Impact of specific CSR activities, executive & board diversity on equity valuations

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2018The objective of this study is to identify the impact of specific corporate social responsibility behaviors on equity prices. This study uses fixed effect parametric and nonparametric regressions to quantify the effect of specific corporate social responsibility activities on the equity price multiples of a number of US firms from 1999 to 2009. The results of these empirical models consistently show that CEO diversity, corporate charitable giving, and work-life balance benefit plans, are associated with lower equity price multiples compared against similar firms that lack these characteristics. Additionally, board diversity and support of the LBGTQ community is associated with a positive impact on equity price multiples. This study provides evidence that individual corporate social responsibility activities can have drastic impacts on equity prices, leading the way for future research testing whether the magnitudes of these impacts are rational and in-line with their expected impact on financial performance and risk, or a deviation from the efficient market hypothesis

Laboratory experiments on cohesive soil bed fluidization by water waves

Part I. Relationships between the rate of bed fluidization and the rate of wave energy dissipation, by Jingzhi Feng and Ashish J. Mehta and Part II. In-situ rheometry for determining the dynamic response of bed, by David J.A. Williams and P. Rhodri Williams. A series of preliminary laboratory flume experiments were carried out to examine the time-dependent behavior of a cohesive soil bed subjected to progressive, monochromatic waves. The bed was an aqueous, 50/50 (by weight) mixture of a kaolinite and an attapulgite placed in a plexiglass trench. The nominal bed thickness was 16 cm with density ranging from 1170 to 1380 kg/m 3, and water above was 16 to 20 cm deep. Waves of design height ranging from 2 to 8 cm and a nominal frequency of 1 Hz were run for durations up to 2970 min. Part I of this report describes experiments meant to examine the rate at which the bed became fluidized, and its relation to the rate of wave energy dissipation. Part II gives results on in-situ rheometry used to track the associated changes in bed rigidity. Temporal and spatial changes of the effective stress were measured during the course of wave action, and from these changes the bed fluidization rate was calculated. A wave-mud interaction model developed in a companion study was employed to calculate the rate of wave energy dissipation. The dependence of the rate of fluidization on the rate of energy dissipation was then explored. Fluidization, which seemingly proceeded down from the bed surface, occurred as a result of the loss of structural integrity of the soil matrix through a buildup of the excess pore pressure and the associated loss of effective stress. The rate of fluidization was typically greater at the beginning of wave action and apparently approached zero with time. This trend coincided with the approach of the rate of energy dissipation to a constant value. In general it was also observed that, for a given wave frequency, the larger the wave height the faster the rate of fluidization and thicker the fluid mud layer formed. On the other hand, increasing the time of bed consolidation prior to wave action decreased the fluidization rate due to greater bed rigidity. Upon cessation of wave action structural recovery followed. Dynamic rigidity was measured by specially designed, in situ shearometers placed in the bed at appropriate elevations to determine the time-dependence of the storage and loss moduli, G' and G", of the viscoelastic clay mixture under 1 Hz waves. As the inter-particle bonds of the space-filling, bed material matrix weakened, the shear propagation velocity decreased measurably. Consequently, G' decreased and G" increased as a transition from dynamically more elastic to more viscous response occurred. These preliminary experiments have demonstrated the validity of the particular rheometric technique used, and the critical need for synchronous, in-situ measurements of pore pressures and moduli characterizing bed rheology in studies on mud fluidization. This study was supported by WES contract DACW39-90-K-0010. (This document contains 151 pages.

Updated analysis of the dynamical relation between asteroid 2003 EH1 and comets C/1490 Y1 and C/1385 U1

The asteroid 2003 EH1, proposed as the parent body of the Quadrantid meteor shower, is thought to be the remnant of a past cometary object, tentatively identified with the historical comets C/1490 Y1 and C/1385 U1. In the present work we use recovery astrometry to extend the observed arc of 2003 EH1 from 10 months to about 5 years, enough to exclude the proposed direct relationship of the asteroid with both of the comets.Comment: Submitted to Monthly Notices of the RAS Letters Updated with a new table and other minor change

Encoding of low-quality DNA profiles as genotype probability matrices for improved profile comparisons, relatedness evaluation and database searches

Many DNA profiles recovered from crime scene samples are of a quality that does not allow them to be searched against, nor entered into, databases. We propose a method for the comparison of profiles arising from two DNA samples, one or both of which can have multiple donors and be affected by low DNA template or degraded DNA. We compute likelihood ratios to evaluate the hypothesis that the two samples have a common DNA donor, and hypotheses specifying the relatedness of two donors. Our method uses a probability distribution for the genotype of the donor of interest in each sample. This distribution can be obtained from a statistical model, or we can exploit the ability of trained human experts to assess genotype probabilities, thus extracting much information that would be discarded by standard interpretation rules. Our method is compatible with established methods in simple settings, but is more widely applicable and can make better use of information than many current methods for the analysis of mixed-source, low-template DNA profiles. It can accommodate uncertainty arising from relatedness instead of or in addition to uncertainty arising from noisy genotyping. We describe a computer program GPMDNA, available under an open source license, to calculate LRs using the method presented in this paper.Comment: 28 pages. Accepted for publication 2-Sep-2016 - Forensic Science International: Genetic

Feeding Records of Aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) From Wisconsin

Basic to our understanding of any animal and its habitat requirements is knowing what it eats. Reported here are observations of feeding by 27 species of aphids encountered in Wisconsin over 1992-2002

A Systems Approach to Student Loan Default

Total U.S. student loan debt has now reached $1.6 trillion accumulated by approximately 45 million Americans. While viable options exist, many do not adequately know of them or how to act on them the outcome of which is that many people with relatively small manageable debt are defaulting. Beneficial, financial student loan programs are vastly underutilized for many reasons one of which is poor financial literacy. In this dissertation, I argue that acquiring financial literacy is a system challenge. The model to support this hypothesis posits a system with inputs, an internal transformation process, outcomes, and a feedback loop. The transformation process within this system is where the interactions among students x teachers x content x context occur, and these interactions can co-produce financial literacy; one positive aspect of which is decreased student loan default rate. The dissertation concludes that a systems approach may improve understanding of the complex issues of student loan default

Digital Repository Adoption in New York City Research Institutions

As more scholarly and research materials are created in digital formats, institutions charged with managing, preserving, and disseminating these materials are increasingly adopting specialized software tools and environments created to fulfill these functions. Concurrently, subscriptions to serials databases provided by academic publishers are increasingly prohibitive and problematic. This paper surveys the adoption of digital institutional repositories by research institutions in the New York City region as of the Spring of 2009, and concludes that in spite of their potential advantages these systems are still not widely applied toward addressing the issues of preservation and access to their fullest potential

The Crusader and the Dictator: An Exploration of Ideology and Neurodivergence in Contemporary Technology Practice

A common theme in public discourse is the recognition that technology in general, and digital technology specifically, has an enormous impact on the everyday lives of people from all walks of modern life, in almost every corner of the globe. This thesis interrogates the connection between neurodivergence—the presence of neurological variations considered outside the cognitive norm— and individualistic ideology within the information technology industries. Through the biographies, substantial record of activities, public statements, and writings surrounding two influential figures in the contemporary practice of computer science, Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, it conducts an investigation into this convergence and its resulting impact on the surrounding culture