In recent years, firms reporting revisions of prior financial statements outnumber those reporting restatements. Misstatements that are material to prior periods are required to be reported as ...restatements, whereas immaterial errors can be reported as revisions. Based on SEC guidance and widely used materiality benchmarks, I find a significant percentage (29%) of revisions are suspect in that they meet at least one materiality criterion. These suspect revisions are 15% to 29% more likely to be reported when managers have a strong incentive to avoid restatements—when they face the threat of a compensation clawback for reporting a restatement. This result is especially salient when the clawback policy does not require misconduct for recoupment and when the error correction significantly reduces prior period net income. Overall, this evidence suggests that some managers use materiality discretion opportunistically to report misstatements as revisions instead of restatements.
Résumé
Signaler les anomalies sous forme de révisions : une évaluation de la discrétion exercée par les gestionnaires en matière d'importance relative
Ces dernières années, les entreprises qui divulguent des révisions d'états financiers d'exercices antérieurs sont plus nombreuses que celles qui divulguent des retraitements. Les anomalies qui ont une incidence sur les périodes antérieures doivent être signalées sous forme de retraitements, tandis que les erreurs mineures peuvent être signalées sous forme de révisions. Sur la base des directives de la SEC et des indices de référence en matière d'importance relative, l'auteure constate qu'un pourcentage significatif (29 %) des révisions est suspect, car elles répondent à au moins un critère d'importance relative. Ces révisions suspectes sont de 15 % à 29 % plus susceptibles d'être divulguées lorsque les gestionnaires sont fortement incités à éviter les retraitements, c'est‐à‐dire lorsqu'ils sont confrontés à la menace d'un recouvrement de la rémunération pour avoir divulgué un retraitement. Ce résultat est particulièrement important lorsque la politique de récupération de la rémunération n'exige pas d'inconduite pour le recouvrement et lorsque la correction de l'erreur réduit considérablement le résultat net de la période précédente. Dans l'ensemble, ces données suggèrent que certains gestionnaires exercent la discrétion en matière d'importance relative de manière opportuniste pour signaler des anomalies sous forme de révisions plutôt que de retraitements.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The role of social support in antiretroviral therapy (ART) uptake and retention among pregnant and postpartum women in Ghana's capital, Accra, has received limited attention in the literature. This ...cross-sectional study extends existing knowledge by investigating the role of social support in ART adherence and retention among pregnant and postpartum women in Accra.
We implemented a cross-sectional study in eleven (11) public health facilities. Convenience sampling approach was used to recruit 180 participants, out of which 176 with completed data were included in the study. ART adherence in the three months preceding the survey (termed consistent uptake), and ART retention were the outcomes of interest. Initial analysis included descriptive statistics characterized by frequencies and percentages to describe the study population. In model building, we included all variables that had p-values of 0.2 or lesser in the bivariate analysis to minimize negative confounding. Overall, a two-sided p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Data were analyzed using Stata version 14.1 (College Station, TX).
In the multivariate model, we realized a lower odds trend between social support score and consistent ART adherence, however, this was insignificant. Similarly, both the univariate and multivariate models showed that social support has no relationship with ART retention. Meanwhile, urban residents had a higher prevalence of ART adherence (adjusted Prevalence ratio (aPR) = 2.04, CI = 1.12-3.73) relative to rural/peri-urban residents. As compared to those below age 30, women aged 30-34 (aPR = 0.58, CI = 0.34-0.98) and above 35 (aPR = 0.48, CI = 0.31-0.72) had lower prevalence of ART adherence Women who knew their partner's HIV status had lower prevalence of ART adherence compared to those who did not know (aPR = 0.62, CI = 0.43-0.91). Also, having a rival or co-wife was significantly associated with ART retention such that higher prevalence of ART adherence among women with rivals relative to those without rivals (aOR = 1.98, CI = 1.16-3.36).
