New Venture Opportunity Cost of Capital and Financial Contracting

Investments in new ventures involve financial contracts between an entrepreneur and outside investors. Investors, such as venture capital firms, represent well-diversified investors. In contrast, the entrepreneur must commit a substantial fraction of human and financial capital to the venture. Consequently, the entrepreneur's required rate of return depends on total risk, in the context of the entrepreneur’s other assets. In this paper, we use the Capital Asset Pricing Model as an approximation of the asset pricing model used by well-diversified investors. Accordingly, the entrepreneur faces the risk-return tradeoff of the CAPM as the opportunity cost of holding an under-diversified portfolio that includes investment in the venture. We model the required rate of return of the entrepreneur, assuming investment in the venture is one of two assets in the portfolio and that the other is the market portfolio. We explore opportunities for value creation when the parties to a financial contract have different costs of bearing risk. We also present empirical data on factors relevant to new venture cost of capital estimation.

Why are IPOs underpriced? Evidence from Japan's hybrid auction-method offerings

Until October 1997, firms wishing to go public in Japan were required to use a hybrid auction process where up to half of the issue (the auction tranche) was offered to investors via a discriminatory auction. Remaining shares (the public offer tranche) were sold a few days later by a firm commitment at a fixed price. We document underpricing and partial adjustment of IPO public offer prices in Japan's auction regime, a regime where: investors are symmetrically informed or information differences are not important; roadshows are not held; preferential allocations to any investor are negligible; and institutional investing is low. The results raise important questions about theoretical interpretations of IPO underpricing in the U.S. We consider a broad range of competing, but non-mutually-exclusive, hypotheses about the reasons for underpricing and partial adjustment. Japan's auction-method evidence is most consistent with a quasicontractual allocation of risk related to initial mispricing. The risk allocation hypothesis is that, in exchange for guaranteeing a minimum price to the issuer, the underwriter participates indirectly in upside performance. The underwriter benefits from underpricing because underpriced IPOs are easier to place and because the underwriter can allocate small positions in the underpriced shares to preferred customers in implicit exchange for other benefits. As average underpricing in our sample is about three times as great as the underwriter's fee, and as some IPOs are severely underpriced, we cannot exclude the possibility that underpricing is affected by agency cost and prospect theory considerations similar to those suggested by Ritter and Welch (2002) in their review of the U.S. IPO market

New Venture Opportunity Cost of Capital and Financial Contracting

Investments in new ventures involve financial contracts between an entrepreneur and outside investors. Investors, such as venture capital firms, represent well-diversified investors. In contrast, the entrepreneur must commit a substantial fraction of human and financial capital to the venture. Consequently, the entrepreneur's required rate of return depends on total risk, in the context of the entrepreneur's other assets. In this paper, we use the Capital Asset Pricing Model as an approximation of the asset pricing model used by well-diversified investors. Accordingly, the entrepreneur faces the risk-return tradeoff of the CAPM as the opportunity cost of holding an under-diversified portfolio that includes investment in the venture. We model the required rate of return of the entrepreneur, assuming investment in the venture is one of two assets in the portfolio and that the other is the market portfolio. We explore opportunities for value creation when the parties to a financial contract have different costs of bearing risk. We also present empirical data on factors relevant to new venture cost of capital estimation

The effects of roflumilast, a phosphodiesterase type-4 inhibitor, on EEG biomarkers in schizophrenia: A randomised controlled trial

Background: Patients with schizophrenia have significant cognitive deficits, which may profoundly impair quality of life. These deficits are also evident at the neurophysiological level with patients demonstrating altered event-related potential in several stages of cognitive processing compared to healthy controls; within the auditory domain, for example, there are replicated alterations in Mismatch Negativity, P300 and Auditory Steady State Response. However, there are no approved pharmacological treatments for cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Aims: Here we examine whether the phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitor, roflumilast, can improve neurophysiological deficits in schizophrenia. Methods: Using a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design study in 18 patients with schizophrenia, the effect of the phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitor, roflumilast (100 µg and 250 µg) on auditory steady state response (early stage), mismatch negativity and theta (intermediate stage) and P300 (late stage) was examined using electroencephalogram. A total of 18 subjects were randomised and included in the analysis. Results: Roflumilast 250 µg significantly enhanced the amplitude of both the mismatch negativity (p=0.04) and working memory-related theta oscillations (p=0.02) compared to placebo but not in the other (early- or late-stage) cognitive markers. Conclusions: The results suggest that phosphodiesterase-4 inhibition, with roflumilast, can improve electroencephalogram cognitive markers, which are impaired in schizophrenia, and that phosphodiesterase-4 inhibition acts at an intermediate rather than early or late cognitive processing stage. This study also underlines the use of neurophysiological measures as cognitive biomarkers in experimental medicine

Cherenkov Telescopes as Optical Telescopes for Bright Sources: Today's Specialised Thirty Metre Telescopes?

Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) use large-aperture (~ 10 - 30 m) optical telescopes with arcminute angular resolution to detect TeV gamma-rays in the atmosphere. I show that IACTs are well-suited for optical observations of bright sources (V <= 8 - 10), because these sources are brighter than the sky background. Their advantages are especially great on rapid time-scales. Thus, IACTs are ideal for studying many phenomena optically, including transiting exoplanets and the brightest gamma-ray bursts. In principle, an IACT could achieve millimagnitude photometry of these objects with second-long exposures. I also consider the potential for optical spectroscopy with IACTs, finding that their poor angular resolution limits their usefulness for high spectral resolutions, unless complex instruments are developed. The high photon collection rate of IACTs is potentially useful for precise polarimetry. Finally, I briefly discuss the broader possibilities of extremely large, low resolution telescopes, including a 10" resolution telescope and spaceborne telescopes.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted by MNRA

Wytyczne ESC/ESH dotyczące postępowania w nadciśnieniu tętniczym (2018)

SŁOWA KLUCZOWE: wytyczne, nadciśnienie tętnicze, ciśnienie tętnicze, pomiar ciśnienia tętniczego, progi rozpoznania i cele terapeutyczne leczenia nadciśnienia tętniczego, zależne od nadciśnienia powikłania narządowe, modyfikacje stylu życia, farmakoterapia, terapia złożona, leczenie inwazyjne, wtórne nadciśnienie tętnicz

Key Learning Outcomes for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Education in Europe: A Modified Delphi Study.

Harmonizing clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CPT) education in Europe is necessary to ensure that the prescribing competency of future doctors is of a uniform high standard. As there are currently no uniform requirements, our aim was to achieve consensus on key learning outcomes for undergraduate CPT education in Europe. We used a modified Delphi method consisting of three questionnaire rounds and a panel meeting. A total of 129 experts from 27 European countries were asked to rate 307 learning outcomes. In all, 92 experts (71%) completed all three questionnaire rounds, and 33 experts (26%) attended the meeting. 232 learning outcomes from the original list, 15 newly suggested and 5 rephrased outcomes were included. These 252 learning outcomes should be included in undergraduate CPT curricula to ensure that European graduates are able to prescribe safely and effectively. We provide a blueprint of a European core curriculum describing when and how the learning outcomes might be acquired

LATE ELIZABETHAN SATIRIC POETRY AND BEN JONSON\u27S COMICALL SATYRES

The volumes of English satiric verse of the late 1590s are generally presumed to heterogeneous collections devoid of formal structure. This belief proceeds from our awareness that many individual satires and epigrams were circulated in manuscript prior to their appearance in printed editions. When we read one of these satiric volumes in its entirety we are often overwhelmed by the great variety of abuses attacked and by the number of satiric techniques employed. All of these reinforce our impression of formlessness, of a lack of artistic design in the volume as a whole. This dissertation questions this prevailing assumption through close reading of the major collections of late Elizabethan satiric verse. In each of the volumes studied the careful arrangement of poems shows the satiric poet attempting to create an overall artistic structure and a satiric plot concerned with the changing perceptions of the satirist, the fictive persona of the work, to the world he excoriates. This analysis of the variety of structures and plots in the contemporary satiric volumes that Ben Jonson would have known sheds new light on Jonson\u27s Comicall Satyres and on the nature and extent of his indebtedness to contemporary verse satire. The new interest in Roman satiric genres was sparked by the epigrams of Sir John Davies and the verse satires of Joseph Hall. Although these poets revitalized the elegant perspective of Martial and the moral indignation of Juvenal, they failed to acclimate these two modes of assertive satire to a morally self-conscious Christian community acutely aware of original sin. Shortly after these works were published a poetic reaction set in--a reaction expressed in the development of an ironic satiric mode which exposed the underlying pretensions of assertive satire and transformed the image of the satirist from a wit or moralist into that of a comical jester and hypocrite. To understand Elizabethan ironic satire, this dissertation analyzes the work of Everard Guilpin, long considered merely an imitator of Marston and Donne. Through a close reading of Guilpin\u27s Shadowe of Truth one finds both an original satiric voice and the clearest explication of ironic satire. Guilpin\u27s Satire I is seminal for it not only exemplifies the technique of Guilpin and Marston, it also explains their method. An understanding of Guilpin\u27s bifurcated satiric--a satire ostensibly censuring the world while ironically criticizing its own presumption--is essential for the realization of Marstonian satiric structure. A study of Marston\u27s two satiric volumes shows them duplicating the basic structural design of Guilpin, creating a mock-heroic satirist caricaturing the arrogant stance of his assertive predecessors. Marston\u27s ironic perspective is clarified by authorial digressions which overtly criticize Hall for those same sins that Marston\u27s own satirist gleefully commits. The analysis of Donne\u27s Satyres demonstrates the first successful integration of the self-conscious perspective of fallen man with the public, social role of satiric verse. Donne\u27s satiric plot defines the limitations of the satirist in the real world and utilizes this awareness as a catalyst to stimulate a reformed satirist and to authenticate his necessary role in society. A reading of Donne\u27s To Sir Edward Herbert at Julyers explicates much of Donne\u27s satiric concerns and provides a basis for this study of his Satyres. An examination of Jonson\u27s Comicall Satyres demonstrates profound indebtedness to Elizabethan Satire. Every Man Out is a dramatic realization of the ironic mode of Marston and Guilpin. In Cynthia\u27s Revels, however, Jonson moves to a Donnean conception of the satirist and his social function. Finally, the Poetaster, Jonson completely rejects the comical, ironic mode and affirms a virtuous image of the poet and his necessary role in a moral community