Capacity and tendency: A neuroscientific framework for the study of emotion regulation.

It is widely accepted that the ability to effectively regulate one's emotions is a cornerstone of physical and mental health. As such, it should come as no surprise that the number of neuroimaging studies focused on emotion regulation and associated processes has increased exponentially in the past decade. To date, neuroimaging research on this topic has examined two distinct but complementary features of emotion regulation - the capacity to effectively utilize a strategy to regulate emotion and to a lesser extent, the tendency to choose to regulate. However, theoretical accounts of emotion regulation have only recently begun to distinguish capacity from tendency. In the present review, we provide a novel framework for conceptualizing these two intertwined, yet distinct, facets of emotion regulation. First we characterize brain regions that support emotion generation and are thus targeted by emotion regulation. Next, we synthesize findings from the dozens of neuroimaging studies that have examined emotion regulation capacity, focusing in particular on the most commonly studied emotion regulation strategy - reappraisal. Finally, we discuss emerging neuroimaging research examining state and trait regulatory tendencies. We conclude by integrating findings from neuroimaging research on emotion regulation capacity and tendency and suggest ways that this integrated model can inform basic and translational neuroscientific research on emotion regulation

Magnetic remanence of Josephson junction arrays

In this work we study the magnetic remanence exhibited by Josephson junction arrays in response to an excitation with an AC magnetic field. The effect, predicted by numerical simulations to occur in a range of temperatures, is clearly seen in our tridimensional disordered arrays. We also discuss the influence of the critical current distribution on the temperature interval within which the array develops a magnetic remanence. This effect can be used to determine the critical current distribution of an array.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, Talk to be presented on 44th Annual Conference on Magnetism & Magnetic Materials, San Jose, CA, USA Accepted to be published in Journal of Applied Physic

Earnings Management to Avoid Losses: a cost of debt explanation

In this paper we analyze firms’ earnings management behavior to avoid losses conditional on the (asymmetric) incentive underlying market (positive/negative) returns. Our intuition is that firms with negative returns in the period (bad news, BN) face a higher incentive to undertake earnings management, and that their ultimate intention is to hide from credit markets a signal (loss) that could be translated into a negative impact on their cost of debt. The empirical evidence supports this intuition. BN firms show higher earnings management pervasiveness than their counterparts with good news (GN), and the set with simultaneous BN and prior period positive earnings undertake more pervasive earnings manipulation than BN firms in general. Within this restricted set of firms, and consistent with a cost of debt explanation, we find that firms with larger needs of debt show a higher incidence of earnings management to avoid losses. The overall empirical evidence challenges the implicit assumption in Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) that the incentive to manage earnings is homogeneous to all firms, and suggests that the discontinuities around zero in the earnings distributions are driven, at least partly, by firms’ earnings management behavior.earnings management, earnings thresholds, earnings discontinuities, cost of debt

Piecewise Linear Accrual Models: do they really control for the asymmetric recognition of gains and losses?

The asymmetric recognition of gains and losses underlying conservative accounting is not taken into account by Jones (1991)-type accrual models. Recently, Moreira (2002) and Ball and Shivakumar (2005a) have proposed piecewise linear accrual models designed to control for this asymmetric impact. Our paper first discusses the sign of the expected measurement error in discretionary accruals (DAC) estimates when models do not control for the asymmetry underlying conservatism. We find that DAC in firms with bad news (BN) are expected to be understated, while those in good news (GN) firms will be overstated. Based on this original result we empirically test, using graphical and statistical tools, whether piecewise linear accrual models correct such a measurement error. The empirical evidence shows mixed results. For GN firms the estimates are corrected downwards, as expected; for BN firms, unexpectedly, part of the estimates is also corrected downwards. The reason for this unexpected result seems to lie in a non-linear relationship between accruals and the proxy for BN that the models are unable to control for. Thus, DAC estimates under piecewise linear models are not deemed to be of better quality than those of traditional accrual models.accrual models; piecewise linear accrual models; conservatism; earnings management