"Does the Appointment of the Outside Director Increase Firm Value? The Evidence from Taiwan"

We examine the stock market reaction to the announcement of outside director appointments in Taiwan. We employ a sample of 58 outside director announcements made by Taiwan Stock Exchange listed firms during the period 1 January, 1999 to 30 June, 2003. Using this data, we can test some important hypotheses regarding the role of outside directors in conjunction with other conditions for corporate performance in affecting the stock market reactions. Our empirical findings indicate that there exists a significantly positive reaction to the announcements. The cumulative abnormal returns ---one indicator of stock market reaction measured by using the methodology of market model based event study --- reached 4.776%. We also find that the abnormal returns are positive and higher with respect to each of the following characteristics: poorer prior corporate performance, the CEO as chairman of the board, larger free cash flow and a higher degree of information asymmetry. Further, we find that the announcement effect is decreasing as number of outside directors increases. Our findings are different from existing literature, for instance, those of Lin, Pope and Young (2003) and Rosenstein and Wyatt (1990) mainly because the outside director appointment is not mandatory in Taiwan. This suggests that the announcement effects could be different across countries. The appointment appears to be more beneficial for a country with poor corporate governance mechanisms.

Seebeck Coefficients in Nanoscale Junctions: Effects of Electron-vibration Scattering and Local Heating

We report first-principles calculations of inelastic Seebeck coefficients in an aluminum monatomic junction. We compare the elastic and inelastic Seebeck coefficients with and without local heating. In the low temperature regime, the signature of normal modes in the profiles of the inelastic Seebeck effects is salient. The inelastic Seebeck effects are enhanced by the normal modes, and further magnified by local heating. In the high temperature regime, the inelastic Seebeck effects are weakly suppressed due to the quasi-ballistic transport.Comment: 3 Figure

Deterministic Dense Coding and Faithful Teleportation with Multipartite Graph States

We proposed novel schemes to perform the deterministic dense coding and faithful teleportation with multipartite graph states. We also find the sufficient and necessary condition of a viable graph state for the proposed scheme. That is, for the associated graph, the reduced adjacency matrix of the Tanner-type subgraph between senders and receivers should be invertible.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure;v2. discussions improve

Examining Stakeholder Perspectives: Process, Performance and Progress of the Age-Friendly Taiwan Program.

Since Taiwans age-friendly city (AFC) program was launched in 2012, the central government has provided various resources to the countrys 22 local authorities, including budgetary support, policy advocacy, and consultation from a team of experts. This study examines stakeholder perspectives on the process, performance, and outcome of the AFC program. A 53-item questionnaire was developed based on the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline, including mechanisms and processes (20 items), outcome evaluations (23 items), and resource integration (10 items). There was a great difference found among scores between facilitators and experts for inter-exchange experience with local and international cities (40%) and monitor and revise indicators (37%) in mechanisms and processes, evaluate performance of indicators and action plans (37%) in outcome evaluations, and interaction between government and community (46%) and interaction between civil organization and senior society (39%) in resource integration. Clearly, facilitators showed overly optimistic assessments in AFC mechanisms and processes, outcome evaluation, and resource integration. The results showed disconnect between experts expectations versus actual practice conducted by facilitators. Implications of these findings are to integrate top down expectations with the realities of bottom up practice to design more realistic evaluations; continue to educate stakeholders about design, implementation and evaluation; and further integrate resources from government, civil organizations, and community

Choices of financial reporting regimes and techniques and underlying decision-making processes : a case study analysis of a port authority

This paper examines how financial reporting modes are determined within a company, from the perspective of perceived costs and benefits. The modes investigated include financial reporting regimes (e.g. IFRS, UK GAAP) and the financial reporting techniques which support them (e.g. valuing intangibles and investments, treatment of development costs). A stated preference approach is adopted and applied to a fieldwork analysis of the functioning of a large port authority, which was a member of a group and prepared both consolidated and subsidiary accounts. The analysis is largely qualitative, exploring in-depth such matters as key factors in making choices, the decision-making processes behind choices, and the staging of decisions, but underpinned by a quantitative basis, using a metric for determining net benefits of financial reporting regimes and techniques. Our analysis aims to improve our understanding of a company’s choice processes underlying its financial reporting, including its handling of complexity and uncertainty, and its use of innovations in techniques and organisational forms for decision support