The Impact of Disclosure Sentiment on the Share Prices of Russian Companies

Information about companies published in a news feed is invariably tinted by emotional tonality. As such, resultingperceptions may influence the opinion of market players, and consequently affect the dynamics of a company’s shareprice. This study aims to evaluate various hypotheses about the impact of the tone of news items regarding dividends,capital expenditures, and development on the stock prices of Russian companies. Information disclosure is extensivelystudied, and there have been limited studies on the effect of disclosures on Russian companies. However, until now, therehave been no research studies which verify hypotheses on the influence of news sentiment on corporate share prices inthe Russian market. This analysis was conducted using data from 49 Russian public companies included in the Moscow exchange indexover the period from the end of 2017 to the beginning of 2019. To account for the proximate impact of news items onconsequential market phenomena, an event study methodology was applied in order to estimate and construct themodels of dependency of cumulative abnormal return (CAR) on news tone level, and control for financial and nonfinancialfactors. Our results provide evidence for the positive impact of the tone of news texts on the share prices of Russian companies.The increase in news tone by one standard deviation leads to a cumulative abnormal stock return increase of 0.26percentage points. This result is consistent with previous research conducted on data from developed stock markets.Moreover, the relationship between the tone or sentiment level of a news item and the stock price reaction is linear,without the diminishing marginal effect. Our conclusions should prompt companies to invest effort in delivering information in a tonally positive way,highlighting the most positive news. Investors, in turn, should rationally approach the interpretation of publishedinformation.

“Bold and Ragged”: A Cross-Cultural Case for the Aesthetics of Melodic Angularity

Smaller corpora and individual pieces are compared to a large corpus of 2,447 hymns using two measures of melodic angularity: mean interval size and pivot frequency. European art music and West African melodies may exhibit extreme angularity. We argue in the latter that angularity is motivated by linguistic features of tone-level languages. We also found the mean interval sizes of African-American Spirituals and Southern Harmony exceed contemporary hymnody of the 19th century, with levels similar to Nigerian traditional music (Yorùbá oríkì and story songs from eastern Nigeria). This is consistent with the account of W. E. B. Du Bois, who argued that African melody was a primary source for the development of American music. The development of the American spiritual coincides with increasing interval size in 19th-century American hymnody at large, surpassing the same measure applied to earlier European hymns. Based on these findings, we recommend techniques of melodic construction taught by music theorists, especially preference rules for step-wise motion and gap-fill after leaps, be tempered with counterexamples that reflect broader musical aesthetics. This may be achieved by introducing popular music, African and African Diaspora music, and other non-Western music that may or may not be consistent with voice leading principles. There are also many examples from the European canon that are highly angular, like Händel’s “Hallelujah” and Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Although the tendency of textbooks is to reinforce melodic and part-writing prescriptions with conducive examples from the literature, new perspectives will better equip performers and educators for current music practice.

Assertiveness level 5

In the fifth level of assertiveness, words are harsh, denigrating, and disrespectful. 1. A student uses profanity in the classroom. We shout, “How dare you use that word in my class! Anyone who talks like that is low- class and stupid! You may be both, but you will not use that word in my class again!” 2. A friend tells us he/ she won’t be able to keep a commitment. We shout, “You always do this to me! I should have known that I couldn’t count on you to follow through. I don’t know why I even try to plan something fun for us. Just go ahead and cancel— I’ll find someone else to go with me who is more fun than you, anyway!” The intent in level 5 is to scold, insult, and brandish power. In this level of assertiveness, there is no assertiveness, just aggres­sion. We are mean- spirited, extinguishing nearly any immediate opportunity for peaceful reconciliation. Our facial expression shows hard eyes and extreme tension. Our tone of voice is loud or louder than normal, with an edgy, dismissive tone. Level 5 is all about emotion and using false power to shame, demean, and degrade someone. At this level of anger and sar­casm, we diminish others, whether or not they are present to hear us, whether or not we speak our words aloud. If we are thinking this level of vitriol, we are also likely feeling it. And such venom moves us further away from the calm, centered core to which many of us aspire. We may think that we are powerful as we ream another in level 5. But the power is false. We poison ourselves with the nasty words and extreme tension, even as we think we are upbraid­ing someone else. If we pay attention, we can see and feel the power leaking out of us as we show the worst of ourselves. Level 5 is at odds with healthy schools, healthy teachers, and healthy living. Our level 5 behaviors take a toll on those receiving them and, sometimes even more strongly, on those witnessing them.

Effects of the Novel High-affinity 5-HT(1B/1D)-receptor Ligand Frovatriptan on the Rat Carotid Artery

Background: In blood vessels 5-HT stimulates sympathetic nerves, the endothelium and vascular smooth muscle cells. Triptans are specific anti-migraine drugs and they activate the serotoninergic 5HT1b/d receptors causing vasoconstriction of the cerebral vessels. Aim: To evaluate the effect of frovatriptan on isolated rat carotid artery. Methods: Contractile activity of the preparations was registered isometrically. Krebs solution (pH = 7.4) was used for washing smooth muscle (SM) preparations aerated with 95% O2 and 5% CO2 at 37°C. The 60-minute adaptation of tone level of preparations was taken as a starting tone and the changes such as contraction or relaxation were calculated using it. Results: Frovatriptan (1×10-6 mol/l - 1×10-5 mol/l) induced a contraction, but at higher concentrations it caused relaxation of the carotid artery. The L-norepinephrine contractile reaction was enhanced in the presence of frovatriptan. In the presence of 5-HT2 receptor antagonist, methysergide, frovatriptan increased the relaxation. In the presence of the specific α-1 receptor antagonist, prazosin, the frovatriptan-induced relaxation decreased. Conclusion: The observed contractile effect of frovatriptan is probably associated with the main effect of the drug - activation of the serotoninergic 5HT1B /1D receptors causing vasoconstriction of the cerebral vessels and their anti-migraine effect. At higher concentrations, frovatriptan, most likely via some non-specific mechanism, could activate the following intracellular chain reaction: stimulation of α1D could activate eNOS which may increase in the concentration of NO which results in the final effect of relaxation.