Do Investors Care About Noise Trader Risk?

International audienceThe link between investor sentiment and asset valuation is at the center of a long-running debate in behavioral finance. Using a new composite sentiment indicator, we show that the conventional risk does not explain the abnormal returns of portfolios most sensitive to the sentiment factor. Our result supports the existence of a sentiment risk valued by financial markets. We also find that the firms more impacted by the sentiment risk correspond to difficult-to-arbitrage and hard-to-value stocks, e.g. small stocks, growth stocks, young stocks, unprofitable stocks, lower dividend-paying stocks, intangible stocks and high volatility stocks

High kinetic inductance microwave resonators made by He-Beam assisted deposition of tungsten nanowires

We evaluate the performance of hybrid microwave resonators made by combining sputtered Nb thin films with Tungsten nanowires grown with a He-beam induced deposition technique. Depending on growth conditions, the nanowires have a typical width w [35 - 75] nm and thickness t [5 - 40] nm. We observe a high normal state resistance R [65 - 150] Ω / which together with a critical temperature T c [4 - 6] K ensures a high kinetic inductance making the resonator strongly nonlinear. Both lumped and coplanar waveguide resonators were fabricated and measured at low temperature exhibiting internal quality factors up to 3990 at 4.5 GHz in the few photon regime. Analyzing the wire length, temperature, and microwave power dependence, we extracted a kinetic inductance for the W nanowire of L K 15 pH / which is 250 times higher than the geometrical inductance, and a Kerr non-linearity as high as K W, He / 2 π = 200 ± 120 Hz / photon at 4.5 GHz. The nanowires made with the helium focused ion beam are thus versatile objects to engineer compact, high impedance, superconducting environments with a mask and resist free direct write process

The case of Beirut

Thesis. M.U.P.P. American University of Beirut. Department of Architecture and Design, 2018. ET:6756$Advisor : Dr. Mona Harb, Professor, Architecture and Design ; Members of Committee : Dr. Mona Fawaz, Professor, Architecture and Design ; Dr. Ahmad Gharbieh, Assistant Professor, Architecture and Design.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-107)Lebanon is hosting more than 1 million Syrian refugees. For a country of its size, and a population of around 4 million, this influx of Syrians into Lebanon has exposed many of its already established ailments. A prevailing perception is that Syrians are establishing businesses and competing with the Lebanese, leading to violent reactions on the part of host communities. In this research, I investigate the experience of Syrian business owners who were able to establish micro, small and medium businesses focusing on their impacts on the city. I am keen on debunking the reductionist framing of ‘the Syrian refugee’ as a burden and research the contribution that some Syrians have been making to different neighborhoods of Beirut. Building on Kloosterman et al.’s (1999) framework, my thesis explores the barriers that face Syrian-owned businesses amidst the Lebanese institutional framework and societal environment, as well as the human capital and social networks that enable their entrepreneurial experience, in addition to briefly examining their impact on the city. The thesis argues that i) the lack of information regarding market regulations creates a major barrier, as well as the ambiguous sets of regulations governing Syrian businesses’ access to work and residency permits, ii) successful businesses owners’ use their previously acquired skills and services-products, particularly in the food industry, and rely on strong social networks with both Syrians and Lebanese people; iii) Syrian-owned businesses are mostly found in mixed-use and-or working-class neighborhoods in the city, developing a new trend in the city, revolving around the food sector. The thesis also provides policy guidelines and recommendations towards regulating, enabling and empowering the establishment of micro, small and medium businesses as a key tool to facilitate the process of integration of displaced Syrians, and to enhance local economic development

Online work as humanitarian relief:The promise and limitations of digital livelihoods for Syrian refugees and Lebanese youth in times of crisis

The global spread of a web-based digital economy raises questions about its potential as a lifeline to people affected by severe economic and humanitarian crises. As local markets crumble and unemployment rises, online freelance work offers a seemingly accessible source of income that is independent from the constraints of local markets and national regulations. This article scrutinizes this promise against the backdrop of multiple evolving crises in Lebanon, asking to what extent a transnational digital economy can serve crisis-affected populations, including refugees, as a secure source of income and work.The research is based on interviews and surveys with Syrian refugees and host community members in Lebanon, who participated in digital skills training programmes and worked as digital freelancers for Social Impact Platforms and Enterprises (SIPEs). Their experience shows how the impact of Lebanon’s crises undermined the feasibility of web-based digital work precisely at a time when they needed it most. Syrian refugees in Lebanon are affected by particular layers of regulatory restriction, including their exclusion from digital platforms, skills training programmes, and the financial system. As these layers of exclusion intersect with the precarity of self-employed digital jobs and a severe economic crisis, Syrians’ displacement in Lebanon is reconfigured into a digital space of exile within a transnational digital economy. Viewed from this perspective, the digital economy fails to live up to its inclusive promise and fails to transcend the restrictive regulations, economic instability, and precarity that characterises crisis-affected states and populations

Self organization of sensor networks for energy-efficient border coverage

Networking together hundreds or thousands of cheap sensor nodes allows users to accurately monitor a remote environment by intelligently combining the data from the individual nodes. As sensor nodes are typically battery operated, it is important to efficiently use the limited energy of the nodes to extend the lifetime of the wireless sensor network (WSN). One of the fundamental issues in WSNs is the coverage problem. In this paper, the border coverage problem in WSNs is rigorously analyzed. Most existing results related to the coverage problem in wireless sensor networks focused on planar networks; however, three dimensional (3D) modeling of the sensor network would reflect more accurately real-life situations. Unlike previous works in this area, we provide distributed algorithms that allow the selection and activation of an optimal border cover for both 2D and 3D regions of interest. We also provide self-healing algorithms as an optimization to our border coverage algorithms which allow the sensor network to adaptively reconfigure and repair itself in order to improve its own performance. Border coverage is crucial for optimizing sensor placement for intrusion detection and a number of other practical applications