Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Proxy
Kinds of Proxy Terms modified by Proxy Selected AbstractsThe Distribution of Subsidized Agricultural Credit in Brazil: Do Interest Groups Matter?DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2001Steven M. Helfand This article examines the unequal distribution of credit and credit subsidies in the Brazilian agricultural sector from 1969 to 1990. Total credit subsidies exceeded US$ 40 billion in this period. The distribution across crops is studied econometrically. After controlling for area, the crops that benefited most had superior access to credit institutions, were tradeable, had high prices, and were not perennials. Proxies for collective action by crop were an unimportant determinant of credit policy, while a bias in favour of large producers was evident. Alternative explanations for this bias are discussed, including collective action by farm size and transaction costs in lending. [source] Effects of seismic intensity and socioeconomic status on injury and displacement after the 2007 Peru earthquakeDISASTERS, Issue 4 2010Karen Milch Earthquakes are a major cause of displacement, particularly in developing countries. Models of injury and displacement can be applied to assist governments and aid organisations in effectively targeting preparedness and relief efforts. A stratified cluster survey was conducted in January 2008 to evaluate risk factors for injury and displacement following the 15 August 2007 earthquake in southern Peru. In statistical modelling, seismic intensity, distance to rupture, living conditions, and educational attainment collectively explained 54.9 per cent of the variability in displacement rates across clusters. Living conditions was a particularly significant predictor of injury and displacement, indicating a strong relationship between risk and socioeconomic status. Contrary to expectations, urban, periurban, and rural clusters did not exhibit significantly different injury and displacement rates. Proxies of socioeconomic status, particularly the living conditions index score, proved relevant in explaining displacement, likely due to unmeasured aspects of housing construction practices and building materials. [source] An Examination of the Differential Impact of Regulation FD on Analysts' Forecast AccuracyFINANCIAL REVIEW, Issue 1 2006Scott Findlay G14; G18; G24; G38 Abstract Regulation fair disclosure (FD) requires companies to publicly disseminate information, effectively preventing the selective pre-earnings announcement guidance to analysts common in the past. We investigate the effects of Regulation FD's reducing information disparity across analysts on their forecast accuracy. Proxies for private information, including brokerage size and analyst company-specific experience, lose their explanatory power for analysts' relative accuracy after Regulation FD. Analyst forecast accuracy declines overall, but analysts that are relatively less accurate (more accurate) before Regulation FD improve (deteriorate) after implementation. Our findings are consistent with selective guidance partially explaining variation in the forecasting accuracy of analysts before Regulation FD. [source] Healthcare Proxies of Nursing Home Residents with Advanced Dementia: Decisions They Confront and Their Satisfaction with Decision-MakingJOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 7 2009Jane L. Givens MD OBJECTIVES: To describe the medical decisions confronting healthcare proxies (HCPs) of nursing home (NH) residents with advanced dementia and to identify factors associated with greater decision-making satisfaction. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: Twenty-two Boston-area NHs. PARTICIPANTS: Three hundred twenty-three NH residents with advanced dementia and their HCPs. MEASUREMENTS: Decisions made by HCPs over 18 months were ascertained quarterly. After making a decision, HCPs completed the Decision Satisfaction Inventory (DSI) (range 0,100). Independent variables included HCP and resident sociodemographic characteristics, health status, and advance care planning. Multivariable linear regression identified factors associated with higher DSI scores (greater satisfaction). RESULTS: Of 323 HCPs, 123 (38.1%) recalled making at least one medical decision; 232 decisions were made, concerning feeding problems (27.2%), infections (20.7%), pain (12.9%), dyspnea (8.2%), behavior problems (6.9%), hospitalizations (3.9%), cancer (3.0%), and other complications (17.2%). Mean DSI score±standard deviation was 78.4±19.5, indicating high overall satisfaction. NH provider involvement in shared decision-making was the area of least satisfaction. In adjusted analysis, greater decision-making satisfaction was associated with the resident living on a special care dementia unit (P=.002), greater resident comfort (P=.004), and the HCP not being the resident's child (P=.02). CONCLUSION: HCPs of NH patients with advanced dementia can most commonly expect to encounter medical decisions relating to feeding problems, infections, and pain. Inadequate support from NH providers is the greatest source of HCP dissatisfaction with decision-making. Greater resident comfort and care in a special care dementia unit are potentially modifiable factors associated with greater decision-making satisfaction. [source] Ambulance Diversion as a Proxy for Emergency Department Crowding: The Effect on Pediatric Mortality in a Metropolitan AreaACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 2 2009Rohit