Immediately following public offerings, underwriters often repurchase shares of poorly performing IPOs in an apparent attempt to stabilize the price. Using proprietary Nasdaq data for a large sample of IPOs, I study the price effects and cross-sectional determinants of price support. Some of the key findings are: (1) Price stabilization is substantial, inducing significant price rigidity at and below the offer price. Stabilization appears, at least in the short run, to raise the equilibrium stock price. (2) Many studies suggest that stabilization helps to mitigate information asymmetry problems in the IPO market. I find no evidence that stocks with larger ex-ante information asymmetries are stabilized more strongly. (3) The characteristics of the lead underwriter emerge as the strongest determinants of price support. Larger and more reputable investment banks stabilize more, perhaps to protect their reputations with investors. But there are substantial differences in price support even among the largest underwriters (after controlling for IPO characteristics and underwriter size). (4) Investment banks with retail brokerage operations stabilize much more than other large investment banks. This puzzling result seems inconsistent with the common view that stabilization benefits primarily institutional investors, and I outline and examine several alternative explanation

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Recently, with the enhancement of education and the change of the economic structure, the number of women participating in the labor market has dramatically increased. Obviously, the female employment correlates closely with the rate of the female fertility and the rate of returning to work. Therefore, this research focuses on the female employment in the four different banks in Kaohsiung to find out the difference between the related policies in Taiwan and in the U.K. and the acceptability of British Family-Friendly Policy in Taiwan. The results are as follows: First, the employees don¡¦t understand well on the promoting the equal employment; Second, the banks still rely mainly on the basic law; Third, the social ideology regards women as the persons who put nursing their child on the first rank. According to this research, we have some following suggestions: 1) Ensure the woman¡¦s employment right. 2) Set up the public nurseries system. 3) Re-deploy human resources. 4) Promote the equality of men and women. From this research, we figure out that interviewees have a lower acceptability of British Family-Friendly Policy. Besides, we find out the problems that women have faced in labor market and understand why the practical application of the welfare system is different from that originally assumed. Therefore, we hope the legislators will take the working environment and the demands of the women into consideration to develop the welfare system to achieve the goal - the ¡§welfare policy¡¨ can be practice into ¡§welfare life¡¨.

The finance industry has been rather slow adopting a customer oriented approach and instead had more of a transaction oriented approach having largely undifferentiated markets. During the last two decades the world’s finance industry has been undergoing a process of transformation set off by the deregulations, internationalisation and technological change. The effects from these changes have made the companies providing financial services, such as banks, face new challenges regarding their role in the economy. Swedbank, one of the largest banks in Sweden, is now looking at how to segment their market in the best possible way in an attempt to find segments that they can serve better and in that way become more competitive. One potential new segment they have found is the increasingly more common franchise systems. This has lead to the following problem statement and purpose for this thesis: How do banks work with market segmentation? The main purpose with this study has been to develop a deeper understanding of how banks work with market segmentation by studying the example of the potential segment of franchisees and their franchisors. The subordinate purposes include learning what franchisees think about their situation and relation with banks, clarifying the market potential of franchise segment for banks, and to give suggestions of aspects that might be valuable to consider for banks when examining the potential for a new segment of franchisees and their franchisors. My aim was to create a better understanding of the phenomenon studied by interpretations and therefore chose a qualitative data collection and analysis method to be able to answer the problem statement and purposes for this study. Nine in-depth interviews, eight interviews with different franchisees and one interview with a respondent from Swedbank, was carried out. What I have found with this study is that up till now the segmentation by banks has not been very fine tuned using rather simple variables and methods. But seen that as the bank market is starting to adopt more of a relationship marketing perspective the banks’ view of segmentation might also be starting to change and develop. As this study of Swedbank’s work with establishing whether franchise systems can be a new segment for them show that banks seem to be moving from their simple break-down approach with size and industry variables towards more of a build-up approach seeing their customers as different and unique building up the segments. Still though, segmentation is not very natural and prioritised as it is for many other companies. Other conclusions that can be drawn from this study are that if banks are to create a segment with franchise systems and trying to attract them with various marketing packages they have to be aware that relationships seem to be very important for customers and something that might make them not changing bank even if being offered good solutions. Although not having much contact with their banks customers can be satisfied since relationships can be in either a passive or active relational mode. Consequently if wanting to be able to get good penetration with a package of bank products and services I believe it is important that the banks are offering these packages to the franchise systems already early in the franchisees’ start-up phase, either when new franchisees are added to the existing franchise system or when the whole franchise system is completely new otherwise it will be more difficult to attract franchisees with such a package offering. Another conclusion that can be made is that banks seem to have problems with spreading good solutions throughout the whole bank. By looking over their market segmentation banks might become better at this, as well as becoming more knowledgeable about the different segments. Lastly, the market potential for franchise segments for banks seems to be rather good since even though franchisees do not see themselves as different from other small companies having different needs some prerequisites makes them different and interesting.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Economics

