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The specificity and implementation of current MRI-based diagnostic criteria for multiple sclerosis (MS) are imperfect. Approximately 1 in 5 of individuals diagnosed with MS are eventually determined not to have the disease, with overreliance on MRI findings a major cause of MS misdiagnosis. The central vein sign (CVS), a proposed MRI biomarker for MS lesions, has been extensively studied in numerous cross sectional studies and may increase diagnostic specificity for MS. CVS has desirable analytical, measurement, and scalability properties. "Central Vein Sign: A Diagnostic Biomarker in Multiple Sclerosis (CAVS-MS)" is an NIH-supported, 2-year, prospective, international, multicenter study conducted by the North American Imaging in MS Cooperative (NAIMS) to evaluate CVS as a diagnostic biomarker for immediate translation into clinical care. Study objectives include determining the concordance of CVS and McDonald Criteria to diagnose MS, the sensitivity of CVS to detect MS in those with typical presentations, and the specificity of CVS among those with atypical presentations. The study will recruit a total of 400 participants (200 with typical and 200 with atypical presentations) across 11 sites. T2*-weighted, high-isotropic-resolution, segmented echo-planar MRI will be acquired at baseline and 24months on 3-tesla scanners, and FLAIR* images (combination of FLAIR and T2*) will be generated for evaluating CVS. Data will be processed on a cloud-based platform that contains clinical and CVS rating modules. Imaging quality control will be conducted by automated methods and neuroradiologist review. CVS will be determined by Select6* and Select3* lesion methods following published criteria at each site and by central readers, including neurologists and neuroradiologists. Automated CVS detection and algorithms for incorporation of CVS into McDonald Criteria will be tested. Diagnosis will be adjudicated by three neurologists who served on the 2017 International Panel on the Diagnosis of MS. The CAVS-MS study aims to definitively establish CVS as a diagnostic biomarker that can be applied broadly to individuals presenting for evaluation of the diagnosis of MS.

Objective:To assess whether chronic white matter inflammation in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) as detected in vivo by paramagnetic rim MRI lesions (PRLs) is associated with higher serum neurofilament light chain (sNfL) levels, a marker of neuroaxonal damage. Methods:In 118 patients with MS with no gadolinium-enhancing lesions or recent relapses, we analyzed 3D-submillimeter phase MRI and sNfL levels. Histopathologic evaluation was performed in 25 MS lesions from 20 additional autopsy MS cases. Results:In univariable analyses, participants with ≥2 PRLs (n = 43) compared to those with ≤1 PRL (n = 75) had higher age-adjusted sNfL percentiles (median, 91 and 68;p< 0.001) and higher Multiple Sclerosis Severity Scale scores (MSSS median, 4.3 and 2.4;p= 0.003). In multivariable analyses, sNfL percentile levels were higher in PRLs ≥2 cases (βadd, 16.3; 95% confidence interval [CI], 4.6-28.0;p< 0.01), whereas disease-modifying treatment (DMT), Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score, and T2 lesion load did not affect sNfL. In a similar model, sNfL percentile levels were highest in cases with ≥4 PRLs (n = 30; βadd, 30.4; 95% CI, 15.6-45.2;p< 0.01). Subsequent multivariable analysis revealed that PRLs ≥2 cases also had higher MSSS (βadd, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.3-1.9;p< 0.01), whereas MSSS was not affected by DMT or T2 lesion load. On histopathology, both chronic active and smoldering lesions exhibited more severe acute axonal damage at the lesion edge than in the lesion center (edge vs center:p= 0.004 andp= 0.0002, respectively). Conclusion:Chronic white matter inflammation was associated with increased levels of sNfL and disease severity in nonacute MS, suggesting that PRL contribute to clinically relevant, inflammation-driven neurodegeneration.

This paper examines the predictive ability (relevance) of fair value adjustments of Canadian investment property, for future cash flow outcomes. We hypothesize and find that the fair value adjustments of more conservative firms are more predictive of future cash flows. We also find that the market prices fair value adjustments of more conservative firms at a premium as compared to those of less conservative firms. Our empirical tests control for possible self-selection of sample firms into low and high accounting conservatism groups.

