Prediction of financial distress: An empirical study of listed Chinese companies using data mining

The deterioration in profitability of listed companies not only threatens the interests of the enterprise and internal staff, but also makes investors face significant financial loss. It is important to establish an effective early warning system for prediction of financial crisis for better corporate governance. This paper studies the phenomenon of financial distress for 107 Chinese companies that received the label ‘special treatment’ from 2001 to 2008 by the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. We use data mining techniques to build financial distress warning models based on 31 financial indicators and three different time windows by comparing these 107 firms to a control group of firms. We observe that the performance of neural networks is more accurate than other classifiers, such as decision trees and support vector machines, as well as an ensemble of multiple classifiers combined using majority voting. An important contribution of the paper is to discover that financial indicators, such as net profit margin of total assets, return on total assets, earnings per share, and cash flow per share, play an important role in prediction of deterioration in profitability. This paper provides a suitable method for prediction of financial distress for listed companies in China.     

Rhenium chemistry of diazabutadienes and derived iminoacetamides spanning the valence domain II-VI. Synthesis, characterization, and metal-promoted regiospecific imine oxidation

The reaction of diazabutadienes of type R'N=C(R)-C(R)=NR', L (R = H, Me; R' = cycloalkyl, aryl) with Re(V)OCl(3)(AsPh(3))(2) has furnished Re(V)OCl(3)(L), 1, from which Re(III)(OPPh(3))Cl(3)(L), 2, and Re(V)(NAr)Cl(3)(L), 3, have been synthesized. Chemical oxidation of 2(R = H) by aqueous H(2)O(2) and of 3(R = H) by dilute HNO(3) has yielded Re(IV)(OPPh(3))Cl(3)(L'), 5, and Re(VI)(NAr)Cl(3)(L'), 4, respectively, where L' is the monoionized iminoacetamide ligand R'N=C(H)-C(=O)-NR'(-). Finally, the reaction of Re(V)O(OEt)X(2)(PPh(3))(2) with L has furnished bivalent species of type Re(II)X(2)(L)(2), 6(X = Cl, Br). The X-ray structures of 1 (R = Me, R' = Ph), 3 (R = H, R' = Ph, Ar = Ph), and 4 (R = H, R' = cycloheptyl, Ar = C(6)H(4)Cl) are reported revealing meridional geometry for the ReCl(3) fragment and triple bonding in the ReO (in 1) and ReNAr (in 3 and 4 ) fragments. The cis geometry (two Re-X stretches) of ReX(2)(L)(2) is consistent with maximized Re(II)-L back-bonding. Both ReX(2)(L)(2) and Re(NAr)Cl(3)(L') are paramagnetic (S = (1)/(2)) and display sextet EPR spectra in solution. The g and A values of Re(NAr)Cl(3)(L') are, respectively, lower and higher than those of ReX(2)(L)(2). All the complexes are electroactive in acetonitrile solution. The Re(NAr)Cl(3)(L) species display the Re(VI)/Re(V) couple near 1.0 V versus SCE, and coulometric studies have revealed that, in the oxidative transformation of 3 to 4, the reactive intermediate is Re(VI)(NAr)Cl(3)(L)(+) which undergoes nucleophilic addition of water at an imine site followed by induced electron transfer finally affording 4. In the structure of 3 (R = H, R' = Ph, Ar = Ph), the Re-N bond lying trans to the chloride ligand is approximately 0.1 A shorter than that lying trans to NPh. It is thus logical that the imine function incorporating the former bond is more polarized and therefore subject to more facile nucleophilic attack by water. This is consistent with the regiospecificity of the imine oxidation as revealed by structure determination of 4 (R = H, R' = cycloheptyl, Ar = C(6)H(4)Cl).     

Designed peptides with homochiral and heterochiral diproline templates as conformational constraints

