The Case for Women in Financial Services

Finance literature has been studying the gender gap and the roles of women in business and finance. Focusing on mutual fund management, this study revisits the idea by investigating the impact of gender-specific investing styles on the level of volatility involved with the funds. The initial hypothesis is that the performance of funds managed by females is less volatile compared to funds managed by males. If we have statistical evidence to show this hypothesis is valid, gender diversification should be encouraged in asset management. The empirical results show evidence that the participation of women in fund management lowers the ten year volatility of an equity fund by 0.9 on average, compared to funds managed by individual male or all-male team

弱教師付き分類手法Bautextによる単語の意味的カテゴリ分類

電気通信大学200

The development of inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 ORF8

An unexpected outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 caused a worldwide pandemic in 2020. Many repurposed drugs were tested, but there are currently only three FDA approved antivirals (Merck’s antiviral Molnupiravir, Pfizer’s antiviral Paxlovid, and Remdisivir).1 Most of the antiviral drugs tested SARS-CoV-2 main protease and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. However, it is important to explore different drug targets of SARS-CoV-2 to prepare for the virus mutations of the future. This research looks at an alternative approach in which SARSCoV- 2 Open Reading Frame 8 (ORF8), which has been shown to be a rapidly evolving hypervariable gene, was chosen to be the protein of interest. A series of computational strategies were developed to generate pharmacophores and identify lead compounds. In addition to the lead compound identification pipeline, this thesis also presents an automated method for generating pharmacophore models from molecular docking output. The pharmacophore-based models resulted in four potential FDA-approved compounds. This thesis focuses on the binding activity of one of the four compounds, novobiocin. To collect data on the binding activity, the ORF8 protein was expressed and purified. Results suggest that novobiocin binds to ORF8, and it might be a potential inhibitor for further developments of an antiviral for SARS-CoV-2.

CONSTRUCTIVE AND INVESTIGATE THE GENERALIZED CONVOLUTION WITH THE WEIGHT FUNCTION FOR THE FOURIER COSINE AND SINE TRANSFORMS

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

Underdog brand biographies and their influence on consumers’ post-message engagement

This research examines the effect of two dimensions of an underdog biography (external disadvantage, passion and determination) on consumers’ engagement with the brand, brand preferences, and purchase intention. It also adds two potential mediators—narrative transportation and post-message behaviors—to the conceptual model investigating the underdog biography effect. The findings show that passion and determination create relate more strongly to purchase intention than external disadvantage, and underscore the importance of both mediators, especially with regard to post-message behaviors. Overall, this research provides a new theoretical mechanism underlying the effect of underdog brand biographies. Managerial implications, limitations and future research directions are included in the conclusion part

Situation of wastewater treatment of natural rubber latex processing in the Southeastern region, Vietnam: Review paper

Rubber tree is one of the main plants which play an important role in the economy of Southeastern region, Vietnam. Approximately 90% of Vietnamese natural rubber latex is exported as raw products. The preliminary process of natural rubber latex discharges a large amount of wastewater to the environment. In Vietnam, there are many available technologies set up and operated for treatment wastewater of rubber latex processing. However, the effluent quality is still poor and the concentration of pollutants is higher than the required national technical regulation on the effluent of the natural rubber processing industry (QCVN 01:2008/BTNMT). Thus, this paper summarizes various technologies and methods currently applied for the treatment of latex processing wastewater in Vietnam. Additionally, the new effective methods being researched and applied in Thailand and Malaysia are also mentioned (countries with the highest production of natural rubber in the world). This paper also provides a screening of treatment technologies for reducing environmental pollution and contributing to high-quality effluent for meeting the required standard.Cao su là một trong những cây trồng chính và đóng vai trò quan trọng trong nền kinh tế của miền Đông Nam Bộ, Việt Nam. Sản phẩm từ cây cao su thiên nhiên tại Việt Nam chủ yếu là xuất khẩu (khoảng 90%), tuy nhiên chỉ mới là dạng cao su thiên nhiên sơ chế. Quá trình sơ chế mủ cao su thiên nhiên thải bỏ một lượng lớn nước thải vào môi trường. Ở Việt Nam, hiện tại có rất nhiều công nghệ xử lý nước thải sơ chế mủ cao su đã được thiết lập và vận hành. Tuy nhiên, nồng độ ô nhiễm trong nước thải sau quá trình xử lý còn cao so với tiêu chuẩn yêu cầu (QCVN 01:2008/BTNMT). Vì vậy, bài báo này tóm tắt những công nghệ và phương pháp khác nhau được sử dụng để xử lý nước thải sơ chế mủ cao su tại Việt Nam gần đây. Thêm vào đó, những phương pháp mới và hiệu quả đang được nghiên cứu và áp dụng tại Malaysia và Thái Lan, những quốc gia có sản lượng sản xuất mủ cao su cao nhất trên thế giới cũng được giới thiệu. Bài báo này cũng cung cấp sự đa dạng của những phương pháp xử lý nhằm giảm thiểu ô nhiễm môi trường và góp phần đảm bảo chất lượng nước đầu ra đạt tiêu chuẩn cho phép

