determinants of capital structure: evidence on chinese companies

For lack of enough empirical studies on capital structure of Chinese firms and to further explore the determinants of capital structure, this thesis employs a newest dataset from year 2004 and 2005, composing of 336 firms from main board of Shanghai Stock Exchange and small and middle enterprises (SMEs) board of Shenzhen Stock Exchange to empirically study the determinants of capital structure for Chinese firms. Based on review of relevant capital structure theories, mainly pecking order model and trade-off theory and previous empirical studies in this field from different countries, eight potential independent variables are included in the regression models and different leverage ratios of both book values and market values are used as dependent variables. Results derived from this thesis are in line with the dominant results from previous empirical studies on Chinese firms. Identified negative determinants include profitability and non-debt tax shield. Positive determinants identified are years listed on the stock markets, size, volatility and tangibility. Results for growth opportunities are quite mixed and state-owned shares ratio is not significant. Consistent with previous studies, much lower long-term debt ratio is found for Chinese listed firms which can be explained by the small size of bond market, special role of short-term debt and the preference of equity financing over long-term loans. For some results from this study are consistent with pecking order theory while others support trade-off models, it is difficult to say which model is more suitable in China but rather they combine together and determine the capital structures for Chinese firms.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Regional Heterogeneity and China’s International Trade: Sufficient Lumpiness or Not?

This paper explores whether there is sufficient lumpiness or heterogeneity in the relative endowments (capital, labour and skills) of the regions of China to affect China’s specialization and trade patterns. It does so using both the lens condition to identify the violation of factor price equalization across regions, and direct evidence on regional trade and specialization. The results are sensitive to the level of regional aggregation. The paper concludes, however, that China was sufficiently lumpy as recently as 2004 to affect it pattern of international trade.Trade, lumpiness, regions, China

Domain wall switching: optimizing the energy landscape

It has recently been suggested that exchange spring media offer a way to increase media density without causing thermal instability (superparamagnetism), by using a hard and a soft layer coupled by exchange. Victora has suggested a figure of merit xi = 2 E_b/mu_0 m_s H_sw, the ratio of the energy barrier to that of a Stoner-Wohlfarth system with the same switching field, which is 1 for a Stoner-Wohlfarth (coherently switching) particle and 2 for an optimal two-layer composite medium. A number of theoretical approaches have been used for this problem (e.g., various numbers of coupled Stoner-Wohlfarth layers and continuum micromagnetics). In this paper we show that many of these approaches can be regarded as special cases or approximations to a variational formulation of the problem, in which the energy is minimized for fixed magnetization. The results can be easily visualized in terms of a plot of the energy as a function of magnetic moment m_z, in which both the switching field [the maximum slope of E(m_z)] and the stability (determined by the energy barrier E_b) are geometrically visible. In this formulation we can prove a rigorous limit on the figure of merit xi, which can be no higher than 4. We also show that a quadratic anistropy suggested by Suess et al comes very close to this limit.Comment: Acccepted for proceedings of Jan. 2007 MMM Meeting, paper BE-0

« NOUS » ET LA CONSTRUCTION D’UN ETHOS INDIVIDUEL ET COLLECTIF DANS LE DISCOURS POLITIQUE

RÉSUMÉ. La construction de l’image d’un pays ou d’une personne s’avère importante dans les échanges internationaux. Ainsi, notre étude porte sur la construction de l’ethos à la française pour mieux connaître les stratégies concernées et pour arriver à une communication efficace avec les Français à l’avenir. Le pronom « nous », considéré comme une jonction entre « je » et « non-je », demeure un marqueur important en ce qui concerne la construction d’un ethos individuel et collectif, et nous ouvre la perspective sur sa valeur stratégique dans le discours politique aussi bien que sur sa fonction dans les relations hiérarchiques des actants. Notre travail, qui étudie le duel entre Sarkozy et Hollande en 2012 pendant les élections présidentielles, est essentiellement ancré dans l’analyse du discours, dans la théorie de l’énonciation de la subjectivité (Benveniste, 1966, 1974 ; Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2009) en particulier. Mots-clés: discours politique, énonciation, ethos individuel et collectif, « nous », valeur stratégique.00lns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"ABSTRACT. The national or personal image building is very important in international exchange. Therefore, our study focuses on the construction of ethos in a French way in order to gain a better understanding of the relevant strategies and to achieve effective communication with Frenchmen in the future. The pronoun “we”, which is supposed to be a junction between “I” and “non-I” in enunciation, is an important symbol in the construction of individual and collective ethos, and opens up the possibility to carry out a study on its strategic value in the political discourse, as well as its function in the hierarchical relationship among the participants. Our work, which is studying the duel between Sarkozy and Hollande during the presidential election in 2012, is rooted in the theory of discourse analysis, especially in the theory of enunciation of subjectivity (Benveniste, 1966, 1974; Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2009). Keywords: enunciation, individual and collective ethos, political discourse, strategic value, we

An aligned subtree kernel for weighted graphs

In this paper, we develop a new entropic matching kernel for weighted graphs by aligning depth-based representations. We demonstrate that this kernel can be seen as an aligned subtree kernel that incorporates explicit subtree correspondences, and thus addresses the drawback of neglecting the relative locations between substructures that arises in the R-convolution kernels. Experiments on standard datasets demonstrate that our kernel can easily outperform state-of-the-art graph kernels in terms of classification accuracy

Super-directivity formation and numerical analysis of acoustic array

The formation of super-directivity of an acoustic array is firstly analyzed to construct a general mathematical model of the array with super-directivity and maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Then the numerical simulation on the super-directivity of the array is carried out for the arrays with different shapes, element number and apertures. It shows that, circular array with regular shape and Archimedean spiral array with irregular shape have optimum directivity