York University

About: York University is a education organization based out in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Politics. The organization has 18899 authors who have published 43357 publications receiving 1568560 citations.

Private equity returns and disclosure around the world

Abstract: To obtain more funds from the institutional investors, private equity (PE) fund managers may report inflated valuations of private investee companies that are not yet sold. However, such overvaluations may result in a reputational cost when those investments are realized. Using evidence from 39 countries, we show that there are significant systematic biases in managers' reporting of fund performance. We find that these biases depend on the accounting and legal environment in a country, and on proxies for the degree of information asymmetry between institutional investors and PE fund managers.

Family Perspectives on Aggressive Cancer Care Near the End of Life.

Abstract: Importance Patients with advanced-stage cancer are receiving increasingly aggressive medical care near death, despite growing concerns that this reflects poor-quality care. Objective To assess the association of aggressive end-of-life care with bereaved family members’ perceptions of the quality of end-of-life care and patients’ goal attainment. Design, Setting, and Participants Interviews with 1146 family members of Medicare patients with advanced-stage lung or colorectal cancer in the Cancer Care Outcomes Research and Surveillance study (a multiregional, prospective, observational study) who died by the end of 2011 (median, 144.5 days after death; interquartile range, 85.0-551.0 days). Exposures Claims-based quality measures of aggressive end-of-life care (ie, intensive care unit [ICU] admission or repeated hospitalizations or emergency department visits during the last month of life; chemotherapy ≤2 weeks of death; no hospice or ≤3 days of hospice services; and deaths occurring in the hospital). Main Outcomes and Measures Family member–reported quality rating of “excellent” for end-of-life care. Secondary outcomes included patients’ goal attainment (ie, end-of-life care congruent with patients’ wishes and location of death occurred in preferred place). Results Of 1146 patients with cancer (median age, 76.0 years [interquartile range, 65.0-87.0 years]; 55.8% male), bereaved family members reported excellent end-of-life care for 51.3%. Family members reported excellent end-of-life care more often for patients who received hospice care for longer than 3 days (58.8% [352/599]) than those who did not receive hospice care or received 3 or fewer days (43.1% [236/547]) (adjusted difference, 16.5 percentage points [95% CI, 10.7 to 22.4 percentage points]). In contrast, family members of patients admitted to an ICU within 30 days of death reported excellent end-of-life care less often (45.0% [68/151]) than those who were not admitted to an ICU within 30 days of death (52.3% [520/995]) (adjusted difference, −9.4 percentage points [95% CI, −18.2 to −0.6 percentage points]). Similarly, family members of patients who died in the hospital reported excellent end-of-life care less often (42.2% [194/460]) than those who did not die in the hospital (57.4% [394/686]) (adjusted difference, −17.0 percentage points [95% CI, −22.9 to −11.1 percentage points]). Family members of patients who did not receive hospice care or received 3 or fewer days were less likely to report that patients died in their preferred location (40.0% [152/380]) than those who received hospice care for longer than 3 days (72.8% [287/394]) (adjusted difference, −34.4 percentage points [95% CI, −41.7 to −27.0 percentage points]). Conclusions and Relevance Among family members of older patients with fee-for service Medicare who died of lung or colorectal cancer, earlier hospice enrollment, avoidance of ICU admissions within 30 days of death, and death occurring outside the hospital were associated with perceptions of better end-of-life care. These findings are supportive of advance care planning consistent with the preferences of patients.

Ecology under lake ice

Abstract: Winter conditions are rapidly changing in temperate ecosystems, particularly for those that experience periods of snow and ice cover. Relatively little is known of winter ecology in these systems, due to a historical research focus on summer ‘growing seasons’. We executed the first global quantitative synthesis on under-ice lake ecology, including 36 abiotic and biotic variables from 42 research groups and 101 lakes, examining seasonal differences and connections as well as how seasonal differences vary with geophysical factors. Plankton were more abundant under ice than expected; mean winter values were 43.2% of summer values for chlorophyll a, 15.8% of summer phytoplankton biovolume and 25.3% of summer zooplankton density. Dissolved nitrogen concentrations were typically higher during winter, and these differences were exaggerated in smaller lakes. Lake size also influenced winter-summer patterns for dissolved organic carbon (DOC), with higher winter DOC in smaller lakes. At coarse levels of taxonomic aggregation, phytoplankton and zooplankton community composition showed few systematic differences between seasons, although literature suggests that seasonal differences are frequently lake-specific, species-specific, or occur at the level of functional group. Within the subset of lakes that had longer time series, winter influenced the subsequent summer for some nutrient variables and zooplankton biomass.

Autonomous Vehicles that Interact with Pedestrians: A Survey of Theory and Practice

Abstract: One of the major challenges that autonomous cars are facing today is driving in urban environments. To make it a reality, autonomous vehicles require the ability to communicate with other road users and understand their intentions. Such interactions are essential between the vehicles and pedestrians as the most vulnerable road users. Understanding pedestrian behavior, however, is not intuitive and depends on various factors such as demographics of the pedestrians, traffic dynamics, environmental conditions, etc. In this paper, we identify these factors by surveying pedestrian behavior studies, both the classical works on pedestrian-driver interaction and the modern ones that involve autonomous vehicles. To this end, we will discuss various methods of studying pedestrian behavior, and analyze how the factors identified in the literature are interrelated. We will also review the practical applications aimed at solving the interaction problem including design approaches for autonomous vehicles that communicate with pedestrians and visual perception and reasoning algorithms tailored to understanding pedestrian intention. Based on our findings, we will discuss the open problems and propose future research directions.