Internal Finance and Growth: Microeconometric Evidence on Chinese Firms

Using a panel of 79,841 Chinese firms over the period 2000-2007, we examine the extent to which liquidity constraints affect firms. assets growth. We find that state owned enterprises are not affected, while the availability of internal finance represents a binding constraint for the growth of private firms, especially those operating in coastal regions, with negligible foreign ownership. Thanks to their high productivity, cash flow is, however, so abundant for these firms that they are able to grow at a very fast rate, despite being discriminated against by financial institutions. Hence, well developed external capital markets may not always be needed for fast economic growth.Assets growth, Cash flow, Financial constraints.

Internal Finance and Growth: Microeconometric Evidence on Chinese Firms

Does the availability of internal finance constrain firm growth? Or does it foster it? To answer these questions, we use a panel of 407,096 Chinese firms over the period 2000-2005. We estimate dynamic assets growth equations augmented with cash flow, and find that the growth of state owned enterprises is not affected by cash flow, while that of privately owned firms is most affected. Considering that they represent 62% of the observations in our sample and that, in spite of being typically discriminated against by financial institutions, private firms have experienced sensational growth rates, our results suggest that internal finance has fostered rather than constrained their growth.Assets growth, Cash flow, Financial constraints.

Internal Finance and Growth: Microeconometric Evidence on Chinese Firms

Does the availability of internal finance constrain firm growth? Or does it foster it? To answer these questions, we use a panel of 407,096 Chinese firms over the period 2000−2005. We estimate dynamic assets growth equations augmented with cash flow, and find that the growth of state owned enterprises is not affected by cash flow, while that of privately owned firms is most affected. Considering that they represent 62% of the observations in our sample and that, in spite of being typically discriminated against by financial institutions, private firms have experienced sensational growth rates, our results suggest that internal finance has fostered rather than constrained their growth.assets growth, cash flow, financial constraints

Effect of serum cystatin C and chromogranin A on left ventricular mass index in patients with chronic heart failure

Purpose: To investigate the expression of serum cystatin C (CystC) and chromogranin A (CgA) in chronic heart failure (CHF) patients, and their correlation with left ventricular mass index (LVMI).Methods: CHF patients (135) in the study hospital were randomly selected, and assigned to different groups on the basis of heart function grade (grades II to IV). Grades II, III and IV had 45 patients each. In addition, 45 people with normal physical examination results were assigned to the control group. In all patients, N-terminal natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), CysC and CgA were measured. In addition, left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDD), left ventricular end-diastolic volume (LVEDV), and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) were measured using transthoracic echocardiography, and the results were used to calculate LVMI values.Results: There were significantly higher levels of CystC and CgA in CHF patients than in control patients (p < 0. 05). In grade IV patients, CystC and CgA levels were higher than the corresponding levels in patients with cardiac function grades II and III, while their levels in grade III patients were higher than in grade II patients (p < 0.05). The results of correlation analysis indicated that serum CgA was positively correlated with serum CystC. Serum CgA and CystC levels in CHF patients were negatively correlated with LVEF, but positively correlated with NT-proBNP and LVMI levels.Conclusion: Serum CgA and CysC are correlated with cardiac function grade and ventricular remodeling in CHF patients. Thus, to some extent, these two indices can be used to measure the degree of ventricular remodeling in CHF individuals.Keywords: Chromogranin A (CgA), Heart failure, Cystatin C (CysC), Left ventricular mass inde

An Evaluation of Memory Optimization Methods for Training Neural Networks

As models continue to grow in size, the development of memory optimization methods (MOMs) has emerged as a solution to address the memory bottleneck encountered when training large models. To comprehensively examine the practical value of various MOMs, we have conducted a thorough analysis of existing literature from a systems perspective. Our analysis has revealed a notable challenge within the research community: the absence of standardized metrics for effectively evaluating the efficacy of MOMs. The scarcity of informative evaluation metrics hinders the ability of researchers and practitioners to compare and benchmark different approaches reliably. Consequently, drawing definitive conclusions and making informed decisions regarding the selection and application of MOMs becomes a challenging endeavor. To address the challenge, this paper summarizes the scenarios in which MOMs prove advantageous for model training. We propose the use of distinct evaluation metrics under different scenarios. By employing these metrics, we evaluate the prevailing MOMs and find that their benefits are not universal. We present insights derived from experiments and discuss the circumstances in which they can be advantageous

