Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Crystallization and solid state phase transition of polymer nano-composite and belndsaromatic heterocyclic resin

Abstract Polymer/clay nano-composites have attracted more and more attention from both the scientific and practical point o f view. At present, more and more polymer/clay nano-composites have been prepared and investigated. Furthermore, improved properties have been observed. However, the majority of research work around polymer/clay nano-composites and blends has just focused on synthesis and characterization of properties. Although improved properties have been observed, the reason of the improvement as well as some unique phenomena in such nano-composites is still not well understood. On the other hand, the polymorphic behavior is a profound impact on properties o f the polymer. However, there are still some great challenges in studying the polymorphism and phase transition of polymer/clay nano-composites. In this study, the crystallization and phase transitions in polymer/clay nano-composites and blends have been investigated. The fundamental analysis and discussion have been presented in this thesis. Nylon 6/nano-clay nano-composites, Nylon 6/nano-clay/PP-g-MAH blends and SPS/clay nano-composites have been prepared. The peculiar results indicate that in Nylon 6/nano-clay and Nylon 6/PP-g-MAH binary blends, both nano-clay and functionalized polyolefin would favor the formation of y crystal of Nylon 6. However, the co-existence of both nano-clay and PP-g-MAH in the Nylon 6/nano-clay/PP-g-MAH ternary blends antagonizes each other’s promotional effect on y crystal formation in Nylon 6. Furthermore, the crystallization temperature should be the intrinsic factor controlling the polymorphism in polymers. The stable phase can only be obtained at higher ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library Abstract crystallization temperature. The metastable phase will be observed at lower crystallization temperature.crystallization temperature. The metastable phase will be observed at lower crystallization temperature. Polymer/clay nano-composites provide a good model system to study the metastability theory. The onset or minimum temperature above which the stable phase can be obtained in polymer/clay nano-composites is much higher than that in pure polymers. This is the thermodynamic reason why the addition of nano-clay would favor the formation of metastable phase. The difference metastability of polymers and polymer/clay nano-composites at normal conditions and in supercritical fluid has been compared in order to get deeper understanding of crystallization and phase transition in polymers. XlV ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library
The Welfare Implications of Internal Migration Restrictions: Evidence from China

What are the welfare implications of placing restrictions on internal migration? Given externalities in location choices, the answer is ambiguous. This paper empirically examines what is presumably the largest government intervention in internal migration in human history--the Hukou system in China. Using a dynamic spatial equilibrium framework and restricted-use census data, we find that completely removing Hukou-related migration restrictions between 2000 and 2010 would have resulted in an approximate 8%-18% increase in GDP and welfare. The presence of externalities results in a conflict between national and local interests: while it would be beneficial to remove all Hukou restrictions from the national perspective, natives in the most desirable cities would suffer losses. This implies that optimal spatial policies need to incentivize the more desirable cities to accommodate an even larger population.
Multiscale Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model

This study investigates the multiscale intertemporal capital asset pricing model. We focus upon differences across timescales since they represent heterogeneities of investors in markets. This study employs a wavelet approach to decompose return data into multiple timescales. Furthermore, we impose a same risk-aversion parameter constraint into all portfolios, which is proposed by Engel and Bali (2010) who show that the constraint provides a reasonable equity risk premium at a daily frequency. We observe positive relations between the expected returns on portfolios and the covariance of the market at a daily frequency, while these relations change as timescales increase. We find that a negative risk-return relation, which might be related to a correction process of overreaction at an approximately weekly frequency (2 days to 16 days). The strongest positive relation is observed at an approximately monthly frequency (16 to 32 days). Monthly portfolio rebalances are widely used and might impact stock market return patterns. The equity risk premium in the longer frequency ranges from 8.64% to 11.10%. Our results are robust after controlling for macroeconomic variables, market implied volatility and test portfolios. Moreover, we investigate size and value factors and reveal that the risk premia disappear in the longer frequency, which suggests that Intertemporal CAPM is satisfied.
The Value Relevance of Non-GAAP Earnings: The Case of EPRA Earnings for European Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS)

