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This paper documents significantly negative stock price reactions to shareholder-initiated class action lawsuits. We find that shareholders partially anticipate these lawsuits based on lawsuit filings against other firms in the same industry and capitalize part of these losses prior to a lawsuit filing date. We show that the more likely a firm is to be sued, the larger the partial anticipation effect (shareholder losses capitalized prior to a lawsuit filing date) and the smaller the filing date effect (shareholder losses measured on the lawsuit filing date). Our evidence suggests that previous research that typically focuses on the filing date effect understates the magnitude of shareholder losses, and that such an understatement is greater for firms with a higher likelihood of being sued.

This article examines the severity of the 2008 arbitrage crash in the convertible bond market by estimating how expensive it would have been to liquidate portfolio securities immediately. We consider whether funds actually demanded immediate liquidity or were able to delay trades. Our results indicate that the cost of immediacy was high, but that convertible bond sellers could largely avoid selling at fire sale prices. These results can be explained by dealers recognizing when trades are liquidity-motivated rather than information-based and by a shift to riskless principal trading, allowing dealers to avoid taking bonds into inventory.

Shared Leadership: Reframing the Hows and Whys of Leadership brings together the foremost thinkers on the subject and is the first book of its kind to address the conceptual, methodological, and practical issues for shared leadership. Its aim is to advance understanding along many dimensions of the shared leadership phenomenon: its dynamics, moderators, appropriate settings, facilitating factors, contingencies, measurement, practice implications, and directions for the future. The volume provides a realistic and practical discussion of the benefits, as well as the risks and problems, associated with shared leadership. It will serve as an indispensable guide for researchers and practicing managers in identifying where and when shared leadership may be appropriate for organizations and teams.

Background: The social interactions of farm animals affect their performance, health and welfare. This proof-of-concept study addresses, for the first time, the hypothesis that applying social network analysis (SNA) on AI-automated monitoring data could potentially facilitate the analysis of social structures of farm animals. Methods: Data were collected using automated recording systems that captured 2D-camera images and videos of pigs in six pens (16–19 animals each) on a PIC breeding company farm (USA). The system provided real-time data, including ear-tag readings, elapsed time, posture (standing, lying, sitting), and XY coordinates of the shoulder and rump for each pig. Weighted SNA was performed, based on the proximity of “standing” animals, for two 3-day period—the early (first month after mixing) and the later period (60 days post-mixing). Results: Group-level degree, betweenness, and closeness centralization showed a significant increase from the early-growing period to the later one (p < 0.02), highlighting the pigs’ social dynamics over time. Individual SNA traits were stable over these periods, except for the closeness centrality and clustering coefficient, which significantly increased (p < 0.00001). Conclusions: This study demonstrates that combining AI-assisted monitoring technologies with SNA offers a novel approach that can help farmers and breeders in optimizing on-farm management, breeding and welfare practices.

IntroductionLitter size in pigs has increased steadily since 1990. Because of unfavorable genetic correlations with piglet mortality, breeding goals should include survival traits next to litter size. Unbalanced breeding programs that neglect this requirement have produced increased mortality levels, attracting negative public attention. Balanced breeding does not have this disadvantage, but the general public is largely unaware of this.MethodsWe present long-term time trends as realized in commercial breeding. The data includes (i) phenotypes of litter size, piglet birth weight, and piglet mortality, as used in routine breeding value estimation; and (ii) the genomic Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (gBLUP) estimated breeding values thus obtained. Piglet mortality (2001–2022) and birth weight (2009–2022) phenotypes were related to litter size by recording year. Estimated breeding values (EBVs) for the mortality traits were regressed on those for litter size by birth year (2012–2022).ResultsAverage litter size is very weakly correlated to the mortality ( R 2 ≤ 0.06) and birth weight (0.07 ≤ R 2 ≤ 0.26) traits, and those correlations are unfavorable (antagonistic) within each year. However, all traits analyzed here show favorable simultaneous phenotypic and genetic trends over time: the antagonisms are neutralized by balanced breeding. Above the annual mean litter size level, farrowing and lactation mortality rates increased with increasing litter size in every year (unfavorable), but the annual intercepts and the slopes decreased from 2001 to 2022 (favorable). Average litter birth weight decreased with litter size in every year (unfavorable), but the annual intercepts increased and the slopes decreased from 2009 to 2022 (favorable). The within-litter birth weight variation coefficient increased with litter size in every year (unfavorable), but the annual intercepts decreased from 2009 to 2022 (favorable). The proportion of low birth weights (i.e.,< 0.9 kg) for a given litter size is decreasing over time, and the critical birth weight level (below which lactation mortality increases strongly) is clearly population dependent and changes over time too.DiscussionThe increases in litter size and piglet survival rates due to balanced breeding policies lead to reduced total numbers of dead piglets (i.e., per country, per year) coinciding with a certain pig production volume (i.e., with a certain total number of weaned piglets).