State advances and private retreats? Evidence from the decomposition of the Chinese manufacturing aggregate productivity decomposition in China

This paper is motivated by the recent debate on the existence and scale of China's 'Guo Jin Min Tui' phenomenon, which is often translated as 'the state sector advances and the private sector retreats'. We argue that the profound implication of an advancing state sector is not the size expansion of the state ownership in the economy per se, but the likely retardation of the development of the already financially constrained private sector and the issues around the sustainability of the already weakening Chinese economy growth. Drawing on recent methodological advances, we provide a critical analysis of the contributions of the state and non-state sectors in the aggregate Total Factor Productivity and its growth over the period of 1998-2007 to verify the existence of GJMT and its possible impacts on Chinese economic growth. Overall, we find strong and consistent evidence of a systematic and worsening resource misallocation within the state sector and/or between the state sectors and private sectors over time. This suggests that non-market forces allow resources to be driven away from their competitive market allocation and towards the inefficient state sector. Crow

Quantifying ocular inflammation in uveitis using optical coherence tomography

Inflammation is the key underlying physiological process in uveitis. It drives the onset of acute flares, causes permanent structural damage and can result in sight-threatening complications. Being able to accurately detect and measure changes in inflammatory activity is crucial for managing uveitic flares and rationalising therapeutic decisions. Unfortunately, many of the current methods for quantifying inflammation are imperfect, due to the fact that they are based on subjective and unreliable clinician estimates. In this thesis, I evaluated the potential for imaging-based technologies such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) to measure key markers of intraocular inflammation in uveitis. Whilst several key markers of inflammation are recognised, this thesis focuses on those with an existing clinical standard, which can be used as a comparator or reference test (anterior chamber cells, anterior chamber flare and vitreous haze). I conducted a series of systematic reviews evaluating potential instrument-based techniques for measuring anterior chamber cells, anterior chamber flare and vitreous inflammation, respectively. These identified OCT and laser flare photometry as potential instruments for measuring anterior chamber cell and flare, and OCT and retinal photography for measuring vitreous inflammation. However, the interpretation of results in each review was limited by relatively few studies and the inclusion of highly heterogenous uveitic patient populations, varying severities of disease, and lack of a standardised image acquisition protocol. Second, in the prospective study, OCTAVE (OCT-assisted vitreous evaluation), I found that our custom OCT-based vitreous analysis technique (EQUIP) demonstrated good repeatability in healthy and uveitic eyes, was able to detect vitreous inflammation and was associated with the current clinical vitreous haze grading. The EQUIP measurement was able to predict visual acuity whereas the current standard method (clinician grading 3 using the National Eye Institutevitreous haze scale) could not. Whilst these results were encouraging, there remains substantial overlap in the OCT measurement between NEI vitreous haze grades. It is not clear whether this is due to poor signal-to-noise ratio of the OCT technique, or a sign of poor reliability of the comparator (clinician-based grading using the NEI vitreous haze scale). Further investigation through longitudinal studies may be able to answer this question. In summary, OCT has demonstrated potential for quantifying inflammation for multiple key measures in uveitis. However, a key limitation for the validation of all instrument-based measures has been the lack of a reliable reference test

The Change of Performance of Chinese Large-sized Private Enterprises and Its Determinants (2004-2006)

Using the data collected by All China Federation of Industry and Commerce, this paper studies the change of performance of Chinese large-sized private enterprises and its possible determinants. The study finds that the financing difficulty of private firms, due to Chinese government's control policy, is the major factor resulting in the worsening performance of these large private firms