Government of the United States of America

About: Government of the United States of America is a government organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Nucleic acid. The organization has 4736 authors who have published 3799 publications receiving 60550 citations.

Corporate Disclosure Quality and the Cost of Debt

Abstract: This paper provides evidence that firms with high disclosure quality ratings from financial analysts enjoy a lower effective interest cost of issuing debt This finding is consistent with the argument that a policy of timely and detailed disclosures reduces lenders' and underwriters' perception of default risk for the disclosing firm, reducing its cost of debt The results also indicate that the relative importance of disclosures is greater in situations where there is greater market uncertainty about the firm as reflected by the variance of stock returns Since debt financing is an important source of external financing for publicly traded firms, the results have important implications on our understanding of the motives and consequences of corporate disclosures

Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Electric Vehicles

Abstract: Summary Electric vehicles (EVs) coupled with low-carbon electricity sources offer the potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and exposure to tailpipe emissions from personal transportation. In considering these benefits, it is important to address concerns of problemshifting. In addition, while many studies have focused on the use phase in comparing transportation options, vehicle production is also significant when comparing conventional and EVs. We develop and provide a transparent life cycle inventory of conventional and electric vehicles and apply our inventory to assess conventional and EVs over a range of impact categories. We find that EVs powered by the present European electricity mix offer a 10% to 24% decrease in global warming potential (GWP) relative to conventional diesel or gasoline vehicles assuming lifetimes of 150,000 km. However, EVs exhibit the potential for significant increases in human toxicity, freshwater eco-toxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and metal depletion impacts, largely emanating from the vehicle supply chain. Results are sensitive to assumptions regarding electricity source, use phase energy consumption, vehicle lifetime, and battery replacement schedules. Because production impacts are more significant for EVs than conventional vehicles, assuming a vehicle lifetime of 200,000 km exaggerates the GWP benefits of EVs to 27% to 29% relative to gasoline vehicles or 17% to 20% relative to diesel. An assumption of 100,000 km decreases the benefit of EVs to 9% to 14% with respect to gasoline vehicles and results in impacts indistinguishable from those of a diesel vehicle. Improving the environmental profile of EVs requires engagement around reducing vehicle production supply chain impacts and promoting clean electricity sources in decision making regarding electricity infrastructure.

Is Adolescence a Sensitive Period for Sociocultural Processing

Abstract: Adolescence is a period of formative biological and social transition. Social cognitive processes involved in navigating increasingly complex and intimate relationships continue to develop throughout adolescence. Here, we describe the functional and structural changes occurring in the brain during this period of life and how they relate to navigating the social environment. Areas of the social brain undergo both structural changes and functional reorganization during the second decade of life, possibly reflecting a sensitive period for adapting to one's social environment. The changes in social environment that occur during adolescence might interact with increasing executive functions and heightened social sensitivity to influence a number of adolescent behaviors. We discuss the importance of considering the social environment and social rewards in research on adolescent cognition and behavior. Finally, we speculate about the potential implications of this research for society.

Focused evolution of hiv-1 neutralizing antibodies revealed by crystal structures and deep sequencing

Abstract: Antibody VRC01 represents a human immunoglobulin that neutralizes -∼90% of diverse HIV-1 isolates. To understand how such broadly neutralizing HIV-1 antibodies develop and recognize the viral envelope, we used X-ray crystallography and 454 pyrosequencing to characterize additional antibodies from HIV-1-infected individuals. Crystal structures revealed a convergent mode of binding of different antibodies to the same CD4-binding-site epitope. Antibody recognition was achieved through the evolution of complementary contact domains that were generated in diverse ways. Phylogenetic analysis of expressed heavy and light chains determined by deep sequencing revealed a common pathway of antibody heavy chain maturation confined to IGHV1-2*02 lineage that could pair with different light chains. The maturation pathway inferred by antibodyomics reveals that diverse antibodies evolve to a highly affinity-matured state to recognize an invariant viral structure, providing insight into the development and evolution of broadly neutralizing HIV-1 immunity.

A Survey of Systemic Risk Analytics

Abstract: We provide a survey of 31 quantitative measures of systemic risk in the economics and finance literature, chosen to span key themes and issues in systemic risk measurement and management. We motivate these measures from the supervisory, research, and data perspectives in the main text, and present concise definitions of each risk measure - including required inputs, expected outputs, and data requirements - in an extensive appendix. To encourage experimentation and innovation among as broad an audience as possible, we have developed open-source Matlab code for most of the analytics surveyed.