Vodafone - Kabel Deutschland Merger

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and EconomicsThis work project aims to analyse the acquisition of German cable operator Kabel Deutschland by the British telecommunications company Vodafone in September 2013. Analysis of the technologies and German telecommunications sector reveals the sources that motivate a transaction. The acquirer needs to find a way to react to the increasing demand for data on internet connections. Also, Vodafone has a weak infrastructure of fixed line and thus is missing a strong network to be able to offer the full Quad-Play services (TV/Fixed-Phone/Internet/Mobile). The acquisition target is a company with a strong cable network in place that is a good alternative to provide modern internet connections. Both companies seem to be highly complementary and would benefit from a merger by getting an improved competitive position and readiness for the Quad-Play trend. The offer price per share is with €87 per share 24% above the standalone DCF valuation and represents an attractive premium for target shareholders. Discounting the claimed Synergies by acquirer Vodafone result in an NPV of €4.5 billion. This means that Vodafone is paying away 33% of the Synergies to the target. However, Vodafone shareholders can still expect to gain from the investment as cost synergies seem credible and sufficient to cover the premium

Das transatlantische Handels- und Investitionsabkommen (TTIP) zwischen der EU und den USA

Die Europäische Kommission und Vertreter der Bundesregierung werben mächtig für ein transatlantisches Handels- und Investitionsabkommen (TTIP). Eine Liberalisierung des transatlantischen Handels und die Erleichterung wechselseitiger Investitionen - durch den Abbau von Zöllen und 'unnötigen' Regulierungen - sollen nicht nur den beteiligten Ländern aus der Krise helfen, sondern zugleich deren Ökonomien für den Wettbewerb mit den dynamischen Ökonomien Asiens stärken. Diese Kurzstudie hinterfragt kritisch die verkündeten positiven Wirkungen des TTIP. Sie stellt zunächst die Verhandlungen im historischen und politischen Kontext vor. Im Anschluss umreißt sie die Zielsetzungen der Verhandlungen. Da die möglichen Ergebnisse der Verhandlungen naturgemäß ungewiss sind, skizziert sie die bereits ersichtlichen Streitpunkte und verhandlungsrelevante Differenzen. Schließlich analysiert sie mögliche ökonomische, politische und soziale Konsequenzen, wobei neben einer Diskussion der quantitativ-ökonomischen Wohlfahrtserwartungen und der politischregulativen Risiken der Verhandlungsgestaltung insbesondere die Bereiche öffentliche Beschaffung und Dienstleistungen betrachtet und mögliche arbeitspolitische Konsequenzen diskutiert werden

Blockchain as Radical Innovation: A Framework for Engaging with Distributed Ledgers as Incumbent Organization

Blockchain is an emerging technology that is perceived as groundbreaking. However, blockchain presents incumbent organizations with significant challenges. How should they respond to the advent of this innovative technology, and how can they build the capabilities that are necessary to successfully engage with blockchain? In this case study, we analyze how an incumbent bank deals with the radical innovation of blockchain. We find that blockchain as an innovation is unique, because its transaction cost-lowering nature requires cooperation not only on an intra-organizational, but also on an inter-organizational level to fully leverage the technology. We develop a framework illustrating how the process of discovering, incubating, and accelerating with blockchain can look like. Our research is one of the first case studies in the area; shedding light on the organizational challenges of incumbents as they engage with blockchain. The paper provides a blueprint for business executives in their endeavor of embracing blockchain technology

Die Macht der Zahlen

Am 20. Oktober 2010 wird erstmalig der Welt-Statistik-Tag gefeiert. Ins Leben gerufen von der UNO, soll damit die Wichtigkeit statistischer Daten für die Gestaltung des gesellschaftlichen Fortschritts gewürdigt werden. Statistische Zahlen erfreuen sich im Alltag einer gewissen Popularität. Doch rufen mehrere Beispiele zur Vorsicht im Umgang mit statistischen Angaben auf. Gewiss spricht nichts dagegen, sich mit Hilfe empirischer Daten und Statistiken einen Überblick über Zusammenhänge und Entwicklungen zu verschaffen. Nicht nur in Bezug auf die politische Entscheidungsfindung sind umfassende statistische Zahlen unabdingbar. Doch reicht es weder aus, einfache statistische Eckdaten zu errechnen, noch Zahlen ohne einen angemessenen sowie theoretisch fundierten Rahmen für sich sprechen zu lassen. Denn Zahlen spiegeln nicht nur Realitäten wieder – sie schaffen sie auch. Eine kurze Version dieses Artikels erschien am 17. Oktober 2010 in der Welt am Sonntag.

