Essays on Dual-Class Structure and Corporate Governance: Exploring the Impact on Firm Performance, Innovation, and Compensation

For the first chapter of this dissertation, I explore the impact of dual-class structure IPOs on firm performance and innovation in technology firms. We investigate board-related attributes' influence on firm value and innovation in such IPOs. A comprehensive analysis of technology firms' IPOs from 1994 to 2020 reveals that dual-class structure tech firms outperform their counterparts in two-year stock returns and firm value. These firms also exhibit greater investment in innovation and more patents granted. Dual-class technology firms typically feature smaller board sizes and fewer non-executive directors. Improved board independence positively affects firm value, while larger board sizes enhance patent quality, but increased board independence has adverse effects.In the second chapter, I investigate the nexus between dual-class structure and executive compensation, considering the role of agency problems and the moderating influence of executive ownership, voting power, and board characteristics post-Dodd-Frank Act. Utilizing data from the Execucomp dataset spanning 2011 to 2022, encompassing 2,519 firms, including 174 with dual-class structures, empirical analysis reveals a statistically significant negative association between dual-class structure and equity-based compensation, consistent with CEO control and turnover hypotheses. Despite mixed moderation effects, the overall impact of dual-class structure on executive compensation remains adverse, challenging prevailing agency problem assumptions. Furthermore, the study underscores a negative association between CEO-chair duality and executive compensation in dual-class firms, indicating minimal agency conflict. These findings address a significant research gap, offering insights into corporate governance dynamics, suggesting that agency issues may not significantly influence executive compensation within dual-class firms, instead potentially providing greater position security

Parity-time electromagnetic diodes in a two-dimensional nonreciprocal photonic crystal

We propose a kind of electromagnetic (EM) diode based on a two-dimensional nonreciprocal gyrotropic photonic crystal. This periodic microstructure has separately broken symmetries in both parity (P) and time-reversal (T) but obeys parity-time (PT) symmetry. This kind of diode could support bulk one-way propagating modes either for group velocity or phase velocity with various types of negative and positive refraction. This symmetry-broken system could be a platform to realize abnormal photoelectronic devices, and it may be analogous to an electron counterpart with one-way features

Shedding light on the pion production in heavy-ion collisions for constraining the high-density symmetry energy

Within the framework of the quantum molecular dynamics transport model, the pion production and constraint of the high-density symmetry energy in heavy-ion collisions near threshold energy have been thoroughly investigated. The energy conservation in the decay of resonances and reabsorption of pions in nuclear medium are taken into account. The density profile of pion production, energy conservation and pion potential are analyzed by the model. The isospin diffusion in the low-density region (0.2$\rho_{0}$ - 0.8$\rho_{0}$) and high-density region (1.2$\rho_{0}$ - 1.8$\rho_{0}$) is investigated by analyzing the neutron/proton and $\pi^{-}/\pi^{+}$ ratios in the isotopic reactions of $^{132}$Sn + $^{124}$Sn and $^{108}$Sn + $^{112}$Sn at the incident energy of 270 MeV/nucleon, in which the symmetry energy manifests the opposite contribution. The controversial conclusion of the $\pi^{-}/\pi^{+}$ ratio for constraining the high-density symmetry energy by different transport models is clarified. A soft symmetry energy with the slope parameter of $L(\rho_{0}) = 42\pm 25$ MeV by using the standard error analysis within the range of $1\sigma$ is obtained by analyzing the experimental data from the S$\pi$RIT collaboration.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Collective flows of clusters and pions in heavy-ion collisions at GeV energies

Within the framework of the quantum molecular dynamics transport model, the collective flows of clusters and pions in heavy-ion collisions have been systematically investigated. The clusters are recognized by the Wigner phase-space density approach at the stage of freeze out in nuclear collisions, i.e., deuteron, triton, $^{3}$He and $\alpha$. The directed and elliptic flows of protons and deuterons in the reaction of $^{197}$Au+$^{197}$Au at incident energy 1.23\emph{A} GeV are nicely consistent with the recent HADES data. The higher order collective flows, i.e., triangular and quadrangle flows, manifest the opposite trends with the less amplitude in comparison with the rapidity distributions of directed and elliptic flows. The flow structure of $^{3}$He and $\alpha$ is very similar to the proton spectra. The influence of the pion potential on the pion production is systematically investigated and compared with the FOPI data via the transverse momentum, longitudinal rapidity and collective flows in collisions of $^{197}$Au + $^{197}$Au. It is manifested that the pion yields are slightly suppressed in the domain of mid-rapidity and high momentum. The antiflow phenomena is reduced by implementing the pion potential and more consistent with the FOPI data in collisions of $^{197}$Au+$^{197}$Au at the incident energy 1.5\emph{A} GeV.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2302.0213

