Board structure and supplementary commentary on the primary financial statements

Purpose: This research investigates the relationship between the extent and focus of supplementary narrative commentary (SNC) on amounts reported in the primary financial statements and board structure variables. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study uses the disclosure index methodology to measure the extent of SNC in annual reports of 167 FTSE 250 companies. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis is employed to examine the association between the extent and focus of SNC and board structure variables. Findings: The findings show that the extent of SNC on amounts reported in the primary financial statements is about 30%, suggesting that companies provide commentary on a small number of amounts reported in the financial statements. In terms of focus of SNC, companies provide greater SNC on amounts in the income statement relative to the balance sheet. The regression results indicate that the extent of SNC is negatively associated with board size, and positively associated with audit committee independence and financial expertise. Focus of SNC is negatively related to audit committee independence and finance expertise. Originality/Value: The research contributes to both the voluntary disclosure and impression management literature streams. The findings provide evidence of the extent and focus of SNC on amounts in the financial statements. They also demonstrate that board structure variables are related to the extent and focus of SNC on amounts in primary financial statements. These findings have implications for policy makers who have responsibilities for ensuring that users of annual reports receive adequate information to make decisions

Capital market pressures and the format of intellectual capital disclosure in intellectual capital intensive firms

Purpose - A number of studies have examined firms’ intellectual capital (IC) disclosure practices. However, the presentation format of IC disclosure (text, numerical and graphs/pictures) is yet to be examined. In addition, there is little evidence on the impact of capital market pressures on IC disclosure. This study aims to examine the relation between presentation format of IC disclosures and three market factors (market-to-book ratio, share price volatility and multiple listing. Design/methodology/approach - Using content analysis, we examine the level of IC disclosure provided in the annual reports of 100 IC-intensive listed UK firms. A 61-IC-item research instrument is used to measure IC disclosure and regression analysis is employed to examine the relation between disclosure and the market factors, controlling for corporate governance and firm specific variables. Findings - Text is the most commonly used format for IC disclosure, whilst the use of graphs/pictures is very low. The findings of the relation between market factors and IC disclosure are mixed. Market-to-book ratio is significantly related to disclosure in text and numerical, but not to graphs/pictures. Share price volatility is only associated with graphs/pictures, whilst multiple listing is only related to text. Originality/value - Our findings suggest that the impact of capital market pressures on IC disclosure might differ with presentation format. In this context, the study makes a significant contribution to the IC disclosure literature

Company specific determinants of greenhouse gases disclosures

Findings - The results indicate that company size, gearing, financial slack and two industries (consumer services and industrials) are significantly associated with GHG disclosures while profitability, liquidity and capital expenditure are not. When the authors disaggregate GHG disclosures into qualitative and quantitative, the results suggest that the effect of some company factors differ depending on the type of GHG disclosures

Reinforcing users’ confidence in statutory audit during a post-crisis period : An empirical study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that are perceived as important for the statutory audit function to restore confidence in the financial statements, its value relevance and decision usefulness in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Design/methodology/approach – This research used a structured questionnaire to collect data from practising accountants, auditors and accounting academics within the UK. A factor analysis was undertaken to examine the potential inter-correlations that could exist between different factors obtained from the literature. The analysis reduced these variables into the more important factors which were subsequently modelled in a logistic regression analysis. Findings – The paper identified, as critical factors for enhancing statutory audits, “a continuously updated accounting curriculum”, “expansion of the auditor's role”, “frequent meetings between regulators and auditors”, “mandatory rotation of auditors”, “limiting the provision of non-audit services”, “knowledge requirements from disciplines other than accounting” and “encouraging joint audits”. It is hoped that addressing these issues might improve confidence in the audit profession, thereby reinforcing its value relevance. Research limitations/implications – The study's findings imply that professional accountancy bodies, accounting educators and accounting firms will need to incorporate the key factors identified in this study into their curriculum and training schemes. However, the generalisability of these findings might be limited as the research data were primarily obtained from UK accountants alone. Originality/value – This study extends the frontiers of knowledge on critical factors that could reinforce users’ confidence in the statutory audit function and have implications for policy and practice.N/

Intervention effects of Ganoderma lucidum spores on epileptiform discharge hippocampal neurons and expression of Neurotrophin-4 and N-Cadherin

Epilepsy can cause cerebral transient dysfunctions. Ganoderma lucidum spores (GLS), a traditional Chinese medicinal herb, has shown some antiepileptic effects in our previous studies. This was the first study of the effects of GLS on cultured primary hippocampal neurons, treated with Mg2+ free medium. This in vitro model of epileptiform discharge hippocampal neurons allowed us to investigate the anti-epileptic effects and mechanism of GLS activity. Primary hippocampal neurons from <1 day old rats were cultured and their morphologies observed under fluorescence microscope. Neurons were confirmed by immunofluorescent staining of neuron specific enolase (NSE). Sterile method for GLS generation was investigated and serial dilutions of GLS were used to test the maximum non-toxic concentration of GLS on hippocampal neurons. The optimized concentration of GLS of 0.122 mg/ml was identified and used for subsequent analysis. Using the in vitro model, hippocampal neurons were divided into 4 groups for subsequent treatment i) control, ii) model (incubated with Mg2+ free medium for 3 hours), iii) GLS group I (incubated with Mg2+ free medium containing GLS for 3 hours and replaced with normal medium and incubated for 6 hours) and iv) GLS group II (neurons incubated with Mg2+ free medium for 3 hours then replaced with a normal medium containing GLS for 6 hours). Neurotrophin-4 and N-Cadherin protein expression were detected using Western blot. The results showed that the number of normal hippocampal neurons increased and the morphologies of hippocampal neurons were well preserved after GLS treatment. Furthermore, the expression of neurotrophin-4 was significantly increased while the expression of N-Cadherin was decreased in the GLS treated group compared with the model group. This data indicates that GLS may protect hippocampal neurons by promoting neurotrophin-4 expression and inhibiting N-Cadherin expression