Reducing harmful aggressive behaviour remains a major challenge in pig production. Social network analysis (SNA) showed the potential in providing novel behavioural traits that describe the direct and indirect role of individual pigs in pen-level aggression. Our objectives were to (1) estimate the genetic parameters of these SNA traits, and (2) quantify the genetic associations between the SNA traits and commonly used performance measures: growth, feed intake, feed efficiency, and carcass traits. The animals were video recorded for 24 h post-mixing. The observed fighting behaviour of each animal was used as input for the SNA. A Bayesian approach was performed to estimate the genetic parameters of SNA traits and their association with the performance traits. The heritability estimates for all SNA traits ranged from 0.01 to 0.35. The genetic correlations between SNA and performance traits were non-significant, except for weighted degree with hot carcass weight, and for both betweenness and closeness centrality with test daily gain, final body weight, and hot carcass weight. Our results suggest that SNA traits are amenable for selective breeding. Integrating these traits with other behaviour and performance traits may potentially help in building up future strategies for simultaneously improving welfare and performance in commercial pig farms.

Immune cell infiltration has been implicated in neurotoxic chemotherapy for cancer treatment. However, our understanding of immune processes is still incomplete and current methods of observing immune cells are time consuming or invasive. Corneal dendritic cells are potent antigen-presenting cells and can be imaged with in-vivo corneal confocal microscopy. Corneal dendritic cell densities and nerve parameters in patients treated with neurotoxic chemotherapy were investigated. Patients treated for cancer with oxaliplatin (n = 39) or paclitaxel (n = 48), 3 to 24 months prior to assessment were recruited along with 40 healthy controls. Immature (ImDC), mature (MDC) and total dendritic cell densities (TotalDC), and corneal nerve parameters were analyzed from in-vivo corneal confocal microscopy images. ImDC was increased in the oxaliplatin group (Median, Md = 22.7 cells/mm 2 ) compared to healthy controls (Md = 10.1 cells/mm 2 , p = 0.001), but not in the paclitaxel group (Md = 10.6 cells/mm 2 ). ImDC was also associated with higher oxaliplatin cumulative dose (r = 0.33, p = 0.04) and treatment cycles (r = 0.40, p = 0.01). There was no significant difference in MDC between the three groups (p > 0.05). Corneal nerve parameters were reduced in both oxaliplatin and paclitaxel groups compared to healthy controls (p < 0.05). There is evidence of elevation of corneal ImDC in oxaliplatin-treated patients. Further investigation is required to explore this potential link through longitudinal studies and animal or laboratory-based immunohistochemical research.

Background/purpose Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a prominent side effect of the treatment of cancer. Despite this frequent complication, there has been no comprehensive review and quality appraisal of CIPN assessments. The purpose of this study is to provide a definitive quality appraisal of CIPN assessment strategies for clinical use. Methods Relevant studies were identified through database searches of Medline, Embase, CINAHL, and Cochrane. CIPN assessment strategies from included articles were extracted and initially rated by an oncologist and neurophysiologist according to criteria related to assessment depth, comprehensiveness, appropriateness, and reliability. The six highest scoring assessment strategies were the focus of a two-round Delphi survey of a working party of 32 physicians, nurses, and consumers to achieve consensus on the highest rated assessments for each criterion. Results The database search yielded 117 distinct CIPN assessments that were extracted from 2373 articles. Three patient-reported outcome surveys and three clinician-based assessments were included in the Delphi survey. No consensus was generated regarding the best overall CIPN assessment, although good (≥70%) consensus was achieved regarding the best assessment within each criterion. The Participant Neurotoxicity Questionnaire (PNQ) was rated the highest overall and patient-reported outcome (PRO) assessment, while the Total Neuropathy Score clinical version (TNSc) was the highest rated clinician-based assessment. Conclusions A diverse range of CIPN assessments currently exists. While several assessments assess CIPN symptoms with adequate comprehensiveness, depth, language, and feasibility, the consensus ‘gold standard’ clinical assessment remains to be established.

Background Genetic risk factors for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), a major dose-limiting side-effect of paclitaxel, are not well understood. Methods We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 183 paclitaxel-treated patients to identify genetic loci associated with CIPN assessed via comprehensive neuropathy phenotyping tools (patient-reported, clinical and neurological grading scales). Bioinformatic analyses including pathway enrichment and polygenic risk score analysis were used to identify mechanistic pathways of interest. Results In total, 77% of the cohort were classified with CIPN (n = 139), with moderate/severe neuropathy in 36%. GWAS was undertaken separately for the three measures of CIPN. GWAS of patient-reported CIPN identified 4 chromosomal regions that exceeded genome-wide significance (rs9846958, chromosome 3; rs117158921, chromosome 18; rs4560447, chromosome 4; rs200091415, chromosome 10). rs4560447 is located within a protein-coding gene, LIMCH1 , associated with actin and neural development and expressed in the dorsal root ganglia (DRG). There were additional risk loci that exceeded the statistical threshold for suggestive genome-wide association ( P  < 1 × 10 –5 ) for all measures. A polygenic risk score calculated from the top 46 ranked SNPs was highly correlated with patient-reported CIPN (r 2  = 0.53; P  = 1.54 × 10 –35 ). Overlap analysis was performed to identify 3338 genes which were in common between the patient-reported CIPN, neurological grading scale and clinical grading scale GWAS. The common gene set was subsequently analysed for enrichment of gene ontology (GO) and Reactome pathways, identifying a number of pathways, including the axon development pathway (GO:0061564; P  = 1.78 × 10 –6 ) and neuronal system (R-HSA-112316; adjusted P  = 3.33 × 10 –7 ). Conclusions Our findings highlight the potential role of axon development and regeneration pathways in paclitaxel-induced CIPN.