P. Shenoi MD Abstract Objectives:, The objective was to determine the prevalence of emergency department (ED) ambulance diversion among Houston pediatric hospitals and its association with mortality of pediatric patients. Methods:, Hospital diversion and patient data between August 2002 and December 2004 were used to examine the impact of diversion on mortality of children under age 18 years. Patients were assumed to be exposed to ED crowding if diversion and admission or ED arrival times overlapped. Univariate and logistic regression were performed to determine if diversion was associated with mortality while controlling for age, illness severity, injury, and transfer status. Results:, Mean hospital diversion hours as a percentage of operating hours were 10.58 (standard deviation [SD] ± 9). Overall, of 63,780 admissions, there were 4,095 (6.4%) children admitted during diversion. Fewer severely ill patients were admitted during diversion than nondiversion times (odds ratio [OR] = 0.72; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.66 to 0.78). The presence of diversion was protective for mortality (OR = 0.51; 95% CI = 0.34 to 0.77) in bivariate analysis. Mortality was associated with presence of major or extreme illness (OR = 60.7; 95% CI = 45.2 to 81.5), injury (OR=1.7; 95% CI = 1.4 to 2.1), and transfer status (OR = 6.3; 95% CI = 5.4 to 7.3). Using conditional logistic regression, major or extreme illness (OR = 50.7; 95% CI = 37.7 to 68.3), injury (OR 3.7; 95% CI = 2.9 to 4.7), and transfer (OR = 2.7; 95% CI = 2.2, 3.2) were associated with mortality, but diversion did not show any association with mortality. After combining ED and inpatient deaths, no association between diversion and mortality was observed. Conclusions:, Hospital diversion due to ED crowding is common in pediatrics. The authors found no evidence of an association between diversion and ED and inpatient pediatric mortality. [source] REE Compositions of Lower Ordovician Dolomites in Central and North Tarim Basin, NW China: A Potential REE Proxy for Ancient SeawaterACTA GEOLOGICA SINICA (ENGLISH EDITION), Issue 3 2008ZHANG Xuefeng Abstract: Rare earth element compositions of Lower Ordovician dolomites in the Central and Northern Tarim Basin are studied. Most dolomite samples are more or less contaminated by clay minerals. Their rare earth element compositions have been consequently changed, showing both seawater-like and non-seawater-like features. The clay contamination should be disposed before the REE data are used. Through ICP-MS and ICP-AES analyses, the REE features are well documented. The clay contamination is quantitatively determined by microscopic investigation, trace elements and REE contents. The dolomites, at least in the Tarim Basin, are thought to be pure when their total LREE contents are less than 3times10,6. Through comparison, the pure dolomites show similarities in REE patterns but differences in REE contents with co-existing pure limestone, which indicates that dolomitization may slightly change the REE compositions. Nevertheless, whatever the change is, the pure dolomites may act as a potential REE proxy for Ordovician seawater, which would be significant for ancient massive dolomite strata that lack limestone. [source] Babylon: middleware for distributed, parallel, and mobile Java applicationsCONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 10 2008Willem van Heiningen Abstract Babylon is a collection of tools and services that provide a 100% Java-compatible environment for developing, running and managing parallel, distributed and mobile Java applications. It incorporates features such as object migration, asynchronous method invocation, and remote class loading, while providing an easy-to-use interface. Additionally, Babylon enables Java applications to seamlessly create and interact with remote objects, while protecting those objects from other applications by implementing access restrictions and separate namespaces. The implementation of Babylon centers around dynamic proxies, a feature first available in Java 1.3, that allow proxy objects to be created at runtime. Dynamic proxies play a key role in achieving the goals of Babylon. The potential cluster computing benefits of the system are demonstrated with experimental results, which show that sequential Java applications can achieve significant performance benefits from using Babylon to parallelize their work across a cluster of workstations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Simulating multiple inheritance in JavaCONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 12 2002Douglas Lyon Abstract The CentiJ system automatically generates code that simulates multiple inheritance in Java. The generated code inputs a series of instances and outputs specifications that can be combined using multiple inheritance. The multiple inheritance of implementation is obtained by simple message forwarding. The reflection API of Java is used to reverse engineer the instances, and so the program can generate source code, but does not require source code on its input. Advantages of CentiJ include compile-time type checking, speed of execution, automatic disambiguation (name space collision resolution) and ease of maintenance. Simulation of multiple inheritance was previously available only to Java programmers who performed manual delegation or who made use of dynamic proxies. The technique has been applied at a major aerospace corporation. