The increase cash holdings of UK public firms

There are lots of study show that cash holding of U.S. companies increased during the last two decades. However, there are only limited studies based on UK market. As there are some difference between US and UK corporate governance, which result in different ownership structure. So i expected UK public companies should hold more cash than US public companies. In this paper i mainly followed model Bates(2009) applied to investigate UK public companies cash holidngs

Effects of goal interdependence and social identity on departments and their relationships in China

Synergy among departments is increasingly considered vital for organizations to use their full resources to deal with threats and explore opportunities in the rapidly changing marketplace. Although valuable, developing synergy among departments is a difficult management challenge. Departments within organizations often have their own business goals, yet the coordination of these goals is a precondition for overall organizational effectiveness. The need for goal coordination makes departments interdependent (Thompson, 1967), but this interdependence may become particularly problematic when the different departmental goals are incompatible (St. John & Hall, 1991). Because of the value of cooperative goals for coordination, managers want to understand the conditions that lead people to believe their interests are basically positively associated in an organizational setting. In this study, we explore what factors increase the likelihood of having broad role identities, in which employees not only care for the goals characteristic of their own department, but also for goals of other departments. This gives rise to the question of not whether, but under what circumstances, departments develop organizational cohesion. That is the key question that must be approached by theories of intergroup relations in order to successfully understand the dynamics of interdepartmental coordination, cooperation, and conjunction. In this study, we propose that the degree to which people have concern for the organizational goals is partly rooted in interdepartmental goal interdependence. This study assumes that high departmental and interdepartmental effectiveness will be promoted by constructive cooperation between departments within organizations. In doing so, we connect the theory of cooperation and competition and social identity theory to test what interdepartmental structures will improve organizational effectiveness. Accordingly, we consider a congregation of structures by which coordination between departments can be managed. The study suggests that interdepartmental relationships are influenced or determined by contextual structures, especially task interdependence, shared rewards, and interdepartmental groups, operating first upon goal interdependence and social identity, with the effects on the interdepartmental coordination as subsequent outcomes. In practice, if each group were producing its own product or service, there might be little need for significant intergroup coordination. In most cases, however, identifiable groups in organizations are producing only a segment of the organization’s product or service. Coordination between such groups is a necessity. As professional firms that provide multiple services are well suited to exploring interdepartmental relationships (Tomasic, 1991; Eccles and Crane, 1988), this study collected the questionnaires from financial companies in mainland China. As a result, we found that three factors promoted effective interdepartmental coordination and thus high organizational performance. First, coordination will be more effective if there are compatible or cooperative goals between departments. Second, coordination will be more effective if the departments are addressed and rewarded on over-all performance measures embracing the activities of the several departments. Third, interdepartmental coordination will be more effectively achieved and over-all organizational performance will be higher to the extent that departments have salient organizational identities rather than departmental identities. This research has both theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, this study provides a test of whether interdepartmental structures promote synergy in financial companies in China. This study adds to research on cooperation and competition by identifying the interdepartmental structures as important antecedents to goal interdependence. This study adds to research on social identities by identifying the interdepartmental structures such as motivational and affective antecedents to organizational identities. This study also adds to research on intergroup relationships by developing the model to enhance the coordination relations among formal departments in organizations. Practically, this study has implications for developing interdepartmental relationships in the company, especially in those financial companies in mainland China; this study also provides empirical evidence of the utility of the interdepartmental structures and suggests that cooperative goals and organizational identity mediate their effects on organizational effectiveness

Research on seismic internal forces of geogrids in reinforced soil retaining wall structures under earthquake actions

For geogrid reinforced soil retaining walls, there are no reasonable analysis theories and design methods. Its seismic reinforcement mechanism has not been clear. A nonlinear finite difference method is applied to analyze reinforced internal forces of geogrid reinforced soil retaining walls under different design parameters. An elastic-plastic model is used to simulated soils. The coupled elastic parameters are used to describe the interaction between soils and geogrids. The analysis parameters include reinforcement lengths, reinforcement spacing, distribution forms of geogrid layers, the stiffness of geogrids, earthquake intensities, stiffness of backfill soils, unit weights and panel thicknesses. Finally, the shaking table test model of a geogrid reinforced soil retaining wall is introduced. Seismic strains of geogrids are tested and are compared with numerical simulation results. Some conclusions are achieved such as distribution characters of seismic residual deformations of reinforced walls, coupled shear stresses between geogrids and soils, some sensitive impact parameters on reinforced internal forces of geogrids. The geogrids located in the middle layer of the reinforced zone play an important role. Calculation results will offer references for seismic designs of geogrid reinforced soil retaining walls

