International Diversification with American Depository Receipts (ADRs);

It is already well known that U.S. investors can achieve higher gains by investing directly in emerging markets (De Santis, 1997). Given the opportunity to invest directly in the shares of stocks in the developed (DCs) and emerging (EM) markets, it is interesting to know whether the U.S. investors can potentially gain any benefits by investing in ADRs. We test both index models, and SDF-based model.Our findings show that U.S. investors needed to invest in both ADRs and country portfolios in developed in the eighties, and in Latin American countries in early nineties. During the early and late nineties, we find substitutability between ADRs and country portfolios in DCs. As more and more ADRs are enlisted in the US market from developed countries over time, the ADRs become substitutes to country. Similarly, countries with higher number of ADRs irrespective of regions show the same pattern of substitutability between ADRs and country indices. However, such substitutability does not exist for countries with the highest number of ADRs by the end of sample period, 2001. On the other hand, U.S. investors can achieve the diversification benefits by investing ADRs along with U.S. market index in Asia. The significant marginal contribution of one-third of developed countries requires investment in ADRs and U.S. market in the developed countries. And investors do not need to hold both ADRs and country as it was the case in the eighties. On the other hand, investors need to hold both ADRs and country portfolios in most of the Asian countries to achieve diversification benefits at margin

Sector-wise dividend payment by all listed companies in Dhaka stock exchange : an empirical analysis

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine the sectorwise dividend payment of all the listed companies in the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE). This paper also indicates the highest and lowest percentage of dividend paid by companies in each sector, as well as illustrates the reason for distributing such amount of dividend. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical analysis was done by using the last fifteen years (i.e., 2004-2018) of dividend payment by all listed firms in DSE. Data was collected from the secondary sources to perform the analysis. On collected data, average dividend amount was calculated for each listed company by adding the percentage of cash and stock dividend paid by those companies. Trend analysis was performed on the average dividend to see which company among all listed companies is distributing a high or low percentage of dividend to their shareholders' over the years. Findings: The results from this article show that companies in the declining industry fail to meet their shareholders’ expectations in terms of dividend payment. On the other hand, companies in booming industries are consistently disbursing dividend for their shareholders’. Besides, companies are in the growth stage, and the multinational companies are distributing a considerable percentage of dividend. Practical implications: The results of this article will be helpful for the fund managers’, investment analysts’ and investors’ who makes decisions to invest in the capital market because the paper presented the historical average dividend payment by listed companies. Originality/value: This article presents the average dividend payment by companies listed in stock exchange in an emerging economy, also finds out sector-wise dividend payment and suggests some remedial for companies.peer-reviewe

Multi -Layer Based Data Aggregation Algorithm for Convergence Platform of IoT and Cloud Computing

Sensor Networks (SN) are deployed in smart domain to sense the environment which is essential to provide the services according to the users need. Hundreds or sometimes thousands of sensors are involved in sensor networks for monitoring the target phenomenon. Large scale of sensory data have to be handle by the sensor network which create several problems such as waste of sensors energy, data redundancy. To overcome these deficiencies one most practice solution is data aggregation which can effectively decrease the massive amount of data generated in SNs by lessening occurrence in the sensing data. The aim of this method is to lessen the massive use of data generated by surrounding nodes, thus saving network energy and providing valuable information for the end user. The effectiveness of any data aggregation technique is largely dependent on topology of the network. Among the various network topologies clustering is preferred as it provides better controllability, scalability and network maintenance phenomenon. In this research, a data aggregation technique is proposed based on Periodic Sensor Network (PSN) which achieved aggregation of data at two layers: the sensor nodes layer and the cluster head layer. In sensor node layer set similarity function is used for checking the redundant data for each sensor node whereas Euclidean distance function is utilized in cluster head layer for discarding the redundancy of data between different sensor nodes. This aggregation technique is implemented in smart home where sensor network is deployed to capture environment related information (temperature, moisture, light, H2 level). Collected information is analyzed using ThinkSpeak cloud platform. For performance evaluation amount of aggregated data, number of pairs of redundant data, energy consumption, data latency, and data accuracy are analyzed and compared with the other state-of-art techniques. The result shows the important improvement of the performance of sensor networks

THE LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE OF NURSERY OWNERS IN THE PRODUCTION AND MARKETING OF SAPLINGS

