PRC

This study examined corporate governance mechanisms and financial reporting quality of listed commercial banks in Nigeria. The population of the study consists of all listed commercial banks on the stock exchange as at 31 December 2018. A sample of nine (9) listed commercial banks were selected and data were collected over the period 2008 to 2018. Descriptive statistics and panel Least Square regression were used for the data analysis. The findings reveal that board size and audit committee were negative and exerted significant impact on financial reporting quality of listed commercial banks while board independence is significant and exerts a positive influence on financial reporting quality of listed commercial banks in Nigeria. Female directorship does not have a significant relationship with financial reporting quality of listed commercial banks in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that steps should be taken by regulators to stipulate stiffer penalty on firms engaging in e...

In the recounting of national history, wars are often the focus of the narrative and are regarded as turning points in the story of a nation. The history curriculum, through which a nation’s wars are portrayed to young people, is therefore closely guarded and controlled by modern states worldwide. Drawing on the assumption that knowledge put into circulation in history textbooks is a salient place for examining quasi-official notions of how the nation came into being and of how citizens of the nation and people in general are to be imagined, this paper explores how PRC history textbooks present issues of war and conflict to contemporary high-school students. Employing critical discourse analysis, I consider not only the contents of the books, but also what is absent from them, and ask what purposes may be served by this absence. I further examine the tone and rhetoric of the textbooks and their accompanying teaching guides, as well as the sub-texts, that is, how pictures, first- hand accounts, labels, questions, or maps, are brought together to construct a complex representational system. In particular, I ask: Do contemporary PRC textbooks and teaching guides present war as a perpetual condition, or as an anomaly? To what extent do the authors of these texts give a specific moral comment on the involvement of China or of other nations in violent conflict? Do they address the human impact of war, and if so, is there a focus on the plight of Chinese, or of all nations? Finally, what is the position of Chinese textbooks and teaching guides concerning the role of war and conflict in modern nation-building processes? By examining these and other questions, I seek to determine the extent to which China's history curriculum currently attempts to convey a militaristic or a peaceful message to students, and also to highlight the specific role of war stories in contemporary Chinese historical imagination.

Abstract Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are specialized hybrid electric vehicles that have the potential to obtain enough energy for average daily commuting from batteries. These batteries would be charged from the power grid at home or at work and would thus ...

Amodel is presented based on a comprehensive analysis of Biblical references for the origin, variation, and continuation of human populations. This paradigm is compared to a breadth of paleontological, bioanthropological, and archaeological evidence regarding human origins. The model provides a more comprehensive explanation for the array of human origins data, especially the (1) alleged evidence for the greater antiquity of anatomically modern human bones, (2) the temporal coexistence of modern and non-modern human populations such as H. erectus and Neanderthals, (3) variation in the morphological traits of human populations, and (4) the continuation of only modern human populations or Homo sapiens sapiens into the present Holocene period.

The role of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in East Asia’s recovery from the recent global financial and economic crisis highlighted the PRC’s growing role as an engine of growth for the region. From the viewpoint of the PRC, there are many potential gains from entering into free trade agreements (FTAs) with its neighbors, who collectively form a large and fast-growing market. In this paper we qualitatively and quantitatively assess the four main permutations of the PRC’s FTAs with the region’s major economies: PRC–ASEAN, PRC–Japan, PRC–Republic of Korea, and ASEAN+3. We compare the effects of the FTAs on the PRC’s output and welfare. Our comparative analysis shows that the PRC would gain from all three bilateral FTAs, while gaining the most from a larger region-wide FTA such as ASEAN+3.