RWTH ASR Systems for LibriSpeech: Hybrid vs Attention -- w/o Data Augmentation

We present state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems employing a standard hybrid DNN/HMM architecture compared to an attention-based encoder-decoder design for the LibriSpeech task. Detailed descriptions of the system development, including model design, pretraining schemes, training schedules, and optimization approaches are provided for both system architectures. Both hybrid DNN/HMM and attention-based systems employ bi-directional LSTMs for acoustic modeling/encoding. For language modeling, we employ both LSTM and Transformer based architectures. All our systems are built using RWTHs open-source toolkits RASR and RETURNN. To the best knowledge of the authors, the results obtained when training on the full LibriSpeech training set, are the best published currently, both for the hybrid DNN/HMM and the attention-based systems. Our single hybrid system even outperforms previous results obtained from combining eight single systems. Our comparison shows that on the LibriSpeech 960h task, the hybrid DNN/HMM system outperforms the attention-based system by 15% relative on the clean and 40% relative on the other test sets in terms of word error rate. Moreover, experiments on a reduced 100h-subset of the LibriSpeech training corpus even show a more pronounced margin between the hybrid DNN/HMM and attention-based architectures.Comment: Proceedings of INTERSPEECH 201

Automation of Complex Operational Scenarios - Providing 24/7 Inter-Satellite Links with EDRS

The European Data Relay System (EDRS) offers a high-speed communication service between ground stations and LEO satellites, using a relay satellite constellation in geostationary orbit. This paper presents the overall system design of the EDRS Payload Control Center, located at the German Space Operation Center (GSOC), with a focus on automation components developed in-house and their integration into the GSOC multi-Mission environment

NFAT5-mediated expression of S100A4 contributes to proliferation and migration of renal carcinoma cells

The osmosensitive transcription factor nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NEAT) 5, also known as tonicity enhancer binding protein (TonEBP),has been associated with the development of a variety of tumor entities, among them breast cancer, colon carcinoma, and melanoma. The aim of the present study was to determine whether NFAT5 is also involved in the development of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The most common type of RCC, the clear cell RCC, originates from the proximal convoluted tubule. We tested our hypothesis in the clear cell RCC cell line CaKi-1 and the non-cancerous proximal tubule cell line HK-2, as control. Basal expression of NFAT5 and NFAT5 activity in CaKi-1 cells was several times higher than in HK-2 cells. Osmotic stress induced an increased NFAT5 activity in both CaKi-1 and HK-2 cells, again with significantly higher activities in CaKi-1 cells. Analysis of NFAT5-regulating signaling pathways in CaKi-1 cells revealed that inhibition of the MAP kinases p38, c-Jun-terminal kinase (JNK) and extracellular regulated kinase (ERK) and of the focal adhesion kinase (FAK) partially blunted NFAT5 activity. FAK and ERK were both constitutively active, even under isotonic conditions, which may contribute to the high basal expression and activity of NFAT5 in CaKi-1 cells. In contrast, the MAP kinases p38 and JNK were inactive under isotonic conditions and became activated under osmotic stress conditions, indicating that p38 and JNK mediate upregulation of NFAT5 activity under these conditions. siRNA-mediated knockdown of NFAT5 in CaKi-1 cells reduced the expression of S100A4, a member of the S100 family of proteins, which promotes metastasis. Knockdown of NFAT5 was accompanied by a significant decrease in proliferation and migration activity. Taken together, our results indicate that NFAT5 induces S100A4 expression in CaKi-1 cells, thereby playing an important role in RCC proliferation and migration

NFAT5 Contributes to Osmolality-Induced MCP-1 Expression in Mesothelial Cells

Increased expression of the C-C chemokine monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) in mesothelial cells in response to high glucose concentrations and/or high osmolality plays a crucial role in the development of peritoneal fibrosis during continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). Recent studies suggest that in kidney cells osmolality-induced MCP-1 upregulation is mediated by the osmosensitive transcription factor, nuclear factor of activated T cells 5 (NFAT5). The present study addressed the question of whether activation of NFAT5 by hyperosmolality, as present in PD fluids, contributes to MCP-1 expression in the mesothelial cell line Met5A. Hyperosmolality, induced by addition of glucose, NaCl, or mannitol to the growth medium, increased NFAT5 activity and stimulated MCP-1 expression in Met5A cells. siRNA-mediated knockdown of NFAT5 attenuated osmolality-induced MCP-1 upregulation substantially. Hyperosmolality also induced activation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB). Accordingly, pharmacological inhibition of NF-κB significantly decreased osmolality-induced MCP-1 expression. Taken together, these results indicate that high osmolalities activate the transcription factor NFAT5 in mesothelial cells. NFAT5 in turn upregulates MCP-1, likely in combination with NF-κB, and thus may participate in the development of peritoneal fibrosis during CAPD