Mass coral spawning represents a nutrient input to coral reef systems that for Pacific reefs has been shown to stimulate pelagic and benthic processes. If phytoplankton in the water column over the reef are able to utilize this annual nutrient input, this could potentially alter phytoplankton biomass and community composition, in what is normally a very oligotrophic system. Sampling was performed at East Flower Garden Bank (EFGB), Gulf of Mexico during May, July, and August 2009. The annual coral spawning event occurred there August 11-14, 2009. Samples were collected morning and evening at three depths and analyzed for nutrients, chlorophyll a, accessory pigments, phytoplankton species composition, and carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen (CHN). During spawning, only small changes in nutrient concentrations were detected. Dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) peaked on the second day of spawning and N:P ratio was highest on 5/28, likely due to particularly phosphate concentration. Chl a biomass was significantly different between sample dates and the biomass increased steadily throughout the spawning period. The contribution of different phytoplankton classes to total chlorophyll a was determined using known pigment algorithms. Prokaryotes were the dominant class across the entire sampling period with 60-80 percent abundance. Trichodesmium spp. was the dominant genus throughout the study and genus specific changes per sample date were seen. On 8/11 and 8/13 two genera contributed the majority of chl a (Trichodesmium spp. and Ceratium spp.; Cylindrotheca spp. and Trichodesmium spp., respectively). Abundance showed variability during spawning with a peak at 11 cells/ml on 8/12. The high abundance of Trichodesmium spp. could indicate N limitation is alleviated at the Flower Garden Banks (FGB). Current literature on coral spawning is limited to studies performed in the Great Barrier Reef, with assessment areas close to a major shoreline. Genera found at EFGB were similar to those found in other reef systems. It cannot be determined if nutrient input increased diversity, as diversity was high prior to spawning as well. Greater increase in available forms of nitrogen would have likely been found several days post major spawning. The FGB were a unique system to study, as they are coral reefs, but are located 200 km offshore. This study provided a snapshot into phytoplankton dynamics as a result of spawning. Changes across the short time scale were seen in biomass and community composition.

Research and development department of the industry are generally depend on the experience rule to design products. But the designing process may be very time consuming. The experience, which the former designer accumulates, is probably unable to pass on to new personnel. This will makes new engineer have to use the traditional way to seek the solution slowly. This paper will study the socket, which test the integrated circuit, with forced convection. To discuss the difference of the inlet and outlet positions and geometry when the high-pressure air flow into the socket. And the fluid distribution may have the influence on heat dissipation result. This study uses Taguchi method with CFD software FLUENT, with different design parameters, to do the numerical simulation on the fluid field. To reach the design parameter of the optimization, Fluent uses the grid adaptive technique; it adjusts and optimizes the grid according to a result of calculation, and then made the result of calculation more accurate to offer more reliable design considerations to the designer.

Along with the popularity of the financial industry¡¦s becoming more and more free, large and international, the merging of banking industries becomes the inevitable trend. This research applied the resource-based theory to conduct a case study of merging of public banks by means of the qualitative research so as to understand the financial revolution policy of the financial governmental department and the comprehensive development of the banks studied. This research also focused on the study if the surviving bank made great use of ¡§resources¡¨ to connect with performances & generate the merging synergy. In this research, the main motivation of merging of banks lies in the managing efficacy of economies of scale and economies of scope and the external growth of incorporation can be reached by that. The key factors of successful merging for Bank of Taiwan and Central Trust of China lied in the low homogeneity, fair complementary financial business as well as the excellent base of management. ¡§Resources¡¨ are the key point of incorporation competitive advantage. By the mutual cooperation of capacity renewal and extension, incorporation can make growth and profit as well as reduce the managing risk. Accordingly, the construction and accumulation of resources is the primary consideration of the strategic decision-makers. This research not only justified the effectiveness of the rise in the corporation competitive advantages by ¡§resources¡¨ but also richened the versatility of the resource-based theory. The conclusion of this research was as follows. 1. The merging of Bank of Taiwan and Central Trust of China could enhance the competitive advantages of Bank of Taiwan, develop the managing synergy and achieve the external growth. 2. The merging of Bank of Taiwan and Central Trust of China had the positive assistance in enhancing the economies of scale and extending the economies of scope for Bank of Taiwan. 3. The merging of Bank of Taiwan and Central Trust of China made the application of Bank of Taiwan¡¦s incorporation resources and the connection with performances more efficiently as well as reduced the management cost.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, August 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on August 5, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.