The vast majority of European Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) choose, under IAS 40, to report fair value of investment properties on the balance sheet and therefore recognize changes in fair value in a gain or loss in the income statement. Under European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA) guidelines, most REITs report a non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) measure of recurring performance — EPRA earnings — in addition to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) financial statements. EPRA proposed these adjustments to IFRS earnings to neutralize transitory items such as changes in fair value, calculate core operating results more accurately, and indicate the extent to which earnings can support dividend payments. Based on studies suggesting that earnings without the transitory items are more useful for investors, we assume that EPRA earnings are more value relevant than IFRS earnings. Using a sample of 680 company-years over the period 2011–2017, we find that market value capitalizes EPRA earnings more than twice as much as IFRS earnings. We also find that changes in fair value of investment properties provide additional information for the valuation of REITs, supporting the idea that the dis-aggregation of the net income into recurring earnings and transitory items can be useful to investors. Finally, our results show that EPRA earnings are not always more value relevant than other non-GAAP indicators sometimes used by REITs to measure their recurring performance, such as Funds from Operations. Moreover, a complementary analysis suggests that the choice of EPRA earnings to communicate recurring performance is independent of the economic characteristics of REITs and is mainly made by EPRA member companies.
Technology, Adaptation and the Eﬃcient Market Hypothesis

Tests of the eﬃcient market hypothesis (EMH) suﬀer from a known ﬂaw that has nevertheless received insuﬃcient attention in the literature. Just as in Zeno’s famous paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, while we are testing market eﬃciency the measure of eﬃciency has already moved on. Prediction technology and data availability perpetually improve beyond the level that was available to market participants during the sample period. This introduces a bias into the tests. If one believes in the existence of deterministic patterns and of technological progress, one has to expect to discover ineﬃciencies in historical data. We can only expect prices to reﬂect all available in- formation to the degree that current technology enables. From this argument follows a necessity to adjust the EMH. This article discusses possible adjustments and develops the concept of technological eﬃciency. Based on a review of empirical evidence, this concept is shown to resolve many anomalies and to help bridge the gap between the ﬁnancial economics literature and the rapidly advancing machine learning literature.
Can Human Capital and Asset Management Improve the Financial Performance of Older Age Groups? Evidence from Europe

Extending Ehrlich et al.’s (2008, 2011) labor-theoretic, rational-expectations model of asset management (AM), we investigate the interplay between AM and portfolio choices of older-age households in a sample of 11 European countries plus Israel over 5 waves of the SHARE longitudinal data in the period 2004-2015. Our analysis shows that education, health, and other components of human capital, generally determine the reduced-form demand for, or portfolio shares of, risky assets, the derived-demand for asset management time, and the household’s portfolio returns. Moreover, we find that education and underlying health conditions affect these portfolio outcomes largely through proxies of time household heads devote to asset management. Our key findings hold up against a battery of robustness and internal validation tests based on reduced-form and structural IV regressions, alternative regression specifications, and alternative groups of investors. We also find that the effects of education on the demand for AM time, risky financial assets, and portfolio returns, become larger as the opportunity costs of AM fall with age, which supports the mechanism of the asset management hypothesis.
The Impact of the Length of Schooling on the Timing of Family Formation

Individuals typically traverse several life phases before forming a family. We analyse whether changing the duration of one of these phases, the education phase, affects the timing of marriage and childbearing. For this purpose, we exploit the introduction of short school years in Germany in 1966-67, which compressed the education phase without affecting the curriculum. Based on difference-in-differences regressions and German Micro Census data, we find that earlier graduation due to short school year exposure affects the timing of marriage for individuals in all secondary school tracks and shifts forward the birth of the first child mainly for academic-track graduates. This highlights that education policies might not only affect family formation through human capital accumulation, but also through changing the duration of earlier life phases. This is important as not only age at marriage and first birth increases in many countries, but also the duration of the education phase.
Relationship Between Corporate Governance and Financial Performance of Banking Industry in Bangladesh

This study aims to investigate the relationship between four corporate governance mechanisms (board size, board independent director, chief executive officer duality and board audit committee) and financial performance of banking industry in order to identify whether or not bank’s profitability is positively associated with its corporate governance disclosure level. The two financial ratios i.e., return on asset (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are used to measure the financial performance. The study is based on the sample of listed conventional private commercial banks in Bangladesh selecting on the basis of a number of criterion. A linear regression analysis is used to analyze data and to test the hypotheses. Empirical results indicate that Board Independent Director has a positive relationship with ROA but positive significant relationship with ROE. Board Size has a positive relationship with ROA but negatively correlated with ROE. On the contrary, Board Audit Committee has negative relationship with both ROA and ROE. All the banks properly maintain the rules of BSEC regarding CEO duality.
Constrained Kelly Portfolios Under Alpha-Stable Laws

