University of Zielona Góra
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The value relevance and information content of cash and stock dividends in China
No full textDue to their unique institutional features, the Chinese stock markets provide an interesting experimental setting in which to examine how cash and stock dividends convey value-relevant information about future performance and future cash dividends. Applying market valuation equations and prediction models to a large sample of Chinese firms from 2003 to 2011 produces several interesting results. When cash dividends are not paid, then stock dividends are positively associated with firm value, and convey information about future cash dividends and future earnings. When cash dividends are paid, however, it is these that convey information about future cash dividends. Following the share tradability reform and convergence with International Financial Reporting Standards, the value relevance and information content of cash dividends are predicted and found to be stronger, while the value relevance of stock dividends weakens over the same time period. Our evidence suggests that, in a weak information environment, where management have limited control over cash dividend distributions, stock dividends play an important role as information conduits
Testing Times: The Place of the Citizenship Test in the UK Immigration Regime and New Citizens' Responses to it
No full textCitizenship tests are designed to ensure that new citizens have the knowledge required for successful ‘integration’. This article explores what those who have taken the test thought about its content. It argues that new citizens had high levels of awareness of debates about immigration and anti-immigration sentiment. Considering new citizens’ views of the test, the article shows how many of them are aware of the role of the test in reassuring existing citizens of their fitness to be citizens. However, some new citizens contest this positioning in ‘acts of citizenship’ where they assert claims to citizenship which are not necessarily those constructed by the state and implied in the tests. The article will argue that the tests and the nature of the knowledge required to pass them serve to retain new citizens in a position of less-than-equal citizenship which is at risk of being discursively (if less often legally) revoked
What is the Consumption-CAPM Missing? An Information-Theoretic Framework for the Analysis of Asset Pricing Models
No full textWe study a broad class of asset pricing models in which the stochastic discount factor (SDF) can be factorized into an observable component (e.g., a parametric function of consumption) and a potentially unobservable one (e.g., habit level or the return on total wealth). Exploiting this decomposition we derive new entropy bounds that restrict the admissible regions for the SDF and its components. Without using this decomposition, we show that, to a second order approximation, entropy bounds are equivalent to the canonical Hansen-Jagannathan bounds. However, bounds based on our decomposition have higher information content, are generally tighter, and naturally exploit the restriction that the SDF is a positive random variable. In addition, our information-theoretic framework enables us to extract a non-parametric estimate of the unobservable component of the SDF. Empirically we find that this component, in addition to following a clear business cycle pattern, has significant correlation with financial market crashes unrelated to economy-wide contractions. We apply our methodology to the leading consumption-based asset pricing models, gaining new insights about their empirical performance and finding empirical support for the Long Run Risk framework
Prints in Translation, 1450-1750: Image, Materiality, Space
No full textPrinted artworks were often ephemeral, but in the early modern period, exchanges between prints and other media set off chain reactions of images and objects that have endured. Paintings and drawings, sculpture, decorative arts, scientific instruments, and arms and armor served as the point of departure for printed images, while prints provided artists with paper veneers and with sources of adaptable motifs and ideas, heralding a global mobility of visual knowledge.This interdisciplinary collection unites scholars from different fields of art history who elucidate the agency of prints on more traditionally valued media, and vice-versa. Contributors explore how original “meanings” may be lost, reconfigured, or subverted through translations across traditional geographic, temporal, and material boundaries. Thus, Netherlandish print motifs grace an Italian cabinet, inspire paintings and ivory carvings in Mexico and India, and appear integrated into the calligraphic scheme of a Persian royal album. Andrea Mantegna’s Battle of the Sea Gods, an engraving which emulated the properties of sculpted relief, was reborn as relief sculpture, and fabrics based on print designs were reapplied to prints, returning color and tactility to the objects from which they derived.Together, the essays in this volume witness a methodological shift in the study of print, from examining the printed image as an index of an absent design in another medium--a painting, sculpture, or drawing--to considering its role as a generative, active agent that was responsible for driving modes of invention and perception far beyond the locus of its production
