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Effect of earnings management on abnormal compensation of CEOs
Get PDFAgency theory suggests that monetary incentives are effective mechanisms to align managers’ and shareholders’ interests. Hence, value-maximising managerial decisions are positively related to their compensation levels, and vice versa. Several studies confirm that the practice of earnings management could be detrimental to a firm’s value; however, the literature examining the relation between CEOs’ total compensation and earnings management remains inconclusive. This may be due to the unobserved determinants of executive compensation. In line with the predictions of agency theory, this study provides conclusive evidence of this relation by documenting a negative relation between abnormal compensation (the proportion of pay that known factors cannot accurately determine) and earnings management. Thus, suggesting that CEOs involved in earnings management are penalised in the form of reduced excess compensation. Additionally, we find that the negative association between earnings management and abnormal compensation persists in both high and low-governance firms, and is robust to the presence of both internal and external corporate governance mechanisms as additional control variables. Since real earnings management is arguably more value-destructive in the long run, our results also confirm that CEOs involved in higher levels of real earnings management are penalised more severely than CEOs involved in higher levels of accrual earnings management
AI-driven financial fraud: key risks and legal protections for financial institutions
Get PDFArtificial intelligence (AI) has become integral to financial institutions operations. Implementing AI allowed significant improvement in service quality and enabled innovative customer solutions. At the same time, with all the advantages and positive aspects of using AI, it also creates additional risks, depending on who and for what it is used. In the hands of fraudsters, AI becomes a tool with which financial institutions and their clients are causing significant damage, and not only financial. At the same time, in scientific literature, this issue has been studied mainly from the technical, technological, and financial sides, with insufficient attention paid to the legal risks of this issue. This article addresses that gap by examining the legal risk landscape and protective measures for financial institutions in the context of AI-driven fraud. We review the key ways AI is used to commit fraud, analyse the existing UK and EU legal frameworks governing AI and financial fraud (including data protection and financial services regulation), and evaluate the mechanisms of redress available to clients and institutions. Our analysis highlights inconsistencies and challenges in the current legal approach, particularly in the UK’s principles-based framework, and underlines the need for more transparent accountability, robust risk management, and updated legal remedies to address AI-enabled financial fraud
Input and Output Legitimacy of Occupational Pension Plans in Six European Countries
Get PDFDo participants in funded occupational pension plans (OPPs) perceive them as legitimate? This study addresses that question by considering both input legitimacy – participants’ satisfaction with OPPs’ decision-making processes – and output legitimacy – participants’ satisfaction with the benefits and financial returns of OPPs. It draws on an original survey conducted in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Spain in 2023. The analysis indicates moderate satisfaction with input and output legitimacy across all six countries. Moreover, behavioural factors – having gathered information about their OPP or engaged in OPP decision-making processes – are strong predictors of input and output legitimacy
Understanding the associations between neurodevelopmental features and internalising and externalising behaviours: a transdiagnostic approach
Get PDFBackground: Internalising and externalising behaviours—significant markers for lifetime psychiatric vulnerability—are elevated in children with neurodevelopmental diagnoses, including autism. Although neurodevelopmental features of autism are dimensions that span the population, limited research has examined their differential patterns of association with internalising and externalising behaviours in children without specific, categorically-defined diagnoses. Evidence of such associations outside of a traditional diagnostic context may enable more targeted support for children's individual needs, irrespective of diagnoses. The current study aimed to characterise the relationship between neurodevelopmental features found in autism—restricted and repetitive behaviours (RRB) and social communication difficulties—and internalising and externalising behaviours in children from mainstream school who experience emotional, behavioural, or cognitive challenges. Methods: We recruited 136 6–7-year-olds without known clinical conditions but with school-identified emotional, behavioural or cognitive difficulties. The Repetitive Behaviour Questionnaire-2 assessed RRBs, the pragmatics scale from the Revised Children's Communication Checklist-2 assessed social communication, and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire examined internalising and externalising behaviours. Results: Simultaneous hierarchical linear regression analysis identified differential associations when adjusting for covariance between internalising and externalising. Social communication made a stronger