Diproline segments have been advanced as templates for nucleation of folded structure in designed peptides. The conformational space available to homochiral and heterochiral diproline segments has been probed by crystallographic and NMR studies on model peptides containing L-Pro-L-Pro and D-Pro-L-Pro units. Four distinct classes of model peptides have been investigated: a) isolated D-Pro-L-Pro segments which form type II' beta-turn; b) D-Pro-L-Pro-L-Xxx sequences which form type II'-I (betaII'-I, consecutive beta-turns) turns; c) D-Pro-L-Pro-D-Xxx sequences; d) L-Pro-L-Pro-L-Xxx sequences. A total of 17 peptide crystal structures containing diproline segments are reported. Peptides of the type Piv-D-Pro-L-Pro-L-Xxx-NHMe are conformationally homogeneous, adopting consecutive beta-turn conformations. Peptides in the series Piv-D-Pro-L-Pro-D-Xxx-NHMe and Piv-L-Pro-L-Pro-L-Xxx-NHMe, display a heterogeneity of structures in crystals. A type VIa beta-turn conformation is characterized in Piv-L-Pro-L-Pro-L-Phe-OMe (18), while an example of a 5-->1 hydrogen bonded alpha-turn is observed in crystals of Piv-D-Pro-L-Pro-D-Ala-NHMe (11). An analysis of pyrrolidine conformations suggests a preferred proline puckering geometry is favored only in the case of heterochiral diproline segments. Solution NMR studies, reveal a strong conformational influence of the C-terminal Xxx residues on the structures of diproline segments. In L-Pro-L-Pro-L-Xxx sequences, the Xxx residues strongly determine the population of Pro-Pro cis conformers, with an overwhelming population of the trans form in L-Xxx=L-Ala (19).     

Tuning of the [Cu3(mu-O)]4+/5+ redox couple: spectroscopic evidence of charge delocalization in the mixed-valent [Cu3(mu-O)]5+ species

Trinuclear Cu (II)-complexes of formula [Cu (II) 3(mu 3-E)(mu-4-R-pz) 3X 3] (+/- n ), E = O and OH; R = H, Cl, Br, CH(O) and NO 2; X = Cl, NCS, CH 3COO, and py, have been synthesized and characterized and the effect of substitution of terminal ligands, as well as 4-R-groups, in the one-electron oxidation process has been investigated by cyclic voltammetry. In situ UV-vis-NIR spectroelectrochemical characterization of the mixed valence Cu 3 (7+)-complex [Cu 3(mu 3-O)(mu-pz) 3Cl 3] (-) revealed an intervalence charge transfer band at 9550 cm (-1) (epsilon = 2600 cm (-1) M (-1)), whose analysis identifies this species as a delocalized, Robin-Day class-III system, with an electronic coupling factor, H ab, of 4775 cm (-1).     

Analysis and comparative study of non-holonomic and quasi-integrable deformations of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation

Nonlinear Dynamics - The non-holonomic deformation of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, uniquely obtained from both the Lax pair and Kupershmidt’s bi-Hamiltonian (Kupershmidt in Phys...     

Unramified Brauer group of the moduli spaces of PGL r (ℂ)-bundles over curves

Let X be an irreducible smooth complex projective curve of genus g, with g ≥ 2. Let N be a connected component of the moduli space of semistable principal PGL _r (?)-bundles over X; it is a normal unirational complex projective variety. We prove that the Brauer group of a desingularization of N is trivial.     

A criterion for ample vector bundles over a curve in positive characteristic

Let X be a smooth projective curve defined over an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a vector bundle over X to be ample. This generalizes a criterion given by Lange in [Math. Ann. 238 (1978) 193-202] for a rank two vector bundle over X to be ample.     

Polygons in Minkowski three space and parabolic Higgs bundles of rank 2 on \mathbb{C}{{\mathbb{P}}^1}

Consider the moduli space of parabolic Higgs bundles (E, Φ) of rank two on ??¹ such that the underlying holomorphic vector bundle for the parabolic vector bundle E is trivial. It is equipped with the natural involution defined by $ \left( {E,\varPhi } \right)\mapsto \left( {E,-\varPhi } \right) $ . We study the fixed point locus of this involution. In [GM], this moduli space with involution was identified with the moduli space of hyperpolygons equipped with a certain natural involution. Here we identify the fixed point locus with the moduli spaces of polygons in Minkowski 3-space. This identification yields information on the connected components of the fixed point locus.     

Absolutely split real algebraic vector bundles over a real form of projective space

Let M be a projective variety, defined over the field of real numbers, with the property that the base change MR_×C is isomorphic to CPN for some N. A real algebraic vector bundle E over M will be called absolutely split if the vector bundle ER_⊗C over MR_×C splits into a direct sum of line bundles. We classify the isomorphism classes of absolutely split vector bundles over M.     

Moments of the asset price for the Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard model

In this paper, we derive closed-form formulas for moments of the asset price in the Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard (BN–S) stochastic volatility model. We also present similar results where the market is driven by a BN–S-type stochastic process. It is shown that in both cases the results depend on the cumulant transform of the background driving Lévy process for the models. In this paper, we have also obtain various approximate expressions for the expected value of the square-root process for the shifted asset price with respect to the BN–S model.