Financing asset growth : [version 11 august 2013]

In this paper we provide new evidence that corporate financing decisions are associated with managerial incentives to report high equity earnings. Managers rely most heavily on debt to finance their asset growth when their future earnings prospects are poor, when they are under pressure due to past declines in earnings, negative past stock returns, and excessively optimistic analyst earnings forecasts, and when the earnings yield is high relative to bond yields so that from an accounting perspective equity is ‘expensive’. Managers of high debt issuing firms are more likely to be newly appointed and also more likely to be replaced in subsequent years. Abnormal returns on portfolios formed on the basis of asset growth and debt issuance are strongly positively associated with the contemporaneous changes in returns on assets and on equity as well as with earnings surprises. This may account for the finding that debt issuance forecasts negative abnormal returns, since debt issuance also forecasts negative changes in returns on assets and on equity and negative earnings surprises. Different mechanisms appear to be at work for firms that retire debt

Multifractal properties of Pyrex and silicon surfaces blasted with sharp particles

The blasting of brittle materials with sharp particles is an important fabrication technology in many industrial processes. In particular, for microsystems, it allows the production of devices with feature sizes down to few tens of microns. An important parameter of this process is the surface roughness of post-blasted surfaces. In this work the scaling properties of Pyrex glass and silicon surfaces after bombardment with alumina particles are investigated. The targets were bombarded at normal incidence using alumina particles with two different average sizes, 29 µm and 9 µm. This investigation indicates that the resulting surfaces are multifractal. Applying multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA) allowed us to determine the singularity spectrum of the surfaces. This spectrum did not depend on the target material or on the size of the particles. Several parameters quantifying relevant quantities were determined. It was found that long range correlations are responsible for the observed multifractal behaviour

Micromachined vibratory gyroscopes controlled by a high order band-pass sigma delta modulator.

Abstract—This work reports on the design of novel closed-loop control systems for the sense mode of a vibratory-rate gyroscope based on a high-order sigma-delta modulator (SDM). A low-pass and two distinctive bandpass topologies are derived, and their advantages discussed. So far, most closed-loop force-feedback control systems for these sensors were based on low-pass SDM’s. Usually, the sensing element of a vibratory gyroscope is designed with a high quality factor to increase the sensitivity and, hence, can be treated as a mechanical resonator. Furthermore, the output characteristic of vibratory rate gyroscopes is narrowband amplitude- modulated signal. Therefore, a bandpass M is a more appropriate control strategy for a vibratory gyroscope than a low-pass SDM. Using a high-order bandpass SDM, the control system can adopt a much lower sampling frequency compared with a low-pass SDM while achieving a similar noise floor for a given oversampling ratio (OSR). In addition, a control system based on a high-order bandpass SDM is superior as it not only greatly shapes the quantization noise, but also alleviates tonal behavior, as is often seen in low-order SDM control systems, and has good immunities to fabrication tolerances and parameter mismatch. These properties are investigated in this study at system level

Force feedback linearization for higher-order electromechanical sigma-delta modulators.

Abstract A higher-order electromechanical sigma–delta modulator can greatly improve the signal-to-noise ratio compared with a second-order loop that only uses the sensing element as a loop filter. However, the electrostatic force feedback on the proof mass is inherently nonlinear, which will produce harmonics in the output spectrum and limits the total signal-to-noise and distortion ratio. High performance inertial sensors, which use sigma–delta modulators as a closed-loop control system, have strict requirements on the output signal distortion. In this paper, nonlinear effects from the force feedback and pick-off circuits are analysed and a strategy for force feedback linearization is put forward which can considerably improve the signal-to-noise and distortion ratio. A PCB prototype of a fifth-order electromechanical modulator with a bulk micromachined accelerometer was used to demonstrate the concept

Improving the efficiency of thermoelectric generators by using solar heat concentrators

In this paper, we propose a method of improving the efficiency of thermoelectric generators (TEGs) by using a lens to concentrate heat on the heat source of a TEG. Initial experiments performed using discrete components show about 60mV increase in the amount of voltage generated when using a magnifying lens. Simulation results on the proposed TEG configuration exhibit up to 16% efficiency when the input heat flux is increased to 500 times that of the sun’s heat flux. The effects of varying the thermoelement length, width, and membrane diameter on the TEG’s performance are also characterized. Lastly, plans to fabricate the device on a SOI wafer in the future are presente

Design and modelling of SOI-based solar thermoelectric generators

In this work, solar micro-thermoelectric generators are designed with a lens concentrating solar radiation onto the membrane of a thermoelectric generator (TEG). By focusing solar radiation, the input heat flux increases; leading to an increase in the temperature gradient across the device. Consequently, a significant improvement in the device efficiency can be achieved. The TEG design involves the use of the SOI wafer's device layer as the first thermoelement and aluminum as the second thermoelement. Isolation trenches are also added to the design for electrical insulation. Heat transfer simulations in COMSOL are performed to verify the viability of the proposed system and an analytical model based on energy balance and heat transfer equations is developed to investigate the performance of solar TEGs with varying geometries, lens parameters, and external conditions. It is found that efficiency is improved by increasing both the concentration factor and the absorptance of the TEG membran

Venturing' into Healthcare Innovation

Medical Schoolhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148173/1/kraftm.pd

How to lead with digital media effectively? A literature-based analysis of media in a E-leadership context

In many companies and industries, the use of digital media is an essential prerequisite for leaders to communicate and collaborate with employees in spatially separated situations. From this point of view, leaders must use electronic media such as e-mail, telephone conferences and virtual platforms effectively for organizational purposes. Under this premise, this paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the use of digital media in the context of E-leadership. The main purpose of the research is to uncover the different relevance of electronic media in the light of virtual team leadership. Therefore, this research represents a literature analysis of E-leadership media in virtual context. The review took place between April 2019 and June 2019. The paper provides first indications of the different relevance of electronic media for the leadership of virtual teams and identifies difficulties in the implementation and prioritization of electronic media. The study confirms and proves that, in addition to conceptual challenges in the area of E-leadership, the effective use of electronic media such as social media instruments can also be optimized by a better awareness of the use of media among leaders and employees

On-a-chip microdischarge thruster arrays inspired by photonic device technology for plasma television

This study shows that the practical scaling of a hollow cathode thruster device to MEMS level should be possible albeit with significant divergence from traditional design. The main divergence is the need to operate at discharge pressures between 1-3bar to maintain emitter diameter pressure products of similar values to conventional hollow cathode devices. Without operating at these pressures emitter cavity dimensions become prohibitively large for maintenance of the hollow cathode effect and without which discharge voltage would be in the hundreds of volts as with conventional microdischarge devices. In addition this requires sufficiently constrictive orifice diameters in the 10µm – 50µm range for single cathodes or <5µm larger arrays. Operation at this pressure results in very small Debye lengths (4 -5.2pm) and leads to large reductions in effective work function (0.3 – 0.43eV) via the Schottky effect. Consequently, simple work function lowering compounds such as lanthanum hexaboride (LaB6) can be used to reduce operating temperature without the significant manufacturing complexity of producing porous impregnated thermionic emitters as with macro scale hollow cathodes, while still operating <1200°C at the emitter surface. The literature shows that LaB6 can be deposited using a variety of standard microfabrication techniques