Using a battery of look-ahead-bias free measures of accruals quality (AQ), we find a strong and long-lasting negative relation between future returns and AQ. In decile portfolios that rank on AQ, a hedge portfolio that goes long in the lowest decile and short in the highest decile generates an annualized, risk-adjusted return of 4–12 % over 1-month to 5-year horizons, depending on the AQ measure and the portfolio weighting scheme. The return premiums associated with AQ are, (1) robust to a wide range of AQ measures, (2) robust to a battery of return-informative variables, and (3) not driven by low-priced or small stocks, earnings shocks, or the fourth-quarter effect. The documented premiums are consistent with the information uncertainty effect where firm uncertainty is negatively related to future returns .

Item does not contain fulltext An often-employed strategy to enhance signals in (31) P MRS is the generation of the nuclear Overhauser effect (NOE) by saturation of the water resonance. However, NOE allegedly increases the variability of the (31) P data, because variation is reported in NOE enhancements. This would negate the signal-to-noise (SNR) gain it generates. We hypothesized that the variation in NOE enhancement values is not caused by the variability in NOE itself, but is attributable to measurement uncertainties in the values used to calculate the enhancement. If true, the expected increase in SNR with NOE would improve the repeatability of (31) P MRS measurements. To verify this hypothesis, a repeatability study of native and NOE-enhanced (31) P MRSI was performed in the brains of seven healthy volunteers at 7 T. The repeatability coefficient (RC) and the coefficient of variation in repeated measurements (CoVrepeat ) were determined for each method, and the 95% limits of agreement (LoAs) between native and NOE-enhanced signals were calculated. The variation between the methods, defined by the LoA, is at least as great as that predicted by the RC of each method. The sources of variation in NOE enhancements were determined using variance component analysis. In the seven metabolites with a positive NOE enhancement (nine metabolite resonances assessed), CoVrepeat improved, on average, by 15%. The LoAs could be explained by the RCs of the individual methods for the majority of the metabolites, generally confirming our hypothesis. Variation in NOE enhancement was mainly attributable to the factor repeat, but between-voxel effects were also present for phosphoethanolamine and (glycero)phosphocholine. CoVrepeat and fitting error were strongly correlated and improved with positive NOE. Our findings generally indicate that NOE enhances the signal of metabolites, improving the repeatability of metabolite measurements. Additional variability as a result of NOE was minimal. These findings encourage the use of NOE-enhanced (31) P MRSI. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The objective of this article is to revisit the literature on Big-N audit fee premiums in the municipal setting using a methodology that controls for self-selection bias. Because auditor choices can be predicted based on certain client characteristics, using standard one-stage ordinary least squares regressions to draw inferences about the presence or absence of such a premium in the extant public-sector audit fee studies may not be appropriate. Results indicate that, after controlling for a self-selection bias, Big-6 (non-Big-6) municipal clients on average pay a fee premium, compared to the case if they were to retain a non-Big-6 (Big-6) auditor. Results continue to hold when we conduct further analyses on a subset of municipalities with access to both Big-6 and non-Big-6 auditors in a local market defined by a 60-km radius, rather than over a province-wide audit market. The existence of non-Big-6 audit fee premiums has not been documented previously in the private- or public-sector audit fee literature. We surmise that it may be caused by the dominance (79.4 percent) of non-Big-6 auditors in the Ontario municipal market, compared to most private-sector audit markets where their market share generally does not exceed 20 percent. The strong market position of non-Big-6 firms in turn may have allowed these auditors to command a fee premium for the subset of municipalities that self-selects to be audited by them. An implication from our study is that Ontario municipalities often choose to be audited by more costly auditors, even though they could have paid lower audit fees by switching to an alternative auditor type. These results do not support those reported by Chaney et al. (2004), who find that U.K. private firms are audited by the least costly auditor type. The conflicting findings may be attributable to the fact that the Ontario municipal audit market is subject to regulation by not just the audit profession but also the Ontario government and that, unlike business corporations, municipalities receive funding from provincial governments to fulfil much of their financial requirements. Thus, municipal clients may be relatively more willing to accept higher audit fees provided their chosen auditor (or auditor type) matches their needs. Essai sur l’autoselection des auditeurs dans le secteur municipal Resume Les auteurs ont pour objectif de reexaminer les ecrits sur les supplements d’honoraires (primes) verses aux auditeurs des N Grands cabinets dans le secteur municipal, en utilisant une methodologie permettant de controler le biais d’autoselection. Le choix des auditeurs pouvant etre prevu a partir de certaines caracteristiques du client, il pourrait etre inapproprie d’utiliser la regression classique en une etape, fondee sur la methode des moindres carres, pour tirer des conclusions quant a la presence ou a l’absence de ces primes comme on en trouve dans les etudes existantes sur les honoraires d’audit dans le secteur public. Les resultats qu’obtiennent les auteurs indiquent qu’une fois controle le biais d’autoselection, les clients municipaux des cabinets figurant (ne figurant pas) parmi les Six Grands paient en moyenne une prime par rapport aux honoraires qu’ils verseraient aux auditeurs d’un cabinet ne figurant pas (figurant) parmi les Six Grands. Ces resultats persistent lorsque les auteurs soumettent a d’autres analyses un sous-ensemble de municipalites ayant acces aux auditeurs de cabinets figurant parmi les Six Grands aussi bien qu’aux auditeurs des autres cabinets sur un marche local delimite par un rayon de 60 kilometres, plutot que sur un marche d’envergure provinciale. L’existence de primes d’honoraires versee aux auditeurs des cabinets ne figurant pas parmi les Six Grands n’a pas ete documentee jusqu’a maintenant dans les etudes relatives aux honoraires d’audit dans les secteurs prive ou public. Selon les auteurs, cela pourrait s’expliquer par la predominance (79,4 pour cent) des auditeurs de cabinets ne figurant pas parmi les Six Grands sur le marche municipal ontarien, par rapport a la plupart des marches d’audit du secteur prive dont leur part n’excede pas 20 pour cent, en general. En retour, cette solide position des cabinets ne figurant pas parmi les Six Grands sur le marche municipal pourrait avoir permis a ces auditeurs d’exiger une prime d’honoraires du sous-ensemble des municipalites qui les ont choisis. L’etude realisee par les auteurs revele notamment que les municipalites de l’Ontario choisissent souvent de confier l’audit de leurs etats financiers a des auditeurs dont les tarifs sont plus eleves, meme dans les cas ou il leur aurait ete possible de verser des honoraires moins eleves en retenant les services d’une autre categorie d’auditeurs. Ces resultats ne vont pas dans le sens de ceux qu’exposent Chaney, Jeter et Shivakumar (2004), qui ont constate que les societes fermees du Royaume-Uni confiaient l’audit de leurs etats financiers aux auditeurs de cabinets appartenant a la categorie la moins onereuse. Ces observations divergentes sont peut-etre attribuables au fait que le marche ontarien de l’audit municipal est soumis a la double reglementation de la profession et des autorites gouvernementales ontariennes et que, a la difference des societes commerciales, les municipalites s’acquittent de la plupart de leurs obligations financieres grâce aux fonds qu’elles recoivent du gouvernement provincial. Il se peut donc que les clients municipaux soient relativement plus enclins a accepter des honoraires d’audit superieurs a condition que le cabinet ou la categorie de cabinets de leur choix reponde a leurs besoins.