Robust detection of communities with multi-semantics in large attributed networks

© 2018, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. In this paper, we are interested in how to explore and utilize the relationship between network communities and semantic topics in order to find the strong explanatory communities robustly. First, the relationship between communities and topics displays different situations. For example, from the viewpoint of semantic mapping, their relationship can be one-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-one. But from the standpoint of underlying community structures, the relationship can be consistent, partially consistent or completely inconsistent. Second, it will be helpful to not only find communities more precise but also reveal the communities’ semantics that shows the relationship between communities and topics. To better describe this relationship, we introduce the transition probability which is an important concept in Markov chain into a well-designed nonnegative matrix factorization framework. This new transition probability matrix with a suitable prior which plays the role of depicting the relationship between communities and topics can perform well in this task. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed new approach, we conduct some experiments on both synthetic and real networks. The results show that our new method is superior to baselines in accuracy. We finally conduct a case study analysis to validate the new method’s strong interpretability to detected communities

Optimization of MicroCT Imaging and Blood Vessel Diameter Quantitation of Preclinical Specimen Vasculature with Radiopaque Polymer Injection Medium

Vascular networks within a living organism are complex, multi-dimensional, and challenging to image capture. Radio-angiographic studies in live animals require a high level of infrastructure and technical investment in order to administer costly perfusion mediums whose signals metabolize and degrade relatively rapidly, diminishing within a few hours or days. Additionally, live animal specimens must not be subject to long duration scans, which can cause high levels of radiation exposure to the specimen, limiting the quality of images that can be captured. Lastly, despite technological advances in live-animal specimen imaging, it is quite difficult to minimize or prevent movement of a live animal, which can cause motion artifacts in the final data output. It is demonstrated here that through the use of postmortem perfusion protocols of radiopaque silicone polymer mediums and ex-vivo organ harvest, it is possible to acquire a high level of vascular signal in preclinical specimens through the use of micro-computed tomographic (microCT) imaging. Additionally, utilizing high-order rendering algorithms, it is possible to further derive vessel morphometrics for qualitative and quantitative analysis

In Vivo Serial MR Imaging of Magnetically Labeled Endothelial Progenitor Cells Homing to the Endothelium Injured Artery in Mice

Background: Emerging evidence of histopathological analyses suggests that endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) play an important role in vascular diseases. Neointimal hyperplasia can be reduced by intravenous transfusion of EPCs after vascular injury in mice. Therefore, it would be advantageous to develop an in vivo technique that can explore the temporal and spatial migration of EPCs homing to the damaged endothelium noninvasively. Methodology/Principal Findings: The left carotid common artery (LCCA) was injured by removal of endothelium with a flexible wire in Kunming mice. EPCs were collected by in vitro culture of spleen-derived mouse mononuclear cells (MNCs). EPCs labeling was carried out in vitro using Fe2O3-poly-L-lysine (Fe2O3-PLL). In vivo serial MR imaging was performed to follow-up the injured artery at different time points after intravenous transfusion of EPCs. Vessel wall areas of injured artery were computed on T2WI. Larger MR signal voids of vessel wall on T2WI was revealed in all 6 mice of the labeled EPC transfusion group 15 days after LCCA injury, and it was found only in 1 mouse in the unlabeled EPC transfusion group (p = 0.015). Quantitative analyses of vessel wall areas on T2WI showed that the vessel wall areas of labeled EPC transfusion group were less than those of unlabeled EPC transfusion group and control group fifteen days after artery injury (p,0.05). Histopathological analyses confirmed accumulation and distribution of transfused EPCs at the injury site of LCCA. Conclusions/Significance: These data indicate that MR imaging might be used as an in vivo method for the tracking of EPC

Multiple Frequencies Sequential Coding for SSVEP-Based Brain-Computer Interface

BACKGROUND: Steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) has become one of the most promising modalities for a practical noninvasive BCI system. Owing to both the limitation of refresh rate of liquid crystal display (LCD) or cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor, and the specific physiological response property that only a very small number of stimuli at certain frequencies could evoke strong SSVEPs, the available frequencies for SSVEP stimuli are limited. Therefore, it may not be enough to code multiple targets with the traditional frequencies coding protocols, which poses a big challenge for the design of a practical SSVEP-based BCI. This study aimed to provide an innovative coding method to tackle this problem. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this study, we present a novel protocol termed multiple frequencies sequential coding (MFSC) for SSVEP-based BCI. In MFSC, multiple frequencies are sequentially used in each cycle to code the targets. To fulfill the sequential coding, each cycle is divided into several coding epochs, and during each epoch, certain frequency is used. Obviously, different frequencies or the same frequency can be presented in the coding epochs, and the different epoch sequence corresponds to the different targets. To show the feasibility of MFSC, we used two frequencies to realize four targets and carried on an offline experiment. The current study shows that: 1) MFSC is feasible and efficient; 2) the performance of SSVEP-based BCI based on MFSC can be comparable to some existed systems. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The proposed protocol could potentially implement much more targets with the limited available frequencies compared with the traditional frequencies coding protocol. The efficiency of the new protocol was confirmed by real data experiment. We propose that the SSVEP-based BCI under MFSC might be a promising choice in the future