Determinants of capital expenditures: Evidence from oil and mining sectors in Russia

This master’s thesis investigates the significant macroeconomic and firm level determinants of CAPEX in Russian oil and mining sectors. It also studies the Russian oil and mining sectors, its development, characteristics and current situation. The panel data methodology was implemented to identify the determinants of CAPEX in Russian oil and mining sectors and to test derived hypotheses. The core sample consists of annual financial data of 45 publicly listed Russian oil and mining sector companies. The timeframe of the thesis research is a six year period from 2007 to 2013. The findings of the master’s thesis have shown that Gross Sales, Return On Assets, Free Cash Flow and Long Term Debt are firm level performance variables along with Russian GDP, Export, Urals and the Reserve Fund are macroeconomic variables that determine the magnitude of new capital expenditures reported by publicly listed Russian oil and mining sector companies. These results are not controversial to the previous research paper, indeed they confirm them. Furthermore, the findings from the emerging countries, such as Malaysia, India and Portugal, are analogous to Russia. The empirical research is edifying and novel. Findings from this master’s thesis are highly valuable for the scientific community, especially, for researchers who investigate the determinant of CAPEX in developing countries. Moreover, the results can be utilized as a cogent argument, when companies and investors are doing strategic decisions, considering the Russian oil and mining sectors.

Shares Certificate - Gladstone Mines and Reduction Company

A shares certificate for Gladstone Mines and Reduction Company in the amount of 200 shares. The certificate is dated 13 March 1925 and is signed by the secretary F.J. Carr and the president Charles Stoddart. The price is one dollar per share and it is made out to W.H. Cowan.

Union Pacific Railway from Kansas City , Omaha, St. Joseph to Denver, San Francisco, Portland, Helena, Butte, Boise, Leadville, Durango, Deadwood and all cities and mining camps in the west schedule

Union Pacific Railway from Kansas City , Omaha, St. Joseph to Denver, San Francisco, Portland, Helena, Butte, Boise, Leadville, Durango, Deadwood and all cities and mining camps in the west schedule, Jan. 15, 1882.

Travels in México, during the years 1843 and 44 ; including a description of California, the principal cities and mining districts of that republic the Oregón territory, etc.

UANL

Fabrication of diamond nanostructures and investigation of the imbedded NV centers

Diamant ist ein Material mit vielen außerordentlichen Eigenschaften, die ihn zu einem äußerst vielversprechenden Kandidaten für Anwendungen in Wissen-schaft und Technik machen. In den letzten Jahren wurde Diamant häufig als einzigartige Plattform für neue Anwendungen beispielsweise in der Quanteninformationstechnologie (QIT) oder in der Magnetometrie im Nanometermaßstab eingesetzt, wobei einer der wichtigsten lumineszierenden Gitterdefekte im Diamantgitter eingesetzt wird. Dabei handelt es sich um die sogenannten Stickstoff/Fehlenstellen-Farbzentren (NV-Zentren), die im sichtbaren Bereich mit einer absoluten Photostabilität bei Raumtemperatur emittieren. In dieser Arbeit wurden NV-Zentren in Diamantnanokristalliten und –nanosäulen untersucht, die während des Wachstumsprozesses erzeugt wurden. Einzelne Diamantnanokristallite und nanokristalline Diamantschichten (NCD), aus denen Nanosäulen geätzt wurden, wurden mithilfe der Hot Filament Chemical Vapour Deposition (HFCVD) abgeschieden. Zu Vergleichszwecken wurden auch ultrananokristalline Diamantschichten (UNCD) mittels Mikrowellen-CVD (MWCVD) hergestellt. Die Filme wurden sorgfältig in Bezug auf ihre Morphologie, kristallinen Eigenschaften und Zusammensetzung untersucht. Um die Möglichkeit einer Integration dieser Diamantschichten mit temperaturempfindlichen Materialien wie III/V-Halbleitern, Metallen mit niedrigem Schmelzpunkt oder Polymeren zu untersuchen, wurde der Einfluss der Substrattemperatur ermittelt. Eindimensionale NCD- und UNCD-Diamantnanostrukturen wurden mithilfe der Elektronenstrahllithographie (EBL) und reaktivem Ionenätzen in einem induktiv gekoppelten O2-Plasma (ICP-RIE) hergestellt. Zur Vorbereitung wurden zunächst die Ätzraten in Abhängigkeit von den vier wichtigsten Parametern ermittelt. Weitere Erkenntnisse über die Ätzmechanismen wurden durch Ätzexperiment mit unstrukturierten NCD- und UNCD-Schichten erhalten Mittels der EBL konnten mithilfe von Gold-Ätzmasken Nanosäulen mit Durchmessern von 50 nm bis zu 1 μm hergestellt werden.Eine optische Charakterisierung der NCD- und UNCD-Nanosäulen erfolgte mithilfe von Fluorenzenz-Mapping und Photomumineszenz-Spektroskopie. Diese Messungen ergaben, dass in beiden Arten von Säulen NV-Zentren vorhanden sind. Allerdings wurden nur in NCD-Säulen die gewünschten NV--Zentren gefunden, in UNCD-Säulen hingegen nur NV0-Zentren.