This study examines the economic impact of three different levels of auditor assurance on loan decisions of bank loan officers. Sixty-seven experienced loan officers were administered a research instrument containing a hypothetical loan application with accompanying financial statements and accounting schedules. Three levels of auditor assurance were manipulated in the experiment by having the financial statements compiled, reviewed, or audited as those terms are defined in the Statement on Standards for Accounting and Review Services No. 1, issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in 1979 (SSARS No. 1). The loan officers were asked to make two decisions: would they recommend making a loan and what interest rate would be charged on such a loan? Since 1979, SSARS No. 1 permits CPAs in the United States to perform compilations or reviews for private companies, in addition to audits. Auditor assurance with respect to financial statements is monotonically increasing as one moves from compilations to reviews to audits, because of a corresponding increase in professional responsibility and related evidence collection procedures. Strictly speaking, compilations provide no assurance because the CPA disclaims an opinion and only assembles client data in the proper format for financial statements as required by GAAP. However, a compilation provides some albeit limited assurance because the auditor is required to (1) have a general understanding of the client's industry prior to undertaking the compilation, (2) follow up on any problems discovered during the compilation, and (3) withdraw from the engagement should the client fail to address problem areas. Reviews offer more assurance than compilations, though considerably less than audits, because of the restricted scope of the engagement.(1) SSARS No. 1 (para. 4) states: The objective of a review differs significantly from the objective of a compilation. The inquiry and analytical procedures performed in a review should provide the accountant with a reasonable basis for limited assurance that there are no material modifications that should be made to the financial statements. No expression of assurance is contemplated in a compilation. The objective of a review also differs significantly from the objective of an examination of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards. The objective of an audit is to provide a reasonable basis for expressing an opinion regarding the financial statements taken as a whole. A review does not provide a basis for the expression of such an opinion because a review does not contemplate a study and evaluation of internal accounting control, tests of accounting records and of responses to inquiries by obtaining corroborating evidential matter through inspection, observation or confirmation, and certain other procedures ordinarily performed during an audit. In spite of this unique institutional development, we know of only two studies of its economic effect. One is Abdel-khalik's (1989) survey of the owners of 56 small firms concerning the perceived benefits of audits versus reviews. The other is the study by Johnson, Pany, and White (1983) of 98 bank loan officers who perceived that audited financial statements were more likely to be materially free of misstatements (compared to no attestation, compilations, or reviews). However, the type of auditor attestation was found to have no economic effect on either the loan acceptance or interest rate decision. A possible reason for this is the suggestion by Waterston (1979) that loan officers may not have initially understood the differences among audits, reviews, and compilations. Our study overcomes this potential problem by using a later period after reviews and compilations have been in use for a number of years. Our subjects also indicated familiarity with the three forms of assurance. The conceptual link between auditor assurance and bank officer lending decisions is that auditor assurance reduces information risk in the financial statements and related accounting schedules accompanying the loan application (i. …

