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The use of Apps running on smartphones and tablets profoundly affects medicine. The MASK-rhinitis (MACVIA-ARIA Sentinel NetworK for allergic rhinitis) App (Allergy Diary) assesses allergic rhinitis symptoms, disease control and impact on patients' lives. It is freely available in 20 countries (iOS and Android platforms). AIMS: To assess in a pilot study whether (i) Allergy Diary users were able to properly provide baseline characteristics (ii) simple phenotypic characteristics based upon data captured by the Allergy Diary could be identified and (iii) information gathered by this study could suggest novel research questions. METHODS: The Allergy Diary users were classified into six groups according to the baseline data that they entered into the App: (i) asymptomatic; (ii) nasal symptoms excluding rhinorrhea; (iii) rhinorrhea; (iv) rhinorrhea plus 1-2 nasal/ocular symptoms; (v) rhinorrhea plus ≥3 nasal/ocular symptoms; and (vi) rhinorrhea plus all nasal/ocular symptoms. RESULTS: By 1 June 2016, 3260 users had registered with the Allergy Diary and 2710 had completed the baseline questionnaire. Troublesome symptoms were found mainly in the users with the most symptoms. Around 50% of users with troublesome rhinitis and/or ocular symptoms suffered work impairment. Sleep was impaired by troublesome symptoms and nasal obstruction. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first App (iOS and Android) to have tested for allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis. A simple questionnaire administered by cell phones enables the identification of phenotypic differences between a priori defined rhinitis groups. The results suggest novel concepts and research questions in allergic rhinitis that may not be identified using classical methods info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

BACKGROUND: This paper reports the 4-year safety and effectiveness of the INCRAFT® AAA Stent-Graft System (Cordis Corp., Milpitas, CA, USA), an ultra-low-profile device for the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms. METHODS: The INNOVATION Trial is the prospective, first-in-human, multicenter trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the INCRAFT® System. Patients underwent annual clinical and computed tomography angiography examination as part of the study protocol. The IN CRAF T® AAA Stent-Graft System is a customizable tri-modular design, with an ultra-low profile (14-Fr) delivery system. Patient were treated under approved protocol, the prescribed clinical and imaging follow-up at annually through 5 years. Results analyzed and adjudicated by a clinical events committee, independent core laboratory, and a data safety and monitoring board. This manuscript reports results through 4 years of follow-up. RESULTS: A total of 60 patients were enrolled in the trial, all of whom were successfully treated. Follow-up rates at 1 and 4 years were 93% (56/60) and 85% (51/60), respectively. All-cause mortality at 4 years was 17.6% and no death was AAA-, device-, or procedure-related. The secondary reintervention rate at 1 year was 4.6%, primarily the result of stent thrombosis. In total, 10 patients required 13 post-procedure interventions within 4-years of follow-up (2 to repair a type I endoleak, 4 to repair a type II endoleak, 1 for stent thrombosis, 1 for renal stenosis, 1 for aneurysm enlargement, 2 for limb migration and 2 for prosthesis stenosis or occlusion). There were 4 cases (10%) of aneurysm enlargement reported at the 4 year follow-up. At 4 years, 38 out of 39 patients were free from type I and III endoleaks. There were no proximal type I or type III endoleaks at 4-year follow-up. Core laboratory evaluation of the postoperative imaging studies indicated absence of endograft migration while a single fracture was demonstrated without any clinical sequelae. CONCLUSIONS: The INCRAFT® AAA Stent-Graft System provides a minimally invasive and durable solution for patients undergoing EVAR that has been associated with a low frequency of device-related events through 4 years of follow-up.

The design of an efficiency optimal controller for the variator in a vehicular continuously variable transmission is studied. A conventional controller aims at tracking a prescribed reference for the transmission ratio and at preventing damage, but does not address efficiency. Sufficiently accurate models for the efficiency as function of the clamping forces are not available, whereas measurement of the efficiency requires extra sensors. In this brief, a controller is proposed that improves the efficiency without needing extra sensors. The maps between the clamping forces (input) and the efficiency or the speed ratio (output) are studied with test rig experiments. These maps exhibit a maximum, but the location of this maximum is uncertain. So, an extremum seeking controller is developed. This controller can adapt the input to maximize the output, without needing a model. Experiments show that this approach is feasible and that a conventional controller is outperformed. A robustness analysis for disturbances indicates that these are effectively handled.

