Order Submission Strategies and Information: Empirical Evidence from the NYSE

We investigate the role of asymmetric information in affecting order submission strategies. Order aggressiveness depends on the state of the order book and on the asset dynamics. We find that the most important determinants are the depth on the same side of the book and a momentum indicator. When we focus on specific situations characterized by higher probability of information-based trading, we find that orders are less aggressive, suggesting strategic behavior of informed traders. This conjecture is supported by a different response to changes in the investor's information set and by a stronger price impact of less aggressive orders.Order Aggressiveness, Informed Trading, Order Flow

A pilot survey of agent securities lending activity

This paper reports aggregate statistics on securities lending activity based on a recently concluded pilot data collection by staff from the Office of Financial Research (OFR), the Federal Reserve System, and staff from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In its annual reports, the Financial Stability Oversight Council identified a lack of data about securities lending activity as a priority for the Council. This pilot data collection was a step toward addressing this critical data need. The voluntary pilot collection included end-of-day loan-level data for three non-consecutive business days from seven securities lending agents. Most but not all participating lending agents were subsidiaries of banks. The dataset of 75 reporting fields provides substantial new information about securities lending activity, including information concerning securities owners, securities borrowers, attributes of securities loans, collateral management, and cash reinvestment practices. However, the pilot data collection was limited in scope and duration. Comprehensive data are still lacking. To close this data gap, a permanent collection of data covering securities lending activity is recommended by the Council

A new survey of the U.S. bilateral repo market: A snapshot of broker-dealer activity

We provide aggregate statistics on U.S. dealers' bilateral repurchase agreements and economically equivalent securities lending activities. The data were collected from the U.S.-affiliated securities dealers of nine bank holding companies under a voluntary pilot program run by the Office of Financial Research and the Federal Reserve System with input from the Securities and Exchange Commission. We find that the majority of this activity involves the delivery or receipt of U.S. Treasuries, with equities a distant second. The most common maturity is one day. Finally, rates are widely dispersed across asset classes

Saying more with less? Disclosure conciseness, completeness and balance in Integrated Reports

The Integrated Reporting Framework of 2013 represents the latest international attempt to connect a firm’s financial and sustainability (i.e., environmental, social and governance) performance in one company report. An Integrated Report (IR) should communicate “concisely” about how a firm’s strategy, governance, performance and prospects, in the context of its external environment, lead to the creation of sustainable value. At the same time, an IR needs to be “complete and balanced”, i.e., broadly including all material matters, both positive and negative, in a balanced way. Drawing on impression management studies, we examine a selection of performance determinants to gain insights into the factors associated with conciseness, completeness and balance in IR. The results from a sample of IR early adopters show that in the presence of a firm’s weak financial performance, the IR tends to be significantly longer and less readable (i.e., less concise), and more optimistic (i.e., less balanced). We additionally find that firms with worse social performance provide reports that are foggier (i.e., less concise) and with less information on their sustainability performance (i.e., less complete). Our evidence implies that IR early adopters employ quantity and syntactical reading ease manipulation as well as thematic content and verbal tone manipulation as impression management strategies. The results also suggest that such strategies depend not only on the level of firms’ performance but also on the type of performance (financial versus nonfinancial/sustainability). This paper adds to the limited literature on IR in sustainability accounting as well as to the research in mainstream financial accounting that examines disclosure quality using textual analysis