This study conducts a local analysis of the relation between market structure and audit fees. The research question of interest to us is how audit fees are determined by each practicing local office, after taking into account the auditor's own position in a local market and the influence exerted by his or her clients. Appealing to the economic theories of monopoly and monopsony power, we hypothesize a positive audit fee-concentration relation, and a negative audit fee-client influence relation. Results indicate that auditor market concentration is positively associated with the non-Big 6 audit fees but is unrelated to the Big 6 audit fees. Evidence is mixed concerning the client influence hypothesis. When this construct is proxied by the number of rival auditors operating within a geographic area centered on the municipality, the prediction of negative audit fee-client influence relation is strongly supported for both groups of auditors. Results are much weaker using measures developed based on the relative importance of a municipal client to its auditor's audit portfolio. The issues addressed in this study are important at a time when the Canadian municipal sector is undergoing major changes because of municipal amalgamation, altering the underlying market structure for audit services and the bargaining position of a municipality vis-A-vis its auditor. More broadly speaking, our analysis implies that when assessing an auditor's report for signs of client pressure, the professional oversight bodies and regulatory authorities need to consider the relative, rather than the absolute, bargaining position of the client in question.

We examine whether the Canadian banking sector was afflicted by financial contagion from the 2008 sub-prime crisis in the United States financial sector. We find that Canadian banks were affected by contagion, though those with higher liquidity withstood better its adverse effects. Our results indicate that Canadian banks that had more transparent asset practices appear to be less adversely affected by contagion. However, higher levels of real estate-related assets including mortgage-backed securities worsened the impact of contagion.

The 1991 amendment to the auditor appointment requirement of section 86 of the Ontario Municipal Act removes certain barriers to entry into the Ontario municipal audit market. The purpose of this study is to provide evidence that the amendment has enhanced competition in this market. The results indicate that there is a general reduction in the real municipal audit fees compared with the pre-amendment levels, and that the market has become more contestable following the amendment. Notwithstanding the heightened competition, the Big 6 audit firms continue to command audit fee premiums over the non-Big 6 audit firms. This suggests that Big 6 audit fee premiums possibly reflect brand name reputation rather than monopoly/oligopoly rents.

INTRODUCTION: With a rapidly aging society, geriatric mental health is emerging as an important public health concern. According to the WHO, prevalence of depression in adults aged ≥60 years in developed and developing countries was 0.5 million and 4.8 million respectively in 2004. In India, increased life expectancy led to a rise in the older adult population between 2001 and 2011, expected to reach 324 million by 2050. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the prevalence of depression and assess association between sociodemographic parameters and depression among older adults in a rural Indian community. METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in February and March 2012 in the rural village of Sembakkam, Kancheepuram District in the state of Tamil Nadu, India; the village has a population of 5948, 3.1% of whom are aged ≥60 years. Universal sampling technique was employed, in which every household in the community was visited and all elderly persons were selected. After obtaining written informed consent (a thumbprint was taken if the person was illiterate), participants were assessed face to face for depression using the Short Form Geriatric Depression Scale. The inclusion criterion was a score >24 on the mini-mental state examination. Final sample size was 103. Study variables included sociodemographic parameters such as age, sex, education, occupation, socioeconomic status, and marital status. Data entry and statistical analysis used SPSS version 17. RESULTS: Of 103 respondents interviewed, 73 (70.9%) were aged 60-69 years and 58 (56.3%) were male. Forty-four (42.7%) individuals (17 males, 27 females) were found to be depressed; 23 (22.3%) with mild depression, 14 (13.6%) moderate depression and 7 (6.8%) severe depression. Female sex and widowhood were significantly associated with depression. CONCLUSIONS: Depression, particularly mild depression, is common in this rural population of older adults, particularly among women and widowed elderly. These study findings can help program managers implement a more comprehensive strategy in this community for timely interventions to promote mental health and prevent geriatric depression.

