9,218 research outputs found
CEO overconfidence and dividend policy
We develop a model of the effect of CEO overconfidence on dividend policy and empirically examine many of its predictions. Consistent with our main prediction, we find that the level of dividend payout is lower in firms managed by overconfident CEOs. We document that this reduction in dividends associated with CEO overconfidence is greater in firms with lower growth opportunities, lower cash flow, and greater information asymmetry. We also show that the magnitude of the positive market reaction to a dividend-increase announcement is lower for firms managed by overconfident CEOs. Our overall results are consistent with the predictions of our model.Chief executive officers ; Dividends
Cascades: A view from Audience
Cascades on online networks have been a popular subject of study in the past
decade, and there is a considerable literature on phenomena such as diffusion
mechanisms, virality, cascade prediction, and peer network effects. However, a
basic question has received comparatively little attention: how desirable are
cascades on a social media platform from the point of view of users? While
versions of this question have been considered from the perspective of the
producers of cascades, any answer to this question must also take into account
the effect of cascades on their audience. In this work, we seek to fill this
gap by providing a consumer perspective of cascade.
Users on online networks play the dual role of producers and consumers.
First, we perform an empirical study of the interaction of Twitter users with
retweet cascades. We measure how often users observe retweets in their home
timeline, and observe a phenomenon that we term the "Impressions Paradox": the
share of impressions for cascades of size k decays much slower than frequency
of cascades of size k. Thus, the audience for cascades can be quite large even
for rare large cascades. We also measure audience engagement with retweet
cascades in comparison to non-retweeted content. Our results show that cascades
often rival or exceed organic content in engagement received per impression.
This result is perhaps surprising in that consumers didn't opt in to see tweets
from these authors. Furthermore, although cascading content is widely popular,
one would expect it to eventually reach parts of the audience that may not be
interested in the content. Motivated by our findings, we posit a theoretical
model that focuses on the effect of cascades on the audience. Our results on
this model highlight the balance between retweeting as a high-quality content
selection mechanism and the role of network users in filtering irrelevant
content
Tuning density profiles and mobility of inhomogeneous fluids
Density profiles are the most common measure of inhomogeneous structure in
confined fluids, but their connection to transport coefficients is poorly
understood. We explore via simulation how tuning particle-wall interactions to
flatten or enhance the particle layering of a model confined fluid impacts its
self-diffusivity, viscosity, and entropy. Interestingly, interactions that
eliminate particle layering significantly reduce confined fluid mobility,
whereas those that enhance layering can have the opposite effect. Excess
entropy helps to understand and predict these trends.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Stepping outside the sacred circle: Narratives of violence and disempowerment of the contemporary Indian woman
Effects of lengthscales and attractions on the collapse of hydrophobic polymers in water
We present results from extensive molecular dynamics simulations of collapse
transitions of hydrophobic polymers in explicit water focused on understanding
effects of lengthscale of the hydrophobic surface and of attractive
interactions on folding. Hydrophobic polymers display parabolic, protein-like,
temperature-dependent free energy of unfolding. Folded states of small
attractive polymers are marginally stable at 300 K, and can be unfolded by
heating or cooling. Increasing the lengthscale or decreasing the polymer-water
attractions stabilizes folded states significantly, the former dominated by the
hydration contribution. That hydration contribution can be described by the
surface tension model, , where the surface
tension, , is lengthscale dependent and decreases monotonically with
temperature. The resulting variation of the hydration entropy with polymer
lengthscale is consistent with theoretical predictions of Huang and Chandler
(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.,97, 8324-8327, 2000) that explain the blurring of
entropy convergence observed in protein folding thermodynamics. Analysis of
water structure shows that the polymer-water hydrophobic interface is soft and
weakly dewetted, and is characterized by enhanced interfacial density
fluctuations. Formation of this interface, which induces polymer folding, is
strongly opposed by enthalpy and favored by entropy, similar to the
vapor-liquid interface.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure
Decremental All-Pairs ALL Shortest Paths and Betweenness Centrality
We consider the all pairs all shortest paths (APASP) problem, which maintains
the shortest path dag rooted at every vertex in a directed graph G=(V,E) with
