VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Managerial Discretion, Corporate Financial Flexibility, and Investment Dynamics

In this dissertation, I try to advance our understanding of how managerial discretion and corporate financial flexibility affect various corporate outcomes such as failure, excessive (sub-optimal) continuation, firm growth and investment, in three novel ways. First, I show that the empirical effect of finance is not merely a misspecified real influence but rather that the financial structure of firms matter for firm growth and investment where the real effects of finance arise out of the imperfect substitutability between internal funding and external private credit. Second, using managerial mergers and acquisitions (M&A) investment decisions as an identification mechanism, I find that managerial discretion combined with corporate financial flexibility may lead to distortions in corporate investment and financing policies, and those distortions cost the various stakeholders of the firm dearly. Furthermore, using another sample of distressed firms worth more dead than alive, I, along with a co-author, show that most of these firms continue operations long after the optimal exit time. The failure to liquidate costs the typical sample firm over three years 8.7% of its assets in lost earnings relative to the industry median. Finally, I find that capital market does not fully internalize the costs associated with managerial sub-optimal behaviors in the short run. Although the market disciplines managerial sub-optimal behaviors in the long run, the market disciplinary mechanisms may not be swift enough to forestall falling values for the various stakeholders of the firm. Succinctly, the findings in this dissertation suggest that managerial discretion and corporate financial flexibility entail real consequences for various firm dynamics. The traditional line of argument, ``Blame It on the Market," may not be well grounded, and firms need to carefully examine their investments and financing policies in good times to cushion against systematic shocks in bad times.

Keywords: Corporate Failure
Bankruptcy
Mergers and Acquisition
Excessive continuation
Advisor: Aivazian, Varouj
Equality of Cultural Identity

I address claims of offence of feelings, religious freedom and language rights, which are all justified by the intrinsic interest individuals attach to their culture. I call them ‘claims from cultural identity’. I develop a conception of substantive equality, understood as distributive justice and underpinned by dignity, for regulating claims from cultural identity in the legal system of multicultural states. I call it Equality of Cultural Identity. It is a ‘complex equality’ model, which takes cultural identity to be a sphere in peoples’ lives. Unlike majority members, cultural minority members are usually under constant pressure to compromise their cultural identity and assimilate in the majority culture to succeed in other spheres of their lives like education and career. In accordance with Walzer’s theory of Spheres of Justice, I propose a regulative principle to determine the extent of cultural protection minority members deserve, according to which the influence of other spheres of their lives on their sphere of cultural identity should as minimal as possible. I apply this principle to claims of offence to feeling, which I re-conceptualize as claims from integrity of cultural identity. I suggest the vulnerable identity principle: The more vulnerable a person’s cultural identity, the stronger her claim from integrity of cultural identity. This principle enhances a just distribution of symbolic goods between majority and minority members, is based on objective evaluation standards, and avoids legal moralism. Thus, it overcomes the major liberal worries about regulating speech. With respect to the language rights and religious freedom, I comparatively analyze them qua cultural rights. I argue that the right to religious freedom, which is generously interpreted by courts, bears all of the allegedly unique features of language rights that are used to support their restrained judicial interpretation. Thus, the existing arguments for their restrained interpretation are not valid. I identify a novel argument for their restrained interpretation, which is that they impose a cultural burden on majority members, but drawing on my conception of equality, I argue that it is not sound as the burden they impose is not great.

Keywords: equality
identity
constitutional law
multiculturalism
language rights
freedom of religion
group rights
Advisor: Weinrib, Lorraine
“A Capital Experience:” National Urban Renewal, Neoliberalism, and Urban Governance on LeBreton Flats in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

This thesis investigates both Keynesian and neoliberal urbanism on LeBreton Flats, a mixed working-class district deemed a “blighted” slum unfit for a national capital. By studying the time-delayed embourgeoisement of the Flats, this study considers the production of the modern capital as an “event” with significant “afterlives” – both backwards and forwards. Using a historical and comparative perspective, this thesis engages with the literature on neoliberal urbanism and neoliberal urban governance to show how the NCC has adopted and adapted neoliberal practices and strategies of New Urban Policy (NUP) to postwar modernist planning imperatives. The initial expropriation of LeBreton Flats in April 1962, and the dislocation of its marginalized, stigmatized, and racialized residents emerged from an ambitious state-led initiative to remodel Ottawa into a centennial showcase. The model urban redevelopment was part of national subject formation anchored in “pedagogies of the nation.” Although the Keynesian dream ultimately faltered, three decades later, a new project to fill the “empty” national space was initiated. The NCC’s updated redevelopment plan promised to re-write the script, this time governed according to the “Golden Path” of urban entrepreneurialism. The present-day state-led redevelopment of LeBreton Flats can be considered simultaneously as part of the imagined community of nation-ness and as a variegated form of neoliberal policy experimentation. Both federal interventions on LeBreton Flats are part of a longer project of state-led intervention in the National Capital. These backwards and forwards governance timelines exemplify the many ways in which neoliberalism is not a radically new project, and how the enforcement of dispossession is part of an ongoing process of socio-spatial displacement. However, there are important distinctions. In the contemporary neoliberal redevelopment, cultural logic has merged with economic rational. Discourses and images of nature and culture have been mobilized to create a site-specific redevelopment for the expression of the nation. In the synergy of capital investments and cultural meanings, this thesis provides evidence on how nature and national pedagogy are mobilized as part “naturalized” behaviour and practices of urban neoliberalism.