contribution than RRBs to variance in externalising behaviours (Fchange (1, 131) = 11.84, p < 0.001). However, for internalising behaviours, RRBs made the strongest contribution (Fchange (2, 131) = 8.19, p < 0.001). The insistence on sameness subdomain of RRB predicted variance in internalising but not externalising behaviours independently of social communication while the repetitive sensory and motor behaviour subdomain predicted variance in externalising but not internalising behaviours, but only when social communication was not included. Conclusion: These findings will inform future research aimed at understanding the co-occurrence of traits across diagnostic boundaries. Evidence that RRBs and social communication are differentially associated with internalising and externalising behaviours may identify target areas for the support of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, a group whose co-occurring neurodevelopmental features are often under-recognised
Assessing the UK Labour government’s tax policies in its first year in office
No full textThe article examines the tax policies the UK Labour government pursued in its first year in office in the context of its economic and fiscal inheritance. It presents the promises of the 2024 Labour Party Manifesto and the government’s main tax policies to June 2025. The article considers several possible interpretations of the government’s tax policies including the desire both to raise revenues and to establish fiscal credibility and assesses whether tax measures have been used to address social policy goals. The article concludes that, while cautious and even conservative, Labour’s approach to tax and tax policy making did not appear to be based on a cohesive plan, was not accompanied by a coherent or compelling narrative and failed to seize the opportunity for a bolder strategy
Artificial Intelligence in Construction Project Management:A Systematic Literature Review of Cost, Time, and Safety Management
Get PDFArtificial intelligence (AI) has become the leading technology for digital transformation in various industries. However, the digitalization of construction project management (e.g., cost, time, and safety) in the context of AI technology implementation is still limited. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a systematic literature review of AI technologies in construction project cost, time, and safety management, and identify mainstream application areas, cross-domain synthesis, challenges, research gaps, and future research directions. By adopting the PRISMA approach, a systematic literature review was conducted to retrieve 392 articles from the Scopus database. The results presented mainstream application areas of construction project cost (i.e., cost estimation, cost prediction, cost index forecasting, cost control, cost optimization), time (i.e., planning and scheduling, delay risk prediction, time optimization, cycle time prediction), and safety (i.e., workers’ safety monitoring, on-site safety monitoring, personal protective equipment (PPE) detection, safety report text analysis, fall risk monitoring, safety accident prediction, and safety hazard identification and risk assessment). Moreover, the cross-domain synthesis, challenges, and research gaps of AI technologies in construction project management were discussed. Based on these findings, this paper suggests future directions to extend research in this domain. This paper would contribute to the construction project management research domain by providing key application areas and useful research directions, thus promoting digital transformation in the sector
Conceptual design and analysis of a boil-off gas re-liquefaction process driven by a multi-stage active magnetic regenerative cryocooler
No full textConsidering the significant share of natural gas in the world energy sources reducing the emission in distribution chain is very important and managing the boil-off gas has a substantial role in this context. A novel process for boil-off gas re-liquefaction based on an active magnetic regenerative cryocooler integrated with a cold energy storage unit is proposed and analysed. The active magnetic regenerative refrigeration section of the system consists of nine active magnetic regenerative cryocooler units, each comprising five stages and producing a 37 K temperature span using permanent magnets with a magnetic field strength of 1.5 Tesla. Propane is selected as the heat transfer fluid due to its wide availability and cost-effectiveness. The system includes a closed-loop heat sink cooled by a nitrogen-enriched vapour-compression unit operating at a maximum pressure of 12 bar. A computational one-dimensional model is applied to simulate thermodynamic and heat transfer processes in the regenerators. Key performance parameters including specific energy consumption, exergy efficiency, coefficient of performance, and liquefaction capacity are reported, and finally a comprehensive economic analysis is conducted to evaluate the costs through the proposed process. The proposed system achieves a specific energy consumption of 0.7816 kWh/kgLNG, an exergy efficiency of 0.4192, a coefficient of performance of 0.3396. An 11.7% reduction in specific energy consumption, a 44% improvement in coefficient of performance, 29% increase in exergy efficiency in comparison with currently in use systems and a liquefaction capacity of approximately 90% demonstrate the potential of the active magnetic regenerative refrigeration-based re-liquefaction system to provide an efficient and cost-effective alternative to traditional boil-off gas re-liquefaction systems. The proposed re-liquefaction system provides advantage of eliminating the need for cold boxes and multi-stream heat exchangers, thereby reducing process complexity, lowering reliance on in-port maintenance, and significantly improving scalability. Additionally , the economic analysis shows that, compared with the most widely used commercial LNG carrier re-liquefaction system, it enables noticeable downsizing, with purchased costs of the compressors, heat exchangers, and turbo expanders reduced by approximately 12.6%, 36.6%, and 12.6%, respectively