positive edge weights. For this problem we present a decremental algorithm
(that supports the deletion of a vertex, or weight increases on edges incident
to a vertex). Our algorithm runs in amortized O(\vstar^2 \cdot \log n) time per
update, where n=|V|, and \vstar bounds the number of edges that lie on shortest
paths through any given vertex. Our APASP algorithm can be used for the
decremental computation of betweenness centrality (BC), a graph parameter that
is widely used in the analysis of large complex networks. No nontrivial
decremental algorithm for either problem was known prior to our work. Our
method is a generalization of the decremental algorithm of Demetrescu and
Italiano [DI04] for unique shortest paths, and for graphs with \vstar =O(n), we
match the bound in [DI04]. Thus for graphs with a constant number of shortest
paths between any pair of vertices, our algorithm maintains APASP and BC scores
in amortized time O(n^2 \log n) under decremental updates, regardless of the
number of edges in the graph.Comment: An extended abstract of this paper will appear in Proc. ISAAC 201
Cellulose based materials to accelerate the transition towards sustainability
Several significant sectors use cellulose, including paper manufacturing, cellophane, textiles (including rayon and viscose), and food and medicine additives. It can be utilised as a raw materials in production of fuel sources like cellulosic ethanol. Crystalline cellulose possesses a tensile strength of about 7.5 GPa, Young’s modulus of 110-220 GPa and as the most abundantly available natural polymer, with excellent biocompatibility, good degradation and regeneration properties, it is considered as a remarkable biomaterial. Cellulose-based materials can be fabricated with tuneable magnetic properties, electrical conductivity, photosensitivity, sensing abilities, catalytic activity, and other specific properties by incorporating nanoparticles. These qualities make cellulose a sustainable multifunctional material. To harness such properties, strenuous efforts are being made to manufacture cellulose based materials through a wide number of manufacturing processes. This review provides an overview of the current readiness in producing cellulose-based functional materials by surveying the manufacturing procedures, characteristics and their potential applications for the end users. Future directions and opportunities of work are suggested and the limitations inherent with every process and the challenges that needs to be overcome in scalable manufacturing of cellulose-based materials are also discussed
Construction of Health Infrastructure Index in Haryana: An Econometric Approach
The provision of health infrastructure is one of the major areas of concern in Indian economy including Haryana. Health infrastructure which comprises all the resources necessary to provide health services, is proved to be essential to create health human capital. Thus, being a merit good, establishment of health infrastructure is the prime duty of the State. With this backdrop, the present study is attempted to construct health infrastructure index for the State of Haryana. On the basis of the available data taken from various issues of Statistical Abstract of Haryana, fourteen indicators of health infrastructure are considered for the period of twenty one years from 1991-92 to 201112. First of all, the collected data is analyzed by computing descriptive statistics which reveal that seven indicators of health infrastructure possess positive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) while seven others have negative CAGR and certain indicators have experienced high variations in their number over the years. Next, normalization of data is done and then by applying principal component analysis (PCA), composite index for health infrastructure is constructed in various steps including correlation matrix, KMO measure and Bartlett’s test; eigenvalues of components; component loading matrix; calculation of weights for variables (indicators of health infrastructure) and finally health infrastructure index. As per index scores, ranks are given to the State for its health infrastructure for all twenty one years. It is found that health infrastructure in Haryana for the year 2004-05 have attained rank 1st with index score 1.000, followed by 2011-12 with score 0.837 and the year 2003-04 having the value of 0.764. Between 1991-92 and 2011-12, up and downs in index scores as well as in ranks are seen. Besides, score of health infrastructure index remain up to 0.5 for eleven years while above 0.5 for ten years. However, the year 200910 can be considered quite embarrassing for which score of health infrastructure index is zero indicating availability of health infrastructure was at lowest level in this year. Fortunately, the year 2011-12 having 2nd rank in health infrastructure index arises a ray of hope for the further promotion in the availability of health infrastructural facilities in coming years in State of Haryana. However, negative growth rates of certain indicators and low scores of health infrastructure index calls for immediate attention of Government with sufficient investments towards health infrastructure in Haryana.
 
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