The Effect of Taxes on Multinational Debt Location

We provide new evidence that differences in international tax rates and tax regimes affect multinational firms\u27 debt location decisions. Our sample contains 8287 debt issues from 2437 firms headquartered in 23 different countries with debt-issuing subsidiaries in 59 countries. We analyze firms\u27 marginal decisions of where to issue debt to investigate the influence of a comprehensive set of tax-related effects, including differences in personal and corporate tax rates, tax credit and exemption systems, and bi-lateral cross-country withholding taxes on interest and dividend payments. Our results show that differences in personal and corporate tax rates, the presence of dividend imputation or relief tax systems, the tax treatment of repatriated profits, and inter-country withholding taxes on dividends and interest significantly influence the decision of where to locate debt and the proportion of debt located abroad. Our results are robust to firm and issue specific factors and to the effect of legal regimes, debt market development, and exchange rate risk

A Study of the Muscles of the Arm and Upper Shoulder of the Cat

The work undertaken in this thesis is a study of the muscles of the shoulder and upper arm of the cat, special attention being paid to the origin, insertion, relations, action, innervation and blood supply of the muscles

Computational Aeroservoelastic Analysis with an Euler-Based Unsteady Flow Solver

The effectiveness of transpiration for simulation of structural deformations in steady and unsteady aeroelastic applications is examined. The majority of the investigations were performed using a highly integrated, finite-element code for the multidisciplinary analysis of flight vehicles. A supplement to this code, which allows for the generation of deflected meshes using modal superposition, was developed in this study. This research demonstrated that the transpiration boundary condition has strong potential for applications in unsteady aeroelastic analysis, such as in the prediction of flutter boundaries

Aeroservoelastic and Flight Dynamics Analysis Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

This document in large part is based on the Masters Thesis of Cole Stephens. The document encompasses a variety of technical and practical issues involved when using the STARS codes for Aeroservoelastic analysis of vehicles. The document covers in great detail a number of technical issues and step-by-step details involved in the simulation of a system where aerodynamics, structures and controls are tightly coupled. Comparisons are made to a benchmark experimental program conducted at NASA Langley. One of the significant advantages of the methodology detailed is that as a result of the technique used to accelerate the CFD-based simulation, a systems model is produced which is very useful for developing the control law strategy, and subsequent high-speed simulations

The Successful Exploitation of Urban Environments by the Golden Silk Spider, Nephila clavipes (Araneae, Nephilidae)

Urbanization typically leads to habitat destruction producing negative effects for native species, but some species may exploit these settings. This concept was investigated in the golden silk spider (Nephila clavipes), a large, formidable spider that commonly inhabits forest edges as well as open spaces in urban environments throughout its vast geographic range. Here, we compared variation of N. clavipes success as measured by body size, web size and web positioning along an urban–rural gradient in southern Florida. From morphological measurements collected in the field, urban spiders had 60% longer legs and 35% longer bodies than both park and rural spiders. Furthermore, webs of urban spiders were considerably larger and constructed significantly further from the ground than those of park and rural habitats. The combined observations of body size, web measurements and prominent web placement suggest that N. clavipesare successful exploiters of urban environments relative to park and rural settings in southern Florida. Although previous research has generally focused on the negative aspects of urbanization on animal welfare, this study provides evidence suggesting N. clavipes might benefit from these environmental changes

2019 Student Steel Bridge Team

Every year AISC runs a regional and national steel bridge competition. The competition offers a chance for civil engineering students to gain valuable experience designing a bridge. In addition to this, mechanical engineering students are provided the opportunity to practice machining steel parts. For the competition, teams from participating schools are given a scenario with certain constraints to design a bridge for. At the competition, the bridges are ranked based on weight, structural efficiency, construction economy, assembly speed, deflection, aesthetics, and overall performance. The program Risa 3D was used in order to design and perform analysis on the bridge. Using the LRFD method and following the given constraints by the judges; a 23 foot long, 32 member bridge design was selected for the competition bridge. The major constraint of having offset footings caused a lot of problems in the design. In the end, it was decided to use all similar truss members with an exception of the two members at the end with the offset footing. Aside from the actual design of the bridge, students interacted with professionals. Students reached out to steel manufacturers to obtain cost estimates for the project, select the best price and order materials. Pennsylvania Steel Company offered the cheapest price for the materials needed. All of the material was purchased and delivered for a total of $656.77. To secure sponsorship to fund the project, students reached out to local engineering and architectural firms. As of now students are working on the machining of the designed parts. Mechanical engineers in the group used a lathe in order to manufacture the female and male connections between the different truss members. A water jet was also used in order to cut out the triangular connections between the top and bottom truss members on each side. The nipple connections were manufactured using a mill and then the holes were drilled by hand of one of the team members. On April 27th, the Rowan steel bridge team will participate in the metropolitan regional competition

