We examine the effect of lending banks’ board representation (affiliated banker on board, or AFB) on conservative accounting. We argue that private information obtained through board representation enhances the monitoring and the influence of lenders and therefore reduces their demand for conservatism-facilitated debt contracting. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that conservatism is mar...

Exposure to genotoxic chemicals at a young age increases cancer incidence later in life. Aflatoxin B(1) (AFB(1)) is a potent genotoxin that induces hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in many animal species and in humans. Whereas adult mice are insensitive to aflatoxin-induced carcinogenesis, mice treated with AFB(1) shortly after birth develop a high incidence of HCC in adulthood. Furthermore, the ...

A field experiment was conducted during two consecutive growing seasons to determine and quantify the growth response of the olive (Olea europaea L. cv. Leccino) fruit and of its component tissues to tree water status. Pre-dawn leaf water potential (Psi(w)) and fruit volume were measured at about weekly intervals, and fresh weight (FW) and dry weight (DW) of the fruit tissues at 15, 20 and 21 w...

INTRODUCTION Paenibacillus larvae larvae (WHITE) is the causative agent of American foulbrood (AFB) in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.). This disease is lethal to honey bee colonies if curative control actions are not taken (HANSEN and BRØDSGAARD, 1997). Recently, increasing problems with AFB in Europe (DROBNÍKOVÁ,1992; HANSEN,1996; OTTEN, 1991; VON DER OHE et al. 1996) have renewed the interest ...

Background & Aim: Aflatoxin (AF) is the most important fungus that contaminates food and feed and can enter the food chain of humans. The aim of this study was to investigate the ability of thistle seeds (silybum marianum L.) to reduce the adverse effects of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) on the immune system, variables related to the intestine, appearance and mortality of t...

Early identification and isolation of tuberculosis patients is of utmost importance to minimize the risk of further epidemic spread of the disease. The traditional concentrated acid-fast smears are not very reliable tools for the presumptive diagnosis of tuberculosis. Acid-fast bacillus (AFB) smears from 120 patients specimens and 80 simulated AFB samples were processed according to standard la...

We investigate the forward-backward asymmetry, AFB, in b-quark pair production in protonantiproton collision at √ s = 1.96 GeV with the CDF detector. The soft muon tag technique has been applied to identify bb̄ production. Using the full CDF data set (6.9 fb−1) we have obtained the integrated asymmetry at particle level of AFB= (1.2 ± 0.7)% for dijet invariant mass above 40 GeV/c. Dependence of ...

BACKGROUND Effective protocols for the isolation and de-isolation of patients with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) are essential determinants of health-care costs. Early de-isolation needs to be balanced with the need to prevent nosocomial transmission of PTB. The aim of our study was to evaluate the efficiency of our hospital's current protocol for isolating and de-isolating patients wi...

To evaluate the efficacy of three sputum acid-fast bacillus (AFB) smears to rule out pulmonary tuberculosis, sputum AFB smear and culture results were analyzed at two university-affiliated teaching hospitals. The negative predictive value of the smear increased by only 0.2% on days 2 and 3 each, indicating that in low-prevalence populations, there is limited value in requiring three negative sp...

Methods The clinical specimens collected from HIV seropositive AFB smear negative patients (Group A) with features of TB, AFB smear positive, HIV reactive (Group B) and AFB smear positive, HIV negative (Group C) were processed as per standard protocol. They were inoculated onto Lowenstein Jensen media and the isolates obtained were subjected to drug susceptibility test (DST) by proportion metho...