THE EFFECT OF FORMAL SCHEMA ON COLLEGE ENGLISH LISTENING COMPREHENSION IN EFL

Abstract: Listening comprehension used to be thought of as a passive skill, and listeners were called as“tape-recorder” (Anderson Lynch,1988). But in fact it is an active process, in which what the listener wants to get is an adequate understanding of what the speaker said and what the speaker meant. To achieve this purpose, English listeners should utilize contextual clues, background knowledge and depend on many learning strategies. Active listeners will understand what the speakers said with relevant background knowledge and their particular purpose. In recent years, there has been a lot of progress English listening teaching in China, and studies on application of schema theory into listening comprehension have become more and more popular in both pedagogical theory and experiments. Schema is one of major factors that affect people’s listening comprehension. The present study, with second-year non-English majors as subjects, aimed to investigate the effect of formal schema on college English listening comprehension. It was found that when there is a lack of relevant formal schema, there will be a short-circuit of listening comprehension. It is also proved that activation of formal schema improves college students’ listening comprehension. Therefore, it is necessary to improve college students’ language skills and help them build up relevant formal schema as well. Key words: formal schema, listening comprehension, college English PENGARUH SKEMA FORMAL TERHADAP PEMAHAMAN MENYIMAK BAHASA INGGRIS PADA KELAS BAHASA INGGRIS SEBAGAI BAHASA ASING Abstrak: Pemahaman menyimak sebelumnya seringkali dianggap sebagai keterampilan pasif, dan para pendengarnya disebut “alat rekam” (Anderson Lynch, 1988). Tapi, kenyataannya, menyimak adalah proses aktif, dimana apa yang diinginkan pendengar adalah pemahaman yang memadai terhadap apa yang dikatakan oleh penutur dan maksud dari penutur. Untuk mencapai tujuan ini, para penyimak bahasa Inggris harus memanfaatkan petunjuk-petunjuk kontekstual, pengetahuan latar belakang dan bergantung pada berbagai strategi belajar. Para penyimak aktif akan memahami apa yang dikatakan penutur dengan pengetahuan yang relevan dan tujuan khususnya. Akhir-akhir ini, ada banyak kemajuan dalam pengajaran menyimak di Cina, dan kajian-kajian mengenai penerapan teori skema pada pemahaman menyimak telah menjadi semakin populer baik dalam teori maupun eksperimen pedagogik. Skema adalah salah satu faktor utama yang mempengaruhi pemahaman menyimak orang-orang. Kajian ini, dengan mahasiswa non-bahasa Inggris tingkat dua sebagai subyeknya, bertujuan menyelidiki pengaruh dari skema formal terhadap pemahaman menyimak bahasa Inggris di perguruan tinggi. Ditemukan bahwa ketika ada kekurangan akan skema formal yang relevan, akan ada “hubungan arus pendek” dalam pemahaman menyimak. Terbukti juga bahwa aktivasi skema formal meningkatkan pemahaman menyimak para mahasiswa. Karena itu, penting untuk meningkatkan keterampilan-keterampilan bahasa mahasiswa dan juga membantu mereka membangun skema formal yang relevan. Kata kunci: Skema formal, pemahaman menyimak, bahasa Inggris perguruan tingg

Monitoring Aging of Power Semiconductor Devices Based on Case Temperature

The aging of an electronic component in an electronic power converter can be monitored based on two or more case temperature measurements. A power electronic device is enclosed in a package having a baseplate, in which the power electronic device generates heat during operation and the baseplate transfers heat to a heat dissipating device or a cooling device. Sensors measure temperatures at first and second locations on a surface of the baseplate. A data processor calculates a value for a first parameter based on the temperatures at the first and second locations, in which the first parameter is indicative of an aging process of the power electronic device, and generates a first signal based on mined threshold. The data processor calculates a value for a second parameter based on the first parameter value, a predetermined look-up table, and the temperatures at the first and second locations, in which the second parameter is indicative of another aging process of the semiconductor switching devices, and generates a second signal based on a comparison of the calculated value and a second predetermined threshold

