Generally, information provision and certification have been identified as the major economic functions of rating agencies. This paper analyzes whether the “watchlist” (rating review) instrument has extended the agencies’ role towards a monitoring position, as proposed by Boot, Milbourn, and Schmeits (2006). Using a data set of Moody’s ratings between 1982 and 2004, we find that the overall inf...

In an expansive multi-billion international film industry, online reviews inform audiences which films may be the most appealing, determining in part the success a film or franchise. Online reviewers and even review aggregations are biased by social or financial factors; this bias clouds the value of movie reviews by prioritizing and propagating highly visible user’s ratings of films, as compar...

Highway bridge infrastructure is a key aspect of the US transportation system. Efficient maintenance is important for preserving the integrity and improving the condition of aging national bridge infrastructure. Highway bridge condition is typically assessed using visual inspections and accompanying non-destructive field tests. This paper presents a solution that leverages low-cost Structural H...

the purpose of the present study is to develop appropriate scoring scales for each of the defined stages of the writing process, and also to determine to what extent these scoring scales can reliably and validly assess the performances of efl learners in an academic writing task. two hundred and two students’ writing samples were collected after a step-by-step process oriented essay writing ins...

nanoparticles classified in 4 overall groups containing: metallic nanoparticles, ceramic nanoparticles, polymeric nanoparticles and semiconductor nanoparticles. these nanoparticles are used in some biomedical applications such as carrying medicine and photographing agents. with attention to different criteria which are both qualitative and quantitative, selecting the most suitable nanoparticles...

the socio-economic factors affecting land use changes in the maraveh tappeh region was determined from the viewpoint of beneficiaries and experts. the items of questionnaires designed as rating scale based on the five options likert. reliability of questionnaires was determined by cronbach's alpha. two sets of questionnaires were designed for beneficiaries and experts. reliability of benef...

In this paper, we propose a hazard rate model for studying credit rating and credit rating changes. Theoretically the hazard rate model is more appropriate than the previous static models. Yet it is difficult to estimate hazard rate model, especially when the covariates are time-varying. This paper extends the results of Shumway(2001) and shows that a multiple-state hazard rate model can be est...