An event based approach for quantifying the effects of securities fraud in the IT industry

Detecting the incidence and impact of illegal insider trading is a difficult process since access to the actual trading records of insiders that overlap precisely with fraudulent events is difficult. This paper provides a case study of a specific IT stock in Canada that was successfully prosecuted in the Canadian court system for market manipulation and illegal insider trading violations. The study provides a quantification of the impact of insider trading activities by the President directly through his own account or through accounts under his control, and illustrates the impact of some off-exchange transactions by the impugned parties. Overall, the costs of the insider trading violations are quite high, given the significant wealth effects produced by the events surrounding this case.     

Epoxidized linolenic acid salts as multifunctional additives for the thermal stability of plasticized PVC

Calcium and zinc salts of epoxidized linolenic acid were synthesized and used as multifunctional additives, to minimize or prevent the reaction of epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) with liberated hydrochloric acid (HCl) during the thermal degradation of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) in particular. These metal epoxy salts were incorporated as thermal stabilizers for both diisodecyl phthalate and ESO–plasticized PVC blends that underwent thermal degradation studies at 170°C. The overall performance of these metal epoxy salts was examined by thermal gravimetric analysis and visual color retention of the PVC blends. The weight loss profiles of the metal salt stabilized PVC were comparable to those of blends containing metal stearates. There were, however, vast improvements in color retention of the plasticized PVC using these novel additives. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41736.     

Physiological compliance and team performance

Physiological compliance (PC) refers to the correlation between physiological measures of team members over time. The goals of this study were to examine ways of measuring PC in heart rate variability (HRV) data and the relationship between PC and team performance. Teams were tasked with entering both real and simulated rooms and “shooting” individuals with a weapon and identifying individuals without a weapon. The linear correlation and directional agreement PC methods were shown to be the most sensitive to differences in performance, with greater PC being associated with better performance. The correlation method when applied to a measure of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) revealed a significant difference between high and low performers (t[8] = −2.31, p = 0.03) and the directional agreement applied to inter-beat-intervals and RSA revealed trend-level differences (t[4.62] = −1.86, p = 0.06 and t[8] = −1.68, p = 0.07). These results suggest that PC may have merit for predicting team performance.     

Modeling the behavior of the 4/5ths rule for determining adverse impact: Reasons for caution.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's 4/5ths rule has been used for over 20 years in applied psychology and employment law. The rule signals that there is adverse impact when the protected group selection ratio is less than 80% of the highest scoring group's selection ratio. We conducted several simulations and found, consistent with some previous management science literature, that the 4/5ths rule often resulted in false-positive readings of adverse impact even when there were no underlying (population) standardized group differences between subgroups. We then incorporated tests of statistical significance and found that adding such tests to the 4/5ths rule eliminated many false-positive indications of adverse impact. We also examined simulated selection systems based on meta-analytic values from the selection literature. The frequency of adverse impact signals from the 4/5ths rule increased markedly relative to simulations with no subgroup population differences. Adding statistical tests mitigated the number of indications of adverse impact to some extent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of ammonia on secondary organic aerosol formation from alpha-pinene ozonolysis in dry and humid conditions

This study examines the influence of ammonia (NH3) on secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from the alpha-pinene/ozone oxidation system for dry and humid conditions. Aerosol yield differed depending on which OH scavenger was used, with the highest yield noted for CO, followed by cyclohexane and 2-butanol. Number and volume concentrations were quickly increased within the reactor by 15 and 8%, respectively, when NH3 was added after the reaction ceased. The increase in number concentration indicated the formation of new particles resulting from gas-to-particle conversion. Moreover, average particle size increased from 242 to 248 nm. The resulting aerosol growth was attributed to ammonium salts formed by the reaction between organic acids and NH3. When NH3 was added to aerosolized cis-pinonic acid in the environmental reactor, a dramatic increase in both number and volume concentrations of cis-pinonic acid was observed. This provides further evidence that NH3 can interact with gas-phase organic acids forming condensable salts and thereby enhancing SOA formation. Initially present NH3 significantly enhanced aerosol yield in alpha-pinene-ozone reactions, regardless of the presence of water vapor. The role of NH3 on SOA formation in the dry and humid conditions is discussed in terms of a theoretical modeling study.     

Highly sensitive and specific polymerase chain reaction assays for detection of baboon and pig cells following xenotransplantation in humans

Pig and baboon xenotransplants in humans require assays that discriminate source from human cells to investigate engraftment and identify true infection of recipients with xenogeneic endogenous retroviruses. We developed two polymerase chain reaction assays that target a porcine-specific sequence in the beta-globin gene and a baboon-specific sequence in the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit II gene. The sensitivity and specificity of both assays were evaluated on DNA lysates from baboon, pig, and human peripheral blood lymphocytes. Both assays detected single cells in backgrounds of human DNA. Additionally, both assays were highly specific and yielded negative results in reactions containing only human DNA. The two assays reliably detected peripheral blood lymphocyte samples from 14 baboons and 16 pigs. The baboon- and pig-specific target sequences are gender independent and nonpolymorphic and allow universal applicability. The high sensitivity and specificity is of particular importance in assessing low-level engraftment in human xenotransplant chimeras.