Price discovery for Chinese shares cross-listed in multiple markets

In this article we study the relationship between security returns cross-listed on the A share market of China and the H share market at the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK). Most of these securities are also cross-listed on other markets. An important feature of this article is that we focus on the multilateral relationships between all cross-listed markets rather than concentrating only on the bi-lateral relationship between A and Hong Kong H shares. Using the impulse response functions and the variance decompositions from a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) process we show that the returns to the A share market are almost exclusively determined by domestic factors. In contrast, we find that the H share market is influenced by both the A share market within China and foreign stock markets elsewhere in the world. Impulse response functions suggest that innovations to the A share market and the Hong Kong H share market are partly transmitted to each other and to stock markets outside China. We show that liquidity has an important role to play in determining the impact that the home market has on cross-listed variance decompositions. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Editorial

The American Academy of Optometry (AAO) had their annual meeting in San Diego in December 2005 and the BCLA and CLAE were well represented there. The BCLA does have a reasonable number of non-UK based members and hopefully in the future will attract more. This will certainly be beneficial to the society as a whole and may draw more delegates to the BCLA annual conference. To increase awareness of the BCLA at the AAO a special evening seminar was arranged where BCLA president Dr. James Wolffsohn gave his presidential address. Dr. Wolffsohn has given the presidential address in the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong and Japan – making it the most travelled presidential address for the BCLA to date. Aside from the BCLA activity at the AAO there were numerous lectures of interest to all, truly a “something for everyone” meeting. All the sessions were multi-track (often up to 10 things occurring at the same time) and the biggest dilemma was often deciding what to attend and more importantly what you will miss! Nearly 200 new AAO Fellows were inducted at the Gala Dinner from many countries including 3 new fellows from the UK (this year they all just happened to be from Aston University!). It is certainly one of the highlights of the AAO to see fellows from different schools of training from around the world fulfilling the same criteria and being duly rewarded for their commitment to the profession. BCLA members will be aware that 2006 sees the introduction of the new fellowship scheme of the BCLA and by the time you read this the first set of fellowship examinations will have taken place. For more details of the FBCLA scheme see the BCLA web site http://www.bcla.org.uk. Since many of CLAE's editorial panel were at the AAO an informal meeting and dinner was arranged for them where ideas were exchanged about the future of the journal. It is envisaged that the panel will meet twice a year – the next meeting will be at the BCLA conference. The biggest excitement by far was the fact that CLAE is now Medline/PubMed indexed. You may ask why is this significant to CLAE? PubMed is the free web-based service from the US National Library of Medicine. It holds over 15 million biomedical citations and abstracts from the Medline database. Medline is the largest component of PubMed and covers over 4800 journals published in more than 70 countries. The impact of this is that CLAE is starting to attract more submissions as researchers and authors are not worried that their work will not be hidden from other colleagues in the field but rather the work is available to view on the World Wide Web. CLAE is one of a very small number of contact lens journals that is indexed this way. Amongst the other CL journals listed you will note that the International Contact Lens Clinic has now merged with CLAE and the journal CLAO has been renamed Eye and Contact Lenses – making the list of indexed CL journals even smaller than it appears. The on-line submission and reviewing system introduced in 2005 has also made it easier for authors to submit their work and easier for reviewers to check the content. This ease of use has lead to quicker times from submission to publication. Looking back at the articles published in CLAE in 2005 reveals some interesting facts. The majority of the material still tends to be from UK groups related to the field of Optometry, although we hope that in the future we will attract more work from non-UK groups and also from non-Optometric areas such as refractive surgery or anterior eye pathology. Interestingly in 2005 the most downloaded article from CLAE was “Wavefront technology: Past, present and future” by Professor W. Neil Charman, who was also the recipient of the Charles F. Prentice award at the AAO – one of the highest awards honours that the AAO can bestow. Professor Charman was also the keynote speaker at the BCLA's first Pioneer's Day meeting in 2004. In 2006, readers of CLAE will notice more changes, firstly we are moving to 5 issues per year. It is hoped that in the future, depending on increased submissions, a move to 6 issues may be feasible. Secondly, CLAE will aim to have one article per issue that carries CL CET points. You will see in this issue there is an article from Professor Mark Wilcox (who was a keynote speaker at the BCLA conference in 2005). In future articles that carry CET points will be either reviews from BCLA conference keynote speakers, members of the editorial panel or material from other invited persons that will be of interest to the readership of CLAE. Finally, in 2006, you will notice a change to the Editorial Panel, some of the distinguished panel felt that it was good time to step down and new members have been invited to join the remaining panel. The panel represent some of the most eminent names in the fields of contact lenses and/or anterior eye and have varying backgrounds and interests from many of the prominent institutions around the world. One of the tasks that the Editorial Panel undertake is to seek out possible submissions to the journal, either from conferences they attend (posters and papers that they will see and hear) and from their own research teams. However, on behalf of CLAE I would like to extend that invitation to seek original articles to all readers – if you hear a talk and think it could make a suitable publication to CLAE please ask the presenters to submit the work via the on-line submission system. If you found the work interesting then the chances are so will others. CLAE invites submissions that are original research, full length articles, short case reports, full review articles, technical reports and letters to the editor. The on-line submission web page is http://www.ees.elsevier.com/clae/.

Photodynamic therapy with verteporfin for juxtafoveal choroidal neovascularisation secondary to pathological myopia

The treatment of choroidal neovascularisation (CNV) secondary to pathological myopia has presented a number of problems to ophthalmologists over the years, but the advent of photodynamic therapy (PDT) with verteporfin has changed how we manage these patients. Until PDT became available, the use of laser photocoagulation for extra and juxtafoveal lesions had been shown to be effective in the short term in preventing loss of vision, although the risk of regrowth of CNV and undertreatment were well recognised. However, even in apparent successful cases of photocoagulation, laser scar enlargement and creepage into the fovea in the mid-to-long term often occurred with resulting loss of central vision.1 Other options for treatment were very limited with little evidence that other modalities such as transpupillary thermotherapy or submacular surgery and macular transplantation surgery would be successful in highly myopic eyes. The evidence for the role of PDT and verteporfin CNV secondary to pathological myopia comes from the verteporfin in photodynamic therapy (VIP) study that has shown how effective this treatment is in eyes with subfoveal CNV.2, 3 Now in this publication, Lam et al4 from Hong Kong have shown that PDT is also effective in juxtafoveal CNV, with high myopia. They performed a small prospective study of 11 patients of mean age 44.8 years, with 12 months of follow-up. They found that there was a mean improvement of 1.8 lines of LogMAR best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) at 12 months, with a mean number of 2.3 PDT treatments. The most rapid improvement occurred within the first 3 months of treatment and by 12 months none of the patients had suffered a deterioration in BCVA from baseline. There were no cases of adverse effects from the infusion or laser treatment. For ophthalmologists dealing with patients with CNV secondary to causes other than AMD, this is further evidence of the effectiveness of PDT with verteporfin in maintaining vision. These patients are likely to be younger than those with AMD and are likely to be in active employment and supporting families, and clearly the preservation of best vision possible is imperative in this group. It is therefore encouraging for ophthalmologists in the United Kingdom that the verteporfin in PDT Cohort Study (VPDT Study) includes the ability to treat patients with subfoveal CNV secondary to high myopia if they fulfill National Institute of Clinical Excellence guidelines, and will allow representations to be made on an individual basis for treatment of juxtafoveal lesions.5 For those ophthalmologists used to juggling increased patient expectations with scarce NHS resources, this is promising news and will allow us to offer a better standard of care to our patients.

