Analyst Optimism and Incentives under Market Uncertainty

We examine how analysts’ changing incentives driven by changes in market uncertainty affect their forecast optimism. Analysts issue more optimistically biased earnings forecasts and buy recommendations under high market uncertainty (VIX). The lower reputational costs and larger benefits of optimistic output explain the increased optimistic output: Analysts are less likely to be penalized for inaccuracy and can stimulate more trading activity from optimistically biased output when market uncertainty is high. We find that the likelihood of analysts’ turnover decreases, while the trading volume associated with optimistic output increases, with VIX. No evidence suggests that analysts’ self‐selection affects our findings on optimism and market uncertainty.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137733/1/fire12138.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137733/2/fire12138_am.pd

Search for New Physics Using Quaero: A General Interface to D0 Event Data

We describe Quaero, a method that i) enables the automatic optimization of searches for physics beyond the standard model, and ii) provides a mechanism for making high energy collider data generally available. We apply Quaero to searches for standard model WW, ZZ, and ttbar production, and to searches for these objects produced through a new heavy resonance. Through this interface, we make three data sets collected by the D0 experiment at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV publicly available.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to Physical Review Letter

Operational Research: methods and applications

This is the final version. Available on open access from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this recordThroughout its history, Operational Research has evolved to include methods, models and algorithms that have been applied to a wide range of contexts. This encyclopedic article consists of two main sections: methods and applications. The first summarises the up-to-date knowledge and provides an overview of the state-of-the-art methods and key developments in the various subdomains of the field. The second offers a wide-ranging list of areas where Operational Research has been applied. The article is meant to be read in a nonlinear fashion and used as a point of reference by a diverse pool of readers: academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The entries within the methods and applications sections are presented in alphabetical order. The authors dedicate this paper to the 2023 Turkey/Syria earthquake victims. We sincerely hope that advances in OR will play a role towards minimising the pain and suffering caused by this and future catastrophes

Role and Regulation of Osmolytes and ABA Interaction in Salt and Drought Stress Tolerance

Abiotic stress conditions lead to the defects in plant growth and development and also reduction in flowering and fertility. Under prolonged stresses, imminent death of the plants has been observed. To cope with such stress conditions, plants accumulate a wide variety of organic solutes called osmolytes. Osmolytes are accumulated in bacteria, lower, and higher plants as a response primarily to abiotic stress. They encompass amino acids such as proline, tertiary sulfonium, and quaternary ammonium compounds like beatines, sugars (trehalose), and polyhydric alcohols (mannitol, sorbitol, pinitol, etc.). Osmolytes are accumulated in the cytoplasm as well as in chloroplasts in certain cases for osmotic adjustment under stress conditions. This enables the plants to absorb water and survive under stress. Out of the many phytohormones that play diverse roles during abiotic stress, abscisic acid (ABA) is an important one and perceived by plants by a core signaling module. As an integral part of signal transduction during stress conditions, ABA and other hormones regulate not only stomatal closure, but also a wide array of gene expressions including osmolyte biosynthetic pathway genes. Many signal molecules like nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen sulfide also play a vital role in osmolyte biosynthesis. Osmolytes appear to have multiple functions during stress such as osmotic adjustment and scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Thus, generation of ROS and osmolyte accumulation are linked together. This review summarizes the role played by ABA in signal transduction, the role of hormones to regulate osmolyte biosynthesis, and various functions carried out by them

Commodity Eats Innovation for Breakfast: A Model for Differentiating Feature Realization

Once supporting the electrical and mechanical functionality, software today became the main competitive advantage in products. However, in the companies that we study, the way in which software features are developed still reflects the traditional ‘requirements over the wall’ approach. As a consequence, individual departments prioritize what they believe is the most important and are unable to identify which features are regularly used – ‘flow’, there to be bought – ‘wow’, differentiating and that add value to customers, or which are regarded commodity. In this paper, and based on case study research in three large software-intensive companies, we (1) provide empirical evidence that companies do not distinguish between different types of features, which causes poor allocation of R&D efforts and suppresses innovation, and (2) develop a model in which we depict the activities for differentiating and working with different types of features and stakeholders