A Viral Product Diffusion Model to Forecast the Market Performance of Products

To investigate the diffusion of products in the market, this paper proposes a viral product diffusion model using an epidemiological approach. This model presents the process of product diffusion through the dynamics of human behaviors. Based on the stability theory of Ordinary Differential Equations, we demonstrate the conditions under which a product in the market persists or dies out eventually. Next, we use Google data to validate the model. Fitting results illustrate that the viral product diffusion model not only depicts the steady growth process of products, but also describes the whole diffusion process during which the products increase at the initial stage and then gradually decrease and sometimes even exhibit multiple peaks. This shows that the viral product diffusion model can be used to forecast the developing tendency of products in the market through early behavior of these products. Moreover, our model also provides useful insights on how to design effective marketing strategies via social contagions

Occupancy urns and equilibria in epidemics

This dissertation examines equilibria in epidemics and introduces novel approaches to epidemic modeling, consisting of two separate but closely related chapters. In Chapter 2, we develop an optimizing epidemic model within a dynamic urn-SIR framework, accommodating generic offspring distributions, and derive a trajectory convergence theorem. We study the mean-field equilibrium through numerical simulations. Our findings reveal two key features often overlooked in existing literature: substantial variation in epidemic outcomes despite homogeneous individual behavior, and the potential for resurgence in the number of infections. We demonstrate that the offspring distribution of infections significantly impacts epidemic dynamics, with negative binomial distributions leading to more dispersed outcomes and higher probabilities of minor outbreaks compared to geometric distributions. These results highlight the importance of stochastic modeling in epidemic forecasting and public health policy. Chapter 3 proposes and examines static and dynamic urn-SIR models, a novel approach to epidemic modeling that addresses key limitations of traditional stochastic SIR models. We focus on the critical issue of heterogeneity in individual infectiousness, which is not adequately captured by the geometric offspring distribution inherent in the continuous-time Markov chain SIR models. Our urn-SIR models accommodates generic offspring distributions, including the empirically supported negative binomial distribution. We formally formulate the static and dynamic urn-SIR models. The static model focuses on the end of the epidemic, where primary variables are the epidemic size and the total number of contacts, while the dynamic model captures the dynamic process of the disease progression. The cornerstone of our work is a proven threshold limit theorem, characterizing the asymptotic behavior of the epidemic size as the population approaches infinity. This theorem extends beyond early-stage branching process approximations in the existing literature that considers generic offspring distribution. Moreover, we also show that in the dynamic model, the trajectories of epidemic processes converges in probability to a corresponding deterministic system, allowing comprehensive analysis of entire epidemic courses. Our work bridges crucial gaps in existing literature, providing a more realistic representation of disease spread while maintaining analytical tractability. The findings have significant implications for epidemiology, public health, and related fields, informing more effective strategies for disease control and prevention

Blue Phosphorene Oxide: Strain-tunable Quantum Phase Transitions and Novel 2D Emergent Fermions

Tunable quantum phase transitions and novel emergent fermions in solid state materials are fascinating subjects of research. Here, we propose a new stable two-dimensional (2D) material, the blue phosphorene oxide (BPO), which exhibits both. Based on first-principles calculations, we show that its equilibrium state is a narrow-bandgap semiconductor with three bands at low energy. Remarkably, a moderate strain can drive a semiconductor-to-semimetal quantum phase transition in BPO. At the critical transition point, the three bands cross at a single point at Fermi level, around which the quasiparticles are a novel type of 2D pseudospin-1 fermions. Going beyond the transition, the system becomes a symmetry-protected semimetal, for which the conduction and valence bands touch quadratically at a single Fermi point that is protected by symmetry, and the low-energy quasiparticles become another novel type of 2D double Weyl fermions. We construct effective models characterizing the phase transition and these novel emergent fermions, and we point out several exotic effects, including super Klein tunneling, supercollimation, and universal optical absorbance. Our result reveals BPO as an intriguing platform for the exploration of fundamental properties of quantum phase transitions and novel emergent fermions, and also suggests its great potential in nanoscale device applications.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure