Washington State University

About: Washington State University is a education organization based out in Pullman, Washington, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 26947 authors who have published 57736 publications receiving 2341509 citations. The organization is also known as: WSU & Wazzu.

Managerial Agents Watching other Agents: Multiple Agency Conflicts Regarding Underpricing in IPO Firms

Abstract: We contribute to multiple agency theory by examining cases in which ventures making initial public offerings (IPOs) have managerial agents on their boards whose goals conflict with those of the investment bank agents hired to underwrite the stock. Underwriters have an incentive to underprice IPOs to maintain strong ties with institutional investors. We develop theory on agent differences based on time horizons and risk taking by managerial agents as framed through behavioral agency theory. Examining governance mechanisms, we find both monitoring by board insiders and board experience decrease underpricing. Furthermore, underpricing increases when venture capitalists have prior ties with underwriters.

Religion and crime reexamined: the impact of religion, secular controls, and social ecology on adult criminality*

Abstract: Since Hirschi and Stark's (1969) surprising failure to find religious (“hellfire”) effects on delinquency, subsequent research has generally revealed an inverse relationship between religiosity and various forms of deviance, delinquency, and crime. The complexity of the relationship and conditions under which it holds, however, continue to be debated. Although a few researchers have found that religion's influence is noncontingent, most have found support—especially among youths—for effects that vary by denomination, type of offense, and social and/or religious context. More recently the relationship has been reported as spurious when relevant secular controls are included. Our research attempts to resolve these issues by testing the religion-crime relationship in models with a comprehensive crime measure and three separate dimensions of religiosity. We also control for secular constraints, religious networks, and social ecology. We found that, among our religiosity measures, participation in religious activities was a persistent and noncontingent inhibiter of adult crime.

Development of plant promoter expression vectors and their use for analysis of differential activity of nopaline synthase promoter in transformed tobacco cells.

Abstract: I have developed promoter expression binary vectors based on the tumor-inducing plasmid of Agrobacterium tumefaciens to facilitate elucidation of plant gene regulation. Promoter activity can be determined by inserting DNA fragments into the multiple cloning sites of the vectors forming transcriptional and/or translational fusions between the cat structural gene and an inserted promoter region. The activity of the nopaline synthase (nos) promoter was demonstrated with the vector. However, three animal promoters tested with this system showed no measurable activity in plant cells. Examination of 40 independently derived transformed tissues revealed a 200-fold difference in the nos promoter activity. Furthermore, there is no apparent correlation between the neomycin phosphotransferase and chloramphenicol acetyltransferase activities, although both genes are closely linked and under control of identical nos promoters. These results indicate that vast differences in promoter activity of transferred genes can occur within the same cell, as well as in independently derived cell lines.

px+ipy superfluid from s-wave interactions of fermionic cold atoms.

Abstract: Two-dimensional (p(x)+ip(y)) superfluids or superconductors offer a playground for studying intriguing physics such as quantum teleportation, non-Abelian statistics, and topological quantum computation. Creating such a superfluid in cold fermionic atom optical traps using p-wave Feshbach resonance is turning out to be challenging. Here we propose a method to create a p(x)+ip(y) superfluid directly from an s-wave interaction making use of a topological Berry phase, which can be artificially generated. We discuss ways to detect the spontaneous Hall mass current, which acts as a diagnostic for the chiral p-wave superfluid.