Motivations for Public Equity Offers: An International Perspective

This paper examines the extent to which investment financing and market-timing explanations motivate public equity offers. We consider a sample of 16,958 initial public offerings and 12,373 seasoned equity offerings from 38 countries between 1990 and 2003. We provide estimates of the change in each accounting variable for each dollar raised in an equity offer, and for each dollar of internally generated cash. Our estimates imply that firms invest 18.8 cents in R&D and 7.3 cents in capital expenditures for an incremental dollar raised in an equity offer during the year following the offer, rising to 84.8 cents and 14.3 cents when the change is measured over a four-year period. These findings are consistent with one motive for the equity offer being to raise capital for investment. However, firms also hold onto much of the cash they raised, and this fraction is higher when the firm has a high q. In addition, firms are more likely to issue secondary shares, which are usually sold by insiders, when q is high, enabling insiders to benefit personally from potential overvaluation. These results suggest that market timing as well as investment financing is a motivation for equity offers.

Mosaic: Designing Online Creative Communities for Sharing Works-in-Progress

Online creative communities allow creators to share their work with a large audience, maximizing opportunities to showcase their work and connect with fans and peers. However, sharing in-progress work can be technically and socially challenging in environments designed for sharing completed pieces. We propose an online creative community where sharing process, rather than showcasing outcomes, is the main method of sharing creative work. Based on this, we present Mosaic---an online community where illustrators share work-in-progress snapshots showing how an artwork was completed from start to finish. In an online deployment and observational study, artists used Mosaic as a vehicle for reflecting on how they can improve their own creative process, developed a social norm of detailed feedback, and became less apprehensive of sharing early versions of artwork. Through Mosaic, we argue that communities oriented around sharing creative process can create a collaborative environment that is beneficial for creative growth

Brain Differences in the Prefrontal Cortex, Amygdala, and Hippocampus in Youth with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

Context: Classical Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency results in hormone imbalances present both prenatally and postnatally that may impact the developing brain. Objective: To characterize gray matter morphology in the prefrontal cortex and subregion volumes of the amygdala and hippocampus in youth with CAH, compared to controls. Design: A cross-sectional study of 27 CAH youth (16 female; 12.6 ± 3.4 year) and 35 typically developing, healthy controls (20 female; 13.0 ± 2.8 year) with 3-T magnetic resonance imaging scans. Brain volumes of interest included bilateral prefrontal cortex, and nine amygdala and six hippocampal subregions. Between-subject effects of group (CAH vs control) and sex, and their interaction (group-by-sex) on brain volumes were studied, while controlling for intracranial volume (ICV) and group differences in body mass index and bone age. Results: CAH youth had smaller ICV and increased cerebrospinal fluid volume compared to controls. In fully-adjusted models, CAH youth had smaller bilateral, superior and caudal middle frontal volumes, and smaller left lateral orbito-frontal volumes compared to controls. Medial temporal lobe analyses revealed the left hippocampus was smaller in fully-adjusted models. CAH youth also had significantly smaller lateral nucleus of the amygdala and hippocampal subiculum and CA1 subregions. Conclusions: This study replicates previous findings of smaller medial temporal lobe volumes in CAH patients, and suggests that lateral nucleus of the amygdala, as well as subiculum and subfield CA1 of the hippocampus are particularly affected within the medial temporal lobes in CAH youth

Macroeconomic Conditions and Capital Raising

Economic theory, as well as commonly-stated views of practitioners, suggests that macroeconomic conditions can affect both the ability and manner in which firms raise external financing. Theory suggests that downturns should be associated with a shift toward less information-sensitive securities, as well as a ‘flight to quality,’ in which firms can issue high-rated securities but not low-rated ones. We evaluate these hypotheses on a large sample of publicly-traded debt issues, seasoned equity offers, and bank loans. We find that worse macroeconomic conditions lead firms to use less information-sensitive securities. In addition, poor market conditions affect the structure of securities offered, shifting them towards shorter maturities and more security. Furthermore, market conditions affect the quality of securities offered, with worsening conditions substantially lowering the number of low-rated debt issues. Overall, these findings suggest that macroeconomic conditions are important factors in firms’ capital raising decisions.Market downturns; Security choice; Maturity; Security

Tensile and fatigue behavior of tungsten/copper composites

Work on W/Cu unidirectional composites was initiated to study the behavior of this ductile-ductile composite system under thermomechanical fatigue and to examine the applicability of fatigue-life prediction methods for thermomechanical fatigue of this metal matrix composite. The first step was to characterize the tensile behavior of four ply, 10 vol. percent W/Cu plates at room and elevated temperatures. Fatigue tests were conducted in load control on 0 degree specimens at 260 C. The maximum cyclic stress was varied but the minimum cyclic stress was kept constant. All tests were performed in vacuum. The strain at failure increased with increasing maximum cyclic stress

Field-Induced Breakup of Emulsion Droplets Stabilized by Colloidal Particles

We simulate the response of a particle-stabilized emulsion droplet in an external force field, such as gravity, acting equally on all $N$ particles. We show that the field strength required for breakup (at fixed initial area fraction) decreases markedly with droplet size, because the forces act cumulatively, not individually, to detach the interfacial particles. The breakup mode involves the collective destabilization of a solidified particle raft occupying the lower part of the droplet, leading to a critical force per particle that scales approximately as $N^{-1/2}$.Comment: 4 pages, plus 3 pages of supplementary materia