Changes at the BCLA

As we welcome 2014 we say goodbye to 2013 and I must start with an apology to authors who have submitted papers to CLAE and seen a delay in either the review process or the hard copy publication of their proofed article. The delays were caused by a major hike in the number of submissions to the journal in 2012 that increased further in 2013. In the 12 months leading to the end of October 2011 we had 94 new paper submissions, and for the same period to the end of 2012 the journal had 116 new papers. In 2012 we were awarded an impact factor for the first time and following that the next 12 month period to the end of October 2013 saw a massive increase in submissions with 171 new manuscripts being submitted. This is nearly twice as many papers as 2 years ago and 3 times as many as when I took over as Editor-in-Chief. In addition to this the UK academics will know that 2014 is a REF year (Research Excellence Framework) where universities are judged on their research and one of the major components of this measure remains to be published papers so there is a push to publishing before the REF deadline for counting. The rejection rate at CLAE has gone up too and currently is around 50% (more than double the rejection rate when I took over as Editor-in-Chief). At CLAE the number of pages that we publish each year has remained the same since 2007. When compiling issue 1 for 2014 I chose the papers to be included from the papers that were proofed and ready to go and there were around 200 proofed pages ready, which is enough to fill 3½ issues! At present Elsevier and the BCLA are preparing to increase the number the pages published per issue so that we can clear some of this backlog and remain up to date with the papers published in CLAE. I should add that on line publishing of papers is still available and there may have been review delays but there are no publishing online so authors can still get an epub on line final version of their paper with a DOI (digital object identifier) number enabling the paper to be cited. There are two awards that were made in 2013 that I would like to make special mention of. One was for my good friend Jan Bergmanson, who was awarded an honorary life fellowship of the College of Optometrists. Jan has served on the editorial board of CLAE for many years and in 2013 also celebrated 30 years of his annual ‘Texan Corneal and contact lens meeting’. The other award I wish to mention is Judith Morris, who was the BCLA Gold Medal Award winner in 2013. Judith has had many roles in her career and worked at Moorfields Eye Hospital, the Institute of Optometry and currently at City University. She has been the Europe Middle East and Africa President of IACLE (International Association of Contact Lens Educators) for many years and I think I am correct in saying that Judith is the only person who was President of both the BCLA (1983) and a few years later she was the President College of Optometrists (1989). Judith was also instrumental in introducing Vivien Freeman to the BCLA as they had been friends and Judith suggested that Vivien apply for an administrative job at the BCLA. Fast forward 29 years and in December 2013 Vivien stepped down as Secretary General of the BCLA. I would like to offer my own personal thanks to Vivien for her support of CLAE and of me over the years. The BCLA will not be the same and I wish you well in your future plans. But 2014 brings in a new position to the BCLA – Cheryl Donnelly has been given the new role of Chief Executive Officer. Cheryl was President of the BCLA in 2000 and has previously served on council. I look forward to working with Cheryl and envisage a bright future for the BCLA and CLAE. In this issue we have some great papers including some from authors who have not published with CLAE before. There is a nice paper on contact lens compliance in Nepal which brings home some familiar messages from an emerging market. A paper on how corneal curvature is affected by the use of hydrogel lenses is useful when advising patients how long they should leave their contact lenses out for to avoid seeing changes in refraction or curvature. This is useful information when refracting these patients or pre-laser surgery. There is a useful paper offering tips on fitting bitoric gas permeable lenses post corneal graft and a paper detailing surgery to implant piggyback multifocal intraocular lenses. One fact that I noted from the selection of papers in the current issue is where they were from. In this issue none of the corresponding authors are from the United Kingdom. There are two papers each from the United States, Spain and Iran, and one each from the Netherlands, Ireland, Republic of Korea, Australia and Hong Kong. This is an obvious reflection of the widening interest in CLAE and the BCLA and indicates the new research groups emerging in the field.