Advisor: Hackworth, Jason
A New Taxonomy for Star Scientists: Three Essays

It is surprising that the prevailing performance taxonomy for scientists (Star versus Non-Star) focuses only on individual output and ignores social behavior since scholars often characterize innovation as a communal process. To address this deficiency, I expand the traditional taxonomy that focuses solely on productivity and add a second, social dimension to the taxonomy of scientists: helpfulness to others. Using a combination of academic paper citations and Impact Factor-weighted publications to measure scientist productivity as well as the receipt of academic paper acknowledgements to measure helpfulness, I classify scientists into four distinct categories of human capital quality: All-Stars, who have both high productivity and helpfulness; Lone Wolves, who have high productivity but average helpfulness; Mavens, who have average productivity but high helpfulness; and Non-Stars, who have both average productivity and helpfulness. The first study examines the impact of 415 immunologists on the performance of their coauthors. Looking at the change in quality-adjusted publishing output of an immunologist's coauthors after the immunologist's death, I find that the productivity of an All-Star's coauthors decreases on average by 35%, a Maven's coauthors by 30% on average, and a Lone Wolf's coauthors by 19%, all relative to the decrease in productivity of a Non-Star's coauthors. These findings suggest that our current conceptualization of star scientists, which solely focuses on individual productivity, is both incomplete and potentially misleading as Lone Wolves may be systematically overvalued and Mavens undervalued. The second study builds upon the first study's finding that Mavens have a large impact on the performance of their coauthors. Using salary disclosures from 2008 at the University of California, I examine the extent to which each star type is compensated differently. While Mavens have a larger impact on the performance of their coauthors than Lone Wolves, Mavens are compensated less, providing preliminary evidence that these performance effects are spillovers. The third study examines the likelihood of an immunologist's mobility as a function of his observable and unobservable human capital. The greater a scientist's productivity (observable to the market), the greater his inter-institution mobility, while the greater a scientist's helpfulness (unobservable to the market), the lower his inter-institution mobility.

Keywords: star scientists
human capital
Advisor: Agrawal, Ajay
Extractive Product Line Requirements Engineering

A software product line (SPL) succeeds because we exploit the similarities between a set of software-intensive systems, together with an understanding of their differences, to reduce development cost, maintenance cost, and user confusion. In SPL engineering, reuse is planned, enabled, and enforced. It is through the development of a set of core assets that reuse is systematically practiced. Requirements assets enhance the effectiveness of reuse since engineers can work on the abstractions closer to the systems' initial concepts. Contemporary SPL requirements engineerin (RE) approaches often adopt the proactive model to build a relatively complete and stable asset base. In practice, the substantial up-front effort and the abrupt transition from existing practices associated with the proactive model present a prohibitive SPL adoption barrier for many organizations that could otherwise benefit. The extractive model overcomes these shortcomings by reusing existing products for the SPL's initial baseline. In this thesis, we present a framework for applying lightweight techniques to extract, model, and analyze a SPL's requirements assets. We define the notion of functional requirements profiles (FRPs) according to the linguistic characterization of a domain's action-oriented concerns, and show that the FRPs can be extracted from a natural language document on the basis of domain-aware lexical affinities that bear a 'verb - direct object' relation. We model the extracted FRPs by analyzing their semantic cases and by extending the orthogonal variability model (OVM). We contribute a set of heuristic rules for uncovering the variation dimensions and dependencies, and discuss merging the OVMs extracted from multiple sources. We relate functional profiles to quality requirements via scenarios, and manage requirements interactions via concept analysis. We present two applications of FRPs to support some other activities in SPL engineering. We conduct several empirical studies to evaluate our framework. The results show that our approach allows the engineers to identify the domain elements more easily and develop the domain models more systematically. Our work fills the void with respect to extracting a SPL's requirements assets, and the main thrust of our work is to promote a set of lightweight, low adoption threshold techniques as a critical enabler for practitioners to capitalize on the order-of-magnitude improvements offered by SPL engineering.

