Dynamic Relations Between Macroeconomic Factors and the Jordanian Stock Market

Previous research has hypothesized the existence of a long-term equilibrium relation between stock prices and certain macroeconomic variables. The vector error correction model (VECM) (Johansen (1991)) is utilized to determine the impact of selected macroeconomic variables on Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). The variables are the real economic activity, money supply, inflation, and interest rate. The empirical results show that the stock prices and macroeconomics variables have a long-term equilibrium relation.Stock Market, Dynamic Relations, Cointegration, Jordan

Short-Term, Long-Term, and Efficiency Impacts of Recent Mergers and Acquisitions in the U.S. Banking Industry

This dissertation examines the wealth effects of bank mergers on bidder, target, and combined firm shareholders for a sample of 785 mergers during the period 1980-2000. The dissertation employs two unique bank event study methodologies to calculate abnormal returns for bidder, target and combined firms. The first methodology is a modified market model that controls for shocks common to the banking industry. The second is an EGARCH (1,1) model that adjusts for the violated regression assumptions of the traditional market model event study. Namely, it controls for the linearity assumption, heteroskedasticity, and the correlation in the error term. The results of both methodologies reveal that target shareholders enjoy significantly positive abnormal returns, whereas the bidder shareholders experience significantly negative abnormal returns. Overall, announcements of bank mergers generate positive wealth effects for the combined shareholders. However, the evidence presented in this dissertation, to some extent, underscores the importance of the choice of models describing stock returns in examining the impact of bank mergers. In addition, when mergers are analyzed to determine the effects of relative size and relative book-to-market values, we find evidence that the relative size significantly affects the target, bidder and combined firm return; method of payment is also found to be significant in abnormal returns. Moreover, we find that the number of bidders affects only the bidder returns, while book-tomarket values are irrelevant factors. Availability Restricted: Release the entire work for camp

ENHANCING DENTAL IMPLANT OSSEOINTEGRATION VIA PROTEIN OR NON-VIRAL GENE DELIVERY

This project proposes to enhance technology aimed at improving osseointegration following dental implant. Specifically, we focus on the delivery of plasmid DNA (pDNA) using nanostructured hydroxyapatite particles coated on titanium surfaces. Our hypothesis is that localized expression of osteoinductive proteins will improve healing time and facilitate osseointegration, as well as enhance the efficacy of placing implants in porous type 4 bone. To evaluate the feasibility of intercellular gene delivery off titanium surfaces, we employed a reporter system of green fluorescent protein (GFP) pDNA-NanoCaP particles coated on a titanium surface. MG63 osteoblast cells were seeded on this surface, and later assayed for GFP expression. Twenty-four substrates were assessed: experimental group 2 (Exp2, 400 µl NanoCaP/ 8 µl pDNA) substrates group, demonstrated significantly higher GFP expression values compared to the control (Ctl, 200 µl of ddH2O and 4 µl of pDNA) and Exp (200 µl of NanoCaP and 4 µl of pDNA) groups. Our data show that the coated NanoCaP/pDNA complex can transfect plated cells and that the applied amount of NanoCaPs is critical. In conclusion, we have successfully shown the feasibility of a non-viral approach to deliver plasmid DNA from titanium surfaces and suggest that further optimization is needed

Analytic Gradients for Complete Active Space Pair-Density Functional Theory

Analytic gradient routines are a desirable feature for quantum mechanical methods, allowing for efficient determination of equilibrium and transition state structures and several other molecular properties. In this work, we present analytical gradients for multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory (MC-PDFT) when used with a state-specific complete active space self-consistent field reference wave function. Our approach constructs a Lagrangian that is variational in all wave function parameters. We find that MC-PDFT locates equilibrium geometries for several small- to medium-sized organic molecules that are similar to those located by complete active space second-order perturbation theory but that are obtained with decreased computational cost

Digital Preservation: Handling Large Collections Case Study: Digitizing Egyptian Press Archive at Centre for Economic, Judicial, and Social Study and Documentation(CEDEJ)

Managing the digitization of large collections is quite a challenge not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of text and material quality, designing the workflow system which organizes the operations, and handling metadata. This has been the focus of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina during its partnership with the Centre for Economic, Judicial, and Social Study and Documentation (CEDEJ), to digitize more than 800,000 pages of press articles dating back to 1976. This triggered a need to design a workflow to manage such a massive collection proficiently. This required simultaneous intervention of four main aspects; data analysis, developing a digitization workflow , implementing and installing the necessary software tools for metadata entry, and publishing the digital archive. This paper demonstrates the workflow system implemented to manage this massive press collection, yielding more than 400,000 items to date. It illustrates the BA’s Digital Assets Factory (DAF); the nucleus of the digitization process ,and the tools and stages implemented for ingesting data into the system. The outflow is also discussed in terms of organizing and grouping multipart press clips, in addition to reviewing and validating the output. The paper also discusses the challenges of associating the accessible online archive with a powerful search engine supporting multidimensional search

Rationale for a new class of double-hybrid approximations in density-functional theory

We provide a rationale for a new class of double-hybrid approximations introduced by Br\'emond and Adamo [J. Chem. Phys. 135, 024106 (2011)] which combine an exchange-correlation density functional with Hartree-Fock exchange weighted by \l and second-order M{\o}ller-Plesset (MP2) correlation weighted by \l^3. We show that this double-hybrid model can be understood in the context of the density-scaled double-hybrid model proposed by Sharkas et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 134, 064113 (2011)], as approximating the density-scaled correlation functional E_c[n_{1/\l}] by a linear function of \l, interpolating between MP2 at \l=0 and a density-functional approximation at \l=1. Numerical results obtained with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof density functional confirms the relevance of this double-hybrid model.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Journal of Chemical Physic