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Stock Price Reactions to the Repricing of Employee Stock Options,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2005Barbara M. Grein Abstract We study whether the repricing of employee stock options is in the best interests of common shareholders by examining the excess stock returns associated with timely, noncontamin-ated repricing announcements made by Canadian firms. On the basis of three theories of why firms reprice, we develop competing predictions about the mean announcement-date excess stock return and the cross-sectional relations among excess stock returns, the estimated probability of repricing, and proxies for predictions from each theory. For a sample of 72 noncontaminated repricing announcements made by Canadian firms between November 1994 and July 2001, we find a reliably positive three-day announcement-date mean excess return of 4.9 percent. The results of our cross-sectional analyses suggest that the market responds favorably to repricings because they assist in retaining key employees even though, at the margin, they enable managers to extract rents from shareholders. We do not find sufficient statistically significant evidence to reliably conclude that repricings are done to realign employee incentives. [source] Who Cares about Auditor Reputation?,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 3 2005JAN BARTON Abstract I provide evidence on the demand for auditor reputation by examining the defections of Arthur Andersen LLP's clients following the accounting scandals and criminal conviction marring the auditor's reputation in 2002. About 95 percent of clients in my sample did not switch auditors until after Andersen was indicted for criminal misconduct regarding its failed audit of Enron Corp. I test whether the timing of client defections and the choice of a new auditor are consistent with managers' incentives to mitigate potentially costly information and agency problems. I find that clients defected sooner, mostly to another Big 5 auditor, if they were more visible in the capital markets; such clients attracted more analysts and press coverage, had larger institutional ownership and share turnover, and raised more cash in recent security issues. However, my proxies for agency conflicts , managerial ownership and financial leverage , are not associated with the timing of defections or the choice of new auditor. Overall, my study suggests that firms more visible in the capital markets tend to be more concerned about engaging highly reputable auditors, consistent with such firms trying to build and preserve their own reputations for credible financial reporting. [source] Nonaudit Services and Earnings Management: UK Evidence,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2004MICHAEL J. FERGUSON Abstract Using a sample of UK firms for the period 1996-98, we provide empirical evidence on the relation between nonaudit services (NAS) purchase and three proxies for earnings management: (1) the likelihood that client firm accounting practices during the sample period were publicly criticized or subject to regulatory investigation; (2) the likelihood that client firms were required to restate prior financial statements or adjust current year results upon adoption of Financial Reporting Standard (FRS) No. 12, which was intended to curb opportunistic use of provisions; and (3) the mean absolute value of client discretionary working capital accruals over the sample period. The level of NAS purchase is measured, alternatively, as (1) the ratio of nonaudit to total auditor fees, (2) the natural log of NAS fees, and (3) the decile rank of a particular client's NAS fees given all NAS fees received by the audit firm practice office. With one exception, we find that all three measures of earnings management are positively and significantly associated with the three measures of NAS purchase. [source] The Impact of Financial and Tax Reporting Incentives on Option Grants to Canadian CEOs,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2000KENNETH J. KLASSEN Abstract This study explores the effects of financial and tax reporting incentives on options granted to chief executive officers in Canada. Extant studies with a similar objective (Yermack 1995; Matsunaga 1995) explore predominantly nonqualified U.S. option grants that are deductible to the extent that the options are in the money at the time of exercise. In contrast, Canadian firms do not get a tax deduction for their stock option grants at any time. In both countries, no expense is recorded for financial reporting purposes. As a result, the financial reporting and tax reporting trade-off is more pronounced in the Canadian setting of this study compared with the U.S. setting. We measure option granting behavior as the ratio of the Black-Scholes value of stock option grants to the sum of cash compensation and the value of stock option grants. Using a sample of 806 firm-year observations during the period 1993-95, we find that observed option grants are significantly correlated with proxies for short-run financial reporting incentives. We also find evidence that option granting behavior is correlated with proxies for tax incentives. [source] The Good Russian Prisoner: Naturalizing Violence in the Caucasus MountainsCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2005Bruce Grant Beginning with a fabled narrative poem by Aleksandr Pushkin from 1822 entitled "Prisoner of the Caucasus," this article is an exploration of how the idiom of kidnapping in the ritual seizure, taking, and