The purpose of this study is to determine the level of knowledge of nursery owners in the production and marketing of saplings. Ninety four nursery owners were selected randomly from a total of 157 nursery owners under four Upazila of Rangpur district. An interview scheduled was used for the collection of data in 2011; and the results shows that 63.8% of the nursery owners had medium level of knowledge, while 36.2% had high level of knowledge. Findings also shows that farm size, annual income ,innovativeness, communication exposure, training received, and involvement in nursery have positive significant relationships and constraints during production; and marketing has negative significant relationship with the level of knowledge of the nursery owners. However, the result of stepwise multiple regression indicates that 69.4% (Adjusted R2=69.4) of the variance in the level of knowledge of the nursery owners could be explained using the explanatory variables of the study. This indicates that there are other variables working behind the level of knowledge of the nursery owners during production and marketing

Big 4 Auditor Affiliation and Accruals Quality in Bangladesh

Purpose – Bangladesh is an emerging economy and international audit firms operate there through affiliated local audit firms. The Bangladesh audit market can be characterized as an intensely competitive small audit market with relatively poor demand for high-audit quality. In addition, Bangladesh has a relatively small and under developed but growing capital market that is characterized by poor corporate regulation and weak investor protection. The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between Big 4 affiliated auditors and accruals quality in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach – Following prior literature, this paper uses both absolute discretionary accruals and signed discretionary accruals as proxies of accruals quality. The sample is 382 firm-year observations and covers fiscal years 2000-2003. Findings – It was found that the association between Big 4 affiliates and accruals quality in Bangladesh depends on measures of accruals quality and accruals models used. Overall, Big 4 affiliates do not have a positive impact on accruals quality of their clients in Bangladesh. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the literature on audit quality and accruals quality. The results potentially suggest that Big 4 affiliates do not have any positive impact on accruals quality of clients in an intensely competitive audit market where the demand for quality audit is poor and monitoring is lax and raise potential implications for policy makers and market participants in Bangladesh

Do coherent risk measures identify assets risk profiles similarly? Evidence from international futures markets

The authors consider Lévy processes with conditional distributions belonging to a generalized hyperbolic family and compare and contrast full density-based Lévy-expected shortfall (ES) risk measures and Lévy-spectral risk measures (SRM) with those of a traditional tail-based unconditional extreme value (EV) approach. Using the futures data of leading markets the authors find that ES and SRM often differ in recognizing the risk profiles of different assets. While EV (extreme value) is often found to be more consistent than Lévy models, Lévy measures often perform better than EV measures when compared with empirical values. This becomes increasingly apparent as investors become more risk averse

Understanding the Charge Carrier Conduction Mechanisms of Plasma-Polymerized 2-Furaldehyde Thin Films via DC Electrical Studies

Monomer 2-furaldehyde (FDH) was deposited onto the glass substrates in optimum conditions via a glow discharge using a capacitively coupled parallel plate reactor to obtain plasma polymerized 2-furaldehyde (PPFDH) thin films of different thicknesses. In order to realize the carrier conduction mechanisms, the direct current density against applied voltage (J-V) characteristics of these films with different thicknesses were investigated at different temperatures (T) in the voltage region from 0.5 to 49 V in Al/PPFDH/Al sandwich configuration. The J-V characteristics at various temperatures follow a power law of the form J ∞ Vn. In the low voltage region the values of n were recorded to be 0.80 ≤ n ≤ 1.12 and those in the high voltage region found to lie between 1.91 ≤ n ≤ 2.58, demonstrating the Ohmic conduction mechanism in the low voltage region and non-Ohmic conduction in the high voltage region. Theoretically calculated and experimental results of Schottky (βs) and Poole-Frenkel (βPF) coefficients display that the most probable conduction mechanism in PPFDH thin films is the Schottky type. Arrhenius plots of J vs. 1/T for an applied voltage of 5 V, the activation energies were 0.13 ± 0.02 and 0.50 ± 0.05 eV in the low and high temperature regions, respectively. However, for an applied voltage of 35 V, the activation energy values were found to be 0.11 ± 0.01 eV and 0.55 ± 0.02 eV, respectively in low and high temperature regions

Mathematical Modeling of Smart Space for Context-Aware System: Linear Algebraic Representation of State-Space Method Based Approach

A smart space is embedded with several components such as sensors, actuators, and computing devices that enable the sensing and control of the environment, and the inhabitants interact with the devices in the smart space whenever they need to. To model a smart space, a dynamic relationship needs to be established among the elements of the space whereby the interactions with devices are considered a dynamic-process state. In this paper, a linear model of a smart space is presented using a state equation, where the two coefficient matrices L and H need to be defined to model the smart space, and the coefficient matrix L is used to determine the states of the devices; similarly, the situation of the smart space is determined using coefficient H. An algorithm is presented to make a linear model from the logical functions that are used to describe the system. This model is flexible in terms of the control of the smart-space environment because the environmental factors are represented by a matrix element. This linear smart-space model is helpful for the control of a context-aware system, and we use an example to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed model