Ownership structure and IPO underpricing

We examine the influence of ownership structure on underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the US. While the existing literature has largely focused on either founders or venture capitalists, we show that the ownership structure of US IPOs is more complex and cannot be adequately characterized by these two types of blockholders. We find that the influence of blockholders on underpricing is not unidimensional – the positive influence of individual blockholders (venture capital backing) on underpricing is present only in the venture-backed firms (those with individual blockholders). Further, we also find that such firms experience insignificant offer price revision, suggesting that their higher underpricing is not driven by negative information revealed during the roadshow. Finally, we show that the difference in underpricing between VC-backed firms with individual blockholders and those without is no longer significant once we control for the celebrity status of individual blockholders

Transport dynamics analysis in ferromagnetic heterojunction using Raman spectroscopy and magnetic force microscopy

AbstractThe ZnO/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin film was epitaxially fabricated on LaAlO3 (100) by pulse laser deposition. The Raman scattering on the single layer LaSrMnO and junction ZnO/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 was investigated in a giant softening by 490cm−1 John-Teller, 620 and 703cm−1 optical phonon modes. The Raman spectra LaSrMnO and ZnO/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 were observed with distinct features, i.e., the thickness was in dependent of frequency and intensity. The dynamics results showed that the spin–orbital coupling was caused by anomalies tilt of MnO6 octahedron. The LSMO/ZnO junction exhibited excellent junction positive magneto-resistance behavior in the temperature range of 77–300K. The kinetic energy gain was achieved by orbital competition, strong crystal field and charge order of energy band splitting. The transport orbits were in the environment of the ferromagnetic-orbital ordering. The structures of barriers could be adjusted by junction interface and domain boundary condition in terms of the presence of spin–orbital fluctuating

PromotionLens: Inspecting Promotion Strategies of Online E-commerce via Visual Analytics

Promotions are commonly used by e-commerce merchants to boost sales. The efficacy of different promotion strategies can help sellers adapt their offering to customer demand in order to survive and thrive. Current approaches to designing promotion strategies are either based on econometrics, which may not scale to large amounts of sales data, or are spontaneous and provide little explanation of sales volume. Moreover, accurately measuring the effects of promotion designs and making bootstrappable adjustments accordingly remains a challenge due to the incompleteness and complexity of the information describing promotion strategies and their market environments. We present PromotionLens, a visual analytics system for exploring, comparing, and modeling the impact of various promotion strategies. Our approach combines representative multivariant time-series forecasting models and well-designed visualizations to demonstrate and explain the impact of sales and promotional factors, and to support "what-if" analysis of promotions. Two case studies, expert feedback, and a qualitative user study demonstrate the efficacy of PromotionLens.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proc. IEEE VIS 2022

Association between daily screen time and risk of stroke among middle-aged and elderly people: research based on China health and nutrition survey

BackgroundWe aimed to explore the independent associations between screen time and the risk of stroke among Chinese adults based on the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS).MethodsData on Chinese adults aged older than 40 years from the CHNS in during 2004–2009 were selected. A total of 4,587 individuals were included in 2009, including screen time and the risk of stroke. Simultaneously, we traced the previous screen time to 2004 for those with outcome measures in 2009 (n = 2,100). Basic information, lifestyle, and screen behavior were obtained through face-to-face interviews and self-completed questionnaires. Anthropometric data collected included blood pressure, body weight, height, hip circumference, and waist circumference. Fasting blood was obtained for measurements of lipid and glucose levels. Cross-sectional analysis and cohort analysis were both performed using multivariate logistic regression.ResultsOf all participants, 3,004 (65.49%) participants spent more than 2 h per day on screen time. Taking the men who spent less than 2 h on screen per day as reference, the crude odds ratio (OR) of the high risk of stroke was 1.53 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.20–1.95] for the men who spent 2–3 h per day on screen and 2.37 (95% CI, 1.78–3.16) for the men who spent more than 3 h per day on screen. This difference remained significant after adjusting for confounding factors. No association was observed among women. However, in the cohort analysis with screen time in 2006 as the independent variable, the association between screen time and stroke risk was found both in men [OR, 1.83 (95% CI, 1.19–2.82)] and women [OR, 1.48 (95% CI, 1.10–1.99)]).ConclusionWe found that the high screen time was associated with an increased stroke risk, which was pronounced in men, warranting a universal need to limit screen time in order to improve health

Is personal growth initiative associated with later life satisfaction in Chinese college students? A 15‐week prospective analysis

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151959/1/ajsp12386.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151959/2/ajsp12386_am.pd

Intervention of personalized ventilation on interpersonal airborne disease transmission

Personalized ventilation (PV) has been integrated to reduce the risk of interpersonal infection exposure in the office environment. Some studies showed that PV systems may increase occupants’ risk of airborne infection. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the intervention of PV on interpersonal airborne disease transmission in office environment. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model (CFD) was developed and experimentally validated in a clean chamber. Then the validated CFD model was used to calculate the diffusion of exhaled droplets under different particle size. Results showed at the size of 0.7μm particles, compared to pure mixing ventilation, the personal ventilation of 6L/s reduced the inhalation fraction （IF）from 0.121% to 0.092%，and the reduction ratio of IF is 23.96%. As of 5μm, the IF also decreased from 0.165% to 0.102%, and the reduction ratio of IF is 38.18%. The percentage of 50μm particles deposited on the ground rises from 6.29% to 43.22% of exhaled particles. Therefore, the personalized ventilation can reduce the risk of inhalation in exposed person, and for large size particles, the number of particles falling on the floor increased greatly, which lead to the risk of resuspension increases. The results may be helpful for maximizing the effect of PV in interpersonal airborne disease control