ABSTRACT Abbreviations DCA = detrended correspondence analysis; CCA = constrained correspondence analysis; GLMM = generalized linear mixed model; PRC = principal response curves. Abstract Questions: What are the effects of conifer invasion on plant species composi-tion and richness of coastal heathlands; do effects differ between heathlands invaded by introduced or native coniferous tree species? Location: Threatened coastal Calluna heathlands, western Norway. Methods: We compared the effects of invasion by introduced Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis (Bong.) Carr.) and native Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) on heathland plant communities by focusing on the local impacts of single coniferous tree can-opies. For each of 58 target coniferous trees (2–4-m tall), 2-m transects were laid out in a north and south orientation from the tree stem to beyond the tree can-opy, and control transects were laid out in open heathland adjacent to the target trees. Vascular plants and bryophytes were recorded within 0.0625 m 2 contigu-ous quadrats along the transects. Principal response curves (PRC) and general-ized linear mixed models (GLMMs) were used to investigate tree canopy effects on species composition and richness. Results: Invasion by coniferous trees induced considerable changes in the coastal heathland vegetation: distinct microcommunitites developed beneath the canopies of relatively young, single coniferous trees in the heathlands. There was a marked difference in subcanopy species composition under the introduced Sitka spruce relative to the native Scots pine; forest floor species had colonized to a greater extent under Sitka spruce, replacing the light-demanding species characteristic of the coastal heathland vegetation. Conclusion: Our study showed that conifer invasion induces considerable and rapid changes in heathland vegetation, and that the effects were stronger under the introduced conifer. This suggests that Sitka spruce invasion may pose a more immediate threat to the characteristic coastal heathland vegetation and flora than succession based on native conifers. The open coastal heathlands along the Atlantic coast of Western Europe are a threatened landscape of high conserva-tion value, and our results suggest that the spread of Sitka spruce into these landscapes should be controlled, especially in heathlands that are targeted for conservation.

A Chinese language, partial, translation of a much longer paper addressing the roots of the Global Financial Crisis 2008-2009, examining proposed structural and regulatory remedies worldwide but with particular reference to the PRC financial sector and its pre-Financial Crisis reform program, and advocating for increased liberalization in the PRC, but renewed macro-prudential regulation globally.

The English version of this article can be found at: ssrn.com/abstract=2007287Chinese Abstract: 本文是对一介绍中华人民共和国内幕交易的法律和现实中中国国内资本市场打击内幕交易的执法行动的英文章节的中文译本。本章着重于中国证券监管者根据内部监管指引所创立的极其宽泛的内幕交易责任范围。 其范围明显背离2006 年中国证券法所禁止的狭窄的内幕交易范围。尽管证券法了建立一个相对狭窄的传统/诚信义务和非法获取责任理论的组合，监管机构 指引在正式文本和实际应用中都确保交易者对在仅仅拥有内幕信息时进行交易负有责任。本文以 对这一问题对中国本身不断增长的资本市场及其监管和其作为全球市场一部分的意义的思考作为结论。 英文原文 （"Punishing Possession - China's All-Embracing Insider Trading Enforcement Regime"）发表于"Research Handbook On Insider Trading", Edward Elgar Publishing, Northampton, MA, Research Handbooks in Corporate Law and Governance, 327-46 (Stephen Bainbridge, ed., 2013).English Abstract: Chinese translation of an English language chapter that presents a general introduction to the law of insider trading in the People's Republic of China, and the reality of enforcement against insider trading in China's domestic capital markets. The chapter focuses on the extremely broad scope of insider trading liability created under internal administrative guidance formulated by the Chinese securities regulator, which departs significantly from the more narrowly-drawn insider trading prohibition established in China's 2006 Securities Law. Although the statute establishes a relatively narrow combination of the classical/fiduciary duty plus misappropriation theories for liability, the agency guidance -- formally and in application -- assures liability for trading when merely in possession of inside information. The paper concludes with a meditation on what this problem might mean for China's growing capital markets and regulation of them, in isolation and as those markets become ever more integrated with global markets. The original English version of the writing was published as "Punishing Possession - China's All-Embracing Insider Trading Enforcement Regime" in "Research Handbook On Insider Trading", Edward Elgar Publishing, Northampton, MA, Research Handbooks in Corporate Law and Governance, 327-46 (Stephen Bainbridge, ed., 2013).

The basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor stem cell leukaemia (SCL) is a 'master regulator' of haematopoiesis, where SCL is pivotal in cell fate determination and differentiation. SCL has also been detected in CNS, where other members of the bHLH-family have been shown to be indispensable for neuronal development; however, no detailed expression pattern of SCL has so far been described. We have generated a map of SCL expression in the embryonic and adult mouse brain based on histochemical analysis of LacZ reporter gene expression in sequential sections of brain tissue derived from SCL-LacZ knockin mice. The expression of LacZ was confirmed to reflect SCL expression by in situ hybridisation. LacZ expression was found in a range of different diencephalic, mesencephalic and metencephalic brain nuclei in adult CNS. Co-localisation of LacZ with the neuronal marker NeuN indicated expression in post-mitotic neurons in adulthood. LacZ expression by neurons was confirmed...