A comparative analysis for the accounting reporting of “employee benefits” between IFRS and other accounting standards : a case study for the biggest listed entities in Greece

The main aim of this paper is to illustrate a comparative analysis for the accounting reporting of “employee benefits” between the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and other accounting reporting standards. The empirical analysis is carried out in accordance with the Greek Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GGAAP), with IFRS, following the implementation of International Accounting Standard (IAS) 19 "Employee Benefits" and with the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards (USFAS) 87. The sample consists of the 20 biggest listed entities in the Athens Stock Exchange (FTSE 20 index of the ASE). The contribution of the paper is to review the accounting reporting between different accounting standards, to a great extent, in order to find out the appropriate adjustments that have to be made for the treatment and presentation of employee benefits in the financial statements. The conclusions of the paper would be contributed to debate for the recognition of employee benefits on entities’ accounting statements in a more accurate way.peer-reviewe

Jwalk and MNXL web server: model validation using restraints from Crosslinking Mass Spectrometry

Motivation: Crosslinking Mass Spectrometry generates restraints that can be used to model proteins and protein complexes. Previously, we have developed two methods, to help users achieve better modelling performance from their crosslinking restraints: Jwalk, to estimate solvent accessible distances between crosslinked residues and MNXL, to assess the quality of the models based on these distances. Results: Here we present the Jwalk and MNXL webservers, which streamline the process of validating monomeric protein models using restraints from crosslinks. We demonstrate this by using the MNXL server to filter models made of varying quality, selecting the most native-like. Availability: The webserver and source code are freely available from jwalk.ismb.lon.ac.uk and mnxl.ismb.lon.ac.uk

Measuring a bank’s financial health : a case study for the Greek banking sector

The main aim of this article is to demonstrate a holistic framework for measuring a bank’s financial health by classifying its main responsibilities between conformance and performance. Responsibilities are classified into five categories as follows: First, Corporate Financial Reporting (CFR) that integrates General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS), Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Services Authority (FSA), and International Accounting Standards (IAS). Second, Risk Management Procedures (RMP), that incorporates methods and directives which arise from Basel I, Basel II, Capital Adequacy frameworks or solvency ratio benchmarks. Third, Corporate Governance (CG), that integrates Sarbanes – Oxley Act, Audit Committees, and Internal Audit Mechanisms. Fourth, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), that consists of instructions and standards such as Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) – social and environmental, Social accountability (SA 8000) – working conditions, International Organization for Standardization (ISO 9000). Fifth, Stockholders Value Creation (SVC), that is a set of methodologies and ratios used in order to measure value creation for shareholders such as Strategic and Balanced scorecard, Economic Value Added EVA®, and other business performance management tools. On the other, the Rating Agencies (RA) applies various rating systems in different fields. Based on this framework, the article correlates all qualitative and quantitative components, with the banks’ ratings. The dependent variable is the bank’s financial health score, represented by a dummy variable based on the bank’s rating by the rating agencies and from the relevant value of each bank that arises from its performance in the above mentioned framework of responsibilities. The independent quantitative variables belong to a set of financial, risk and market key ratios and the qualitative variables to a set of dummy variables which describe the above framework. With the use of financial and other published data of the Greek banking sector the article proposes a new model and a procedure for the explanation, management and monitoring of a bank’s financial health.peer-reviewe

Expansion of Lysine-rich repeats in Plasmodium proteins generates novel localisation sequences that target the periphery of the host Erythrocyte

Repetitive low-complexity sequences, mostly assumed to have no function, are common in proteins that are exported by the malaria parasite into its host erythrocyte. We identify a group of exported proteins containing short lysine-rich tandemly repeated sequences that are sufficient to localise to the erythrocyte periphery where key virulence-related modifications to the plasma membrane and the underlying cytoskeleton are known to occur. Efficiency of targeting is dependent on repeat number, indicating that novel targeting modules could evolve by expansion of short lysine-rich sequences. Indeed, expression GARP fragments from different species shows that two novel targeting sequences have arisen via the process of repeat expansion in this protein. In the protein Hyp12, the targeting function of a lysine-rich sequence is masked by a neighbouring repetitive acidic sequence, further highlighting the importance of repetitive low complexity sequences. We show that sequences capable of targeting the erythrocyte periphery are present in at least nine proteins from Plasmodium falciparum, and one from Plasmodium knowlesi. We find these sequences in proteins known to be involved in erythrocyte rigidification and cytoadhesion, as well as in previously uncharacterised exported proteins. Together, these data suggest that expansion and contraction of lysine-rich repeats could generate targeting sequences de novo as well as modulate protein targeting efficiency and function in response to selective pressure

The C-terminal portion of the cleaved HT motif is necessary and sufficient to mediate export of proteins from the malaria parasite into its host cell

The malaria parasite exports proteins across its plasma membrane and a surrounding parasitophorous vacuole membrane, into its host erythrocyte. Most exported proteins contain a Host Targeting motif (HT motif) that targets them for export. In the parasite secretory pathway, the HT motif is cleaved by the protease plasmepsin V, but the role of the newly generated N-terminal sequence in protein export is unclear. Using a model protein that is cleaved by an exogenous viral protease, we show that the new N-terminal sequence, normally generated by plasmepsin V cleavage, is sufficient to target a protein for export, and that cleavage by plasmepsin V is not coupled directly to the transfer of a protein to the next component in the export pathway. Mutation of the fourth and fifth positions of the HT motif, as well as amino acids further downstream, block or affect the efficiency of protein export indicating that this region is necessary for efficient export. We also show that the fifth position of the HT motif is important for plasmepsin V cleavage. Our results indicate that plasmepsin V cleavage is required to generate a new N-terminal sequence that is necessary and sufficient to mediate protein export by the malaria parasite

