The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides a formal, logically-based classification of specific protein classes including structured representations of protein isoforms, variants and modified forms. Initially focused on proteins found in human, mouse and Escherichia coli, PRO now includes representations of protein complexes. The PRO Consortium works in concert with the developers of other biomedical ontologies and protein knowledge bases to provide the ability to formally organize and integrate representations of precise protein forms so as to enhance accessibility to results of protein (...) research. PRO (http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro) is part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. (shrink)

Data envelopment analysis is a popular mathematical tool for analyzing the relative efficiency of homogenous decision-making units. However, the existing DEA models cannot tackle the newly confronted applications with imprecise and negative data as well as undesirable outputs simultaneously. Thus, we introduce undesirable outputs into modified slack-based measure model and propose an interval-modified slack-based measure model, which extends the application of interval DEA in fields that concern with less undesirable outputs. The novelties of the model are that it considers the (...) undesirable outputs while dealing with imprecise and negative data, and it is slack-based. Furthermore, the model with undesirable outputs is proven translation-invariant and unit-invariant. Moreover, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the changes of the lower and upper bounds of the efficiency score after considering the undesirable outputs. The empirical results show that, without considering undesirable outputs, most of the lower bounds of the efficiency scores will be overestimated when the DMUs are weakly efficient and inefficient. The upper bound will also change after considering undesirable outputs when the DMU is inefficient. Finally, an improved degree of preference approach is introduced to rank the DMUs. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) web resource provides an integrative framework for protein-centric exploration and enables specific and precise annotation of proteins and protein complexes based on PRO. Functionalities include: browsing, searching and retrieving, terms, displaying selected terms in OBO or OWL format, and supporting URIs. In addition, the PRO website offers multiple ways for the user to request, submit, or modify terms and/or annotation. We will demonstrate the use of these tools for protein research and annotation.

This study investigates the relationship between the ethical, educational, and disciplinary development of professional accountancy organizations in a given country and the development of that country’s stock market. Using a comprehensive measure based on the responses of the major PAOs in 36 countries to a questionnaire designed by the International Federation of Accountants to assess the development of PAOs internationally, we find a significantly positive association between the development of PAOs and stock market development. In addition, we find the positive (...) association between the development of PAOs and stock market development to be more pronounced in countries with higher levels of investor protection, a stronger public enforcement environment, or lower levels of corruption, suggesting the importance of complementary institutions in the relationship between PAOs and stock market development. We also find that better-developed PAOs are associated with better-quality financial reporting. Finally, our result also shows that relative to the investigation and discipline mechanism and educational requirements imposed by PAOs, the ethical development of a country’s professional accountants appears to have the strongest positive association with a country’s stock market development. (shrink)