126 research outputs found
The value-relevance of asset write-down regulations in China : the roles of information relevance and measurement reliability
At the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, China implemented several new asset write-down regulations. This study addresses the claim that these regulations significantly enhanced the usefulness of financial statements for investors in China. The effect of the regulations on usefulness of financial statements has implications for financial accountants, standard-setters, educators, and auditors. This study derives and tests some of the empirical implications of the claim.
I operationalize usefulness of accounting information in terms of the valuerelevance framework, in which information usefulness is construed as a tradeoff between relevance and reliability. These two dimensions are the primary criteria underlying the FASB’s Conceptual Framework for choosing alternative accounting rules. Asset write-down, if correctly applied to over-stated assets, should increase the decision relevance to investors; however, measurement errors due to either unintentional mistakes involving professional judgment or intentional misrepresentations involving earnings management may decrease the reliability of reported amounts. While there is substantial value-relevance research, the role of reliability is generally absent. Reliability of regression estimates, also known as measurement error, is often implicitly assumed and not measured. Following nonnested model selection techniques and relative measurement error research, I explicitly measure the relative reliability of asset write-down accounting in various valuation models. Therefore, this study contributes to value-relevance research.
First, I examine the incremental value relevance of asset write-down estimates through their associations with market values: the ability of asset write-down provisions to explain market value of equity; the ability of asset write-down gains and losses to explain annual market-adjusted return; and the ability of both the above provisions and earnings to explain market value of equity. All the models provide evidence for value relevance of asset write-down estimates, indicating an acceptable level of information usefulness with mixed effects of relevance and reliability. I apply my tests to a balanced panel sample of exchange-listed firms in China over the period 1998-2001. The sample is limited to A shares—the shares subject to the new rules.
Next, the above three valuation models are applied again in a reliability analysis. Model appropriateness tests, i.e. non-nested model tests, are used to answer the question: did asset write-down practices improve reliability in the valuation models? I find that the asset write-down practices are approximately comparable in reliability to historical cost methods in the balance sheet valuation model but somewhat less reliable in the income statement valuation model. The results are ambiguous when both assets and earnings are included in a third valuation model. My relative measurement error tests yield similar results. I conclude that the asset write-down regulations in China have not improved the usefulness of financial statements to investors in terms of reliability.
Because the asset write-down rules are subject to interpretation and judgment, I consider the motivation for write-downs in the final part of the study. The results support a relation between discretionary motivations and the amount of current or cumulative write down. A sub-sample analysis shows that asset write-down rules improve usefulness of financial information in the absence of discretionary motivations
RetiFluidNet: A Self-Adaptive and Multi-Attention Deep Convolutional Network for Retinal OCT Fluid Segmentation
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) helps ophthalmologists assess macular
edema, accumulation of fluids, and lesions at microscopic resolution.
Quantification of retinal fluids is necessary for OCT-guided treatment
management, which relies on a precise image segmentation step. As manual
analysis of retinal fluids is a time-consuming, subjective, and error-prone
task, there is increasing demand for fast and robust automatic solutions. In
this study, a new convolutional neural architecture named RetiFluidNet is
proposed for multi-class retinal fluid segmentation. The model benefits from
hierarchical representation learning of textural, contextual, and edge features
using a new self-adaptive dual-attention (SDA) module, multiple self-adaptive
attention-based skip connections (SASC), and a novel multi-scale deep self
supervision learning (DSL) scheme. The attention mechanism in the proposed SDA
module enables the model to automatically extract deformation-aware
representations at different levels, and the introduced SASC paths further
consider spatial-channel interdependencies for concatenation of counterpart
encoder and decoder units, which improve representational capability.