MRI cortical thickness in paediatric auto-immune encephalitis and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis
No full textObjective: Paediatric autoimmune encephalitis and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) are neuroinflammatory disorders that can cause acute MRI abnormalities. Recent analyses suggest brain volume reductions months to years after disease onset. This study aimed to verify whether decreased gray matter thickness would also be observed in whole-brain cortical thickness as well as in temporal polar and orbitofrontal cortices. Methods: A cohort of children previously diagnosed with autoimmune encephalitis (including anti- NMDA encephalitis and ADEM) were recruited at least two years after initial presentation and a cohort of typically developing children with no known neurological conditions. Cortical thickness across the whole-brain and in each region-of-interest was measured from T1w MRI scans using Freesurfer. Results: MRI scans from 12 children with autoimmune encephalitis (mean age = 10.5; 8F:4M) and 48 controls (mean age = 10.7; 23F 25M) were analysed. The autoimmune encephalitis group had lower cortical thickness in a cluster covering the top part of the left superior occipital gyrus and the bottom part of the left superior parietal lobule (cluster size = 681.55 mm2; corrected cluster-wise p = 0.00459; clusterwise Cohen’s d= -8.3773). No multivariate effect on the cortical thickness of the regions-of-interest was found (Roy’s Largest Root = .095, F(df) = 1.207(4); p = .319; partial η2 = .087). A small univariate effect was observed, with autoimmune encephalitis predicting lower left orbitofrontal thickness (F = 4.407, p = .040, Partial η2 = .075). Interpretation: Children with autoimmune encephalitis may be subject to local cortical thinning in the long term
Economic assessment of hybrid electric vehicles for sustainable transportation and decarbonization in Brazil
Get PDFThe transportation sector is a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, demanding the adoption of low-carbon technologies. This study focuses on the economic assessment of two types of hybrid electric vehicles as taxis in Brazil, exploring their potential to ease electric vehicle adoption and contribute to decarbonizing the transportation sector. Environmental life cycle cost, net present value, and total cost of ownership were calculated for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), as taxis and private cars, fuelled by different fuels, in single-fuel and dual-fuel modes. It also compares the Brazilian scenario with Spain and the United Kingdom to examine their economic benefits, considering factors such as purchase costs, operating expenses, and government incentives. Results show that taxis outperform private cars in return on investment, with Spain performing best due to its lower discount rate. Brazil ranked between Spain and the United Kingdom in ELCC and TCO but was the least favourable in NPV. Overall, the research highlights that taxis are identified as a practical short-term alternative for introducing electric vehicles in Brazil, proving to be more economically favourable than private vehicles
A systematic review and thematic synthesis of women’s coping strategies for early to late miscarriage
Get PDFBackground Miscarriage is a common adverse pregnancy outcome that can have long-term negative impacts on women. Coping strategies can indicate how someone attempts to manage their response to a stressor and may provide an indication of how to support them after a traumatic event. Despite emerging qualitative research on miscarriage experiences, there has been no comprehensive synthesis focusing on how women cope with miscarriage. Aim This study aims to explore women’s experiences of coping with a miscarriage without a known cause occurring up to 24 weeks gestation. Methods A double-blinded systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative papers was conducted. A search of seven databases, supplemented with a manual search was carried out. Articles published in academic journals between 2014 and 2024 were included. Papers were critically appraised using two tools, analysed thematically and critically discussed through a thematic synthesis.Findings Nine studies conducted across eight countries published between 2016 and 2024 were included. Four themes were identified: Denying or Commemorating the Lost Child, Changed Outlook after the Loss, Seeking a Cause or Meaning, and Social Interactions as a Source of Support or Pain. These themes demonstrate that women cope with miscarriage in diverse ways but with some similarities across different contexts. Conclusions The impact of miscarriage is felt by women cross-culturally. Coping strategies after miscarriage are both highly individualised and deeply interconnected with social attitudes. Maternity and healthcare professionals should consider how their support and response has the potential to empower or further impact the experience of miscarriage
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