RNA Polymerase II identifies enhancers in different states of activation

Enhancer regulieren die Transkription ihrer Zielgene und deren Expression. Sie bieten eine Bindestelle für verschiedenste Transkriptionsfaktoren (TF) und RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) und unterstützen die Gentranskription durch das Zustandekommen von Chromatinkontakten. Zusätzlich transkribiert RNAPII in Enhancer-Regionen kurze, non-polyadenylierte Transkripte, die man Enhancer-RNA (eRNA) nennt. Der Mechanismus der RNAPII-Rekrutierung und –Regulation an Enhancern ist bisher wenig verstanden, insbesondere wie das Vorhandensein von RNAPII-Modifikationen den Chromatinstatus, -faltung sowie die Genaktivierung beeinflusst. In dieser Arbeit wurden verschiedene Ansätze der Enhancer-Bestimmung miteinander verglichen. Während eine klare Bestimmung des besten Ansatzes sich als komplex erwies, konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Bindung von RNAPII an regulatorische Regionen in Zusammenhang mit TF eine universelle Konstante darstellte. Weiterhin wurden der Status der Enhancer-gekoppelten RNAPII-Aktivierung und deren Transkriptionsaktivität untersucht. Als Hauptergebnis ergab sich, dass der RNAPII-Status mit der Enhancer-Aktivität und daraus folgend mit veränderter Transkriptionsaktivität korreliert ist. Weiterhin konnte gezeigt werden, dass das Vorhandensein extragenischer RNAPII ein neues Werkzeug zur Identifikation von regulatorischen Regionen ist. Erfolgreich konnten regulatorische Regionen in embryonalen Stammzellen der Maus sowie während der neuronalen Differenzierung vorhergesagt und mittels Enhancer-Aktivität in-vivo bestätigt werden. Dabei zeigte sich, dass im Laufe der der neuronalen Differenzierung extragenische RNAPII-Bindung spezifische Aktivierungsmuster aufweist: ihr Transkriptionslevel wird durch Kinasen feinmaschig reguliert und es werden verschiedene Formen maturierter RNA erzeugt. Zusammenfassend konnte RNAPII als Werkzeug zur Identifikation und Charakterisierung regulatorischer Regionen in verschiedenen Zelltypen ausgemacht werden. Selbst mit minimalen RNAPII-Datensätzen ist es möglich, gleichzeitig regulatorische Regionen zu identifizieren als auch ihren eigenen Aktivierungsstatus sowie den ihrer kodierender Genpromotoren zu bestimmen.Enhancers regulate transcription of target genes and gene expression. They act as recruitment sites for multiple transcription factors (TFs) and RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) and favour transcription of target genes through chromatin contacts. RNAPII at enhancer regions transcribes short and mostly non-polyadenylated transcripts, called enhancer RNAs (eRNAs). The mechanisms of RNAPII recruitment and regulation at enhancers remain ill understood, in particular how signalling through RNAPII modifications may influence chromatin states, looping and gene activation. In this study, I compare enhancer lists defined with different approaches and find that their relation is very complex. However, I find that RNAPII binding co-occurs with TF binding at regulatory regions, independently of the identification approach used. I characterize the state of RNAPII activation at enhancers and its transcriptional activity. I find that RNAPII state reflects enhancer activation state and correlates with different transcriptional outputs. In addition, I demonstrate that extragenic RNAPII is a novel tool to identify regulatory regions. I successfully identified putative regulatory regions in mESC and during neuronal differentiation, with enhancer activity in vivo. Extragenic RNAPII regions have specific activation patterns during neuronal differentiation, are finely regulated at the transcriptional level by kinases and transcribe differently mature RNAs. In conclusion, I establish RNAPII as a tool to identify and characterise regulatory regions in a cell type of interest. With minimal RNAPII datasets it is possible to simultaneously identify regulatory regions, infer their state of activation, and the state of activation of coding gene promoters

Remanufacturing of end-of-life composites from the wind energy sector with sustainable resins