Inference of relative permeability curves in reservoir rocks with ensemble Kalman method

Multiphase flows through reservoir rocks are a universal and complex phenomenon. Relative permeability is one of the primary determinants in reservoir performance calculations. Accurate estimation of the relative permeability is crucial for reservoir management and future production. In this paper, we propose inferring relative permeability curves from sparse saturation data with an ensemble Kalman method. We represent these curves through a series of positive increments of relative permeability at specified saturation values, which guarantees monotonicity within, and boundedness between, 0 and 1. The proposed method is validated by the inference performances in two synthetic benchmarks designed by SPE and a field-scale model developed by Equinor that includes certain real-field features. The results indicate that the relative permeability curves can be accurately estimated within the saturation intervals having available observations and appropriately extrapolated to the remaining saturations by virtue of the embedded constraints. The predicted well responses are comparable to the ground truths, even though they are not included as the observation. The study demonstrates the feasibility of using ensemble Kalman method to infer relative permeability curves from saturation data, which can aid in the predictions of multiphase flow and reservoir production

EFFECTS OF WHOLE BODY VIBRATION TRAINING ON KNEE EXTENSOR MUSCLE STRENGTH AND RATE OF FORCE DEVELOPMENT

This study compared the effects of 8-week whole-body vibration (WBV) training programs on knee extensor muscle strength and rate of force development. Twenty physically active male subjects were randomly assigned to a whole-body vibration training group (WBV; n =10) or a sham training group (SHAM; n = 10). Maximal voluntary isometric joint moment, rate of force development (RFD) and contractile impulse of the knee extensors were assessed before and after the training period. There were significant differences between WBV and sham groups on improvement percentage of maximum joint moment, RFD and contractile impulse in knee extensor. We concluded that not only knee extensor muscle strength could be enhanced but also muscle contractile abilty could be faster after a 8-week WBV training program

Vertices with the Second Neighborhood Property in Eulerian Digraphs

The Second Neighborhood Conjecture states that every simple digraph has a vertex whose second out-neighborhood is at least as large as its first out-neighborhood, i.e. a vertex with the Second Neighborhood Property. A cycle intersection graph of an even graph is a new graph whose vertices are the cycles in a cycle decomposition of the original graph and whose edges represent vertex intersections of the cycles. By using a digraph variant of this concept, we prove that Eulerian digraphs which admit a simple dicycle intersection graph have not only adhere to the Second Neighborhood Conjecture, but have a vertex of minimum outdegree that has the Second Neighborhood Property.Comment: fixed an error in an earlier version and made structural change

2-Amino-4-[1-(2-chloro­phen­yl)-5-methyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl]-6-(4-methyl­phen­yl)benzene-1,3-dicarbonitrile

In the title compound, C24H17ClN6, the dihedral angles between the triazolyl ring and its adjacent chlorobenzene and trisubstituted benzene rings are 90.6 (2) and 55.7 (3)°, respectively. The dihedral angle between the trisubstituted ring and the attached tolyl ring of the biphenyl unit is 45.9 (3)°. Intra- and intermolecular N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds are present

The Online Data Quality Monitoring System at BESIII

The online Data Quality Monitoring (DQM) plays an important role in the data taking process of HEP experiments. BESIII DQM samples data from online data flow, reconstructs them with offline reconstruction software, and automatically analyzes the reconstructed data with user-defined algorithms. The DQM software is a scalable distributed system. The monitored results are gathered and displayed in various formats, which provides the shifter with current run information that can be used to find problems early. This paper gives an overview of DQM system at BESIII.Comment: Already submit to Chinese Physics