Association between Credit Rating Changes and High-Tech M&A in Taiwan

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the impact of high-tech and non-high-tech mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on the credit rating changes in Taiwan. We utilized the ordered probit model with random effect for the empirical works. A variety of econometric tests were conducted using pooled data of 101 firms in Taiwan over the period Sep. 1996 to Dec. 2001. This paper tries to examine whether the financial and strategy factors affect the credit risks. Our results indicate that Insider Ownership and Leverage Ratio are negatively related to credit rating changes, while Return on Equity and High-tech Firm are positively related to credit rating changes for both pre- and post-M&A activities. Although higher Institutional Ownership increases in credit rating changes for pre-M&A, it decreases credit rating changes for post-M&A

An Analysis of Industrial Characteristics and Incentives on Foreign Investment: The Case of Rapid Economic Growth in Taiwan

This study measured the impacts of the industrial characteristics and the fiscal incentives that influenced foreign direct investment. We used the fixed effect model with a 2SLS simultaneous equation for the period of rapid economic growth from 1980 to 1996 across nine industries is Taiwan. We found that the wage and market size are positively correlated with foreign national investors, while exports are negatively correlated with overseas Chinese investors. The results also indicated that the tax holiday and the statute for the promotion of upgrading industries affect foreign national investors positively, but that R&D tax credits are ineffective. The relatively high effective tax rates may not deter investments by foreign national investors, thus providing more profitability to a region of economic growth, such as Taiwan. In addition, the profitability of overseas Chinese investors is supported by asset efficiency

Dependence of the Electroluminescence on the Spacer Layer Growth Temperature of Multilayer Quantum-Dot Laser Structures

Electroluminescence (EL) measurements have been performed on a set of In(Ga)As-GaAs quantum-dot (QD) structures with varying spacer layer growth temperature. At room temperature and low injection current, a superlinear dependence of the integrated EL intensity (IEL) on the injection current is observed. This superlinearity decreases as the spacer layer growth temperature increases and is attributed to a reduction in the amount of nonradiative recombination. Temperature-dependent IEL measurements show a reduction of the IEL with increasing temperature. Two thermally activated quenching processes, with activation energies of ˜ 157 meV and ˜ 320 meV, are deduced and these are attributed to the loss of electrons and holes from the QD ground state to the GaAs barriers. Our results demonstrate that growing the GaAs barriers at higher temperatures improves their quality, thereby increasing the radiative efficiency of the QD emission

Perceived parental warmth and depression in early adolescents: path analysis on the role of self-esteem as a mediator

The prevalence of depression in Malaysia instigated the twofold objectives of the present study. First, the relationship between perceived parental warmth, self-esteem and depression was examined, followed by the exploration on the role of self-esteem as a mediator between perceived parental warmth and depression among early adolescents. The model for early adolescent's depression was guided by Beck's cognitive theory of depression and parental acceptance-rejection theory. A total of 1394 adolescents aged 13 to 15 years, who reported living with both married and biological parents, provided complete self-report data on the measures (Conger's subscale for parental warmth, Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, Beck Depression Inventory for Malays) for the three observed variables (namely, perceived parental warmth, self-esteem and depression). In order to determine the role of self-esteem as a mediator, Pearson correlation was first conducted to ensure that the initial variable (perceived parental warmth) was related to the outcome (depression) and mediator (self-esteem) variable as suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986). Path analysis was then employed to establish the mediating effect of self-esteem. Results revealed that the data from the study fitted the model and that perceived parental warmth had an indirect effect on depression through self-esteem. Findings also revealed that self-esteem was a complete mediator in the relationship between perceived parental warmth and depression. Implications for the alternative approach in preventing depression were further discussed

Institutional corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices: the influence of leadership styles and their perceived ethics and social responsibility role

This paper investigates leader's perceptions of ethics and social responsibility (PRESOR) on organisation's institutional CSR practices. The results indicate that while the managers in this study perceive that ethics and social responsibility play an important role in determining the organisation's long-term and short-term gains, they do not think that ethics and social responsibility are the only important factors in determining firm's profitability and survival, as indicated by the non-significant results of the PRESOR (social responsibility and profitability) dimension. Another objective was to determine the types of leadership style in influencing the adoption and practices of CSR. As oppose to many previous studies, the results indicate that among the leadership styles, transactional leadership influences institutional CSR practices, while transformational leadership does not. This finding implies that for CSR practices to be implemented, leaders need to use rewards, rules and regulations in a Malaysian context. In other words, in order to institutionalise CSR practices in Malaysia, corporations should start by introducing extrinsic incentives

Restricted N-glycan Conformational Space in the PDB and Its Implication in Glycan Structure Modeling

A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author’s publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.Understanding glycan structure and dynamics is central to understanding protein-carbohydrate recognition and its role in protein-protein interactions. Given the difficulties in obtaining the glycan's crystal structure in glycoconjugates due to its flexibility and heterogeneity, computational modeling could play an important role in providing glycosylated protein structure models. To address if glycan structures available in the PDB can be used as templates or fragments for glycan modeling, we present a survey of the N-glycan structures of 35 different sequences in the PDB. Our statistical analysis shows that the N-glycan structures found on homologous glycoproteins are significantly conserved compared to the random background, suggesting that N-glycan chains can be confidently modeled with template glycan structures whose parent glycoproteins share sequence similarity. On the other hand, N-glycan structures found on non-homologous glycoproteins do not show significant global structural similarity. Nonetheless, the internal substructures of these N-glycans, particularly, the substructures that are closer to the protein, show significantly similar structures, suggesting that such substructures can be used as fragments in glycan modeling. Increased interactions with protein might be responsible for the restricted conformational space of N-glycan chains. Our results suggest that structure prediction/modeling of N-glycans of glycoconjugates using structure database could be effective and different modeling approaches would be needed depending on the availability of template structures