Determinants of Corporate Dividend Policy: An Empirical Analysis of UK Listed Companies

This paper investigates the common determinants of dividend payout policy of UK listed companies on London Stock Exchange FTSE 350 over a ten-year period from2002 to 2011. The focus of this research will be put on dividend policy. Six research hypotheses are proposed, which derived from main dividend policy theories to examine the influencing factors. This paper chooses six factors for the regression test. A panel dataset has been created and the fixed effects model is regarded as the Best-fit model. The variables chosen as factors affecting the decisions of dividend are firm size, profitability, investment opportunity, financial leverage, tax and retained earnings for lifecycle. Firm size, profitability and life cycle positively influence the dividend per share, while the tax shows a negative effect on dividends. These results are significantly in the predicted direction and consistent with various empirical studies. However, the regression results of investment opportunity and financial leverage are insignificant; they do not explain the dividend in advance. Consequently, this study may provide some understanding in the determinants of dividend policy for UK listed firms

Ultrasound-assisted extraction of polyphenols from Chinese propolis

IntroductionPropolis is a beneficial bioactive food with rich polyphenols content. Nowadays, an increasing interest is attracted to the extraction of polyphenols from raw propolis. This study utilized the novel ultrasound-assisted approach for polyphenol extraction from Chinese propolis, aiming to improve its extraction yield and reveal the relevant mechanisms via extraction kinetic study as well as the compositional and structural analysis.MethodsThe optimum ultrasound-assisted extraction conditions were optimized according to the total phenolic content and total flavonoids content. Compositional and structural analysis were conducted using high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time of flight tandem mass spectrometry, high-performance liquid chromatography, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM).Results and discussionThe optimum ultrasound-assisted extraction conditions were as follows: ratio of liquid to solid, 60:1; ultrasound power, 135 W; ultrasound duration, 20 min. Under the optimum conditions, the antioxidant activities of the extract were increased by 95.55% and 64.46% by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging ability assay and 2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) radical scavenging ability assay, respectively, compared to those obtained by traditional maceration. The second-order kinetics model was employed to study the extraction process; it was found that ultrasound significantly accelerated the extraction of propolis and increased the maximum extraction volume of phenolic compounds. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of polyphenol compositions showed that ultrasound did not change the polyphenol types in the extract but it significantly improved the contents of various flavonoids and phenolic acids such as galangin, chrysin, pinocembrin, pinobanksin and isoferulic acid. Likewise, the FT-IR analysis indicated that the types of functional groups were similar in the two extracts. The SEM analysis revealed that the ultrasound-assisted extraction enhanced the contact areas between propolis and ethanol by breaking down the propolis particles and eroding the propolis surface

Determinants of Corporate Dividend Policy: An Empirical Analysis of UK Listed Companies

This paper investigates the common determinants of dividend payout policy of UK listed companies on London Stock Exchange FTSE 350 over a ten-year period from2002 to 2011. The focus of this research will be put on dividend policy. Six research hypotheses are proposed, which derived from main dividend policy theories to examine the influencing factors. This paper chooses six factors for the regression test. A panel dataset has been created and the fixed effects model is regarded as the Best-fit model. The variables chosen as factors affecting the decisions of dividend are firm size, profitability, investment opportunity, financial leverage, tax and retained earnings for lifecycle. Firm size, profitability and life cycle positively influence the dividend per share, while the tax shows a negative effect on dividends. These results are significantly in the predicted direction and consistent with various empirical studies. However, the regression results of investment opportunity and financial leverage are insignificant; they do not explain the dividend in advance. Consequently, this study may provide some understanding in the determinants of dividend policy for UK listed firms

Beneficial Effects of Poplar Buds on Hyperglycemia, Dyslipidemia, Oxidative Stress, and Inflammation in Streptozotocin-Induced Type-2 Diabetes

The effects of propolis on blood glucose regulation and the alleviation of various complications caused by diabetes have been widely studied. The main source of propolis in the northern temperate zone is poplar buds. However, there is limited research on the antidiabetic activity of poplar buds. In order to evaluate the effect of poplar buds on type-2 diabetes, crude extract and 50% fraction of poplar buds were used to feed streptozotocin-induced type-2 diabetic mice. The results showed that 50% fraction could increase insulin sensitivity and reduce insulin resistance, as well as decrease the levels of fasting blood glucose, glycated hemoglobin, and glycosylated serum proteins in diabetic mice. Compared with the model control group, the 50% fraction-treated group showed significant decreases of malondialdehyde (MDA) and increases of superoxide dismutase (SOD) in serum and liver homogenate. Moreover, 50% fraction could significantly decrease total cholesterol (TC), alleviate abnormal lipid metabolism, and enhance antioxidant capacity in the serum. For inflammatory factors, feeding of 50% fraction could also reduce the levels of interleukin 6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1), and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in liver homogenate. Taken together, our results suggest that crude extract and 50% fraction of poplar buds, particularly the latter, can decrease blood glucose levels and insulin resistance, and 50% fraction can significantly relieve dyslipidemia, oxidative stress, and inflammation caused by type-2 diabetes