most importantly, giving of bodies across perceived cultural lines has been central to Russians understanding of their troubled relations with the mountainous land holdings to their south for over 200 years. By juxtaposing classic ethnographic sources on Caucasian bride-kidnapping and the hostage taking of military figures as proxies in ritualized violence, alongside multiple renderings of Pushkin's "good prisoner" story in poetry, prose, opera, ballet, and film, these seemingly apolitical artifacts of Russian popular culture work to generate a powerful symbolic economy of Russian belonging in the Caucasus Mountains. [source] Challenging Orthodoxies: Understanding Poverty in Pastoral Areas of East AfricaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2008Peter D. Little ABSTRACT Understanding and alleviating poverty in Africa continues to receive considerable attention from a range of diverse actors, including politicians, international celebrities, academics, activists and practitioners. Despite the onslaught of interest, there is surprisingly little agreement on what constitutes poverty in rural Africa, how it should be assessed, and what should be done to alleviate it. Based on data from an interdisciplinary study of pastoralism in northern Kenya, this article examines issues of poverty among one of the continent's most vulnerable groups, pastoralists, and challenges the application of such orthodox proxies as incomes/expenditures, geographic remoteness, and market integration. It argues that current poverty debates ,homogenize' the concept of ,pastoralist' by failing to acknowledge the diverse livelihoods and wealth differentiation that fall under the term. The article concludes that what is not needed is another development label (stereotype) that equates pastoralism with poverty, thereby empowering outside interests to transform rather than strengthen pastoral livelihoods. [source] Tidal estuary width convergence: Theory and form in North Australian estuariesEARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS, Issue 7 2010Gareth Davies Abstract In order to better understand the relations between tidal estuary shape and geomorphic processes, the width profiles of 79 tidal channels from within 30 estuaries in northern Australia have been extracted from LANDSAT 5 imagery using GIS. Statistics describing the shape and width convergence of individual channels and entire estuaries (which can contain several channels) are analysed along with proxies for the tidal range and fluvial inputs of the estuaries in question. The width profiles of most individual channels can be reasonably approximated with an exponential curve, and this is also true of the width profiles of estuaries. However, the shape of this exponential width profile is strongly related to the mouth width of the system. Channels and estuaries with larger mouths generally exhibit a more pronounced ,funnel shape' than those with narrower mouths, reflecting the hydrodynamic importance of the distance over which the channel or estuarine width converges. At the estuarine scale, this ,convergence length' also tends to be higher in estuaries which have larger catchments relative to their size. No clear relation between the estuarine width convergence length and tidal range could be discerned within the Northern Australian estuaries although, when these data are combined with data from other studies, a weak relationship emerges. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Sources for sedimentary bacteriohopanepolyols as revealed by 16S rDNA stratigraphyENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 7 2008Marco J. L. Coolen Summary Bacteriohopanoids are widespread lipid biomarkers in the sedimentary record. Many aerobic and anaerobic bacteria are potential sources of these lipids which sometimes complicates the use of these biomarkers as proxies for ecological and environmental changes. Therefore, we applied preserved 16S ribosomal RNA genes to identify likely Holocene biological sources of bacteriohopanepolyols (BHPs) in the sulfidic sediments of the permanently stratified postglacial Ace Lake, Antarctica. A suite of intact BHPs were identified, which revealed a variety of structural forms whose composition differed through the sediment core reflecting changes in bacterial populations induced by large changes in lake salinity. Stable isotopic compositions of the hopanols formed from periodic acid-cleaved BHPs, showed that some were substantially depleted in 13C, indicative of their methanotrophic origin. Using sensitive molecular tools, we found that Type I and II methanotrophic bacteria (respectively Methylomonas and Methylocystis) were unique to the oldest lacustrine sediments (> 9400 years BP), but quantification of fossil DNA revealed that the Type I methanotrophs, including methanotrophs related to methanotrophic gill symbionts of deep-sea cold-seep mussels, were the main precursors of the 35-amino BHPs (i.e. aminopentol, -tetrol and -triols). After isolation of the lake ,3000 years ago, one Type I methanotroph of the ,methanotrophic gill symbionts cluster' remained the most obvious source of aminotetrol and -triol. We, furthermore, identified a Synechococcus phylotype related to pelagic freshwater strains in the oldest lacustrine sediments as a putative source of 2-methylbacteriohopanetetrol (2-Me BHT). This combined application of advanced geochemical and paleogenomical tools further refined our knowledge about Holocene biogeochemical processes in Ace Lake. [source] Does fossil pigment and DNA data from Mediterranean sediments invalidate the use of green sulfur bacterial pigments and their diagenetic derivatives as proxies for the assessment of past photic zone euxinia?ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 6 2008Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté First page of article [source] Polysaccharide hydrolysis in aggregates and free enzyme activity in aggregate-free seawater from the north-eastern Gulf of MexicoENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 2 2008Kai Ziervogel Summary Marine snow aggregates represent hotspots of carbon remineralization in the ocean. Various aspects of bacterial dynamics have been investigated on marine snow. To date, extracellular enzymatic activities in aggregates have been measured using small substrate proxies that do not adequately reflect the complexity of biomacromolecules such as polysaccharides, proteins and lipids. To address this issue, we used six structurally distinct, fluorescently labelled polysaccharides to measure enzymatic hydrolysis on aggregates formed with a roller table and in aggregate-free (ambient) seawater from two near-coast sites, north-eastern Gulf of Mexico. A single polysaccharide was incubated in aggregates and ambient seawater. Changes in polysaccharide molecular weight were monitored over time to measure the course of enzymatic hydrolysis. All six polysaccharides were hydrolysed in aggregates, indicating a broad range of enzyme activities in aggregate-associated bacteria. Four substrates were also hydrolysed in ambient waters. Epifluorescence microscopy revealed that nearly all of the bacteria present in original waters were incorporated into aggregates. Therefore hydrolytic activities in ambient waters were presumably due to enzymes spatially disconnected from cells and aggregates. Our results show substantial enzymatic activity in cell/aggregate-free seawater, suggesting a significant role of free enzymes in hydrolytic activity in waters from the north-eastern Gulf of Mexico. [source] The effect of metformin on measurements of insulin sensitivity and , cell response in 18 horses and ponies with insulin resistanceEQUINE VETERINARY JOURNAL, Issue 5 2008A. E. Durham Summary Reasons for performing study: Laminitis in equids is a very common debilitating disease, and insulin resistance (IR) and hyperinsulinaemia are increasingly recognised as important predisposing factors. Pharmacological modification of IR and hyperinsulinaemia might reduce the risk of laminitis. Hypothesis: Metformin, a drug commonly prescribed for treatment of human IR, may also decrease IR in equids. Methods: Eighteen horses and ponies with IR and recurrent laminitis were treated with 15 mg/kg bwt metformin per os q. 12 h. Each animal served as its own control by comparing pre- and post treatment proxies for IR, insulin sensitivity (IS) and pancreatic , cell function while controlling for possible dietary and managemental influences on IR. Results: Evidence of significantly improved IS and decreased pancreatic , cell secretion was found following metformin treatment. The magnitude of effect was greater at earlier resampling (6,14 days) than at later times (23,220 days). Apparent subjective clinical benefits were good but less favourable than effects on IR. Conclusions: Metformin is safe and appears to increase IS in equids. Potential relevance: Metformin may be indicated as a treatment for IR in equids. Further studies are required to define appropriate selection of subjects warranting therapy, dosing schedule and pharmacokinetics. [source] Age Differences in the Responses to Adult and Juvenile Alarm Calls by Bonnet Macaques (Macaca radiata)ETHOLOGY, Issue 2 2000Uma Ramakrishnan This study examined the differential responses to alarm calls from juvenile and adult wild bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata) in two parks in southern India. Field studies of several mammalian species have reported that the alarm vocalizations of immature individuals are often treated by perceivers as less provocative than those of adults. This study documents such differences in response using field-recorded playbacks of juvenile and adult alarm vocalizations. To validate the use of playback vocalizations as proxies of natural calls, we compared the responses of bonnet macaques to playbacks of alarm vocalizations with responses engendered by natural alarm vocalizations. We found that the frequency of flight, latency to flee, and the frequency of scanning to vocalization playbacks and natural vocalizations were comparable, thus supporting the use of playbacks to compare the effects of adult and juvenile calls. Our results showed that adult alarm calls were more provocative than juvenile alarm calls, inducing greater frequencies of flight with faster reaction times. Conversely, juvenile alarm calls were more likely to engender scanning by adults, a result interpreted as reflecting the lack of reliability of juvenile calls. Finally, we found age differences in flight behavior to juvenile alarm calls and to playbacks of motorcycle engine sounds, with juveniles and subadults more likely to flee than adults after hearing such sounds. These findings might reflect an increased vulnerability to predators or a lack of experience in young bonnet macaques. [source] Economic Sentiment and Yield Spreads in EuropeEUROPEAN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2008Eva Ferreira G12; E43 Abstract According toHarvey (1988), the forecasting ability of the term