The buyers’ perspective on security design: Hedge funds and convertible bond call provisions

We provide evidence that security design reflects the interplay of capital supplier and security issuer preferences. While call provisions have historically been the default option in convertible security design, only a minority of post-2005 issues are callable. Because hedge funds dominate the market for new convertibles today and because convertible arbitrage is less risky without callability, the recent diminution in the frequency of call provisions in new convertible bond issues illustrates the importance of the preferences of the suppliers of capital in security design

Changing Risk, Changing Risk Premiums, and Dividend Yield Effects

We investigate the cross-sectional relation between dividend yield and expected return and attempt to include various effects of changing risk measures and changing risk premiums. A stock\u27s risk is measured by its sensitivities to two factors, a market factor and a changing-risk-premium factor. After analyzing dividend-related changes in risk measures, we investigate the presence of dividend effects in expected returns using four methods, each imposing a different structure on the temporal behavior of risk measures and risk premiums. For each method, we find no reliable cross-sectional relation between dividend yield and risk-adjusted expected return

150 YEARS OF HIGHER AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN TRANSYLVANIA, 1869 – 2019

The University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj-Napoca, ranked today among the most prestigious universities in the country and in Europe, celebrates this year, 2019, 150 years of productive existence!The School of Agronomy of Cluj laid its foundations in 1869, when the Institute of Agronomic Studies was established, during the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph (1830-1916) as Transylvania belonged at the time to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The new higher school counted on a dowry consisting in 730 acres (420 hectares) of land taken from the Roman Catholic status and from the buildings around the old Benedictine Monastery on ″Dealul Craiului″ (nowadays the location belonging to the university)

The external financing of investment

This paper investigates the impact of investment characteristics on the financing choice. We investigate instances of seasoned equity, bank debt, straight non-bank debt, and convertible issues by U.S. firms where the stated use of proceeds is capital expenditure and where we are able to hand-collect and classify the characteristics of the investment. Controlling for a firm’s existing assets, capital structure and valuation, we document a strong empirical link between an investment’s characteristics and the choice between debt and equity financing. Factor analysis indicates that the principal determinant of the financing choice is whether an investment’s payoffs can be described as a hit or miss

A validated reverse-phase LC-MS/MS method for the analysis of haloacetic acids in drinking water: supporting the transition from HAA5 to HAA9

Haloacetic acids (HAAs) are potentially toxic by-products formed from interactions between organic matter and chlorine during disinfection of drinking water, with brominated HAAs forming when bromide is present. Some countries require monitoring of drinking water for five HAAs, but there is increasing health concern related to the more toxic brominated HAAs and monitoring of nine HAAs (HAA9) is becoming more widespread. However, existing methods of analysis for HAA9 are often sub-optimal, involving complex derivatisation steps and/or long analytical run times. This article presents an improved methodology utilising reverse-phase liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for which sample preparation involves simple pH adjustment and the analytical run takes 10 min. The efficacy of the method was demonstrated by a full validation across four drinking water matrices with good sensitivity (<0.8 μg/L), precision (<7%), and bias (<10%) observed. A direct comparison using real water samples was performed against the widely used existing gas chromatography method. The new LC-MS/MS method was significantly quicker and easier and demonstrated improved performance in terms of accuracy and precision. This has implications for understanding the risk posed by HAAs in chlorinated water by eliminating the possible historical under-estimates of the levels of the more toxic brominated compounds.The work was supported by UK Water Industry Research Ltd (UKWIR) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through their funding of the Water Infrastructure and Resilience (WIRe) Centre for Doctoral Training [EP/5023666/1]

Towards an Intelligent Tutor for Mathematical Proofs

Computer-supported learning is an increasingly important form of study since it allows for independent learning and individualized instruction. In this paper, we discuss a novel approach to developing an intelligent tutoring system for teaching textbook-style mathematical proofs. We characterize the particularities of the domain and discuss common ITS design models. Our approach is motivated by phenomena found in a corpus of tutorial dialogs that were collected in a Wizard-of-Oz experiment. We show how an intelligent tutor for textbook-style mathematical proofs can be built on top of an adapted assertion-level proof assistant by reusing representations and proof search strategies originally developed for automated and interactive theorem proving. The resulting prototype was successfully evaluated on a corpus of tutorial dialogs and yields good results.Comment: In Proceedings THedu'11, arXiv:1202.453

Shorting at Close Range: A Tale of Two Types

Abstract We examine stock returns, order flow, and market conditions in the minutes before, during, and after recent short sales on the NYSE and Nasdaq. We find two very distinct types of short sales: those that provide liquidity, and those that demand it. Shorts that supply liquidity do so when spreads are unusually wide. These short sellers are also strongly contrarian, stepping in to initiate or increase a short position after fairly sharp share price rises over the past hour or so, and they tend to face greater adverse selection than other liquidity suppliers. In contrast, shorts that demand liquidity tend to be shortterm momentum traders. However, there is no evidence that liquidity-demanding short sellers are any different from other liquidity demanders. Overall, liquidity-providing short sales are important contributors to stock market quality, and regulators and policymakers should keep these salutary effects in mind. JEL classification: G14, G1