70 research outputs found
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No full textVersion: 1.0.0
Imports: utils, minimalRSD, stats
Published:2017-03-21
Author: Shwetank Lall [aut, cre], Arpan Bhowmik [ctb], Eldho Varghese [aut], Seema Jaggi [ctb], Cini Varghese [ctb]
Maintainer: Shwetank Lall
License: GPL-2 | GPL-3 [expanded from: GPL (≥ 2)]
NeedsCompilation: no
Citation: FMC citation info
In views: ExperimentalDesignAn R package to generate cost effective minimally changed run sequences for symmetrical as well as asymmetrical factorial designsNot Availabl
Micropropagation system for Carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus) - an important ornamental plant
No full textMaster of Science-BiotechnologyThe present investigation was carried out on an important ornamental plant Dianthus caryophyllus belonging to family Caryophyllaceae. The different vegetative parts i.e. nodal explant, shoot apices, stem and leaves were excised from field grown mature plant and thereafter planted on variously supplemented Murashige and Skoog’s medium for multiple shoot proliferation, callus induction and de novo adventitious root and shoot formation
Dianthus exhibits a good degree of propensity of multiple shoot proliferation from nodal and shoot apex segments. Multiple shoot proliferation from nodal explants was observed on MS medium supplemented with BAP(4.4-8.8µM) or Kn(4.65-9.30 µM)either alone or in conjunction with lower concentrations of NAA(1.47-7.35µM). Out of all the combinations tried, best results were, however, obtained on MS+BAP(4.4µM) where 16-18 shoots were formed from single axillary bud and shoot apex.
The present material had a great organogenic potential as it exhibited a high efficiency of de novo adventitious root and shoot formation directly from the stem segment. Profuse growth of lateral roots occurred on the entire surface of stem segment along with adventitious shoot formation on lower concentrations of NAA(7.35µM). These roots were short and bore root hairs profusely. Further incorporation of CM(15%) to the NAA supplemented medium considerably enhanced the rooting where entire segment was covered over with clumps of roots. The roots were thin, white having dense root hairs. A high efficiency of adventitious shoot formation from the stem segment was observed. Stem segments cultured on MS medium supplemented with NAA(1.47-7.35µM) either alone or in conjunction with BAP(4.4µM) or Kn(9.30µM) and MS + BAP(4.4µM) or MS+ Kn(9.30µM) produced adventitious shoots directly on the surface of stem explants without the formation of intervening callus.
The regenerated shoots thus formed were excised and transferred to different root inducing media to form complete plantlets. Among the various growth regulators tested, NAA(7.35µM) showed the best results where rooting occurred. Attempts are underway to establish regenerated plantlets into the soil.
Callusing of the nodal segment, shoot apices, leaf and stem segments occurred immediately after culturing on optimal chemical milieu. Murashige and Skoog’s agar gelled medium supplemented with NAA (29.4 µM), with or without CM (15%) or 2,4-D (19.48 µM) + Kn(4.65 µM) turned out to be optimal for initiation and sustained growth of calli from different plant parts. The calli were pale yellow, friable and fast growing. Formation of green friable callus from the leaf explant on 2,4-D (4.87µM) + BAP(0.88 µM) + 2000mg/l casein hydrolysate was the best medium reported.
