On October 23, 2000, the SEC implemented Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure), which prohibits firms from privately disclosing value-relevant information to select securities markets professionals without simultaneously disclosing the same information to the public. We examine whether Regulation FD's prohibition of selective disclosure impairs the flow of financial information to the capital markets prior to earnings announcements. After implementation of FD, we find (1) improved informational efficiency of stock prices prior to earnings announcements, as evidenced by smaller deviations between pre-and post-announcement stock prices; (2) no reliable evidence of change in analysts' earnings forecast errors or dispersion; and (3) a substantial increase in the volume of firms' voluntary, forward-looking, earnings-related disclosures. Overall, we find no evidence Regulation FD impaired the information available to investors prior to earnings announcements, and some of our evidence is consistent with improvement.

No abstract

BackgroundHepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a serious public health problem worldwide. Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HBV is the major mode of transmission in HBV-endemic areas, including China, where little is known about pregnant women’s knowledge of and attitudes towards HBV infection and MTCT.MethodsA cross-sectional survey, conducted in pregnant women in Guangdong Province, China, measured HBV knowledge and attitudes using a questionnaire, at one tertiary and two rural hospitals.ResultsThe total response rate was 94.5% (737/780). Of the 11 knowledge questions, the mean score was 6.73 ± 3.04 (mean ± SD). Most pertinent to preventing MTCT, 53.3% of the respondents did not know that HBV can be transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse and nearly 20% did not know that HBV can be transmitted from mother to infant. The results of the four attitude questions was better with 83% and 85% being willing to be screened for HBV and let their baby receive HBV vaccine and HBIg, respectively. However, only 16.5% of respondents agreed that they would be willing to take drugs that are known not to harm the fetus to prevent MTCT of HBV. In multivariable analysis, higher education level was associated with better knowledge and attitude scores.ConclusionsKnowledge about HBV among pregnant women was poor and needs to be improved to prevent MTCT of HBV. Health education needs to be directed towards pregnant mothers, particularly less educated mothers, in high HBV endemicity settings.

This study was conducted from the strategic marketing perspective to test the impact of brand relationship types on brand loyalty. We also test three path effects of brand love and brand trust. Data were collected from three metropolitan customers who use tablet PCs. We obtained 383 valid samples, giving a valid response rate of 89%. Data analysis was performed with SmartPLS2.0 and SPSS 23.0 to test the proposed model. The results indicate that an expressive brand relationship significantly predicts brand trust and brand loyalty. In turn, brand trust has a positive influence on brand love, while brand awareness and brand love influence attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Expressive brand relationship has two indirect mediating affects via brand trust and brand love, which influence brand loyalty. Finally, we suggest managerial implications and directions for future research.

No abstract

This paper studies structural controllability for a networked dynamic system (NDS), in which each subsystem may have different dynamics, and unknown parameters may exist both in subsystem dynamics and in subsystem interconnections. In addition, subsystem parameters are parameterized by a linear fractional transformation (LFT). It is proven that controllability keeps to be a generic property for this kind of NDSs. Some necessary and sufficient conditions are then established respectively for them to be structurally controllable, to have a fixed uncontrollable mode, and to have a parameter dependent uncontrollable mode, under the condition that each subsystem interconnection link can take a weight independently. These conditions are scalable, and in their verifications, all arithmetic calculations are performed separately on each subsystem. In addition, these conditions also reveal influences on NDS controllability from subsystem input-output relations, subsystem uncontrollable modes and subsystem interconnection topology. Based on these observations, the problem of selecting the minimal number of subsystem interconnection links is studied under the requirement of constructing a structurally controllable NDS. A heuristic method is derived with some provable approximation bounds and a low computational complexity.

No abstract

Some necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the stability of a networked system with linear time invariant dynamics. Connections among its subsystems are fixed but arbitrary, and every subsystem can have different dynamics. Based on these results, some necessary or sufficient conditions are further obtained for both its stability and robust stability, which essentially depend only on parameter matrices of each individual subsystem and the subsystem connection matrix. This characteristic makes them attractive in the analysis and synthesis of a large scale networked system.