Ex Post Valuation Correction and Motives of Merger and Acquisition Decisions

This study seeks to decipher the motives of mergers and acquisitions and identify the source of value creation or destruction. The existing literature on corporate mergers and acquisitions generally agrees on four primary motives of merger and acquisition decisions: (1) market timing, (2) response to industry shocks, (3) agency cost and hubris, and (4) synergy. In studying the motives behind acquisition decisions, prior studies have used incomparable methodologies and measures, which often lead to inconclusive debates. In this study, we address the possibility that there could be multiple motives behind a merger. Instead of using a multitude of methodologies to look for the existence of different motives of acquisitions, we use a single methodology that allows us to identify the motives simultaneously. Specifically, we examine components of the market-to-book ratio and correlate them with the motives of merger activity. By observing the changes in the components of the market-to-book ratio over long-run event windows after the merger, we are able to verify ex post the motives behind a merger and identify the source of value creation or destruction. Using a sample of 3,520 domestic merger events over a twenty-year period from 1985 to 2004, we find significant evidence supporting that market timing, response to industry-shocks, and synergy could be simultaneous motives for some mergers. Stock mergers appear to be more related to the market timing motive than cash mergers as the improvements in post-merger operating performance of stock mergers less consistent than those of cash mergers. A decline in sales growth also suggests that many mergers may be driven by agency problems or hubris. It is likely that managers use overvalued common stocks to satisfy their personal interests through corporate mergers. On average, we also find that large acquirers and large acquisitions are more associated with market timing and agency problems and hubris

Conceptual Structures of Vietnamese Emotions

ABSTRACT This dissertation presents a comparative study of the metaphoric and metonymic systems underlying the conceptualizations of two emotions, anger and sadness, in Vietnamese, American English, and Chinese. The analytic and theoretical approach is based on previous studies by Lakoff and Kövecses (1987), Kövecses (1988), Barcelona (1986), King (1989) and Yu (1995). The research presented here on emotion concepts reveals cultural variation and potential universals in the conceptualization of emotions. These results support the “Cultural Embodied Prototype” view proposed by Kövecses (2004:14) which proposes that conceptualizations of human emotions is motivated by both physiological embodied experiences (physiological embodiment) and the particular system of social-cultural experiences, which Maalej (2004, 2007, 2008) calls cultural embodiment. This study, based on analysis of anger and sadness expressions in Vietnamese, presents conceptual metaphors, metonymies, and cognitive models of the two emotions in Vietnamese in order to examine the similarities and differences in the ways the two emotions are conceptualized in Vietnamese, Chinese, and American English. Recent research on metaphor (e.g., Steen 1999; Cameron 1999; Semino et al., 2004; Pragglejaz Group 2007) have stressed the importance of rigorous metaphor identification procedures. This study offers a new metaphor identification procedure, based on the principles of the MIP (Pragglejaz Group 2007), which is designed to improve the identification of conceptual metaphors, especially those in discourse contexts. I examine discourse contexts to focus, in particular, on the metaphors and metonymies of the emotions in the three languages in order to distinguish the physiological and cultural embodied experiences which motivate them. The results of this study show that the shared and possibly universal conceptualizations of emotions can be found at the generic level, while the cultural variations of emotion operate at the specific level. The study thus contributes to the research on universality versus cultural specificity of emotion conceptualizations by presenting linguistic evidence of the use of emotion language in Vietnamese

Web-based Integrated Development Environment

As tablets become more powerful and more economical, students are attracted to them and are moving away from desktops and laptops. Their compact size and easy to use Graphical User Interface (GUI) reduce the learning and adoption barriers for new users. This also changes the environment in which undergraduate Computer Science students learn how to program. Popular Integrated Development Environments (IDE) such as Eclipse and NetBeans require disk space for local installations as well as an external compiler. These requirements cannot be met by current tablets and thus drive the need for a web-based IDE. There are also many other challenges of moving a desktop-based IDE to a web-based one. There are many web-based IDEs currently in development. However, this project focuses on four particular open-sourced web-based IDEs: Ace, CodeMirror, ICEcoder and CloudCoder. Ace, CodeMirror and ICEcoder are web-based code editors and CloudCoder is a complete web-based exercise system. All of them were found to be integrable with CodeCheck except for ICEcoder. The CloudCoder integrated Codecheck was deployed for three classes during the Fall 2016 term at San Jose State University. Empirical data showed that students had a better grasp of the subject matter when exposed to exercises hosted by the enhanced CodeCheck. This was measured indirectly via the scores from projects, quizzes and exams

The question of quality

Phuong-Thao T. Trinh, Thu-Hien T. Le, Thu-Trang Vuong, Phuong-Hanh Hoang (2019). Chapter 6. The question of quality. In Quan-Hoang Vuong, Trung Tran (Eds.), The Vietnamese Social Sciences at a Fork in the Road (pp. 121–142). Warsaw, Poland: De Gruyter. DOI:10.2478/9783110686081-011. Online ISBN: 9783110686081 © 2019 Sciendo / De Gruyte

