Diagnostic and prognostic value of antibodies against chimeric fibrin/filaggrin citrullinated synthetic peptides in rheumatoid arthritis

Introduction: Evidence suggests that citrullinated fibrin(ogen) may be a potential in vivo target of anticitrullinated protein/peptide antibodies (ACPA) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We compared the diagnostic yield of three enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests by using chimeric fibrin/filaggrin citrullinated synthetic peptides (CFFCP1, CFFCP2, CFFCP3) with a commercial CCP2-based test in RA and analyzed their prognostic values in early RA. Methods: Samples from 307 blood donors and patients with RA (322), psoriatic arthritis (133), systemic lupus erythematosus (119), and hepatitis C infection (84) were assayed by using CFFCP- and CCP2-based tests. Autoantibodies also were analyzed at baseline and during a 2-year follow-up in 98 early RA patients to determine their prognostic value. Results: With cutoffs giving 98% specificity for RA versus blood donors, the sensitivity was 72.1% for CFFCP1, 78.0% for CFFCP2, 71.4% for CFFCP3, and 73.9% for CCP2, with positive predictive values greater than 97% in all cases. CFFCP sensitivity in RA increased to 80.4% without losing specificity when positivity was considered as any positive anti-CFFCP status. Specificity of the three CFFCP tests versus other rheumatic populations was high (> 90%) and similar to those for the CCP2. In early RA, CFFCP1 best identified patients with a poor radiographic outcome. Radiographic progression was faster in the small subgroup of CCP2-negative and CFFCP1-positive patients than in those negative for both autoantibodies. CFFCP antibodies decreased after 1 year, but without any correlation with changes in disease activity. Conclusions: CFFCP-based assays are highly sensitive and specific for RA. Early RA patients with anti-CFFCP1 antibodies, including CCP2-negative patients, show greater radiographic progression.

The pedagogical value of games and songs : The perceptions of teachers

Aquest estudi intenta explorar i descobrir les actituds i creences d’alguns mestres de llengua anglesa de Catalunya sobre la naturalesa dels jocs i les cançons, així com el paper que juguen en les seves aules per ensenyar l’anglès als infants. Les opinions dels mestres de llengua anglesa van ser recollides mitjançant un qüestionari que contenia preguntes sobre els jocs i les cançons i els resultats s’analitzen i s’exposen en aquest estudi.

Estimating extreme value cumulative distribution functions using bias-corrected kernel approaches

We propose a new kernel estimation of the cumulative distribution function based on transformation and on bias reducing techniques. We derive the optimal bandwidth that minimises the asymptotic integrated mean squared error. The simulation results show that our proposed kernel estimation improves alternative approaches when the variable has an extreme value distribution with heavy tail and the sample size is small.

Fair value versus historic cost-valuation for biological assets: Implications for the quality of financial information

[spa] Este trabajo realiza un estudio empírico sobre los efectos, que se señalan en las discusiones teóricas, de la utilización del valor razonable (VR) frente al coste histórico (CH), utilizando dos muestras de explotaciones agrícolas, una de las cuales valora sus activos biológicos a CH y la otra a VR. No se encontraron diferencias significativas en los beneficios e ingresos entre ambas muestras, ni siquiera en sus volatilidades. Tampoco se encontraron diferencias significativas en rentabilidad, manipulación contable, ni en el poder de ambos criterios de valoración para predecir los flujos de tesorería. Por el contrario, la mayor parte de los tests realizados revelan un mayor poder de los beneficios calculados bajo el VR para la predicción de los beneficios futuros, respecto de cuando son calculados bajo el CH. El estudio proporciona también evidencia empírica de prácticas contables defectuosas de CH en el sector agrícola, concluyendo que el VR puede representar un criterio de valoración interesante para un sector, como el agrícola, caracterizado por el predominio de pequeñas explotaciones familiares.

Fair value versus historic cost-valuation for biological assets: Implications for the quality of financial information

[spa] Este trabajo realiza un estudio empírico sobre los efectos, que se señalan en las discusiones teóricas, de la utilización del valor razonable (VR) frente al coste histórico (CH), utilizando dos muestras de explotaciones agrícolas, una de las cuales valora sus activos biológicos a CH y la otra a VR. No se encontraron diferencias significativas en los beneficios e ingresos entre ambas muestras, ni siquiera en sus volatilidades. Tampoco se encontraron diferencias significativas en rentabilidad, manipulación contable, ni en el poder de ambos criterios de valoración para predecir los flujos de tesorería. Por el contrario, la mayor parte de los tests realizados revelan un mayor poder de los beneficios calculados bajo el VR para la predicción de los beneficios futuros, respecto de cuando son calculados bajo el CH. El estudio proporciona también evidencia empírica de prácticas contables defectuosas de CH en el sector agrícola, concluyendo que el VR puede representar un criterio de valoración interesante para un sector, como el agrícola, caracterizado por el predominio de pequeñas explotaciones familiares.