spread on economic growth is due to the fact that interest rates reflect investors' expectations about the future economic situation when deciding their plans for consumption and investment. Past literature has used ex post data on output or consumption growth as proxies for their expected value. In this paper, we employ a direct measure of economic agents' expectations, the Economic Sentiment Indicator elaborated by the European Commission, to test this hypothesis. Our results indicate that a linear combination of European yield spreads explains a surprising 93.7\% of the variability of the Economic Sentiment Indicator. This ability of yield spreads to capture economic agent expectations may be the actual reason for the predictive power of yield spreads about future business cycle. [source] Is there more assimilation in Catalonia than in the Basque Country?EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2008Analysing dynamics of assimilation in nationalist contexts This article builds on recent attempts in political science to illuminate the ,micro-level' mechanisms of identity formation. It analyses the dynamics of assimilation in two similar contexts with extremely salient regional-nationalist movements: Catalonia and the Basque Country. It poses the question: In which of the two regions has there been more assimilation of demographically significant, internal-immigrant segments of the population? It tests whether there has been more assimilation in Catalonia , a result expected from the allegedly more ,civic' nature of the nationalist movement there. To do so, it draws on and goes beyond the tools provided by David Laitin for operationalising assimilation. It uses existing public opinion surveys to construct and present assimilation indices for both regions. The authors show that though rates of ,linguistic adaptation' are higher in Catalonia, such adaptation correlates weakly with assimilation into feelings of subjective identification and the espousal of nationalist views and aspirations more generally. The article goes on to demonstrate that rates of assimilation, when measured using several more robust proxies for the feeling of national identity, are actually lower in Catalonia. The authors then proceed to provide a theoretical explanation for their surprising empirical results. The explanation stresses the causal role of institutional pressures , themselves the product of nationalist coalition-building strategies , in accounting for patterns of linguistic adaptation and of cultural assimilation. Furthermore, it emphasises the relevance of ,cultural demography', particularly among natives/insiders, in accounting for the different nationalist strategies and the different intensity as well as different types of institutional pressures faced by immigrants/outsiders in the two regions. [source] Proxy caching algorithms and implementation for time-shifted TV servicesEUROPEAN TRANSACTIONS ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS, Issue 2 2008Tim Wauters The increasing popularity of multimedia streaming applications introduces new challenges in content distribution networks (CDNs). Streaming services such as Video on Demand (VoD) or digital television over the Internet (IPTV) are very bandwidth-intensive and cannot tolerate the high start-up delays and poor loss properties of today's Internet. To solve these problems, caching (the initial segment of) popular streams at proxies could be envisaged. This paper presents a novel caching algorithm and architecture for time-shifted television (tsTV) and its implementation, using the IETF's Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). The algorithm uses sliding caching windows with sizes depending on content popularity and/or distance metrics. The caches can work in stand-alone mode as well as in co-operative mode. This paper shows that the network load can already be reduced considerably using small diskless caches, especially when using co-operative caching. A prototype implementation is detailed and evaluated through performance measurements. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] COMPARING STRENGTHS OF DIRECTIONAL SELECTION: HOW STRONG IS STRONG?EVOLUTION, Issue 10 2004Joe Hereford Abstract The fundamental equation in evolutionary quantitative genetics, the Lande equation, describes the response to directional selection as a product of the additive genetic variance and the selection gradient of trait value on relative fitness. Comparisons of both genetic variances and selection gradients across traits or populations require standardization, as both are scale dependent. The Lande equation can be standardized in two ways. Standardizing by the variance of the selected trait yields the response in units of standard deviation as the product of the heritability and the variance-standardized selection gradient. This standardization conflates selection and variation because the phenotypic variance is a function of the genetic variance. Alternatively, one can standardize the Lande equation using the trait mean, yielding the proportional response to selection as the product of the squared coefficient of additive genetic variance and the mean-standardized selection gradient. Mean-standardized selection gradients are particularly useful for summarizing the strength of selection because the mean-standardized gradient for fitness itself is one, a convenient benchmark for strong selection. We review published estimates of directional selection in natural populations using