Investment, protection, ownership, and the cost of capital

We investigate the cost of capital in a model with an agency conflict between inside managers and outside shareholders. Inside ownership reflects the classic tradeoff between incentives and risk diversification, and the severity of agency costs depends on a parameter representing investor protection. In equilibrium, the marginal cost of capital is a weighted average of terms reflecting both idiosyncratic and systematic risk, and weaker investor protection increases the weight on idiosyncratic risk. Using firm-level data from 38 countries, we estimate the predicted relationships among investor protection, inside ownership, and the marginal cost of capital. We discuss implications for the determinants of firm size, the relationship between Tobin's Q and ownership, and the effect of financial liberalizations.Investor protection, ownership, investment, cost of capital, agency costs

Hydrogen contamination in Ge-doped SiO[sub 2] thin films prepared by helicon activated reactive evaporation

Germanium-doped silicon oxidethin films were deposited at low temperature by using an improved helicon plasma assisted reactive evaporation technique. The origins of hydrogen contamination in the film were investigated, and were found to be H incorporation during deposition and postdeposition water absorption. The H incorporation during deposition was avoided by using an effective method to eliminate the residual hydrogen present in the depositionsystem. The microstructure, chemical bonds, chemical etch rate, and optical index of the films were studied as a function of the deposition conditions. Granular microstructures were observed in low-density films, and were found to be the cause of postdeposition water absorption. The granular microstructure was eliminated and the film was densified by increasing the helicon plasma power and substrate bias during deposition. A high-density film was shown to have no postdeposition water absorption and no OH detected by using a Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer

An Open Workflow Environment to Support Learning Data Science

The vast majority of visual tools to learn computing focus on imperative and object-oriented programming. This paper outlines a graphical tool and language which is makes functional programming accessible to inexperienced learners, while also supporting open access to the data and executable results for study and deployment. We believe that both the broadening of the range of programming paradigms and the open approach embedded in the tools make the materials valuable for learning

Nifty with data: can a business intelligence analysis sourced from open data form a nifty assignment?

This paper proposes a *nifty assignment* in data mining and discusses how quality in database assignments differs from other domains in computer science, particularly programming. It then considers the sources of data used, to study whether Open Data can form the basis of more such assignments, and if so how. In the next sections, we describe the nifty assessment criteria and explain why use them as a standard for quality of assessment. We then propose an assignment which outlines a number of topics related to finding and accessing Open Data, merging sources, and analysing the data using self-service and data mining tools. Once the assignment is clear, we will reconsider it against the nifty criteria, but also consider how the criteria themselves apply to the area of data mining which has few assignments proposed. Finally, we will consider whether the basis of this assignment, the use of Open Data as a source of data to analyse, can be extended to different cases and examples, and if so how. Keyword : Nifty assignments; Open Data; Business Intelligence; Computer Science Educatio

Investment, protection, ownership, and the cost of capital

We investigate the cost of capital in a model with an agency conflict between inside managers and outside shareholders. Inside ownership reflects the classic tradeoff between incentives and risk diversification, and the severity of agency costs depends on a parameter representing investor protection. In equilibrium, the marginal cost of capital is a weighted average of terms reflecting both idiosyncratic and systematic risk, and weaker investor protection increases the weight on idiosyncratic risk. Using firm-level data from 38 countries, we estimate the predicted relationships among investor protection, inside ownership, and the marginal cost of capital. We discuss implications for the determinants of firm size, the relationship between Tobin's Q and ownership, and the effect of financial liberalizations

Identifying the best Pichia pastoris base strain using functional genomics

Market sizes for novel breakthrough therapies and growing demand for existing treatments in emerging markets promise to challenge the current capacity for production of biologics. These trends dictate the need for a concomitant paradigm shift in biomanufacturing toward greater productivity for lower cost. Strain engineering is a promising means to realize the greatest returns by increasing the product titer going into downstream processes. Current cellular hosts are approaching saturation of optimal productivity due to lack of deep biological understanding or limitations of the host’s intrinsic secretion capacity. We demonstrate an approach informed by functional genomics to understand key performance differences between interchangeably-used variants of the host, Pichia pastoris. Genomic variant calling on all USDA-banked and commercially-available strains revealed varying numbers of SNPs relative to the WT strain, Y-11430. Combining transcriptomics and traditional phenotypic assays, the functional impact of these SNPs can inform which host strain is best suited for a given application. Taken together, we have identified key, beneficial SNPs that can be introduced into a WT background to create an IP-free host primed for optimal protein production