Keywords: Requirements Engineering
Software Product Lines
Functional Requirements Profiles
Software Engineering
Advisor: Easterbrook, Steve
The Mark of the State: Reading the Writing of 'Right' in Hegel's Political Philosophy

This project is a critique of the connection between lethal violence and justice within Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Our critique focuses on three specific moments—moments that Derrida touches upon in Glas, but does not address in detail—namely, heroic vengeance, execution and warfare. By subjecting each of these moments to a close reading we will be calling into question the very possibility of an act of violence that can lay claim to being absolutely ‘necessary’ or ‘just’ either within its specific historical moment or from beyond it. The theoretical basis of the project closely parallels Jacques Derrida’s work on Hegel, in that it stems from a deconstruction of the connection between epistemology and ontology. This also has serious implications for the question of ethics. By tracing the play of différance through the semeiological structure of both theoretical and practical cognition Derrida’s work makes it possible to address the ethical implications of speculative dialectics from a non-dialectical angle. Figuratively speaking, the relationship between theoretical and practical cognition can be thought of as the relationship between reading and writing. As such, the title of the project is to be taken as a figurative reference to the connection between theoretical (i.e. reading) and practical (i.e. writing) cognition and by extension to the connection between epistemology, ontology and ethics. Addressed in this manner our project begins by tracing the silence (i.e. the ‘a’ of différance) that is, at one and the same time, a condition of the possibility and impossibility of meaning. This silence has serious ramifications for Hegel’s political philosophy. Hegel’s system sets out to ground the law within the ‘positive’ infinity of the Concept [Begriff] and thus, close the circle of philosophy. This project will attempt to expose the ethical stakes—and the ultimate impossibility—of Hegel’s ‘positive’ infinity by taking up the thread of lethal violence in the Philosophy of Right.

Keywords: Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Derrida
Ethics
Politics
Advisor: Gibbs, Robert B.
Mores of Addiction: Alcohol, Femininity, and Social Transformation in Western Ukraine

Since the Austro-Hungarian and Tsarist eras, men’s intoxication has been deemed ‘masculine’ and women’s sobriety ‘feminine’ in western Ukraine; however, these ideologies are being rewritten to fit the new, post-socialist environment and to underscore a divergence from the Soviet past. While men are judged based on their ability to function after imbibing copious amounts of alcohol, women are explicitly expected to embody two stereotypes: the ‘Berehynia’ (a recently reformulated goddess of family and nation) and the ‘Barbie’ (a more globally-informed image). Digression from the ‘Barbie’ model is used as evidence to render public diagnoses of addiction, while the ‘Berehynia’ model underscores the sentiment that “we are not allowed to be weak.” Women are expected to be stronger than men; indeed, women are widely regarded as the carriers of morality. While men’s addiction is often met with sympathy – and linked to a presumed, inherent inability to cope with social, political and economic upheaval – addicted women are deemed to have consciously abandoned their femininity, their families, and their nation. These ideologies deeply affect the experiences of addicted people. In particular, women’s addiction is severely stigmatized, and they are extremely reluctant to “confess” and seek treatment. Based upon 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this thesis explores the gendered conceptualizations of ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’ that are being formulated with respect to drinking and addiction, and how these concepts inform the variety of addiction treatments that are available. In so doing, this analysis illuminates what is at stake for both the stigmatizers and stigmatized, and more specifically, the multiple ways that gender, drinking, and addiction have become implicated in constructions of the Ukrainian nation and state.

Keywords: gender
alcohol
addiction
Ukraine
Advisor: Lambek, Michael
Development and Applications of 3D-DIVIMP(HC) Monte Carlo Impurity Modeling Code

A self-contained gas injection system for the Divertor Material Evaluation System (DiMES) on DIII-D, the Porous Plug Injector (PPI), has been employed by A. McLean for in-situ study of chemical erosion in the tokamak divertor environment by injection of CH4. The principal contribution of the present thesis is a new interpretive code, 3D-DIVIMP(HC), which has been developed and successfully applied to the interpretation of the CH, C I, and C II emissions measured during the PPI experiments. The two principal types of experimental data which are compared here with 3D-DIVIMP(HC) code modeling are (a) absolute emissivities measured with a high resolution spectrometer, and (b) 2D filtered camera (TV) pictures taken from a view essentially straight down on the PPI. Incorporating the Janev-Reiter database for the breakup reactions of methane molecules in a plasma, 3D-DIVIMP(HC) is able to replicate these measurements to within the combined experimental and database uncertainties. It is therefore concluded that the basic elements of the physics and chemistry controlling the breakup of methane entering an attached divertor plasma have been identified and are incorporated in 3D-DIVIMP(HC).