The driving force behind financial identity theft is the acquisition of financial assets. Money is the main motivator. Perpetrators of financial identity theft predominantly acquire these financial assets from financial service providers. This demonstrates the vital value of financial service providers in the overall problem of financial identity theft. The significance of financial service providers is evident; yet, the role and associated responsibility of financial service providers is often a source of conflict and inconsistency. This conflict centers around the question of whether financial service providers embody the role of victim, villain, or both with respect to identity theft. Throughout the literature, especially in the past, financial service providers have received empathy due to financial losses suffered as a result of identity theft. To many, financial service providers are the true victims of financial identity theft. Through the rise of critical academics and interest groups, the potential facilitation, or the villain aspect, of financial service providers stepped out of the ‘victim’s’ shadow. Since the acknowledgement of the facilitation of financial identity theft by financial service providers gained more prominence, the business practices used to realize such facilitation also became the object of increased scrutiny. Financial service providers predominately include banks and credit card companies. Other relevant actors included in this chapter are supervisory organs and consumer reporting agencies since their involvement in the financial world, and therefore their inclusion in this chapter, assists in the development of a more comprehensive image of the relevant interactions in the financial services sector. Furthermore, their inclusion is also vital for the background descriptions of various developments with regard to business practices. This chapter reviews business practices based on three different phases including the acquisition of clients, the application process, and the account activity of existing clients. The first two aspects are particularly relevant for the potential facilitation of true name fraud, whereas the last phase predominantly concerns account takeover.

Besides its function as protector of the people, the state also maintains a function as provider, at least since the early modern state (early nineteenth century). As provider, the state is responsible for the establishment of an identification infrastructure to serve as a framework for the provision of (social) services, and also to administer other aspects of daily life such as taxes, healthcare, education, employment of citizens, and others. Paul Schwartz captures the intricate connection between the service administration and its need for personal information. As Schwartz writes, “[t]he state gathers information because distribution of social services is impossible without detailed information on the citizen as client, customer, or simply person to be controlled.” Moreover, the identification infrastructure established by the state also becomes the framework used in, for example, the financial services sectors. This makes the identification infrastructure important for both the public and the private sector. This chapter provides an overview of the main components of the identification infrastructure in both the United States and the Netherlands. The main components include identification information, ‘identification’ numbers, identification documents, and instruments used for electronic identification or authentication.

The idea of a jigsaw puzzle is a suitable metaphor for the problem of financial identity theft. The previous five chapters provide an in-depth and detailed overview of the individual pieces of the puzzle, or rather the facilitating factors of financial identity theft. This chapter, in contrast, takes a step back to observe the entire puzzle, or the broad picture, in an effort to develop an opportunity structure. Ronald V. Clarke uses the notion of a crime opportunity structure to demonstrate the interdependent relationship between crime opportunity and a variety of societal aspects. These include socio-economic structure, including demographics and geography, as well as lifestyle/routine activity and physical environment. All of these aspects influence the core of the crime opportunity structure which contains the victims, targets, and facilitators. Since the opportunity structure takes a comprehensive approach to the social context of crime, its construction for financial identity theft must contain both the overarching features of all facilitating factors as well as an understanding of the underlying mechanisms which nurture them. This is precisely why the usage of the process tracing approach was appropriate to gain valuable background information about the underlying mechanisms which established the (potential) facilitating factors as well as the process of facilitation of financial identity theft itself.

This study examines the properties of the information contained in analysts’ earnings forecasts for mandatory IFRS adopters in Europe for the period 2003-07. We find a significant increase in the precision of both public and private information after switching to IFRS, especially for forecasts pertaining to 2006 and later. However, we are unable to detect a change in the consensus among financial analysts after the mandatory adoption of IFRS. These results suggest that the higher percentage increase in the precision of common information is offset by a proportionate increase in the precision of private information such that consensus among analysts does not change. When exploring analyst-specific precision in more detail, we find that the analysts who are following firms in more than one European country experience the largest post-IFRS improvement in private information precision. These results hold after controlling for factors that are shown in prior research to be correlated with analysts’ information precision measures. Taken together, our results suggest that mandatory adoption of IFRS had a significant and positive effect on the information processing of financial analysts but this did not occur homogeneously across analysts.

In this paper, we examine whether mandatory adoption of IFRS influences the flow of firm-specific information and contributes to stock price informativeness as measured by stock return synchronicity. Using a constant sample of 1,904 mandatory IFRS adopters in 14 EU countries for the period 2003-2007, we find a V-shaped pattern in synchronicity around IFRS adoption, which is consistent with IFRS disclosures revealing new firm-specific information in the adoption period (i.e., a reduction of synchronicity) and subsequently lowering the surprise of future disclosures (i.e., an increase in synchronicity). We also find mandatory IFRS adoption increases analysts’ ability to incorporate industry-level information into stock price. However, we are unable to detect a reduction in the private information advantage enjoyed by institutional owners post-IFRS adoption. Moreover, we find the synchronicity effects to be more pronounced for firms in countries with larger differences in local GAAP relative to IFRS. Overall, our evidence yields novel insights on the consequences of mandatory IFRS adoption by investigating its effect on stock price informativeness and the distinctive roles played by a firm’s information environment.

Due to the increased competition on capital markets and given the global importance of US markets, IFRS and US GAAP are competing to become the world standards set. Although comparable in many aspects, IFRS and US GAAP still differ in accounting for some transactions. This paper addresses the question whether specific accounting differences between IFRS and US GAAP determine the individual firm's accounting standard preference. The results show that firms prefer that accounting regime that offers them the largest flexibility (i.e. less disclosure or more measurement options) on relevant accounting items (e.g. R&D expenditures). Furthermore, the flexibility in measurement seems to result in accounting numbers that are significantly valued by investors.