Proceedings of the 6th CIRP-Sponsored International Conference on Digital Enterprise Technology

This Proceedings volume contains articles presented at the CIRP-Sponsored International Conference on Digital Enterprise Technology (DET2009) that takes place 14-16 December 2009 in Hong Kong. This is the 6th DET conference in the series and the first to be held in Asia. Professor Paul Maropoulos initiated, hosted and chaired the 1st International DET Conference held in 2002 at the University of Durham. Since this inaugural first DET conference, DET conference series has been successfully held in 2004 at Seattle, Washington USA, in 2006 at Setubal Portugal, in 2007 at Bath England, and in 2008 at Nantes France. The DET2009 conference continues to bring together International expertise from the academic and industrial fields, pushing forward the boundaries of research knowledge and best practice in digital enterprise technology for design and manufacturing, and logistics and supply chain management. Over 120 papers from over 10 countries have been accepted for presentation at DET2009 and inclusion in this Proceedings volume after stringent refereeing process.

A globális pénzügyi központok világgazdasági szerepének változásai (The changing role of global financial centres in the world economy)

A pénzügyi központok jelentős mértékben hozzájárulhatnak a bankok nemzetköziesedéséhez. A világgazdaság története során már évszázadokkal ezelőtt létrejött a nemzetközi pénzügyi központok többsége, amelyek szerepe és súlya folytonosan változott. A vezető globális pénzügyi központokban általában mindenféle pénzügyi művelet végrehajtható, intenzíven egy helyre koncentrálódnak a pénzügyi-üzleti műveletek és tranzakciók. Az 1990-es évekre még jellemző globális triád – amit New York, London és Tokió alkotott – napjainkra már megszűnt. A globális pénzügyi központok szerepét a 2010-es években London és New York képes betölteni. Kérdéses azonban, hogy az ázsiai térségben globális pénzügyi központtá válhat-e Hong Kong, esetleg Szingapúr. _____ Financial centres significantly contribute to the internationalization of the banks. Most of the international financial centres were founded centuries ago, but their roles and magnitudes have always changed. All kinds of financial operations can be carried out in the leading global financial centres, and a wide scale of financial operations and transactions concentrate in these places. The dominance of the global triad of New York, London and Tokyo of the 1990s, has recently ended. Only two main financial centres, London and New York, can unambiguously fulfil the role of the global financial centres in the 2010s. However, it is questionable whether Hong Kong or Singapore can become global financial centres in the Asian region of the global economy.

Book Review: Tourism in China: Exotic Land Revealed

There is no better way to lean about tourism in China than from renowned expert in the field. Alan Lew. PhD. and professor at Northern Arizona University, Lawrence Yu, Ph.D. and associate professor in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management at George Washington University. John Ap, Ph.D. and associate professor in tourism management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Zhang Guangrui, director of the Tourism Research Centre, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, China, have contributed to and edited a collection of writings detailing the development of tourism in this fascinating and exotic land.

The role of overseas Chinese investment in the emerging countries of Southeast and East Asia: A Confucian model of the foreign direct investment decision-making process using factors unconsidered in the West

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the foreign direct investment location decision making process through the examination of non-Western investors and their investment strategies in non-traditional markets. This was accomplished through in-depth personal interviews with 50 Overseas Chinese business owners and executives in several different industries from Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Thailand about 97 separate investment projects in Southeast and East Asia, including The Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Taiwan, and Mainland China.^ Traditional factors utilized in Western models of the foreign direct investment decision making process are reviewed, as well as literature on Asian management systems and the current state of business practices in emerging countries of Southeast and East Asia. Because of the lack of institutionalization in these markets and the strong influences of Confucian and patriarchal value systems on the Overseas Chinese, it was suspected that while some aspects of Western rational economic models of foreign direct investment are utilized, these models are insufficient in this context, and thus are not fully generalizable to the unique conditions of the Overseas Chinese business network in the region without further modification.^ Thus, other factors based on a Confucian value system need to be integrated into these models. Results from the analysis of structured interviews suggest Overseas Chinese businesses rely more heavily on their network and traditional Confucian values than rational economic factors when making their foreign direct investment location decisions in emerging countries in Asia. This effect is moderated by the firm's industry and the age of the firm's owners. ^

Financing infrastructure development : time to unshackle the bonds?

The authors would like to thank the RICS for their financial support of the project and the numerous respondents who gave so freely of their time. Part of the research was supported by a grant from the Hong Kong-Scotland Partners in Post-Doctoral Research Scheme sponsored by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong and the Scottish Government (S-HKU701/13).