Little attention has been paid to a principal decision context in which analysts' earnings forecasts are prepared, namely, as an input to their recommendations. We use two data sets, Value Line, USA, and Research Evaluation Service, Canada, and examine the importance of analysts' earnings forecasts for their stock price forecasts via three hypotheses: (1) analysts' earnings forecasts are important for their stock price forecasts; (2) analysts' long-term earnings forecasts are more important than their short-term earnings forecasts for their predictions of stock prices over a particular stock price forecast horizon; (3) the importance of analysts' earnings forecasts for their stock price forecasts rises as the joint earnings and stock price forecast horizon increases. We show that: (1) when the earnings forecast horizon is the next fiscal year, forecasted earnings explain only 30% of the variation in forecasted price; (2) the importance of forecasted earnings for forecasted price rises as the earnings forecast horizon increases; (3) in the long run, (i.e. three to five years hence), forecasted earnings explain about 60% of the variation in forecasted price. Decision usefulness is an ex ante concept, but tests regarding the usefulness of earnings for stock price generally have used actual (not expectational) data. Our evidence suggests that earnings expectations are decision useful, where the decision context is sell-side analysts' stock price forecasts. Our results are potentially important to users of sell-side analyst research reports. When a stock recommendation is accompanied only by short-run earnings forecasts, investors need to closely examine estimates of non-earnings variables to assess the quality of stock recommendations. In contrast, when stock recommendations are accompanied by both short-run and long-run earnings forecasts, investors need to examine estimates of non-earnings information variables less closely.

Extant literature suggests that income smoothing, as measured by unit-free measures such as the correlation between pre-managed earnings and discretionary accruals, creates value. We recognize that income smoothing also drives up the volatility of discretionary accruals due to larger dollar amounts of smoothing efforts. We find that although the unit-free aspect of income smoothing is associated with higher future returns, the volatility aspect is associated with lower future returns. Taken together, high levels of future returns associated with the correlation measure are completely offset by negative future returns associated with the volatility measure over one-month to five-year horizons. These findings are robust to a battery of control variables and to different measures of income smoothing, and robust for industry groupings and firms adopting similar income-smoothing practices. Our results cast doubts on the ability of income smoothing to create value for shareholders over time. In particular, although the literature suggests that investors value smooth firm performance, artificially dampening the variabilities of reported earnings over time does not fool investors. Instead, income smoothing destroys value because investors are more sensitive to the increase in information asymmetry brought about by the volatility measure than to the decrease in information asymmetry brought about by the correlation measure.

Contrary to the recent literature which suggests that accrual quality predicts low returns, we find a strong and long-lasting positive relation between the accrual quality measure of Dechow and Dichev (2002) (DD) and future returns. In decile portfolios that rank on DD, a hedge portfolio that goes long in the lowest decile and short in the highest decile generates an annualized, risk-adjusted return in the order of 10% from one-month to five-year horizons.The findings are robust to common risk factors and return-informative variables and to alternative accrual quality measures, are not subsumed by transaction costs and short-sale constraints, and extend to related measures of accrual volatility. The return premiums related to DD also give rise to a DD-based factor that prices a number of Fama-French portfolios. We show that the pricing of DD is consistent with the convexity valuation of uncertainty of Pastor and Veronesi (2003), in that managers fail to improve the firm's accrual quality over time and thus impose a relatively constant degree of uncertainty for investors to learn about the firm.