The Regulatory Roles of Polysaccharides and Ferroptosis-Related Phytochemicals in Liver Diseases

Liver disease is a global health burden with high morbidity and mortality worldwide. Liver injuries can develop into severe end-stage diseases, such as cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma, without valid treatment. Therefore, identifying novel drugs may promote liver disease treatment. Phytochemicals, including polysaccharides, flavonoids, alkaloids, and terpenes, are abundant in foods and medicinal plants and have various bioactivities, such as antioxidation, immunoregulation, and tumor killing. Recent studies have shown that many natural polysaccharides play protective roles in liver disease models in vitro and in vivo, such as fatty liver disease, alcoholic liver disease, drug-induced liver injury, and liver cancer. The mechanisms of liver disease are complex. Notably, ferroptosis, a new type of cell death driven by iron and lipid peroxidation, is considered to be the key mechanism in many hepatic pathologies. Therefore, polysaccharides and other types of phytochemicals with activities in ferroptosis regulation provide novel therapeutic strategies for ferroptosis-related liver diseases. This review summarizes our current understanding of the mechanisms of ferroptosis and liver injury and compelling preclinical evidence of natural bioactive polysaccharides and phytochemicals in treating liver disease

Autonomous Robot for Removing Superficial Traumatic Blood

Objective: To remove blood from an incision and find the incision spot is a key task during surgery, or else over discharge of blood will endanger a patient’s life. However, the repetitive manual blood removal involves plenty of workload contributing fatigue of surgeons. Thus, it is valuable to design a robotic system which can automatically remove blood on the incision surface. Methods: In this paper, we design a robotic system to fulfill the surgical task of the blood removal. The system consists of a pair of dual cameras, a 6-DoF robotic arm, an aspirator whose handle is fixed to a robotic arm, and a pump connected to the aspirator. Further, a path-planning algorithm is designed to generate a path, which the aspirator tip should follow to remove blood. Results: In a group of simulating bleeding experiments on ex vivo porcine tissue, the contour of the blood region is detected, and the reconstructed spatial coordinates of the detected blood contour is obtained afterward. The BRR robot cleans thoroughly the blood running out the incision. Conclusions: This study contributes the first result on designing an autonomous blood removal medical robot. The skill of the surgical blood removal operation, which is manually operated by surgeons nowadays, is alternatively grasped by the proposed BRR medical robot

Effects of Compound Chinese Herbal Medicine Additive on Growth Performance and Gut Microbiota Diversity of Zi Goose

This study investigated the effects of CCHMA on growth performance, slaughter performance, serum biochemical indicators, intestinal morphology and microbiota of Zi goose. Initially, it was determined the optimal addition concentration of CCHMA to be 3 g/kg by the first feeding experiment. Then, 78 Zi geese were divided into control and CCHMA supplemented groups. The results showed that the body weight (BW) and average daily gain (ADG) of the CCHMA supplemented group was significantly increased (p < 0.05), and the feed/gain (F/G) of the CCHMA supplemented group was significantly decreased (p < 0.05) compared with the control group. The dressed yield percentage in the CCHMA supplemented group significantly increased by 0.78% (p < 0.05). Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels were significantly lower in the CCHMA fed birds than in the control group (p < 0.05). Further, 16S rDNA gene sequencing conducted for cecal flora composition found that 3 g/kg CCHMA significantly increased the abundance of beneficial bacteria (CHKCI001, Colidextribacter and Subdoligranulum) (p < 0.05; p < 0.01) and suppressing harmful bacteria (Bacteroidetes and Methanobrevibacter) (p < 0.05) in the cecum of Zi goose. In conclusion, adding 3 g/kg of CCHMA in the diet can improve the growth performance, slaughter performance of Zi goose, and optimize the cecum microflora

Effects of organic zinc on production performance, meat quality, apparent nutrient digestibility and gut microbiota of broilers fed low-protein diets

Abstract The high cost of feed and nitrogen pollution caused by high-protein diets have become major challenges restricting sustainable development in China's animal husbandry sector. Properly reducing protein levels and improving protein utilization in feed are effective approaches to solving this problem. To determine the optimal dose of methionine hydroxyl analogue chelated zinc (MHA-Zn) in broiler diets with a 1.5% reduction in crude protein (CP), a total of 216 1-day-old broilers were randomly assigned into 4 groups (each group consisted of 3 replications with 18 broilers per replicate), and growth and development indexes were assessed after 42 days. The broilers in control group were fed a basic diet, whereas those in the three test groups were fed diets with a 1.5% reduction in CP. The results showed no significant difference in the edible parts of broilers between low-protein (LP) diet group (90 mg/kg MHA-Zn) and normal diet group (p > 0.05), and adding 90 mg/kg MHA-Zn to LP diet significantly improved ileum morphology and apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of nutrient (p < 0.01; p < 0.05). A 16S rRNA sequencing analysis indicated that supplementing the LP diet with 90 mg/kg MHA-Zn was adequate for production performance of broilers and promoted beneficial bacteria in the cecum (Lactobacillus, Butyricoccus, Oscillospira, etc.) (p < 0.01). In summary, adding an optimal dose of organic zinc (90 mg/kg MHA-Zn) in low protein diets led to enhanced production performance of broilers and optimized cecum microbiota. Additionally, the reduction of crude protein consumption in broiler production proved to be a cost-effective measure, while also mitigated nitrogen pollutant emissions in the environment