Fair value versus historical cost-based valuation for biological assets: Predictability of financial information

There is an intense debate on the convenience of moving from historical cost (HC) toward the fair value (FV) principle. The debate and academic research is usually concerned with financial instruments, but the IAS 41 requirement of fair valuation for biological assets brings it into the agricultural domain. This paper performs an empirical study with a sample of Spanish farms valuing biological assets at HC and a sample applying FV, finding no significant differences between both valuation methods to assess future cash flows. However, most tests reveal more predictive power of future earnings under fair valuation of biological assets, which is not explained by differences in volatility of earnings and profitability. The study also evidences the existence of flawed HC accounting practices for biological assets in agriculture, which suggests scarce information content of this valuation method in the predominant small business units existing in the agricultural sector in advanced Western countries

Share Your Hobbies : Disseny i implementació

Share Your Hobbies pretén ser una aplicació web per conèixer gent amb els mateixos interessos o aficions. Ofereix un taulell en el que proposar activitats a realitzar perquè altres usuaris s'hi puguin inscriure. Ofereix també una agenda amb els esdeveniments culturals futurs a la ciutat de Barcelona.

Banks, Lies and Bricks: The Determinants of Home Value Inflation in Spain during the Housing Boom

During the first decade of this century, Spain experienced the most important economic and housing boom in its recent history. This situation led the lending industry to dramatically expand through the mortgage market. The high competition among lenders caused a dramatic lowering of credit standards. During this period, lenders operating in the Spanish mortgage market artificially inflated appraised home values in order to draw larger mortgages. By doing this, lenders gave financially constrained households access to mortgage credit. In this paper, we analyze this phenomenon for this first time. To do so, we resort to a unique dataset of matched mortgage-dwelling-borrower characteristics covering the period 2004–2010. Our data allow us to construct an unbiased measure of property’s over-appraisal, since transaction prices in our data also includes any potential side payment in the transactions. Our findings indicate that i) in Spain, appraised home values were inflated on average by around 30% with respect to transaction prices; ii) creditconstrained households were more likely to be involved in mortgages with inflated house values; and iii) a regional indicator of competition in the lending market suggests that inflated appraisal values were also more likely to appear in more competitive regional mortgage markets. Keywords: Housing demand, appraisal values, house prices, housing bubble, credit constraints, mortgage market. JEL Classification: R21, R31

Parallel characterizations of a generalized shapley value and a generalized banzhaf value for cooperative games with level structure of cooperation

We present parallel characterizations of two different values in the framework of restricted cooperation games. The restrictions are introduced as a finite sequence of partitions defined on the player set, each of them being coarser than the previous one, hence forming a structure of different levels of a priori unions. On the one hand, we consider a value first introduced in Ref. [18], which extends the Shapley value to games with different levels of a priori unions. On the other hand, we introduce another solution for the same type of games, which extends the Banzhaf value in the same manner. We characterize these two values using logically comparable properties.

A comparative study of difficulties in accounting preparation and judgement in agriculture using fair value and historical cost accounting for biological assets valuation

This paper presents empirical research comparing the accounting difficulties that arise from the use of two valuation methods for biological assets, fair value (FV) and historical cost (HC) accounting, in the agricultural sector. It also compares how reliable each valuation method is in the decision-making process of agents within the sector. By conducting an experiment with students, farmers, and accountants operating in the agricultural sector, we find that they have more difficulties, make larger miscalculations and make poorer judgements with HC accounting than with FV accounting. In-depth interviews uncover flawed accounting practices in the agricultural sector in Spain in order to meet HC accounting requirements. Given the complexities of cost calculation for biological assets and the predominance of small family business units in advanced Western countries, the study concludes that accounting can be more easily applied in the agricultural sector under FV than HC accounting, and that HC conveys a less accurate grasp of the real situation of a farm.

The economic value of reciprocal bilingualism

Some bilingual societies exhibit a distribution of language skills that can- not be explained by economic theories that portray languages as pure commu- nication devices. Such distribution of skills are typically the result of public policies that promote bilingualism among members of both speech commu- nities (reciprocal bilingualism). In this paper I argue that these policies are likely to increase social welfare by diminishing economic and social segmenta- tion between the two communities. However, these gains tend to be unequally distributed over the two communities. As a result, in a large range of circum- stances these policies might not draw su¢ cient support. The model is built upon the communicative value of languages, but also emphasizes the role of linguistic preferences in the behavior of bilingual individuals.