Distribution of diatom communities in agricultural and mining watersheds of Southwest Spain

Els sistemes aquàtics continental representen un dels ecosistemes més amenaçats a nivell mundial, com a conseqüència de l'ús intensiu quel'home en fa. La conca del Guadiana no està lliure d'aquestes pressions antròpiques. Les grans infraestructures hidràuliques i l'escorrentia provinent de l'agricultura són només exemples dels greus problemes que pateix la conca. Aquests problemes es fan especialment palesos en la zona alta de la conca, on l'escassetat d'aigua no fa més que agreujar el problema.Tot això ha generat la necessitat urgent d'avaluar l'estat de conservació d'aquests ecosistemes aquàtics continentals, poder determinar la mesura i la magnitud de les pertorbacions que els estan afectant i així proposar mesures de gestió destinades a restaurar-ne la integritat ecològica. El principal objectiu que presenta aquest és determinar els patrons de distribució de les comunitats de algals (amb una menció especial en el grup de les diatomees) i de les seves causes en la conca del Guadiana i associades, amb la finalitat d'establir i proposar eines que permetin avaluar l'estat de conservació de les masses d'aigua d'aquestes conques.

Winners and losers from industry reforms in the developing world: experiences from the electricity and mining sectors

The reform of previously state-owned and operated industries in many Less Developed Countries (LDCs) provide contrary experiences to those in the developed world, which have generally had more equitable distributional impacts. The economic reform policies proposed by the so-called 'Washington Consensus' state that privatisation provides governments with opportunities to raise revenues through the sale of under-performing and indebted state industries, thereby reducing significant fiscal burdens, and, at the same time, facilitating influxes of foreign capital, skills and technology, with the aim of improving operations and a "trickle-down" of benefits. However, experiences in many LDCs over the last 15-20 years suggest that reform has not solved the problem of chronic public-sector debt, and that poverty and socio-economic inequalities have increased during this period of 'neo-liberal' economics. This paper does not seek to challenge the policies themselves, but rather argues that the context in which reform has often taken place is of fundamental significance. The industry-centric policy advice provided by the IFIs typically causes a 'lock-in' of inequitably distributed 'efficiency gains', providing minimal, if any, benefits to impoverished groups. These arguments are made using case study analysis from the electricity and mining sectors.

Towards data warehousing and mining of protein unfolding simulation data

OBJECTIVES: The prediction of protein structure and the precise understanding of protein folding and unfolding processes remains one of the greatest challenges in structural biology and bioinformatics. Computer simulations based on molecular dynamics (MD) are at the forefront of the effort to gain a deeper understanding of these complex processes. Currently, these MD simulations are usually on the order of tens of nanoseconds, generate a large amount of conformational data and are computationally expensive. More and more groups run such simulations and generate a myriad of data, which raises new challenges in managing and analyzing these data. Because the vast range of proteins researchers want to study and simulate, the computational effort needed to generate data, the large data volumes involved, and the different types of analyses scientists need to perform, it is desirable to provide a public repository allowing researchers to pool and share protein unfolding data. METHODS: To adequately organize, manage, and analyze the data generated by unfolding simulation studies, we designed a data warehouse system that is embedded in a grid environment to facilitate the seamless sharing of available computer resources and thus enable many groups to share complex molecular dynamics simulations on a more regular basis. RESULTS: To gain insight into the conformational fluctuations and stability of the monomeric forms of the amyloidogenic protein transthyretin (TTR), molecular dynamics unfolding simulations of the monomer of human TTR have been conducted. Trajectory data and meta-data of the wild-type (WT) protein and the highly amyloidogenic variant L55P-TTR represent the test case for the data warehouse. CONCLUSIONS: Web and grid services, especially pre-defined data mining services that can run on or 'near' the data repository of the data warehouse, are likely to play a pivotal role in the analysis of molecular dynamics unfolding data.