The callus thus formed from different vegetative parts on the medium were more or less identical in morphology. The calli obtained from all the parts were heterogenous being composed of parenchymatous ovoid, oblong, semicircular cells or those with aberrant shapes. Histogenetic differentiation in the form of tracheids was observed in all the calli. Tracheids occurred singly or in groups and possessed scalariform thickenings on their walls. No organogenetic differentiation could be effected from the calli on the various media tried.Biotechnology and Environmental Sciences, Thapar University, Patial
Auditor independence: Evidence on the joint effects of auditor tenure and non-audit fees
No full textThree essays on consequences of earnings informativeness
No full textThe dissertation contains three essays that examine the market and audit consequences of earnings informativenss. In the first essay, I develop a new measure of earnings complexity based on the option market reaction both before and after the announcement of earnings. Motivated by previous theoretical work by Kim and Verrecchia (1991, 1994) and empirical findings in Patell and Wolfson (1979, 1981), I expect my measure to provide insights into the underlying information environment faced by investors around the earnings announcement. I apply three sets of validity tests and the results of these tests show that firms with high disclosure score as per my measure experience improved market liquidity, less informed trading in stock and option market, less profitability earned by insiders, and a stronger response by analysts. These results indicate me measure does capture disclosure transparency from perspective of uninformed traders. Overall, I construct a financial information measure that could be widely applied and shows that the ability to reduce uncertainty through financial reports plays a significant role in market trading. The second essay investigates the effect of financial statement comparability on corporate bankruptcy risk. Based on three different comparability measures developed by De Franco et al. (2011) and Barth et al. (2012) and expected default risk (EDF) based on Merton (1974)’s model, I document that financial statement comparability is negatively related to EDF in current and future periods with the relationship being stronger in the near term. Cross-sectional tests reveal that the marginal effect of comparability on default risk is most pronounced for companies with less visibility, more investment, less monitoring, and for companies in high-tech industries, which is consistent companies with worse information environment and monitoring benefit more from comparable statements. Comparability could help to reduce default risk through improved information efficiency and more long-term oriented investors using path analysis. My results help to demonstrate that financial statement comparability might help both to explain and to reduce default risk. In the third essay, I examine how principles-based accounting standards affect auditor’s pricing decision and auditing efficiency. The debate over the effectiveness of principles-based and rules-based accounting in previous literature shows mixed evidence about the benefits for either policy. Using a firm-year level measure of the extent of principles-based accounting standards developed in earlier literature, I find robust results showing that firms with more principle-based accounting-policy pay less auditing fees. Further evidence shows the different level of audit fees charged on firms that rely on more principle-based standards might be partially explained by decreased litigation risk, misstatement risk, and auditing effort. Finally, I identify some factors that reduce the gap about rules-based standards: the relative advantage of principle-based standards decreases when firms do not have good governance to constrain earnings manipulation by managers, and when auditors have expertise in areas of those complex standards.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Yushi Wan
Affecting over-engineering with elements and factors of frugal innovations: The cases of the mobile phone industry and medical industry for the Bottom of the Pyramid
No full textThis thesis focuses on frugal innovations and over-engineering in the mobile phone industry and medical industry. These industries often over-engineer their products and services. For the mobile phone industry, businesses strive to give ever-improving products and services to their most profitable and demanding customers while paying less attention to others who are less demanding. In reality, firms’ over-engineered products/services often beat less-demanding customers’ performance standards. On the other hand, over-engineering medical equipment is due to owing to standards and regulations. This makes it more difficult for people to access medical equipment. Not everyone can afford it and not everyone is capable of operating such sophisticated equipment. Frugal innovations aim to strive to lower the cost of products, services and systems for the Bottom of the Pyramid. To (partially) solve the problem described, the research objective for this thesis is to investigate the factors of frugal innovations to affect over-engineering in the mobile phone industry and for medical equipment in the medical industry by means of two case studies.Management of Technology (MoT
Design and development of image processing algorithms for qualitative road traffic data analysis
No full textNowadays, there is a huge demand for real time traffic analysis due to the enormous
number of vehicles present on roads. This has led to the need for devising control
systems which can allow us to collect the statistics on the amount of traffic flow. The
author has researched and devised various algorithms to get relevant data for road
traffic analysis, in order to obtain valuable information which can be later used for
improving traffic management and its efficiency.
The first step was obviously to obtain usable images from the real time traffic videos
as recorded by camera equipment and then process them using various image
processing techniques. In this project, the proposed method is to use window-based
method with various segmentation methods such as background difference, interframe
difference, edge detection, binary image conversion and quadtree
decomposition. The author has also studied other techniques like HSI, thresholds and
use of GPS systems to improve the algorithms developed. The main purpose was to
investigate, develop and implement various algorithms to study the ‘quality’ factors of
road traffic like class of vehicle, lane speed and road usage implementations. The
project also required for the author to study some quantity factors like vehicle count in
order to gain a better understanding of traffic analysis concepts.