This research reports that an increasing level of accounting conservatism over the 1973–2005 period is associated with (1) an increase in the ability of current earnings to predict future cash flows (a measure of relevance, e.g., Kim and Kross, 2005); and (2) a decrease in the ability of current earnings to predict future earnings (a measure of reliability in the Richardson et al. [2005] sense). We also find that usefulness of earnings for explaining stock prices over book values is positively related to reliability but not to relevance. Our results hold for the constant and full samples and in both in-sample and out-of-sample analyses and are also robust to the use of different measures for relevance, reliability, earnings usefulness, and conservatism. Our findings about the relations between conservatism, relevance, reliability, and usefulness suggest a trade-off between relevance and reliability and seem to indicate that the adoption of an increasing number of conservative accounting standards possibly has an adverse impact on earnings usefulness through their negative effects on reliability.

We report on the magnetic properties of thoroughly characterized Zn1-xCoxO epitaxial thin films, with low Co concentration, x=0.003-0.005. Magnetic and EPR measurements, combined with crystal field theory, reveal that isolated Co2+ ions in ZnO possess a strong single ion anisotropy which leads to an "easy plane" ferromagnetic state when the ferromagnetic Co-Co interaction is considered. We suggest that the peculiarities of the magnetization process of this state can be viewed as a signature of intrinsic ferromagnetism in ZnO:Co materials., 4 pages, 4 figures

Under current Canadian securities regulatory requirements, public companies are able to choose whether to have their interim financial statements reviewed by external auditors on a quarter by quarter basis, but they must disclose when there has been no review performed. This differs from US practice where the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires a timely review of interim financial statements by the company’s auditor. Thus, the Canadian regulatory environment provides a natural laboratory to study the association between the determinants of voluntary reviews and earnings quality. Our study provides evidence that large and highly levered firms with independent board of directors tend to have their interim statements reviewed voluntarily. Moreover, quarterly discretionary accruals of reviewed firms are generally smaller than those of non-reviewed firms, reflecting better earnings quality. We control for possible self-selection bias in our empirical tests.

In a rather contradictory situation regarding magnetic data on Co-doped ZnO, we have succeeded in fabricating high-quality single crystalline Zn1-xCoxO (x=0.003-0.07) thin films. This gives us the possibility, for the first time, to examine the it intrinsic magnetic properties of ZnO:Co at a quantitative level and therefore to address several unsolved problems, the major one being the nature of the Co-Co interaction in the ZnO structure., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures,accepted for publication in PRL

The 1991 amendment to the auditor appointment requirement of Section 86 of the Ontario Municipal Act removes certain barriers to entry into the Ontario municipal audit market. The purpose of this study is to provide evidence that the amendment has enhanced competition in this market. The results indicate that there is a general reduction in the real municipal audit fees, compared to the pre-amendment levels. However, notwithstanding the heightened competition, the Big-Six audit firms continue to command audit fee premiums over the non Big-Six audit firms. This suggests that Big-Six audit fee premiums possibly reflect brand name reputation rather than monopoly/oligopoly rents.

Selon les observations des auteurs, l’augmentation du degre de prudence comptable au cours de la periode s’echelonnant de 1973 a 2005 est associee aux facteurs suivants : 1) les proprietes previsionnelles croissantes des resultats de l’exercice en ce qui a trait aux flux de tresorerie futurs et 2) les proprietes previsionnelles decroissantes des resultats de l’exercice en ce qui a trait aux resultats futurs. Les auteurs constatent egalement que l’utilite des resultats pour expliquer le cours des actions par rapport aux valeurs comptables est en relation positive avec la fiabilite, mais non avec la pertinence. Les resultats de l’etude se verifient pour l’echantillon constant et l’echantillon integral, a la fois dans les analyses sur echantillon et hors echantillon, et ils resistent a l’utilisation d’autres indicateurs de pertinence, de fiabilite, d’utilite des resultats et de prudence. Les conclusions des auteurs au sujet des relations entre la prudence, la pertinence, la fiabilite et l’utilite semblent accrediter l’existence d’un compromis entre pertinence et fiabilite et paraissent indiquer que l’adoption d’un nombre croissant de normes comptables prudentes pourrait etre prejudiciable a l’utilite des resultats en raison d’une incidence negative sur la fiabilite.

