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Studies of corporate reporting that focus on information disclosure do so primarily from a mandatory, financial perspective owing the decision to the rationality of corporate actors. Yet, social and environmental disclosures-often reported voluntarily-are increasing in importance because of their impact on a firm's performance and perceived value. Likewise, disclosure decisions are made based on managerial choice, often being communicated for a specific strategic purpose. The aim of this article is to illuminate the importance of voluntary disclosures as an aspect of corporate reporting and to integrate the deterministic and behavioral elements of disclosure decisions. A taxonomy of the disclosure process, activities, tasks, forms, types, and strategies is provided to add to our understanding of the additive and corrective nature of proactively disclosing information either to provide context to existing disclosures or to use information in a preventive manner.

Complex glycans cover the gut epithelial surface to protect the cell from the environment. Invasive pathogens must breach the glycan layer before initiating infection. While glycan degradation is crucial for infection, this process is inadequately understood. Salmonella contains 47 glycosyl hydrolases (GHs) that may degrade the glycan. We hypothesized that keystone genes from the entire GH complement of Salmonella are required to degrade glycans to change infection. This study determined that GHs recognize the terminal monosaccharides (N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac), galactose, mannose, and fucose) and significantly (p < 0.05) alter infection. During infection, Salmonella used its two GHs sialidase nanH and amylase malS for internalization by targeting different glycan structures. The host glycans were altered during Salmonella association via the induction of N-glycan biosynthesis pathways leading to modification of host glycans by increasing fucosylation and mannose content, while decreasing sialylation. Gene expression analysis indicated that the host cell responded by regulating more than 50 genes resulting in remodeled glycans in response to Salmonella treatment. This study established the glycan structures on colonic epithelial cells, determined that Salmonella required two keystone GHs for internalization, and left remodeled host glycans as a result of infection. These data indicate that microbial GHs are undiscovered virulence factors.

Aberrant glycosylation has been observed for decades in essentially all types of cancer, and is now well established as an indicator of carcinogenesis. Mining the glycome for biomarkers, however, requires analytical methods that can rapidly separate, identify, and quantify isomeric glycans. We have developed a rapid-throughput method for chromatographic glycan profiling using microfluidic chip-based nanoflow liquid chromatography (nano-LC)/mass spectrometry. To demonstrate the utility of this method, we analyzed and compared serum samples from epithelial ovarian cancer cases (n = 46) and healthy control individuals (n = 48). Over 250 N-linked glycan compound peaks with over 100 distinct N-linked glycan compositions were identified. Statistical testing identified 26 potential glycan biomarkers based on both compositional and structure-specific analyses. Using these results, an optimized model was created incorporating the combined abundances of seven potential glycan biomarkers. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of this optimized model had an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.96, indicating robust discrimination between cancer cases and healthy controls. Rapid-throughput chromatographic glycan profiling was found to be an effective platform for structure-specific biomarker discovery.