Security-enhanced Key Distribution Based on Chaos Synchronization Between Dual Path-injected Semiconductor Lasers

We propose and numerically demonstrate a novel secure key distribution scheme based on the chaos synchronization of two semiconductor lasers (SLs) subject to symmetrical double chaotic injections, which are outputted by two mutually-coupled semiconductor lasers. The results show that high quality chaos synchronization can be observed between two local SLs with suitable injection strength and identical injection time delays for Alice and Bob. On the basis of satisfactory chaos synchronization and a post-processing technology, identical secret keys for Alice and Bob are successfully generated with bit error ratio (BER) below the HD-FEC threshold of 3.8×10−3

Tracing sources of nitrate using water chemistry, land use and nitrogen isotopes in the Ganjiang River, China

<p>In this work, we traced sources of nitrate in the Ganjiang River, a major tributary of Yangtze River, China, by analysing the water chemistry, nitrogen isotopes and land use. Water samples from 20 sites in the main stream and tributaries were collected in the dry and wet seasons. The ranged from 0.97 to 8.60 ‰, and was significantly higher in the wet season than in the dry season, and significantly higher in tributaries than in the main stream. In the dry season, concentrations and were significantly negatively correlated with forest and grassland areas, and positively correlated with paddy field and residential area. However, most of the correlations were not significant in the wet season. The results showed that fertilizer was the main source of nitrate in the Ganjiang River, and domestic sewage was important in the dry season, but its contribution was lower than that in other rivers in the Yangtze Basin. In the wet season, the intensified nitrogen cycle caused by high temperature and the mixing effect caused by rainfall made it difficult to trace nitrate sources using and land use.</p

Adaptive time-delayed photonic reservoir computing based on Kalman-filter training

We propose an adaptive time-delayed photonic reservoir computing (RC) structure by utilizing the Kalman filter (KF) algorithm as training approach. Two benchmark tasks, namely the Santa Fe time-series prediction and the nonlinear channel equalization, are adopted to evaluate the performance of the proposed RC structure. The simulation results indicate that with the contribution of adaptive KF training, the prediction and equalization performance for the benchmark tasks can be significantly enhanced, with respect to the conventional RC using a training approach based on the least-squares (LS). Moreover, by introducing a complex mask derived from a bandwidth and complexity enhanced chaotic signal into the proposed RC, the performance of prediction and equalization can be further improved. In addition, it is demonstrated that the proposed RC system can provide a better equalization performance for the parameter-variant wireless channel equalization task, compared with the conventional RC based on LS training. The work presents a potential way to realize adaptive photonic computing

An intra‐articular injectable phospholipids‐based gel for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory and destructive arthropathy with a high deformity rate. Despite numerous studies and clinical trials, no curative treatment is available for large weight-bearing joints. Intra-articular (IA) injections could deliver high concentrations of drug to the afflicted joint and improve the drug efficacy while reducing systemic toxicity. However, free drugs are rapidly cleared from synovial fluid and do not significantly halt the progression of joint disease. Herein, a phospholipids-based controlled-release gel was prepared for sustained IA delivery of celastrol (CEL) and the therapeutic efficiency was evaluated in a rheumatoid arthritis rabbit model. The CEL-loaded gel (CEL-gel) contained up to 70% phospholipids yet was easy to inject. After injecting into the joint cavity, CEL-gel achieved sol to gel phase transition without special stimuli and gelling agent. In vitro release and in vivo pharmacokinetic studies evidenced the stable and sustained release action of CEL-gel. A single IA injection of CEL-gel could maintain therapeutic efficiency for about 25 d and showed much better anti-arthritic efficacy compared to repeated injections of free drug solution (CEL-sol). Furthermore, the IA injection of CEL-gel greatly reduced the systemic toxicity of CEL. With good biocompatibility and biodegradability, CEL-gel might be a promising IA drug delivery system

Security enhancement in coherent OFDM optical transmission with chaotic three-dimensional constellation scrambling

In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel hybrid chaos-based three-dimensional (3-D) constellation scrambling scheme to simultaneously improve the physical layer security and transmission performance of the coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) system. A 3-D regular hexahedron signal constellation is constructed by the constellation figure of merit principle, which not only expands the encryption dimension but improves the error performance. The dynamic parameters for constellation scrambling are generated by the 5-D hybrid chaotic scheme based on the combination of a 3-D hyperchaotic Hénon mapping and two independent 1-D Logistic mappings, as such a key space of ∼10133 is introduced to enhance the security level of OFDM data encryption during transmission. Furthermore, a transmission experiment for encryption of 144 Gbps 16-quadrature-amplitude-modulation OFDM data over a 100 km standard single-mode fiber in a CO-OFDM system is demonstrated. Compared with the case of using the 3-D rectangular constellation, a 2 dB bit error rate performance improvement is achieved. The results show that the proposed scheme could effectively enhance the system security and transmission performance, which suggests a scalable strategy for future physically secured CO-OFDM systems