Weekly, quarterly and yearly risk measures are crucial for risk reporting according to Basel III and Solvency II. For the respective data frequencies, the authors show in a simulation and back-test study that available data series are not sufficient in order to estimate Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall sufficiently, given confidence levels of 99.9% and 99.99%. Accordingly, this paper presents a semi-parametric estimation method, re-scaling data from high- to low-frequency which allows to obtain significantly more data points for the estimation of the respective risk measures. The presented methodology in the α-stable framework, which is able to mimic multi-fractal behavior in asset returns, provides tail events which never occurred in the original low-frequency data set.
Gender Diversity Goals, Supply Constraints, and the Market for Seasoned Female Directors: The U.S. Evidence

We show that over the last decade, growing public pressure for board gender diversity and awareness of gender equality issues in the U.S. has manifested in "seasoned" female board members accumulating multiple board appointments at a rate faster than seasoned male directors. The larger firms have been the most active in attracting seasoned female directors, at the expense of the smaller firms. This has likely contributed to the smaller firms lagging behind the larger firms in the pursuit of more gender balance. Our evidence is highly consistent with "supply constraints", as reflected in high costs of recruiting first-time female directors, which the larger firms manage to avoid and the smaller firms find too costly to incur. Gender quota mandates are likely to expose the smaller firms even more to these costs; however, the absence of mandates may also not be optimal. Given growing public pressure, it may be necessary to mandate that larger firms maintain the ratio of first-time to seasoned female appointments above some level.
The Rise of Fintech: A Cross-Country Perspective

This study investigates the determinants of fintech company creation and activity using a cross-country sample that includes developed and developing countries. Using a random effect negative binomial model and explainable machine learning algorithms, we show the positive role of technology advancements in each economy, quality of research, and more importantly, the level of university-industry collaboration. Additionally, we find that demographic factors may play a role in fintech creation and activity. Some fintech companies may find the quality and stringency of regulation to be an obstacle. Our results also show the sophisticated interactions between the banking sector and fintech companies that we may describe as a mix of cooperation and competition.
Can Automation Reduce the Effect of Independence Conflicts on Audit Firm Liability?

We conduct three experiments to examine whether increased automation can reduce the effects of independence conflicts on audit firm liability. Our experiments manipulate (1) whether procedures are performed by an auditor or an artificial intelligence and (2) whether the audit firm was careful in maintaining the appearance of independence from the audit client. Results of the first experiment identify that automation significantly reduces the effect of the appearance of independence conflicts on jurors’ judgments of audit firm liability. This effect is driven by changes in jurors’ trust in the audit process. A second experiment replicates this finding and provides additional process evidence, including evidence that jurors’ judgments are intentional. Our third experiment replicates the findings in a simpler setting with simpler manipulations to provide further robustness. Our study contributes to literature on auditor negligence, and advances understanding of how changes in the audit landscape might affect audit firm liability.
How Social Presence, and Word of Mouth, Affects Online Purchase Intentions in Pakistan: The Mediatory Role of Sellers’ Personal, and Social Commerce Constructs.

Lacking the presence of human and social elements is claimed one major weakness that is hindering the growth of e-commerce. Social commerce reintroduces the social aspect of shopping to e-commerce, increasing the degree of social presence in online environment. Drawing upon the social presence theory, the purpose of this paper is to understand the overall level of social presence that tends to impact the behavior of customers with regards to online purchase intentions and trusting the sellers. Lu et. al. (2016) theorizes the nature of social aspect in online SC marketplace by proposing a set of three social presence variables that produced positive impacts on trusting beliefs which in turn result in online purchase behaviors. We proposed a theoretical framework modifying Lu model to incorporate Wang &amp; Yu (2015) conceptualization of word of mouth, as well as social commerce constructs as proposed by Hajli (2015). Hence, we hypothesized that social presence along with word of mouth positively affects Perceptions of sellers Integrity, Benevolence, and Competence. They also positively affect social commerce constructs such as Ratings &amp; Reviews (RT), Recommendations &amp; Referrals (RE), and Forums &amp; Communities (FC). These personal and social commerce factors affect purchase intentions. Social Presence was measured by Social Presence of Web (SPW), Perception of Others (SPO), and Social Presence of Interaction with Sellers (SPI), whereas word of mouth (WOM) was classified as Positive valence WOM, Negative valence WOM, the content of WOM (WOMC). Empirical validity was established by conducting a survey using a close-ended questionnaire. Data were collected from 200 respondents from Karachi, with certain key target areas in mind. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation modeling. The results suggested that WOMC has a positive and significant effect on all 6 personal, and social commerce constructs. Positive WOM seems to effect Recommendations, and Forums &amp; Communities, whereas negative WOM affected Ratings. Positive WOM also affect sellers’ perception of Benevolence and Competence. Social Presence of Web (SPW) have a positive and significant effect on Competence, as well as Forums, and Ratings, whereas the Perception of Others (SPO) affects Benevolence. Interestingly, the Presence of Interaction with Sellers (SPI), seems to affect Competence negatively. Lastly, Ratings &amp; Reviews seems to be the only factor having a significant effect on Purchase Intentions. Hence, Factors like Negative valence WOM, WOMC, and SPW affect purchase intentions through ratings &amp; Reviews.
Do Subsidies Matter for Indigenous Innovation and Firm Productivity?