LAUREA MAGISTRALELa continua richiesta di nuovi prodotti, a causa della costante crescita della popolazione globale, insieme all’incremento dei prodotti a fine ciclo di vita smaltiti lasciandoli in disuso nelle discariche, ha portato alla necessità di trovare un metodo di riciclo, riuso o ricondizionamento di questi prodotti. Oggigiorno, infatti, una delle sfide più importanti dell’industria manifatturiera è l’applicazione dei principi su cui si basa l’economia circolare al settore dei materiali compositi, in modo da ridurre la produzione di rifiuti apportando non solo benefici all’ambiente ma anche al sistema economico. Inoltre, un’altra delle maggiori sfide che ha affrontato il settore industriale negli ultimi anni è la produzione di plastica da risorse sostenibili, in modo da ridurre l’impatto ambientale dei prodotti a base di petrolio, facilitare il loro riciclaggio e risolvere il problema della limitata disponibilità delle risorse fossili. Alla luce di ciò, questa tesi si focalizza sul riuso di fibre di vetro riciclate, ottenute dalla macinazione meccanica di pale eoliche a fine ciclo di vita, come materiale di rinforzo per resine senza stirene e poliesteri insaturi sintetizzati da risorse bio per la produzione di materiali compositi. Nella prima parte del progetto, diversi poliesteri insaturi sono stati sintetizzati a partire dall’acido furandicarbossilico (FDCA), dall’acido itaconico (IA) o dai loro rispettivi esteri quali l’estere dimetil-furandicarbossilico (DM-FDCA) e dimetil-itaconato (DMI), insieme al 1.2-propandiolo. I poliesteri puri ottenuti, sono stati poi caratterizzati in termini di numero d’acido (AV), calorimetria differenziata in scansione (DSC) e cromatografia a permeazione di gel (GPC). I dati ottenuti hanno evidenziato che il polimero sintetizzato partendo dagli esteri presenta valori di transizione vetrosa (T_g) e peso molecolare maggiori rispetto a quello ottenuto dagli acidi. I poliesteri sono stati analizzati anche in termini di FT-IR e 1H-NMR per studiarne la composizione chimica e la struttura della molecola. Successivamente, ai polimeri puri è stato aggiunto il DMI come diluente reattivo, con un rapporto polimero/solvente uguale a 70/30, al fine di rendere maneggiabile il composto e rendere possibile la reticolazione. Diversi processi di reticolazione sono poi stati testati per ottenere la migliore combinazione di iniziatori/catalizzatori da aggiungere. Le proprietà termiche dei campioni reticolati sono state valutate via DSC, mentre l’efficacia della reticolazione attraverso il calcolo del percento gel. Infine, le resine più performanti sono state sottoposte a test tensili per calcolarne le proprietà meccaniche. In particolare, l’ultimo poliestere insaturo sintetizzato è quello che ha mostrato le migliori proprietà, avendo una T_g pari a 66°C, un gel% del 88% e un modulo a trazione di 3.25 GPa. Allo stesso tempo, la tesi si è anche focalizzata sulla ricerca di un metodo di riutilizzo di fibre di vetro riciclate per il ricondizionamento di materiali compositi con matrice epossidica. Per prima cosa, diversi campioni di materiale riciclato sono stati sottoposti a TGA in modo da calcolare la reale concentrazione di vetro in essi contenuta, che è stata stimata intorno al 71.5 ± 3%. Successivamente la resina epossidica è stata caricata con diverse concentrazioni di materiale riciclato (40%, 50%, 60%, 65%, 70%), in modo da trovare la concentrazione massima di rinforzo da potere aggiungere alla matrice. A questo punto, le varie formulazioni sono state testate attraverso TGA, DSC e prove a trazione al fine di ottenere la reale concentrazione di fibre contenuta nei vari campioni, e le loro proprietà termiche e meccaniche. Per aumentare l’adesione tra matrice e resina, sono anche stati effettuati quattro diversi trattamenti con silani, tuttavia nessuno ha riportato risultati significativi, principalmente a causa della presenza di residui della vecchia resina attorno alle fibre riciclate che rendono il trattamento di silanizzazione inefficace. Inoltre, dopo aver riscontrato che il 60% in peso è il valore ottimale di fibre da aggiungere alla matrice, sono stati prodotti compositi con questa quantità di fibre di vetro vergini al fine di evidenziare l’effetto prodotto dal riciclo meccanico sulle fibre stesse. Infine, una volta ottimizzato il processo di produzione e trovata la concentrazione ottimale di materiale di rinforzo, la matrice epossidica è stata sostituita con i poliesteri bio sintetizzati nella prima parte del progetto. Anche in questo caso sono state utilizzate sia fibre vergini che riciclate, caricate al 60% in peso. I risultati ottenuti dai test a trazione sono poi stati confrontati con quelli ottenuti precedentemente per i compositi con matrice epossidica. Il modello di Halpin-Tsai è stato, infine, usato per stimare i valori teorici dei moduli di tutti i diversi tipi di compositi prodotti, in modo da effettuare successivamente una comparazione con i valori ottenuti sperimentalmente. È stato quindi provato che si possono riutilizzare fibre di vetro riciclato come rinforzo in nuovi materiali compositi. In particolare, l’utilizzo della matrice epossidica permette di ottenere valori del modulo pari a 7.49 GPa. Tuttavia, sono state riscontrate alcune limitazioni riguardanti l’adesione tra le fibre e i poliesteri bio e, di conseguenza, anche nelle proprietà meccaniche finali dei compositi. Futuri studi dovranno occuparsi di risolvere questo problema.The increasing demand for new products, due to a continuously growing world’s population, together with the raising number of End-of-Life (EoL) composites disposed in landfill, led to the need to find a method to recycle, reuse or remanufacture these products. Nowadays, indeed, one of the main challenges of the manufacturing industry is the application of the Circular Economy principle to EoL composites, in order to reduce the wastes production bringing beneficial effects not only to the environment, but also to the economic system. In addition, another challenges facing the industrial sector in the recent years is the production of plastic from renewable resources, in order to reduce the environmental impact of the fossil fuel based materials, facilitate their recycling and solve the problem of the limited availability of fossil resources. In the light of the above, this thesis focuses on the reuse of recycled glass fibres, obtained through mechanical recycling of EoL wind turbine blades, as reinforcement material for styrene-free resins and new bio-based polyesters for the production of composite materials. Firstly, bio-based unsaturated polyesters, based on the 2.5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA), the itaconic acid (IA), or their ester forms the dimethyl-2.5-furandicarboxylate (DM-FDCA) and the dimethyl itaconate (DMI), together with the 1.2-propanediol (1.2-PD), were produced via polycondensation. Once synthesized, they were characterized by means of acid value (AV), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). Data obtained highlighted that the polyesters produced starting from the ester forms presented higher T_g and molecular weight. The polyesters were also characterized in terms of FT-IR and 1H-NMR to understand the chemical structure of the obtained polymers. Then bio-based DMI was added as reactive diluent in a polymer to solvent ratio of 70/30, in order to make the polyester manageable for the crosslinking process. Indeed, different crosslinking procedures where then tested in order to find the most suitable combination of initiators/catalyst to be added. Thermal properties of the crosslinking sample were evaluated via DSC, while the crosslinking efficiency was estimated with gel content evaluation. Finally, the most promising bio-based polyesters were subjected to tensile tests to evaluate the mechanical properties of the resin. In particular the last bio-based polyester synthetized appear to be the most promising one, showing a T_g of 66°C, a gel% of 88% and a tensile modulus of 3.25 GPa. At the same time, the thesis focused also on the reuse of mechanically recycled glass fibres in remanufacturing of composites with a commercial epoxy resin. Firstly, different batches of the recycled material were subjected to TGA analysis in order to find the percentage of glass fibres really contained, which was found equal to 71.5 ± 3%. Then the epoxy resin was charged with different concentrations (40%, 50%, 60%, 65%, 70%) of recycled glass fibres, in order to find the higher amount of fibres allowable. At this point, the different formulations were tested by means of TGA, DSC and tensile tests to measure the real amount of reinforcement contained in each sample, their thermal and mechanical properties. In order to increase the adhesion between the fibres and the matrix, four different silane treatments were employed to functionalize the recycled fibres surfaces. However, no significant results were obtained, in particular because parts of the fibres were still embedded in the old resin. Moreover, once the optimal amount of recycled glass fibres was set to 60 wt.%, composites with the 60 wt.% of virgin glass fibres were manufactured and tested to understand the effect of recycling on the mechanical properties. Finally, once the remanufacturing operation were optimized and the optimal amount of fibres was found, the commercial epoxy resin was substituted by the bio-based resins previously synthetized. Also in this case, composites with 60 wt.% of both recycled glass fibres and virgin glass fibres were manufacturing and subjected to tensile test. The results obtained were then compared with those registered for the epoxy matrix composites. Halpin-Tsai model was used to predict the theoretical moduli of all the different composites formulations and a comparison was made with the experimental results obtained through tensile tests. It was proved the possibility to reuse mechanically recycled glass fibres as reinforcement in styrene-free composites materials. In particular, using the epoxy resin as matrix a tensile modulus of 7.49 GPa was measured. Nevertheless, some limitations regarding the adhesion between the bio-based polyester matrices and the fibres, and hence regarding the final desired mechanical properties, were found and must be overcome

Management Accountant's Role and Functions in the Enterprise Resource Planning Environment - Author's Own Research into Enterprises in Poland

This article seeks to answer whether the implementation of an ERP system has an effect on the management accountant's tasks and functions, especially in the field of performance measurement and internal reporting. The ERP impacts on the controller's role in the organization will be evaluated using field studies on six enterprises owned by multinational corporations. The question that should be asked here is whether controller's functions and tasks will also be unaffected.Celem badania jest próba odpowiedzi na pytanie czy zastosowanie zintegrowanego systemu informatycznego w przedsiębiorstwie zmienia zadania i funkcje specjalisty do spraw rachunkowości zarządczej. Na podstawie studium przypadku sześciu przedsiębiorstw będących częścią koncernów międzynarodowych zostaje dokonana ocena wpływu zastosowania ERP na rolę kontrolera w organizacji. Autor odpowiada również na pytanie czy w funkcjach i zadaniach kontrolera nie zaobserwowane zostaną zmiany w związku z implementacją ERP

Power and limitations of electrophoretic separations in proteomics strategies

Proteomics can be defined as the large-scale analysis of proteins. Due to the complexity of biological systems, it is required to concatenate various separation techniques prior to mass spectrometry. These techniques, dealing with proteins or peptides, can rely on chromatography or electrophoresis. In this review, the electrophoretic techniques are under scrutiny. Their principles are recalled, and their applications for peptide and protein separations are presented and critically discussed. In addition, the features that are specific to gel electrophoresis and that interplay with mass spectrometry (i.e., protein detection after electrophoresis, and the process leading from a gel piece to a solution of peptides) are also discussed