VALUING IT-RELATED INTANGIBLE CAPITAL

As part of an effort to examine the value of intangible assets in the firm, our study is the first to create IT-related intangible asset stocks from firm-level survey data. We also use data on ITrelated business practices in order to understand the distribution of IT-related intangibles, and we create asset stocks to value research and development (R&D) and brand. Using a panel of 130 firms over the period 2003-2006, we find that intangible assets are correlated with significantly higher market values beyond their cost-based measures. Moreover, we estimate that there is a 30- 55% premium in market value for the firms with the highest organizational IT capabilities (based on a measure of HR practices, management practices, internal IT use, external IT use, and Internet use) as compared to those with the lowest organizational IT capabilities

Methods for Exploiting High-Resolution Imagery for Deep Learning-Based Diabetic Retinopathy Detection and Grading

Diabetic retinopathy is a disease that affects the eyes of people with diabetes, and it can cause blindness. To diagnose diabetic retinopathy, ophthalmologists image the back surface of the inside of the eye, a process referred to as fundus photography. Ophthalmologists must then diagnose and grade the severity of diabetic retinopathy by analyzing details in the image, which can be difficult and time-consuming. Alternatively, due to the availability of labeled datasets containing fundus images with diabetic retinopathy, AI methods like deep learning can provide automated detection and grading algorithms. We show that the resolution of an image has a large effect on the accuracy of grading algorithms. So, we study several techniques to increase the accuracy of the algorithm by taking advantage of higher-resolution data, including using a region of interest as the input and applying an image transformation to make the circular fundus image square. While none of our proposed methods result in an increase in performance for grading diabetic retinopathy, the circle to square transformation results in an increase in accuracy and AUC for detection of diabetic retinopathy. This work provides a useful starting point for future research aimed at increasing the resolution content in a fundus image

Economic analysis of woody biomass harvesting in the Missouri Ozarks

"July 2010.""A Thesis presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School University of Missouri In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science."Thesis supervisor: Dr. Francisco X. Aguilar.An integrated mechanized timber harvest thinning treatment to remove small diameter trees and merchantable saw logs was conducted on 30 acres of the Missouri, Ozarks in the summer of 2009. Two silvicultural treatments (single tree selection and shelterwood strips) were applied to reduce basal area to different levels. A harvest system feasibility analysis was completed to estimate productivity, costs, and prices needed to attain economic viability (breakeven point). Time in motion data was collected on all system components to understand how the extra efforts to gather small diameter and slash material affect the cost structure of a mechanized timber harvest thinning. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to find breakeven points at varying diesel input costs, equipment purchase costs, hauling distances, stumpage costs and government subsidy. Results indicate that an average of 15.50 tons of fuel chips and 35.72 tons of solid hardwood products was removed per acre. The cost per ton to harvest, skid and process at road side for the fuel chips and solid hardwood products was $19.20 and$11.17 per ton respectively. Contracted fuel chips hauling cost was $12.00 per ton and solid hardwood hauling averaged$4.16 per ton. Stumpage was assumed to be $5.00 and$9.95 per ton, respectively. Average price at the gate for these two products were $26.00 per ton and$32.64 per ton leading to a profit/loss of $-10.20 per ton and$7.36 per ton for the fuel chips and solid hardwood products respectively. Losses from fuel chips were less than the profits from the solid hardwood products resulting in a net profit of $3,131.76 dollars. Keywords: woody-biomass, forest thinning, integrated harvest, single tree selection, shelterwood strips, economic feasibility, sensitivity analysis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 78-83)

What the GDP Gets Wrong (Why Managers Should Care)

We see the influence of the information age ever ywhere, except in the GDP statistics. More people than ever are using Wikipedia, Facebook, Craigslist, Pandora, Hulu and Google. Thousands of new information goods and services are introduced each year. Yet, according to the official GDP statistics, the information sector (software, publishing, motion picture and sound recording, broadcasting, telecom, and information and data processing services) is about the same share of the economy as it was 25 years ago - about 4%. How is this possible? Don’t we have access to more information than ever before? The answer isn’t about quantity, it’s about price. The bits that comprise today’s information goods are supplanting the atoms that formed yesterday’s encyclopedias, movie theaters, music CDs and newspapers. Online information may be updated every minute of the day and accessible almost anywhere in the world, but its price is usually radically lower than that of its physical counterpart, if there even is a price

Experimental semi-device-independent certification of entangled measurements

Certifying the entanglement of quantum states with Bell inequalities allows one to guarantee the security of quantum information protocols independently of imperfections in the measuring devices. Here we present a similar procedure for witnessing entangled measurements, which play a central role in many quantum information tasks. Our procedure is termed semi-device-independent, as it uses uncharacterized quantum preparations of fixed Hilbert space dimension. Using a photonic setup, we experimentally certify an entangled measurement using measurement statistics only. We also apply our techniques to certify unentangled but nevertheless inherently quantum measurements.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Essays on information technology and intangible capital

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Vita.Includes bibliographical references.This thesis consists of three essays related to information technology and intangible capital. The first essay, "Valuing IT-Related Intangible Capital," examines the value of intangible assets in the firm. Using a panel of 130 firms from 2003-2006, we find that intangible assets are correlated with significantly higher market values beyond their cost-based measures. Moreover, we estimate that there is a 30-55% premium in market value for the firms with the highest organizational IT capabilities as compared to those with the lowest organizational IT capabilities. The second essay, "Has Information Technology Leveled the Competitive Playing Field?" analyzes the relationship between IT and ordinary (non-IT) capital and the competitive dynamics within U.S. industries. Using a panel of industry data from 1998-2005, when an industry becomes more IT intensive, there is more entry and expansion of firms (including entry of new small firms and expansion of large firms from the same and other industries). Yet there is also more turnover of small firms in the industry as well as concentration of the industry into large firms. In contrast, as an industry becomes more ordinary capital-intensive, there is less entry of small firms and fewer establishment openings by large firms; a lower rate of turnover by small firms; and fragmentation of the industry into small firms. In the third essay, "The Value and Durability of Patents in High-Tech Firms" (co-authored with Erik Brynjolfsson and Lorin Hitt), we use data on publicly traded high-tech companies from 1984-2002 to examine the relationship between the firms' market value and their patent-based intangible assets. We find that high-tech firms with patents that are cited by a wide variety of other patents in different patent classes are worth significantly more than firms with patents that are cited by a narrow range of patents. Patent generality is especially valuable in periods of change, when firms are no longer at the leading edge of innovation in a particular year. In these periods, we find that the value of diverse patents across technology categories is positive but not significant and that generality is comparatively more valuable than diversity.by Adam Saunders.Ph.D

A Local Hubble Bubble from SNe Ia?

We analyze the monopole in the peculiar velocities of 44 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) to test for a local void. The sample extends from 20 to 300 Mpc/h, with distances, deduced from light-curve shapes, accurate to ~6%. Assuming Omega_m=1 and Omega_lambda=0, the most significant deviation we find from the Hubble law is an outwards flow of (6.6+/-2.2)% inside a sphere of radius 70 Mpc/h as would be produced by a void of ~20% underdensity surrounded by a dense shell. This shell roughly coincides with the local Great Walls. Monte Carlo analyses, using Gaussian errors or bootstrap resampling, show the probability for chance occurrence of this result out of a pure Hubble flow to be ~2%. The monopole could be contaminated by higher moments of the velocity field, especially a quadrupole, which are not properly probed by the current limited sky coverage. The void would be less significant if Omega_m is low and Omega_lambda is high. It would be more significant if one outlier is removed from the sample, or if the size of the void is constrained a-priori. This putative void is not in significant conflict with any of the standard cosmological scenarios. It suggests that the Hubble constant as determined within 70 Mpc/h could be overestimated by ~6% and the local value of Omega may be underestimated by ~20%. While the present evidence for a local void is marginal in this data set, the analysis shows that the accumulation of SNe Ia distances will soon provide useful constraints on elusive and important aspects of regional cosmic dynamics.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures. Slightly revised version. To appear in ApJ, 503, Aug. 20, 199