An examination of the stability of forecasting in failure prediction models

The main focus oi this study is an empirical examination of the stability of company failure prediction models based on accounting information. Stability of forecasting in failure prediction models is tested using industry relative ratios and unadjusted ratios. Three homogeneous economic periods are defined : expansion, recession, and recovery. The stability and quality of forecasting models developed in these three different economic environments is tested using the industry relative ratios previously derived. The study also compares the stability of forecasting of both the industry- specific models and the aggregate model for each of the five years before failure. Specific industries include Contracting. General-Engineering. Textile. Other Manufacturing, and Miscellaneous. Finally, the ability of economy-wide indicators and year-dummies proxying calendar events to predict failure is examined. Industry adjusted and unadjusted ratio models, business cycles models (adjusted and unadjusted ratios) and specific industry models are reported. Each model is developed using multivariate discriminant analysis. An examination of the stability of forecasting in failure prediction models in terms of the classification accuracy, proportional chance criterion, expected cost, relative cost ratios, and Conover (1971) T test is performed. Finally, comparison graphs for each model are plotted. Industry relative (mean) ratios were preferred to unadjusted ratios because they reduce the heterogeneity of companies' data. This results in improved stability of forecasting both in the within-sample (ex post) and out-of-sample (ex ante) context. Subsequent, industry relative ratios are used to control for industry differences and different economic environments are used to control for time-inconsistency. The empirical findings of the study are that use of industry relative (mean and median) ratios and business cycles provides more stability and gives better predictive ability than use of unadjusted ratios and uncontrolled economic environments. In general, segmentation of the sample according to industry produced models that performed better than ones based on aggregate data across industries. Because each industry has different financial characteristics we conclude that industry-specific models should be developed if data is available. We find that industry specific and different economic conditions models are robust with respect to variation in prior probability and misclassification costs. In the context of failure prediction, accounting information appears to be more useful than macro-economic variables. The 4 macro-economic and 11 year-dummy variables are shown not to play an important role, adding only marginal discriminating power to the models

Filter and nested-lattice code design for fading MIMO channels with side-information

Linear-assignment Gel'fand-Pinsker coding (LA-GPC) is a coding technique for channels with interference known only at the transmitter, where the known interference is treated as side-information (SI). As a special case of LA-GPC, dirty paper coding has been shown to be able to achieve the optimal interference-free rate for interference channels with perfect channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). In the cases where only the channel distribution information at the transmitter (CDIT) is available, LA-GPC also has good (sometimes optimal) performance in a variety of fast and slow fading SI channels. In this paper, we design the filters in nested-lattice based coding to make it achieve the same rate performance as LA-GPC in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels. Compared with the random Gaussian codebooks used in previous works, our resultant coding schemes have an algebraic structure and can be implemented in practical systems. A simulation in a slow-fading channel is also provided, and near interference-free error performance is obtained. The proposed coding schemes can serve as the fundamental building blocks to achieve the promised rate performance of MIMO Gaussian broadcast channels with CDIT or perfect CSITComment: submitted to IEEE Transactions on Communications, Feb, 200

State and Context-Dependent Information Management and Wealth Accumulation: An Information Analysis of the Billionaires between Taiwan and China

From the Forbes Magazine survey of the world’s 538 richest, seventy seven (77) or about 14.4% were identified as born in Asia (Asia Week, June 28, 2001). In addition, the top 100 billionaires (in $NT) in Taiwan, 2001 and 2002 were surveyed by Taiwan Smart Monthly magazine ( Nov 11, 2002) and another top 100 billionaires in China (in U.S dollars) were reported by the Forbes magazine in 2004. This paper utilizes Liu ,Lin, Lee and Chou’s (1996) state and context dependent information management model specification (Joseph & John, 2006), and equity account dependent variables to study the underlying intercultural factors affecting the richest 77 Asian and the top 100 Taiwanese and Chinese entrepreneurs respectively by such attributes and characteristics as shown in the bamboo network (Weidenbaun & Hughes 1996), Liu and Grawford(1996) and Fedorowicz, Gogan and Ray,(2004). Using regression and categorical techniques, this paper shows that important intercultural information factors affecting the world’s richest Asian billionaires are age, marital status, Chinese cultural background and self-made accomplishment, economic and national business condition, education, training and total quality management, and the human development index, etc. While most billionaires in Taiwan came from the information technology (IT) industry, but due to different stage of IT development, many billionaires in China were found in real estate and manufacturing management

THE FORMATION OF FACEBOOK STICKINESS: THE PERSPECTIVES OF MEDIA RICHNESS THEORY, USE & GRATIFICATION THEORY AND INTIMACY

With the advent of web 2.0, social networking sites (SNSs) have mushroomed. Gaining competitive advantage by retaining users in the SNS is an important issue for operators. By conceptualizing stickiness as the state of individuals’ prolong stay on the SNS, the aim of this study is to explore the process of formatting SNS stickiness in the context of Facebook from the perspectives of media richness theory, uses & gratifications (U & G) theory, and intimacy. Data was collected from the northern Taiwan University. A total of 187 questionnaires were selected for the data analysis. The results support the following conclusions: 1) the media richness provided by the Facebook website directly influences users’ gratifications, including interpersonal utility and social utility; 2) the intimacy is an important mediating variable involving in the process of formatting Facebook stickiness; and 3) Facebook stickiness is indirectly influenced by gratifications, interpersonal utility and social utility, which exerts its effect through intimacy. By integrating the theoretical perspectives of media richness theory, U & G theory with intimacy into the process model of formatting Facebook stickiness, this study provides both academics and practitioners with insight into how Facebook stickiness form and enable SNS manager to retain their users

Cognitive Radio with Partial Channel State Information at the Transmitter

In this paper, we present the cognitive radio system design with partial channel state information known at the transmitter (CSIT).We replace the dirty paper coding (DPC) used in the cognitive radio with full CSIT by the linear assignment Gel'fand-Pinsker coding (LA-GPC), which can utilize the limited knowledge of the channel more efficiently. Based on the achievable rate derived from the LA-GPC, two optimization problems under the fast and slow fading channels are formulated. We derive semianalytical solutions to find the relaying ratios and precoding coefficients. The critical observation is that the complex rate functions in these problems are closely related to ratios of quadratic form. Simulation results show that the proposed semi-analytical solutions perform close to the optimal solutions found by brute-force search, and outperform the systems based on naive DPC. Asymptotic analysis also shows that these solutions converge to the optimal ones solved with full CSIT when the K-factor of Rician channel approaches infinity. Moreover, a new coding scheme is proposed to implement the LA-GPC in practice. Simulation results show that the proposed practical coding scheme can efficiently reach the theoretical rate performance.Comment: resubmitted to IEEE Transaction on Wireless Communications, May 200