Modeling protein complexes using restraints from Crosslinking Mass Spectrometry

Modeling macromolecular assemblies with restraints from crosslinking mass spectrometry (XL-MS) tends to focus solely on distance violation. Recently, we identified three different modeling features inherent in crosslink data: (1) expected distance between crosslinked residues; (2) violation of the crosslinker's maximum bound; and (3) solvent accessibility of crosslinked residues. Here, we implement these features in a scoring function. cMNXL, and demonstrate that it outperforms the commonlyused crosslink distance violation. We compare the different methods of calculating the distance between crosslinked residues, which shows no significant change in performance when using Euclidean distance compared with the solvent-accessible surface distance. Finally, we create a combined score that incorporates information from 3D electron microscopy maps as well as crosslinking. This achieves, on average, better results than either information type alone and demonstrates the potential of integrative modeling with XL-MS and low-resolution cryoelectron microscopy

The clusters of economic similarities between EU countries : a view under recent financial and debt crisis

This article analyzes the clusters of similarities among EU member states before and during the recent financial and debt crisis, using variables from banking, taxation, government debt and deficit, and the Current Account of the Balance of Payment; our study follows the method of Multi-Sample Case of Cluster Analysis between and within groups of EU countries. Our findings show that the current economic crisis the EU is faced with is twofaceted and has arisen from the financial and banking sectors and from government debt. In this sense, problems have resulted from the credit policies of the national banking sectors and from national fiscal and budgetary controls. These two crisis facets are correlated and a new problem emerges concerning the fiscal similarities of European Monetary Union (EMU) countries and the necessity for a fiscal union or for common fiscal policies between them. The aim of this article is to help us understand that the current EU crisis is due to the lack of homogeneity in fiscal and financial polishes across the Union.peer-reviewe

Optimization workflow for the analysis of cross-linked peptides using a Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer

Cross-linking mass spectrometry is an emerging structural biology technique. Almost exclusively, the analyzer of choice for such an experiment has been the Orbitrap. We present an optimized protocol for the use of a Synapt G2-Si for the analysis of cross-linked peptides. We first tested six different energy ramps and analyzed the fragmentation behavior of cross-linked peptides identified by xQuest. By combining the most successful energy ramps, cross-link yield can be increased by up to 40%. When compared to previously published Orbitrap data, the Synapt G2-Si also offers improved fragmentation of the β peptide. In order to improve cross-link quality control we have also developed ValidateXL, a programmatic solution that works with existing cross-linking software to improve cross-link quality control

Linking Gas-Phase and Solution-Phase Protein Unfolding via Mobile Proton Simulations

Native mass spectrometry coupled to ion mobility (IM-MS) combined with collisional activation (CA) of ions in the gas phase (in vacuo) is an important method for the study of protein unfolding. It has advantages over classical biophysical and structural techniques as it can be used to analyze small volumes of low-concentration heterogeneous mixtures while maintaining solution-like behavior and does not require labeling with fluorescent or other probes. It is unclear, however, whether the unfolding observed during collision activation experiments mirrors solution-phase unfolding. To bridge the gap between in vacuo and in-solution behavior, we use unbiased molecular dynamics (MD) to create in silico models of in vacuo unfolding of a well-studied protein, the N-terminal domain of ribosomal L9 (NTL9) protein. We utilize a mobile proton algorithm (MPA) to create 100 thermally unfolded and coulombically unfolded in silico models for observed charge states of NTL9. The unfolding behavior in silico replicates the behavior in-solution and is in line with the in vacuo observations; however, the theoretical collision cross section (CCS) of the in silico models was lower compared to that of the in vacuo data, which may reflect reduced sampling

Deconvolution of ion mobility mass spectrometry arrival time distributions using a genetic algorithm approach: application to α1-antitrypsin peptide binding

Ion mobility mass spectrometry (IM-MS) is a fast and sample-efficient method for analysing the gas phase conformation of proteins and protein complexes. Subjecting proteins to increased collision energies prior to ion mobility separation can directly probe their unfolding behaviour. Recent work in the field has utilised this approach to evaluate the effect of small ligand binding upon protein stability, and to screen compounds for drug discovery. Its general applicability for high-throughput screening will, however, depend upon new analytical methods to make the approach scalable. Here we describe a fully automated program, called Benthesikyme, for summarising the ion mobility results from such experiments. The program automatically creates collision induced unfolding (CIU) fingerprints and summary plots that capture the increase in collision cross section and the increase in conformational flexibility of proteins during unfolding. We also describe a program, based on a genetic algorithm, for the deconvolution of arrival time distributions from the \{CIU\} data. This multicomponent analysis method was developed to require as little user input as possible. Aside from the IM-MS data, the only input required is an estimate of the number of conformational families to be fitted to the data. In cases where the appropriate number of conformational families is unclear, the automated procedure means it is straightforward to repeat the analysis for several values and optimize the quality of the fit. We have employed our new methodology to study the effects of peptide binding to α1-antitrypsin, an abundant human plasma protein whose misfolding exemplifies a group of conformational diseases termed the serpinopathies. Our analysis shows that interaction with the peptide stabilises the protein and reduces its conformational flexibility. The previously unresolved patterns of unfolding detected by the deconvolution algorithm will allow us to set up a fully automated screen for new ligand molecules with similar properties