Is It Possible for “Electronic Word-of-Mouth” and “User-Generated Content” to be Used Interchangeably?

The advance of web 2.0 that facilitates contents to be created, shared and exchanged through online platforms has led to profound changes in consumer behavior. Modern consumers appreciate nonprofessional-produced contents as they are perceived to be more trustworthy. As a result, electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) and user-generated content (UGC) have become two of the most frequent researched objects over the last ten years in marketing area. However, extant studies have confounded these two concepts which may cause significant academic problems. In this paper the authors aim to disentangle eWOM and UGC by comparing their fundamental attributes. Findings prove that despite sharing similar attributes, eWOM and UGC are two distinctive concepts with different scope and meaning. It is thus concluded that eWOM and UGC cannot be used interchangeably. The results of this study provide important implications for future research. Keywords: eWOM, UGC, creation, dissemination, publicity. DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/65-04 Publication date: February 29th 202

Discouraged borrowing, credit rationing and firm growth : a learning model in small firm

Although asymmetric information in financial markets has been studied extensively in the literature, and the credit-rationing issue is well understood, less is known about discouraged borrowers. Studies on small businesses, however, show that discouraged borrowers account for a larger proportion of the economy than credit-rationed businesses. Overall, there is a lack of studies on the determinants of discouraged-borrowing decisions as well as how discouragement is different from credit rationing in terms of their impacts on firm performance. Although rooted in market failure, discouraged borrowing is a self-rationing decision made by the firm itself, and thus, it reflects firms’ decision-making processes. In this context, this thesis will investigate firms’ borrowing-decision processes. It will also study impacts of discouraged borrowing and credit rationing on firm growth. Based on learning models, it shows that firms learn from their experience in forming their future decisions. In particular, credit rationing worsens the perceived rejection likelihood, which in turn increases the tendency to make a discouraged-borrowing decision. Moreover, the learning process also channels indirect impacts of discouraged-borrowing and credit-rationing on growth through their negative impacts on the perception of financial constraints and subsequent impacts on growth expectations. Disentangling the individual impacts of discouraged borrowing and credit rationing on growth is also of interest in this thesis. Using the UK Longitudinal Small Business Survey and the UK SME Finance Monitor, this study provides empirical evidence to support the model. It shows that firms rejected in the past are more likely to self-ration in the short and long term. It also supports the model in presenting distinctive direct impacts of discouraged borrowing and credit rationing on growth. Lastly, the evidence also shows that both types of financial constraints indirectly hinder growth expectations through their negative impacts on financial-constraint perceptions, and thus, impede growth outcomes in the future. Accordingly, the findings in this thesis suggest that to resolve financial constraint issues in small businesses, policymaking should address both supply and demand sides through various initiatives. For example, while credit-reference agencies and loan-guarantee schemes help reduce the informational-asymmetry issue on the supply side, policymakers should also raise awareness on the demand side of these initiatives