Keywords: Nuclear Fusion
Boundary Physics
Plasma
Tokamaks
Advisor: Stangeby, Peter C.
Tracial State Spaces of Higher Stable Rank Simple C*-algebras

Ten years ago, J. Villadsen constructed the first examples of simple C*-algebras with stable rank other than one or infinity. Villadsen's examples all had a unique tracial state. It is natural to ask whether examples can be found of simple C*-algebras with higher stable rank and more than one tracial state; by building on Villadsen's construction, we describe such examples that admit arbitrary tracial state spaces.

Keywords: Simple C*-algebras
Stable rank
Tracial state spaces
Advisor: Elliott, George Arthur
The Beestons and the Art of Theatrical Management in Seventeenth-century London

This dissertation examines three generations of the Beeston family and its revolutionary impact on the developing world of seventeenth-century London theatre management. Like other early modern businesses, the Beeston enterprise thrived on commercial innovation, the strategic cultivation of patronage, and a capacity to perpetuate itself dynastically. England’s mid-century political crisis disrupted the family’s commercial supremacy but its management system would endure as the de facto standard structuring successful theatre business long after the Restoration. Following a critical introduction to the early history of theatrical management, the thesis’s four chapters chart the creation and institution of the Beeston management model. Chapter One examines the early career of Christopher Beeston, a minor stageplayer from Shakespeare’s company in the 1590s who set out ambitiously to reshape theatrical management at Drury Lane’s Cockpit playhouse in 1616. Chapter Two analyzes Beeston’s later career, particularly his unique appointment as “Governor” of a new royal company in 1637. New evidence suggests that the office was a reward for service to the aristocratic Herbert family and that traditional preferment was therefore as important as market competition to the creation of the Caroline paradigm of autocratic theatrical “governance.” Chapter Three explores the overlooked career of Elizabeth Beeston who, upon inheriting the Cockpit in 1638, became the first woman in English history to manage a purpose-built London theatre. New evidence concerning her subsequent husband, Sir Lewis Kirke, an adventurer to Canada, ship-money captain, and Royalist military governor, indicates political ideology motivated their joint effort to keep the Beeston playhouse open during the civil wars. Chapter Four addresses the question of why the larger Beeston enterprise eventually collapsed even as the management system it refined continued to support later theatrical entrepreneurs. During the Interregnum, contemporaries anticipated that William and George Beeston, Christopher’s son and grandson, would eventually dominate a renascent London stage; however, managers such as William Davenant and Thomas Betterton ultimately adapted the Beeston system more efficiently to the political environment after 1660. Thereafter, exhausted patronage, lost assets, and the abandonment of family tradition marked the end of the Beestons’ influential association with the London stage.

Keywords: early modern English drama
theatre management
theatre history
business history
London history
patronage
Shakespeare
Advisor: Astington, John H.
Microrobotic Manipulation and Characterization of Biological Cells

Mechanical manipulation and characterization of biological cells have wide applications in genetics, reproductive biology, and cell mechanics. This research focuses on (1) the development of enabling microrobotic systems and techniques for automated cell microinjection and in situ mechanical characterization; and (2) the demonstration of molecule efficacy testing and cell quality assessment with the new technologies. Targeting high-speed cell injection for molecule screening, a first-of-its-kind automated microrobotic cell injection system is developed for injecting foreign materials (e.g., DNA, morpholinos, and proteins) into zebrafish embryos (~1.2 millimeter) and mouse oocytes/embryos (~100 micrometers), which overcomes the problems inherent in manual operation, such as long learning curves, human fatigue, and large variations in success rates due to poor reproducibility. Novel cell holding devices are developed for immobilizing a large number of embryos into a regular pattern, greatly facilitating sample preparation and increasing the sample preparation speed. Leveraging motion control and computer vision techniques, the microrobotic system is capable of performing robust cell injection at a high speed with high survival, success, and phenotypic rates. The mouse embryo injection system is applied to molecule testing of recombinant mitochondrial proteins. The efficacy of an anti-apoptotic Bcl-xL (Delta_TM) protein is, for the first time, quantitatively evaluated for enhancing the development competence of mouse embryos. For cell quality assessment, this research develops a vision-based technique for real-time cellular force measurement and in situ mechanical characterization of individual cells during microinjection. A microfabricated elastic device and a sub-pixel computer vision tracking algorithm together resolve cellular forces at the nanonewton level. Experimental results on young and old mouse oocytes demonstrate that the in situ obtained force-deformation data can be used for mechanically distinguishing healthy mouse oocytes from those with cellular dysfunctions. This work represents the first study that quantified the mechanical difference between young and old mouse oocytes, promising a practical way for oocyte quality assessment during microinjection.

Keywords: automation
microrobotics
cell manipulation
microinjection
zebrafish embryo
mouse embryo/oocyte
mitochondrial protein
molecule testing
cellular force measurement
oocyte quality assessment
Advisor: Sun, Yu