Tesco plc. A company to invest in?

The exciting world of finance has given many people, ranging from individual investors to academic researchers, incentives to explore the ways to receive financial rewards with certainty. After many decades, however, the debate of whether the market is efficient or whether stock prices are predictable still continues. Many people have made their piece with the concept of market efficiency, which suggests that there are no opportunities to gain abnormal profits from financial markets. Others continue to question past results and propose new solutions. Even results obtained through painful observations of large volumes of stocks over an extensive period of time and the use of statistical tools have been subject to criticism. Therefore, it does not make sense to attempt a test of market efficiency for a dissertation of this size and with such limited time and resources available. Instead, a logical and simpler approach is used. It is argued that there are clear signs which do indicate the potential for the future success of a company, and hence there are higher chances for the appreciation of such a company's stock prices. The claim is being made that investing in these growth stocks will give a higher chance of capital gains or better prospects for stable income in form of dividends for any investor. A company that seems to provide rewarding prospects for investors is Tesco plc. The results of the qualitative research approach which has been chosen as the main research technique for this dissertation supports the claim that Tesco would be a good choice for future capital gains as well as for stable income through generous dividends payouts

Factors influencing carbon-labeled product purchase intentions: A case study in Vietnam

This study aims to examine university students’ intention to purchase carbon-labeled products in Can Tho City, Vietnam, as well as the main reasons driving the desire to purchase carbon-labeled products. A survey was conducted using quantitative analytic methodologies, and 234 students’ responses were obtained using Google Forms during the third quarter of 2023. Before surveying student participants, ten educational experts crafted and reviewed a questionnaire. The questionnaire had three sections. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and SPSS are used to assess the data. This study analyzed independent variables such as sustainable consumption habits, the green halo effect, carbon label visibility, and climate consciousness to consider their impact on the dependent variable of purchase intention. To guarantee the dependability of these variables, Cronbach’s Alpha was employed with a threshold set at 0.60. The findings demonstrate Vietnamese students’ comparatively low level of understanding regarding carbon labeling. Only 45.7% of the 234 survey participants claimed to have heard of carbon labels, compared to 54.3% who said they had never heard of them. Furthermore, sustainable consumption habits and the green halo effect directly impact the intentions to purchase carbon-labeled products, in which sustainable consumer habits play the most critical role. Carbon label visibility and climate consciousness do not directly influence the intention to buy, but these factors contribute to increasing purchase intention

CdSe Ring- and Tribulus-Shaped Nanocrystals: Controlled Synthesis, Growth Mechanism, and Photoluminescence Properties

With air-stable and generic reagents, CdSe nanocrystals with tunable morphologies were prepared by controlling the temperature in the solution reaction route. Thereinto, the lower reaction temperature facilitates the anisotropic growth of crystals to obtain high-yield CdSe ring- and tribulus-shaped nanocrystals with many branches on their surfaces. The photoluminescence properties are sensitive to the nature of particle and its surface. The products synthesized at room temperature, whose surfaces have many branches, show higher blue shift and narrower emission linewidths (FWHM) of photoluminescence than that of samples prepared at higher temperature, whose surfaces have no branches. Microstructural studies revealed that the products formed through self-assembly of primary crystallites. Nanorings formed through the nonlinear attachment of primary crystallites, and the branches on the surfaces grew by linear attachment at room temperature. And the structure of tribulus-shaped nanoparticle was realized via two steps of aggregation, i.e., random and linear oriented aggregation. Along with the elevation of temperature, the branches on nanocrystal surfaces shortened gradually because of the weakened linear attachment

Gravitational Waves From Known Pulsars: Results From The Initial Detector Era

We present the results of searches for gravitational waves from a large selection of pulsars using data from the most recent science runs (S6, VSR2 and VSR4) of the initial generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory) and Virgo. We do not see evidence for gravitational wave emission from any of the targeted sources but produce upper limits on the emission amplitude. We highlight the results from seven young pulsars with large spin-down luminosities. We reach within a factor of five of the canonical spin-down limit for all seven of these, whilst for the Crab and Vela pulsars we further surpass their spin-down limits. We present new or updated limits for 172 other pulsars (including both young and millisecond pulsars). Now that the detectors are undergoing major upgrades, and, for completeness, we bring together all of the most up-to-date results from all pulsars searched for during the operations of the first-generation LIGO, Virgo and GEO600 detectors. This gives a total of 195 pulsars including the most recent results described in this paper.United States National Science FoundationScience and Technology Facilities Council of the United KingdomMax-Planck-SocietyState of Niedersachsen/GermanyAustralian Research CouncilInternational Science Linkages program of the Commonwealth of AustraliaCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research of IndiaIstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare of ItalySpanish Ministerio de Economia y CompetitividadConselleria d'Economia Hisenda i Innovacio of the Govern de les Illes BalearsNetherlands Organisation for Scientific ResearchPolish Ministry of Science and Higher EducationFOCUS Programme of Foundation for Polish ScienceRoyal SocietyScottish Funding CouncilScottish Universities Physics AllianceNational Aeronautics and Space AdministrationOTKA of HungaryLyon Institute of Origins (LIO)National Research Foundation of KoreaIndustry CanadaProvince of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development and InnovationNational Science and Engineering Research Council CanadaCarnegie TrustLeverhulme TrustDavid and Lucile Packard FoundationResearch CorporationAlfred P. Sloan FoundationAstronom

Sensitivity to Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescences Achieved during LIGO's Fifth and Virgo's First Science Run

We summarize the sensitivity achieved by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors for compact binary coalescence (CBC) searches during LIGO's fifth science run and Virgo's first science run. We present noise spectral density curves for each of the four detectors that operated during these science runs which are representative of the typical performance achieved by the detectors for CBC searches. These spectra are intended for release to the public as a summary of detector performance for CBC searches during these science runs.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure