New cephalosporins cefotaxime, cefpimizole, BMY 28142, and HR 810 in experimental pneumococcal meningitis in rabbits

Four new cephalosporins, cefotaxime, cefpimizole (U 63196E), BMY 28142, and HR 810 were evaluated in experimental pneumococcal meningitis. Cefotaxime penetrated only moderately into the cerebrospinal fluid of rabbits with meningitis, whereas cefpimizole, BMY 28142, and HR 810 all exhibited unusually good penetration. The bactericidal activity in infected cerebrospinal fluid was comparable for the four drugs.

Shareholder Value Maximization: What Managers Say and What They Do

This paper examines whether Swiss firms maximize shareholder value. To find out, we survey the goals of 313 listed and unlisted firms. We then examine whether managers’ decisions are consistent with their goals and analyze whether performance corresponds to intentions. Our results show that most managers pursue conflicting targets. Many also declare that they do not maximize shareholder value. And those who claim they do sometimes rely on investment criteria that are inconsistent with that target. Finally, we find that share-price performance is marginally better when managers claim to maximize shareholder value, particularly when stock prices have fallen.

Corporate bankruptcy and managers' self-serving behavior

We investigate whether insiders of bankrupt firms hold less stock or reduce their stockholdings compared to what we observed for insiders of similar firms that do not go bankrupt. We find little evidence of such time-series and cross-sectional differences in spite of the fact that the stock value of bankrupt firms falls by more than ninety percent in the five years preceding bankruptcy. One implication of our results is that the amount of stock owned and the magnitude of the trades undertaken by corporate insiders of both bankrupt and nonbankrupt firms appear to provide no information about firm value.

Impact of different cultivation methods on the metabolic profile of apples studied by 1H HR-MAS NMR spectroscopy

The cultivation of dessert apples has to meet the consumer's increasing demand for high fruit quality and a sustainable mostly residue-free production while ensuring a competitive agricultural productivity. It is therefore of great interest to know the impact of different cultivation methods on the fruit quality and the chemical composition, respectively. Previous studies have demonstrated the feasibility of High Resolution Magic Angle Spinning (HR-MAS) NMR spectroscopy directly performed on apple tissue as analytical tool for metabonomic studies. In this study, HR-MAS NMR spectroscopy is applied to apple tissue to analyze the metabolic profiles of apples grown under 3 different cultivation methods. Golden Delicious apples were grown applying organic (Bio), integrated (IP) and low-input (LI) plant protection strategies. A total of 70 1H HR-MAS NMR spectra were analyzed by means of principle component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). Apples derived from Bio-production could be well separated from the two other cultivation methods applying both, PCA and PLS-DA. Apples obtained from integrated (IP) and low-input (LI) production discriminated when taking the third PLS-component into account. The identified chemical composition and the compounds responsible for the separation, i.e. the PLS-loadings, are discussed. The results are compared with fruit quality parameters assessed by conventional methods. The present study demonstrates the potential of HR-MAS NMR spectroscopy of fruit tissue as analytical tool for finding markers for specific fruit production conditions like the cultivation method.