlations. Second, MiXeR analysis quantified the number of shared causal variants. Third, specific shared loci were detected through conditional/conjunctional false discovery rate (condFDR/conjFDR) analysis and characterized for biological insights. Finally, two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) was conducted to investigate bidirectional causal associations.RESULTS: Glaucoma was significantly associated with elevated risks of hospitalized depression (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.54; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01-2.34) and anxiety (HR = 2.61; 95% CI, 1.70-4.01) compared to healthy controls. Despite the absence of global genetic correlations, MiXeR analysis revealed 300 variants shared between glaucoma and depression, and 500 variants shared between glaucoma and anxiety. Subsequent condFDR/conjFDR analysis discovered 906 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) jointly associated with glaucoma and depression and two associated with glaucoma and anxiety. The MR analysis did not support robust causal associations but indicated the existence of pleiotropic genetic variants influencing both glaucoma and depression.CONCLUSIONS: Our study enhances the existing epidemiological evidence and underscores the polygenic overlap between glaucoma and mental traits. This observation suggests a correlation shaped by pleiotropic genetic variants rather than being indicative of direct causal relationships.</p

An Empirical Investigation in the Relationship between Corporate Governance and Integrated Reporting Quality

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the corporate governance and the integrated reporting quality. This dissertation collects data on the corporate governance variables, the IRQ performance and firm-level characteristics for 22 listed companies from the mining industry in China for three years from 2017 to 2019. The corporate governance was measured using the board composition and structure as well as the audit committee and use of Big Four auditor. The IRQ was based on the eight Content Elements recommended in the IRQ framework by the IIRC (2013) which was scored from 0 to 3 based on the quality of the disclosures by the researcher using the sustainability and annual reports. A random effects panel data regression with a robust options model has been used after conducting the specification and diagnostic tests. Overall, the IRQ in China has also been improving year on year across the eight Content Elements. The key findings found that the presence of the audit committee was the only variable that had a statistically significant impact on the IRQ of mining companies in China. Whereas, the board size and composition, gender diversity, and the presence of the independent risk committee did not have any statistical significance on mining companies’ IRQ. Key words: Integrated reporting quality, mining, China, panel data, corporate governanc

Visual data exploration of space-time characteristics of mesoscale eddies in the South China Sea: A cube-based approach

IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS); Chin. Acad. Sci., State Key Lab. Resour. Environ. Inf. Syst.; Wuhan Univ., State Key Lab. Inf. Eng. Surv. Map Remote Sens.; Chin. Acad. Sci., Cent. Earth Obs. Digit. Earth; Beijing Normal Univ., Coll. Global Change Earth Syst. Sci

An intelligent bay Geo-information retrieval approach based on Geo-ontology

In the era of information explosion, information retrieval has become a bottleneck in information sharing and integration. However currently, the existing information retrieval methods are mainly based on keyword matching, which can not fully take advantage of the information context and potential knowledge. All of these methods are particularly inefficient as to geospatial information which is more complex and unstructured. Nevertheless, geospatial ontology (Geo-ontology) has been used to enrich geospatial objects with semantic information which could be very helpful in the geospatial information retrieval and integration. And there is a wealth of relations between objects (such as the relation between bay and the inter-tidal zone) in bay field. Thus in this paper, an intelligent bay geo-information retrieval approach based on bay geo-information ontology has been proposed. Firstly, the procedure of establishing the bay geo-information ontology database is introduced. Secondly, both the intelligent retrieval mechanism and approach in bay geo-information are expatiated, which are used to convert the user retrievals request to semantic request and map the semantic request to concrete query of actual data source by adopting the knowledge that 's explicitly expressed in formal ontology modeling language (OWL). Finally, the method was applied in the bay information management system, and the feasibility and efficacy of the geo-information retrieval approach is well verified