Approximation by finite mixtures of continuous density functions that vanish at infinity

Given sufficiently many components, it is often cited that finite mixture models can approximate any other probability density function (pdf) to an arbitrary degree of accuracy. Unfortunately, the nature of this approximation result is often left unclear. We prove that finite mixture models constructed from pdfs in $\mathcal{C}_{0}$ can be used to conduct approximation of various classes of approximands in a number of different modes. That is, we prove approximands in $\mathcal{C}_{0}$ can be uniformly approximated, approximands in $\mathcal{C}_{b}$ can be uniformly approximated on compact sets, and approximands in $\mathcal{L}_{p}$ can be approximated with respect to the $\mathcal{L}_{p}$, for $p\in\left[1,\infty\right)$. Furthermore, we also prove that measurable functions can be approximated, almost everywhere

Simple Combined Model for Nonlinear Excitations in DNA

We propose a new simple model for DNA denaturation bases on the pendulum model of Englander\cite{A1} and the microscopic model of Peyrard {\it et al.},\cite{A3} so called "combined model". The main parameters of our model are: the coupling constant $k$ along each strand, the mean stretching $y^\ast$ of the hydrogen bonds, the ratio of the damping constant and driven force $\gamma/F$. We show that both the length $L$ of unpaired bases and the velocity $v$ of kinks depend on not only the coupling constant $k$ but also the temperature $T$. Our results are in good agreement with previous works.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Overdose beliefs and management practices among ethnic Vietnamese heroin users in Sydney, Australia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ethnic Vietnamese injecting drug users (IDUs) in Australia draw on a range of beliefs and etiologic models, sometimes simultaneously, in order to make sense of health and illness. These include understandings of illness as the result of internal imbalances and Western concepts of disease causation including germ/pollution theory.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Observational fieldwork and in-depth interviews were conducted between 2001 and 2006 in neighbourhoods characterised by high proportions of Asian background IDUs and street-based drug markets. Eligibility criteria for the study were: 1) ethnic Vietnamese cultural background; 2) aged 16 years and over and; 3) injected drugs in the last 6 months.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Participants commonly attempted to treat heroin overdose by withdrawing blood (rút máu) from the body. Central to this practice are cultural beliefs about the role and function of blood in the body and its relationship to illness and health. Participants' beliefs in blood were strongly influenced by understandings of blood expressed in traditional Chinese and Vietnamese medicine. Many participants perceived Western drugs, particularly heroin, as "hot" and "strong". In overdose situations, it was commonly believed that an excessive amount of drugs (particularly heroin) entered the bloodstream and traveled to the heart, making the heart work too hard. Withdrawing blood was understood to reduce the amount of drugs in the body which in turn reduced the effects of drugs on the blood and the heart.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The explanatory model of overdose employed by ethnic Vietnamese IDUs privileges traditional beliefs about the circulatory, rather than the respiratory, system. This paper explores participants' beliefs about blood, the effects of drugs on blood and the causes of heroin overdose in order to document the explanatory model of overdose used by ethnic Vietnamese IDUs. Implications for overdose prevention, treatment and management are identified and discussed.</p

Controlled cortical impact traumatic brain injury in 3xTg-AD mice causes acute intra-axonal amyloid-β accumulation and independently accelerates the development of tau abnormalities

Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized pathologically by progressive neuronal loss, extracellular plaques containing the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides, and neurofibrillary tangles composed of hyperphosphorylated tau proteins. Aβ is thought to act upstream of tau, affecting its phosphorylation and therefore aggregation state. One of the major risk factors for AD is traumatic brain injury (TBI). Acute intra-axonal Aβ and diffuse extracellular plaques occur in ∼30% of human subjects after severe TBI. Intra-axonal accumulations of tau but not tangle-like pathologies have also been found in these patients. Whether and how these acute accumulations contribute to subsequent AD development is not known, and the interaction between Aβ and tau in the setting of TBI has not been investigated. Here, we report that controlled cortical impact TBI in 3xTg-AD mice resulted in intra-axonal Aβ accumulations and increased phospho-tau immunoreactivity at 24 h and up to 7 d after TBI. Given these findings, we investigated the relationship between Aβ and tau pathologies after trauma in this model by systemic treatment of Compound E to inhibit γ-secretase activity, a proteolytic process required for Aβ production. Compound E treatment successfully blocked posttraumatic Aβ accumulation in these injured mice at both time points. However, tau pathology was not affected. Our data support a causal role for TBI in acceleration of AD-related pathologies and suggest that TBI may independently affect Aβ and tau abnormalities. Future studies will be required to assess the behavioral and long-term neurodegenerative consequences of these pathologies