The blood-brain barrier after stroke: structural studies and the role of transcytotic vesicles
No full textBlood–brain barrier breakdown worsens ischaemic damage, but it is unclear how molecules breach the blood–brain barrier in vivo. Using the obese ob/ob mouse as a model of enhanced blood–brain barrier breakdown, we investigated how stroke-induced structural changes to the microvasculature related to blood–brain barrier permeability. Ob/ob mice underwent middle cerebral artery occlusion, followed by 4 or 24 h reperfusion. Blood–brain barrier integrity was assessed using IgG and horseradish peroxidase staining, and blood–brain barrier structure by two-dimensional and three-dimensional electron microscopy. At 4 and 24 h post-stroke, ob/ob mice had increased ischaemic damage and blood–brain barrier breakdown compared to ob/– controls, and vessels from both genotypes showed astrocyte end-foot swelling and increased endothelial vesicles. Ob/ob mice had significantly more endothelial vesicles at 4 h in the striatum, where blood–brain barrier breakdown was most severe. Both stroke and genotype had no effect on tight junction structure visualised by electron microscopy, or protein expression in isolated microvessels. Astrocyte swelling severity did not correlate with tissue outcome, being unaffected by genotype or reperfusion times. However, the rare instances of vessel lumen collapse were always associated with severe astrocyte swelling in two-dimensional and three-dimensional electron microscopy. Endothelial vesicles were therefore the best spatial and temporal indicators of blood–brain barrier breakdown after cerebral ischaemia
Psychological and psychosocial interventions promoting the mother-infant interaction on Mother and Baby Units in the United Kingdom
No full textBackground: Specialist Mother and Baby Units exist for the admission of women with their babies, when a mother requires assessment and intervention because of mental illness or significant mental health difficulties. The promotion of the mother-baby bond has been a priority in MBU settings given that severe maternal mental illness can compromise this relationship. This service evaluation was conducted to explore which psychological and/or psychosocial interventions promoting mother-infant interaction were being offered to women admitted to Mother and Baby Units (MBUs) in the United Kingdom (UK) and to explore the measures used to assess the quality of the mother-infant relationship.Method: As part of this questionnaire-based survey, all 18 Mother and Baby Units (MBUs) in the United Kingdom were contacted and asked to provide information on the psychological and psychosocial interventions currently being offered in their service to promote mother-baby interaction and, where applicable, the measures used to capture their benefits.Results: Sixteen (89%) MBUs completed the survey and provided information. The findings suggest that psychological and psychosocial interventions were offered in various ways, by different members of staff to mothers on their own or to mothers and their babies or the whole family unit, including the father. Conclusions:Although all of the 16 MBUs offered psychological and psychosocial interventions, the findings indicate the varied nature of intervention availability and application across MBUs in the UK, which may reflect the needs of the service user group each MBU caters for alongside regional variations and staff preferences and training backgrounds. Staff time, training and related costs were mentioned as obstacles for improved service delivery. <br/
The Tract Terminations in the Temporal Lobe: Their location and associated functions.
No full textTemporal lobe networks are associated with multiple cognitive domains. Despite an upsurge of interest in connectional neuroanatomy, the terminations of the main fibre tracts in the human brain are yet to be mapped. This information is essential given that neurological, neuroanatomical and computational accounts expect neural functions to be strongly shaped by the pattern of white-matter connections. This paper uses a probabilistic tractography approach to identify the main cortical areas that contribute to the major temporal lobe tracts. In order to associate the tract terminations to known functional domains of the temporal lobe, eight automated meta-analyses were performed using the Neurosynth database. Overlaps between the functional regions highlighted by the meta-analyses and the termination maps were identified in order to investigate the functional importance of the tracts of the temporal lobe. The termination maps are made available in the Supplementary Materials of this article for use by researchers in the field