mean-standardized selection gradients. Only 38 published studies provided all the necessary information for calculation of mean-standardized gradients. The median absolute value of multivariate mean-standardized gradients shows that selection is on average 54% as strong as selection on fitness. Correcting for the upward bias introduced by taking absolute values lowers the median to 31%, still very strong selection. Such large estimates clearly cannot be representative of selection on all traits. Some possible sources of overestimation of the strength of selection include confounding environmental and genotypic effects on fitness, the use of fitness components as proxies for fitness, and biases in publication or choice of traits to study. [source] The Impact of Regulation FD on Institutional Investor InformativenessFINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2010Douglas O. Cook Although there is conflicting evidence and resulting skepticism regarding the value provided by professional investment management, Gibson, Safieddine, and Sonti (2004) document institutional investor informativeness relative to seasoned equity offering (SEO) purchases. We find that Regulation Fair Disclosure's significantly reduces institutional investors' ability to identify mispriced SEO firms. Informativeness is diminished not by investors following analysts who have experienced a reduction in forecasting accuracy, but limiting investors' direct access to private information. This information loss is replaced by reliance on a greater number of public information variables resulting in less consideration for prudence proxies and a liquidity motive and more for higher price momentum. [source] Market Misvaluation, Managerial Horizon, and AcquisitionsFINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2010Huasheng Gao This paper analyzes the impact of managerial horizon on mergers and acquisitions activity. The main predication is that acquiring firms managed by short-horizon executives have higher abnormal returns at acquisition announcements, less likelihood of using equity to pay for the transactions, and inferior postmerger stock performance in the long run. I construct two proxies for managerial horizon based on the CEO's career concern and compensation scheme, and provide empirical evidence supporting the above prediction. Moreover, I also demonstrate that long-horizon managers are more likely to initiate acquisitions in response to high stock market valuation. [source] Underpricing and Ex Post Value UncertaintyFINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2009Sonia Falconieri As documented by a vast empirical literature, initial public offerings (IPOs) are characterized by underpricing. A number of papers have shown that underpricing is directly related to the amount of ex ante uncertainty concerning the IPOs valuation. Recent theoretical papers propose that not all value uncertainty is resolved prior to the start of trading, but rather continues to be resolved in the beginning of the after market. We term this type of uncertainty as ex post value uncertainty and develop proxies for it. We find strong support for the existence of ex post value uncertainty and find that including a proxy for it more than doubles the explanatory power of previous models. [source] On the Use of Multifactor Models to Evaluate Mutual Fund PerformanceFINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2009Joop Huij We show that multifactor performance estimates for mutual funds suffer from systematic biases and argue that these biases are a result of miscalculating the factor premiums. Because the factor proxies are based on hypothetical stock portfolios and do not incorporate transaction costs, trade impact, and trading restrictions, the factor premiums are either over- or underestimated. We argue that factor proxies based on mutual fund returns rather than on stock returns provide better benchmarks to evaluate professional money managers. [source] Stock Price Response to Calls of Convertible Bonds: Still a Puzzle?FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2007Ivan E. Brick The liquidity hypothesis predicts negative abnormal returns around the conversion-forcing call announcements of convertible bonds, followed by a price recovery. We find the former but not the latter. The liquidity hypothesis also implies that the abnormal returns during the announcement and the post-announcement periods should be related to proxies for the stock s liquidity. Again, our findings do not support these implications of the liquidity hypothesis. We conclude that the reason for the negative abnormal returns around the announcement of a conversion-forcing call needs further examination. [source] Assets in Place, Growth Opportunities, and IPO ReturnsFINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2005Kee H. Chung We consider a simple model positing that initial public offering price is equal to the present value of an entity's assets in place and growth opportunities. The model predicts that initial return is positively related to both the size and risk of growth opportunities. Consistent with this prediction, we find initial return to be positively related to both the fraction of the offer price that is accounted for by the present value of growth opportunities and various proxies of issue uncertainty. We also find that IPO investors equate one dollar of growth opportunities to approximately three quarters of tangible assets. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||