RetiFluidNet is also optimized using a joint loss function comprising a
weighted version of dice overlap and edge-preserved connectivity-based losses,
where several hierarchical stages of multi-scale local losses are integrated
into the optimization process. The model is validated based on three publicly
available datasets: RETOUCH, OPTIMA, and DUKE, with comparisons against several
baselines. Experimental results on the datasets prove the effectiveness of the
proposed model in retinal OCT fluid segmentation and reveal that the suggested
method is more effective than existing state-of-the-art fluid segmentation
algorithms in adapting to retinal OCT scans recorded by various image scanning
instruments.Comment: 11 pages, Early Access Version, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imagin
Supervised Knowledge May Hurt Novel Class Discovery Performance
Novel class discovery (NCD) aims to infer novel categories in an unlabeled
dataset by leveraging prior knowledge of a labeled set comprising disjoint but
related classes. Given that most existing literature focuses primarily on
utilizing supervised knowledge from a labeled set at the methodology level,
this paper considers the question: Is supervised knowledge always helpful at
different levels of semantic relevance? To proceed, we first establish a novel
metric, so-called transfer flow, to measure the semantic similarity between
labeled/unlabeled datasets. To show the validity of the proposed metric, we
build up a large-scale benchmark with various degrees of semantic similarities
between labeled/unlabeled datasets on ImageNet by leveraging its hierarchical
class structure. The results based on the proposed benchmark show that the
proposed transfer flow is in line with the hierarchical class structure; and
that NCD performance is consistent with the semantic similarities (measured by
the proposed metric). Next, by using the proposed transfer flow, we conduct
various empirical experiments with different levels of semantic similarity,
yielding that supervised knowledge may hurt NCD performance. Specifically,
using supervised information from a low-similarity labeled set may lead to a
suboptimal result as compared to using pure self-supervised knowledge. These
results reveal the inadequacy of the existing NCD literature which usually
assumes that supervised knowledge is beneficial. Finally, we develop a
pseudo-version of the transfer flow as a practical reference to decide if
supervised knowledge should be used in NCD. Its effectiveness is supported by
our empirical studies, which show that the pseudo transfer flow (with or
without supervised knowledge) is consistent with the corresponding accuracy
based on various datasets. Code is released at
https://github.com/J-L-O/SK-Hurt-NCDComment: TMLR 2023 accepted paper. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap
with arXiv:2209.0912
Mitochondrial Membrane Remodeling
Mitochondria are key regulators of many important cellular processes and their dysfunction has been implicated in a large number of human disorders. Importantly, mitochondrial function is tightly linked to their ultrastructure, which possesses an intricate membrane architecture defining specific submitochondrial compartments. In particular, the mitochondrial inner membrane is highly folded into membrane invaginations that are essential for oxidative phosphorylation. Furthermore, mitochondrial membranes are highly dynamic and undergo constant membrane remodeling during mitochondrial fusion and fission. It has remained enigmatic how these membrane curvatures are generated and maintained, and specific factors involved in these processes are largely unknown. This review focuses on the current understanding of the molecular mechanism of mitochondrial membrane architectural organization and factors critical for mitochondrial morphogenesis, as well as their functional link to human diseases.Peer reviewe
Mitochondrial protein dysfunction in pathogenesis of neurological diseases
Mitochondria are essential organelles for neuronal function and cell survival. Besides the well-known bioenergetics, additional mitochondrial roles in calcium signaling, lipid biogenesis, regulation of reactive oxygen species, and apoptosis are pivotal in diverse cellular processes. The mitochondrial proteome encompasses about 1,500 proteins encoded by both the nuclear DNA and the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA. Mutations in the nuclear or mitochondrial genome, or combinations of both, can result in mitochondrial protein deficiencies and mitochondrial malfunction. Therefore, mitochondrial quality control by proteins involved in various surveillance mechanisms is critical for neuronal integrity and viability. Abnormal proteins involved in mitochondrial bioenergetics, dynamics, mitophagy, import machinery, ion channels, and mitochondrial DNA maintenance have been linked to the pathogenesis of a number of neurological diseases. The goal of this review is to give an overview of these pathways and to summarize the interconnections between mitochondrial protein dysfunction and neurological diseases.Peer reviewe
Aurora-A Induces Chemoresistance Through Activation of the AKT/mTOR Pathway in Endometrial Cancer
Endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common gynecological tumor all over the world, and advanced/metastatic EC remains a malignancy with poor survival outcome due to highly resistant to conventional chemotherapeutic treatment. Here, we report that Aurora-A, a serine-threonine kinase, plays a vital role in chemoresistance of EC. Aurora-A is overexpressed in EC tissues, compared with normal endometrium and Aurora-A expression is associated with decreased overall survival. Overexpression of Aurora-A in EC cell lines (Ishikawa and HEC-1B cells) promotes cell proliferation and induced paclitaxel- and cisplatin-resistance. Furthermore, Aurora-A activating AKT-mTOR pathway further induces chemoresistance in vitro, consistent with a positive correlation between Aurora-A and phosphorylated AKT/4E-BP1 expression in EC tissues. In summary, our study provides the strong evidence that Aurora-A controls the sensitivity of EC cell lines to chemotherapy via AKT/mTOR pathway, indicating that pharmacologic intervention of Aurora-A and AKT/mTOR in combination with chemotherapy may be considered for the targeted therapy against EC with overexpression of Aurora-A
- …