How does ownership structure affect capital structure and firm performance? Recent evidence from east Asia

The present paper empirically examines the effects of ownership structure on capital structure and firm valuation in four East Asian countries worst affected by the last Crisis. In doing so, we distinguish ownership from both control and management and also allow for the simultaneity between capital structure and firm valuation in the sample countries. Results obtained from 3SLS estimates with error components confirm and extend the findings of Claessens et al. (2002) and particularly highlight the contrasting behaviour of family firms and non-family firms with/without a Cronyman

Effect of Thermal and Material Anisotropy of Pyrolytic Carbon in Vibration-Assisted Micro-EDM Process

Pyrolytic carbon (PyC) is extremely biocompatible with high directional strength and unique directional thermal conductivity. PyC is used in biomedical devices like cardiovascular implants and finger prosthesis. Microfeatures on PyC have been proven as performance-driving agents in many cases. This work is focused on micro-electric discharge machining (micro-EDM) characterization of PyC to understand the effect of material/thermal anisotropy on the process response. An L9 Taguchi design of experiments has been performed to analyze the effect of gap voltage, capacitance, and frequency on the MRR, surface quality, and dimensional accuracy. MRR increases by 16% with vibration in AB plane machining. In C plane, the effect of vibration on MRR is not favorable. MRR reduces by 56% if the machining plane changes from AB to C due to the lower thermal conductivity along C. Surface roughness decreases by an order of magnitude if machining plane changes from AB to C; surface roughness of 65nm has been achieved in C plane under certain conditions. The error in dimensional accuracy in C plane is 46% lower than AB plane. EDS shows noncontaminated machined surface. Finally, micro-EDM process has been used to create microfeatures in PyC, which could potentially improve/alter the desired surface quality