Our study showed that social support does not play any essential role in ART adherence among the surveyed pregnant and postpartum women. Meanwhile, factors such as having a rival and being under the age of thirty play an instrumental role. The study has signaled the need for ART retention scale-up interventions to have a multi-pronged approach in order to identify the multitude of underlying factors, beyond social support, that enhance/impede efforts to achieve higher uptake and retention rates.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
ABSTRACT
This study examines the impact of cross‐firm financial statement comparability on regulatory oversight of accounting quality. Required to review each firm's periodic filings at least once ...every three years, the SEC learns about the degree to which a firm's accounting system is comparable to those of its peers. We posit that the SEC's ex ante knowledge about financial statement comparability, gleaned from prior‐year filing reviews, facilitates its evaluation of firms' accounting quality during the current‐year filing review. Consistent with the notion that comparable accounting systems enhance regulators' ability to identify discretionary accounting deviations, we find that the likelihood of the SEC issuing a comment letter for higher abnormal accruals increases with financial statement comparability. Further analysis reveals that the regulatory benefits from higher financial statement comparability are more salient when the SEC faces higher monitoring constraints in filing reviews. Moreover, our finding shows that comparable accounting numbers across firms help the SEC detect severe accounting violations that necessitate restatements. Overall, we provide novel evidence suggesting that higher financial statement comparability improves the efficacy of the SEC's oversight of accounting quality by reducing the information costs associated with cross‐firm comparisons.
RÉSUMÉ
La comparabilité des états financiers facilite‐t‐elle la surveillance de la SEC?
Cette étude examine l'impact de la comparabilité des états financiers interentreprises sur la surveillance règlementaire de la qualité comptable. Comme la SEC est obligée d'examiner les déclarations périodiques de chaque entreprise au moins une fois tous les trois ans, elle découvre dans quelle mesure le système comptable d'une entreprise est comparable à celui de ses pairs. Les auteurs avancent que les connaissances ex ante de la SEC sur la comparabilité des états financiers, acquises lors des révisions des déclarations des années précédentes, facilitent son évaluation de la qualité comptable des entreprises lors des révisions des déclarations de l'année en cours. Conformément à l'idée selon laquelle des systèmes comptables comparables améliorent la capacité des autorités de règlementation à identifier les écarts comptables discrétionnaires, les auteurs constatent que la probabilité que la SEC émette une lettre de commentaires pour de plus amples régularisations comptables anormales augmente avec la comparabilité des états financiers. Une analyse plus approfondie révèle que les avantages règlementaires d'une plus grande comparabilité des états financiers sont plus importants lorsque la SEC est confrontée à des contraintes de contrôle plus élevées lors des révisions des déclarations. En outre, leurs résultats montrent que des chiffres comptables comparables entre les entreprises aident la SEC à détecter les violations comptables graves qui nécessitent des retraitements. Dans l'ensemble, les auteurs fournissent des données inédites suggérant qu'une plus grande comparabilité des états financiers améliore l'efficacité de la surveillance de la qualité comptable par la SEC en réduisant les couts d'information associés aux comparaisons interentreprises.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This study examines the use of tweaa tɕʏɪaa, an Akan emotive interjection that expresses “contempt” for a person, in the Corpus of GhanaWeb Comments in Ghana's 2016 Election (CGCGE16). CGCGE16 ...comprises reader comments posted in the build-up to Ghana's presidential elections in December 2016 on www.ghanaweb.com, a news website that guarantees freedom of speech and ensures citizen participation in online sociopolitical discussions. The study employs the semantic explication method of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to unpack the meaning of tweaa to give a fuller understanding of its rhetorical power in online political discourse. It points out that tweaa is derogatory and expresses lack of respect for the user's target, thus, according to traditional Ghanaian values, its use is unacceptable, especially during asymmetrical interactions. Citizens, however, hide behind the shield of anonymity online platforms guarantee, and their ability to circumvent traditional gatekeepers of acceptable speech forms during online discourse, and freely use tweaa to vent their feelings against authority figures.
•Tweaa tɕʏɪaa is an Akan emotive interjection that went viral in Ghana in 2014.•Tweaa is derogatory and expresses strong disapproval and contempt for a person.•It is used against national leaders in online discourse that guarantees anonymity.•A semantic explication for tweaa is proposed, phrased in cross-translatable words.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The present study examined the moderating effects of parental meta‐emotion philosophy on the relation between family stress and youth internalizing symptoms. A two‐study approach was applied to ...explore these relations in socioeconomically diverse samples with respect to a self‐reported parental emotion coaching (EC) and parental emotion dismissing (ED) meta‐emotion philosophy in Study 1 (N = 153; youth ages 10–17 years; 52% female; 49% White, 26% multiracial, 17% African American, 6% Asian American, 1% Latinx, and 1% American Indian) and observed parental EC and ED behaviors in whole‐family interactions in Study 2 (N = 82; youth ages 8–11.75 years; 52% female; 57% White, 22% African American, 19% multiracial, and 2% Asian). Across both studies, EC was a buffer such that positive associations between family stress and youth internalizing symptoms were only present when parental EC philosophy or EC behaviors were lower. Additionally, in Study 1, more EC was protective: the relation between family stress and youth internalizing symptoms was negative when parental EC philosophy was higher. Findings suggest parental EC buffers youth internalizing symptoms from the detrimental effects of family stress. Therefore, the inclusion of family‐level risk processes and the effects of both parental beliefs and observed parenting behaviors can inform research on youth psychosocial adjustment.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Mindfulness- and acceptance-based conceptualizations of PTSD implicate experiential avoidance and non-mindful behavior in the etiology and maintenance of the disorder. If experiential avoidance is ...associated with vulnerability to PTSD, then a mindful and accepting orientation toward experience may confer psychological resilience following exposure to trauma. This article examines how mindfulness- and acceptance-based theories of psychopathology relate to risk of and resilience to PTSD. Research is reviewed dealing with the impact of experiential avoidance, avoidant coping, dissociation, acceptance, and mindfulness on PTSD symptom severity and posttraumatic functioning. This review suggests that trait mindfulness and acceptance are associated with greater psychological adjustment following exposure to trauma, while experiential avoidance, persistent dissociation, and coping strategies involving emotional disengagement are associated with greater PTSD symptom severity and related psychopathology. Methodological challenges are explored and suggestions for future research and PTSD prevention programs are discussed.
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Several studies indicate that prognosis for survival in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) has improved in recent decades. However, published evidence is inconclusive and some estimates may be ...obsolete due to improvements in standards of care, in particular the routine use of mechanical ventilatory support in advanced stages of the disease. In this systematic review and meta-analysis (PROSPERO identifier: CRD42019121800), we searched MEDLINE (through PubMed), CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, and Web of Science for studies published from inception up until December 31, 2018, reporting results of life expectancy in DMD. We pooled median survival estimates from individual studies using the median of medians, and weighted median of medians, methods. Risk of bias was established with the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. Results were stratified by ventilatory support and risk of bias. We identified 15 publications involving 2662 patients from 12 countries from all inhabited continents except Africa. Median life expectancy without ventilatory support ranged between 14.4 and 27.0 years (pooled median: 19.0 years, 95% CI 18.0–20.9; weighted pooled median: 19.4 years, 18.2–20.1). Median life expectancy with ventilatory support, introduced in most settings in the 1990s, ranged between 21.0 and 39.6 years (pooled median: 29.9 years, 26.5–30.8; weighted pooled median: 31.8 years, 29.3–36.2). Risk of bias had little impact on pooled results. In conclusion, median life expectancy at birth in DMD seems to have improved considerably during the last decades. With current standards of care, many patients with DMD can now expect to live into their fourth decade of life.
Loss-of-control and overeating are common in adolescents with high body mass index (BMI). Mindfulness may affect negative affect, and both may relate to loss-of-control and overeating. Yet, there is ...limited understanding of these associations in adolescents' daily lives.
Forty-five adolescents (77% female; M
= 14.4 years, SD
= 1.7 years) with high weight (92% with BMI kg/m
≥85th percentile for age/sex) provided daily, repeated measurements of mindfulness, negative affect, loss-of-control, and overeating for ~7 days (M = 5.6 days; range = 1-13). Multilevel mixed modeling was conducted to test within-person (intraindividual) and between-person (interindividual) associations for the same-day (concurrent) and next-day (time-ordered/prospective).
There were within-person and between-person associations of higher mindfulness with lower negative affect on the same-day and next-day. Greater between-person mindfulness related to lower odds of adolescents' loss-of-control occurrence (same-day) and conversely, more perceived control over eating (same-day and next-day). Greater within-person mindfulness related to less odds of next-day overeating.
Dynamic relations exist among mindfulness, negative affect, and eating in adolescents at-risk for excess weight gain. Mindfulness may be an important element to consider in loss-of-control and overeating. Future work using momentary-data within an experimental design would help disentangle the intraindividual effects of increasing mindfulness/decreasing negative affect on disordered eating.
Loss-of-control and overeating are common in teenagers with high weight. Greater mindfulness-present-moment, non-judgmental attention-and less negative emotions may relate to healthier eating, but we do not know how these processes play out in teenagers' daily lives. Addressing this knowledge gap, the current findings showed that greater daily mindfulness, but not negative affect, related to less loss-of-control/overeating, suggesting the importance of mindfulness for eating patterns in teenagers' daily lives.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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