This paper examines the effects of public subsidies across several dimensions of innovation and the implications for productivity. As an identiﬁcation strategy, panel data is used to estimate a structural innovation model that controls for unobserved heterogeneity combined with matching techniques that help ensure comparability between subsidized and non-subsidized ﬁrms. The ﬁndings reveal that public subsidies reduce ﬁrms’ economic performance in lower and higher technology industries despite promoting indigenous innovation in the higher technology industries. Policymakers may tolerate lower average efﬁciency if they expect that some of the state-backed ﬁrms will go on to become innovators that go on to generate signiﬁcantly large social welfare payoffs. Although the ﬁnd-ings do not support such an expectation, thus bringing into question whether the social payoff from China’s so-called picking ‘winners’ strategy justiﬁes the cost. <br>
Corporate ESG News and The Stock Market

ESG investing's popularity has continually increased in the past five years. ESG data is increasingly integrated into investment processes. However, the information contained in ESG-related news for corporates has not been entirely exploited by institutional and long-only investors. The objective of this paper is to identify the benefits of ESG news information for active and factor-based investors. Indeed, one of the issues with ESG is the low frequency of score updates. For active management, we analyze ESG-sorted portfolios in investment universes filtered by ESG news volume. Metrics of ESG-related news are sourced from Truvalue Labs, a provider of Artificial Intelligence-powered ESG insights and analytics. We find that the approach of a universe focused on ESG news of corporates has been efficient in the early 2010s on the lower ESG-ranked side of the universe, but also on the higher ESG rank. More recently, it has positively contributed to more dynamic approaches of ESG investing. Finally, increasing the sensitivity to the highly visible SDGs significantly improves the return of ESG long-short portfolios.
Reputation and Dynamic Pricing in the Market for Illicit Drugs: Can Supply Disruption Raise Prices?

Retail prices of illicit drugs are volatile, and have fallen despite rising supply disruption. This article presents and empirically tests a model to explain this apparent price puzzle. Supply disruption increases the cost of purity. Illicit drugs are experience goods, with demand depending on the seller's purity reputation. There is an equilibrium in which supply disruption decreases purity, reducing future demand and prices. These predictions are tested using monthly data for crack cocaine in Washington DC. Persistence of the series is exploited to handle endogeneity resulting from seizures mirroring supply. A 10% increase in seizures reduces purity by 4.7% and future prices by 2.3%.
Managing Earnings to Appear Truthful: The Effect of Public Scrutiny on Exactly Meeting a Threshold

The past two decades have not eliminated managers’ willingness to manage earnings to meet and beat earnings thresholds, but have increased investors’ skepticism of earnings that exactly meet those thresholds, providing perverse incentives to not meet earnings expectations exactly. Using a low-external-context experiment, we find that managers avoid exactly meeting a benchmark, even when they must alter true earnings and incur a monetary cost to do so. We manipulate the effect of intensified scrutiny of managers and find that when earnings exactly meet a benchmark, managers are more likely to misreport earnings when they report under high public scrutiny. This is particularly the case for managers who are sensitive to others’ perceptions (and thus low on the Dark Triad scale). Further, we show that this misreporting increases managers’ belief that the market will accept their reports, consistent with managers misreporting for self-presentational goals. Thus, we examine a new incentive to manage earnings: misreporting to appear truthful. These results help explain otherwise undetectable behavior around earnings benchmarks and are important as managers are increasingly scrutinized by critical media, activists, and political oversight bodies, and as they face skepticism via more intimate forms of disclosure and communication, such as social media.