The algorithms developed can be tested on sequence of images under various
conditions and thereafter, study the changes due to external factors like weather, time
of day and the lighting of the area. This helps in identifying the image processing
techniques, which are most suited for studying traffic management and their
constraints. The results obtained are pretty encouraging but there is still room for
improvements such as removing shadows on vehicles, vehicle overlap issues and
using ‘smart’ new technology like GPS and neural networks.Bachelor of Engineerin
Three essays on corporate financial disclosures
No full textThis dissertation consists of three papers. In the first paper we identify a new incentive for managers in determining management forecast (MF) characteristics stemming from the relative performance evaluation feature of CEO promotion tournaments. We document higher credibility of MF for firms with stronger tournament incentives (as proxied for by the CEO pay gap). We posit that the relative performance evaluation feature of CEO promotion tournaments creates mutual monitoring mechanism within the management team as well as the incentives for lower-ranked executives to provide high quality information to gain better evaluation results. We thereby extend previous MF literature that focuses mainly on equity-based incentives and reports mixed findings. Our results are robust to using different tournament measures, controlling for other known determinants of MF characteristics as well as manager skills, and corrections of endogeneity of all specifications. In the second paper, we investigate the spill-over effect of customer fraud on non-fraudulent suppliers’ investment decisions. We posit that suppliers utilize customers’ information to infer future demand and economic prospects, and noisy information distorts and misguides the investment and productions decisions made by suppliers. The overinvestment and misrepresented performance of customers signal a high demand and prosperous economic prospects for suppliers, resulting in overinvestment decisions by suppliers. We find that suppliers invest more during the fraud periods of customers. The degree of distortion is less severe when the supplier operates in concentrated industry and more severe when suppliers have higher sales volatility. In addition, we show that the overinvestments by suppliers are inefficient as associated future cash flows are significantly reduced. Our results are robust to different fraud samples, alternative research methodology, and controlling for other known determinants of investment decisions. In the third paper, we investigate whether firms engaging in corporate fraud take advantages of strategic timing of earnings announcements (EA). We document that misreporting firms strategically time their EA in low attention periods (i.e. after trading hours) during violation years. In addition, we show that the timing strategy is followed by a longer detection period and more insider trading. We thereby extend previous corporate disclosure timing literature that mainly focuses on the content of reported news. We also extend the corporate fraud literature by showing a low-cost way in which firms can possibly “hide” the manipulated earnings. Our results are robust to different samples of fraud, different research methodology, different sample periods, and controlling for other known determinants of market attention.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Yinan Yan
Sources of differential relative price variability: An examination of the microfoundations of inflation
No full textThe central issue dividing neoclassical and Keynesian economists is how markets react to perturbations to longrun equilibria. The standard resolution of this controversy is that neoclassical responses are appropriate to competitive markets, while Keynesian responses better describe oligopolistic markets.The past few years have seen emphasis return to the microfoundations of Keynesian economics of inflation from the labor to product markets. A number of arguments have been advanced to explain differences in shortrun relative price variability across markets. Four of these are examined in this dissertation. J. R. Hicks' fixprice-flexprice framework attributed increased relative price variability to the presence in certain markets of traders who hold/discharge large speculative stocks of the relevant goods. Arthur Okun, using an auction-customer market dichotomy argued that relative price inflexibility arises in markets which display characteristics of implicit contracts via customer-seller relations. This feature diminishes the need for price adjustment to influence the marginal customer. Tibor Scitovsky stressed the importance of market power in both goods and labor markets with respect to price making behavior. Firms in concentrated industries/labor unions have the ability to keep market price/wage insulated from shortrun changes in demand. Finally, Frank Shupp has suggested that the degree of relative price variability is linked to the variable-factor intensity of the production process. This follows because with a greater variable-factor content, price cuts designed to spur demand are just not profitable if they result in higher variable costs.While each of these hypotheses claims some merit, none has been empirically tested. The purpose of this thesis is to do that, and hence, to study the degree to which each is valid.The Kalman Filter is used to decompose price movements in 2- and 3-digit SIC industries into permanent and transient components. As first approximations, variances of the transient components are used to construct measure of relative price variability. These measures are then examined against proxies for each of the four arguments presented above to study their comparative validity.Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T14:00:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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The 1989 revolution in East Germany and its impact on unified Germany's constitutional law ::the forgotten revolution? /
No full text"The book promotes a completely new understanding of constitutional lawmaking in Germany. A thorough analysis of the 1989 Revolution in the GDR demonstrates that it is wrong to reduce the Revolution's meaning to bringing about German unification and an unconditional adoption of West German constitutional law by the new states. Instead, the author shows that the Revolution had its own constitutional agenda, at least parts of which were transferred to unified Germany, where mostly the Federal Constitutional Court integrated them into the West German constitutional order. Case analyses reveal that unified Germany's constitutional law is a co-production between East German revolutionaries and the old Federal Republic."--Bloomsbury Publishing
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