Nurses' knowledge of advance directives and perceived confidence in end-of-life care: a cross-sectional study in five countries

Nurses' knowledge regarding advance directives may affect their administration and completion in end-of-life care. Confidence among nurses is a barrier to the provision of quality end-of-life care. This study investigated nurses' knowledge of advance directives and perceived confidence in end-of-life care, in Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy and the USA using a cross-sectional descriptive design (n = 1089). In all countries, older nurses and those who had more professional experience felt more confident managing patients' symptoms at end-of-life and more comfortable stopping preventive medications at end-of-life. Nurses in the USA reported that they have more knowledge and experience of advance directives compared with other countries. In addition, they reported the highest levels of confidence and comfort in dealing with end-of-life care. Although legislation for advance directives does not yet exist in Ireland, nurses reported high levels of confidence in end-of-life care.

Digital and Social Inequalities : A Qualitative Assessment of the Impact of the Connecting Equality Program on Argentinean Youth

This paper focuses on the ties between social and digital inequalities among Argentinean youth. It uses a qualitative approach to explore different aspects of the everyday lives of adolescents, such as sociability, leisure time and family use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), in order to assess the impact of the Connecting Equality Program (Programa Conectar Igualdad, PCI) on reducing digital inequalities and fostering social inclusion. What were the existing conditions of access for students and their families when the PCI was first implemented? What influence does the implementation of the PCI have on the individual, family and scholastic appropriation of ICTs? How does the use of computers and the Internet vary among youth? Has this large-scale incorporation of netbooks in schools, and especially homes and free time changed it in any way? Does the appropriation of ICTs through student participation in the PCI contribute to material and symbolic social inclusion? In order to answer these questions, we compare the processes of ICT appropriation among lower and middle class adolescents, focusing on the distinctive uses and meanings assigned to computers and the Internet by boys and girls in their daily lives. For this purpose we analyze data collected through semi-structured interviews in two schools in Greater La Plata, Argentina during 2012. The main findings show that in terms of access, skills and types of use, the implementation of the PCI has had a positive impact among lower class youth, guaranteeing access to their first computers and promoting the sharing of knowledge and digital skills with family members. Moreover, evidence of more diverse and intense use of ICTs among lower class students reveals the development of digital skills related to educational activities. Finally, in terms of sociability, having a personal netbook enables access to information and cultural goods which are very significant in generating ties and strengthening identities and social integration

Digital and Social Inequalities : A Qualitative Assessment of the Impact of the Connecting Equality Program on Argentinean Youth

This paper focuses on the ties between social and digital inequalities among Argentinean youth. It uses a qualitative approach to explore different aspects of the everyday lives of adolescents, such as sociability, leisure time and family use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), in order to assess the impact of the Connecting Equality Program (Programa Conectar Igualdad, PCI) on reducing digital inequalities and fostering social inclusion. What were the existing conditions of access for students and their families when the PCI was first implemented? What influence does the implementation of the PCI have on the individual, family and scholastic appropriation of ICTs? How does the use of computers and the Internet vary among youth? Has this large-scale incorporation of netbooks in schools, and especially homes and free time changed it in any way? Does the appropriation of ICTs through student participation in the PCI contribute to material and symbolic social inclusion? In order to answer these questions, we compare the processes of ICT appropriation among lower and middle class adolescents, focusing on the distinctive uses and meanings assigned to computers and the Internet by boys and girls in their daily lives. For this purpose we analyze data collected through semi-structured interviews in two schools in Greater La Plata, Argentina during 2012. The main findings show that in terms of access, skills and types of use, the implementation of the PCI has had a positive impact among lower class youth, guaranteeing access to their first computers and promoting the sharing of knowledge and digital skills with family members. Moreover, evidence of more diverse and intense use of ICTs among lower class students reveals the development of digital skills related to educational activities. Finally, in terms of sociability, having a personal netbook enables access to information and cultural goods which are very significant in generating ties and strengthening identities and social integration