Canadian firms that list securities on U.S. stock exchanges are generally required to provide a reconciliation of reported income measured using Canadian generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) to reported earnings measured using U.S. GAAP. This paper examines both the magnitudes and the information content of the reported reconciliations between CanadianGAAP income and U.S.GAAP income. Two recent studies of cross-country GAAP differences do not address U.S.-Canada differences because of perceived similarities between GAAP in the two countries (Amir, Harris, and Venuti [1993] and McQueen [1993]). If U.S.-Canada GAAP differences are in fact unimportant, then no further examination is warranted. Professional bodies, however, are

Department of Chemistry, Jadavpur University, Calcutta-700 032 Manuscript received 31 August 1984, revised 17 May 1988, accepted 17 August 1988 A better selective, sensitive, simple and rapid chloroform extractive spectrophoto­metric method for the determination of cerium(iv) using o-iodobenzoyl-o-tolylhydroxyl­amine (OIBOTHA) has been developed. The colour system of CeIV-OIBOTHA, extracted from ammoniacal medium, in the presence of α-picoline, obeys Beer's law at\(\lambda\) max. 450 urn for 0.40 - 32 ppm of CeIV, the optimum concentration range being 1.5 — 30 ppm. The percentage relative error is 2.65% according to Ayer's equation, the molar absorptivity 5.744 x 102dm2mol-1cm-1 and the Sandell sensitivity for an absorbance of 0.001 is 0.0244 \(\mu\)g cm-2. The stoichiometric composition of the complex is found to be 1 : 4 (metal - ligand), Over forty cations and anions do not interfere. The method has been tested on few synthetic samples containing cerium(iv) and the result are encouraging.

Clausenolide, a limonoid from Clausena heptaphylla, is shown by chemical, spectroscopic, and X-ray crystallographic studies to be a pentanortriterpenoid with a rearranged ring A.

BACKGROUND. In some active multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions, a strong immune reaction at the lesion edge may contain growth and thereby isolate the lesion from the surrounding parenchyma. Our previous studies suggest that this process involves opening of the blood-brain barrier in capillaries at the lesion edge, seen on MRI as centripetal contrast enhancement and a colocalized phase rim. We hypothesized that using these features to characterize early lesion evolution will allow in vivo tracking of tissue degeneration and/or repair, thus improving the evaluation of potential therapies for chronic active lesions. METHODS. Centripetally and centrifugally enhancing lesions were studied in 17 patients with MS using 7-tesla MRI. High-resolution, susceptibility-weighted, T1-weighted (before/after gadolinium), and dynamic contrast–enhanced scans were acquired at baseline and months 1, 3, 6, and 12. For each lesion, time evolution of the phase rim, lesion volume, and T1 hypointensity were assessed. In autopsies of 3 progressive MS cases, the histopathology of the phase rim was determined. RESULTS. In centripetal lesions, a phase rim colocalized with initial contrast enhancement. In 12 of 22, this phase rim persisted after enhancement resolved. Compared with centripetal lesions with transient rim, those with persistent rim had less volume shrinkage and became more T1 hypointense between months 3 and 12. No centrifugal lesions developed phase rims at any time point. Pathologically, persistent rims corresponded to an iron-laden inflammatory myeloid cell population at the edge of chronic demyelinated lesions. CONCLUSION. In early lesion evolution, a persistent phase rim in lesions that shrink least and become more T1 hypointense over time suggests that the rim might mark failure of early lesion repair and/or irreversible tissue damage. In later stages of MS, phase rim lesions continue to smolder, exerting detrimental effects on affected brain tissue. TRIAL REGISTRATION. NCT00001248. FUNDING. The Intramural Research Program of NINDS supported this study.

Objectives: To detect and localize MRI signal changes prior to the parenchymal contrast enhancement that classically defines the radiologic onset of the developing white matter lesion in multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods: We reviewed 308 high-resolution (≤1 mm3 voxels) MRI scans at 3T and 7T in 29 patients with active MS. The presence of pre-parenchymal enhancement abnormalities before the appearance of parenchymal enhancement was evaluated in all available scans. Results: Pre-enhancement signal changes were noted in 26 of 162 enhancing lesions (16%) as linear enhancement of the central vein and/or perivenular hyperintense signal on T2 fluid-attenuated inversion recovery or T2* images. They occur up to 2 months before focal enhancement within the parenchyma in 10% of cases. Conclusions: In some lesions, the abrupt opening of the blood-brain barrier, detected by contrast enhancement on MRI, can have directly visible antecedent MRI changes centered on the central vein. We propose that these findings might be the basis for prior reports of subtle pre-parenchymal enhancement changes in quantitative MRI indices. In line with the venulocentric model of lesion development, our findings are consistent with the centrality of early perivenular events in lesion formation in vivo.