Interface characterization of Co2MnGe/Rh2CuSn Heusler multilayers

All-Heusler multilayer structures have been investigated by means of high kinetic x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism, aiming to address the amount of disorder and interface diffusion induced by annealing of the multilayer structure. The studied multilayers consist of ferromagnetic Co$_2$MnGe and non-magnetic Rh$_2$CuSn layers with varying thicknesses. We find that diffusion begins already at comparably low temperatures between 200 $^{\circ}$C and 250 $^{\circ}$C, where Mn appears to be most prone to diffusion. We also find evidence for a 4 {\AA} thick magnetically dead layer that, together with the identified interlayer diffusion, are likely reasons for the small magnetoresistance found for current-perpendicular-to-plane giant magneto-resistance devices based on this all-Heusler system

Public park spaces as a platform to promote healthy living: introducing a HealthPark concept

The concept of Healthy Living (HL) as a primary medical intervention continues to gain traction, and rightfully so. Being physically active, consuming a nutritious diet, not smoking and maintaining an appropriate body weight constitute the HL polypill, the foundation of HL medicine (HLM). Daily use of the HL polypill, working toward optimal dosages, portends profound health benefits, substantially reducing the risk of chronic disease [i.e., cardiovascular disease (CVD), pulmonary disease, metabolic syndromes, certain cancers, etc.] and associated adverse health consequences. To be effective and proactive, our healthcare system must rethink where its primary intervention, HLM, is delivered. Waiting for individuals to come to the traditional outpatient setting is an ineffective approach as poor lifestyle habits are typically well established by the time care is initiated. Ideally, HLM should be delivered where individuals live, work and go to school, promoting immersion in a culture of health and wellness. To this end, there is a growing interest in the use of public parks as a platform to promote the adoption of HL behaviors. The current perspectives paper provides a brief literature review on the use of public parks for HL interventions and introduces a new HealthPark model being developed in Chicago

The impact of dark matter cusps and cores on the satellite galaxy population around spiral galaxies

(Abridged) We use N-body simulations to study the effects that a divergent (i.e. "cuspy") dark matter (DM) profile introduces on the tidal evolution of dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs). Our models assume cosmologically-motivated initial conditions where dSphs are DM-dominated systems on eccentric orbits about a host galaxy composed of a dark halo and a baryonic disc. We find that the resilience of dSphs to tidal stripping is extremely sensitive to the halo cuspiness; whereas dwarfs with a cored profile can be easily destroyed by the host disc, those with cusps always retain a bound remnant. For a given halo profile the evolution of the structural parameters as driven by tides is controlled solely by the total amount of mass lost. This information is used to construct a semi-analytic code that simulates the hierarchical build-up of spiral galaxies assuming different halo profiles and disc masses. We find that tidal encounters with discs tend to decrease the average mass of satellites at all galactocentric radii. Interestingly, satellites accreted before re-ionization (z>6), which may be singled out by anomalous metallicity patterns, survive only if haloes are cuspy. We show that the size-mass relation established from Milky Way (MW) dwarfs strongly supports the presence of cusps in the majority of these systems, as cored models systematically underestimate the masses of the known Ultra-Faint dSphs. Our models also indicate that a massive M31 disc may explain why many of its dSphs fall below the size-mass relationship derived from MW dSphs. We use our models to constrain the mass threshold below which star formation is suppressed in DM haloes, finding that luminous satellites must be accreted with masses above 10^8--10^9 M_sol in order to explain the size-mass relation observed in MW dwarfs.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, MNRAS accepted after minor revisio

Automated Referral to Cardiac Rehabilitation following Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting is associated with limited improvements in program completion: a large cohort study

Introduction Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) reduces residual cardiovascular risk among patients who have received coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery. However, many patients do not attend and some are never referred. It is unclear whether automated referral is associated with improved CR completion rates. Objectives and Approach Geographically inclusive databases were linked to assess the impact of automated referral on rates of referral to and completion of CR post-CABG. Automated referral to CR post-CABG was instituted in Calgary on July 1, 2007. All subjects receiving CABG in Calgary between January 1, 1996 and March 31, 2016 were enrolled in the study. The Alberta Provincial Project for Outcome Assessment in Coronary Heart disease (APPROACH) database, TotalCardiology-Rehabilitation (TC-R) database, and provincial vital statistics were linked using the unique Provincial Health Number available for each patient. The association between CR referral, completion, and survival was assessed using proportional hazard models. Results There were 28,100 patients referred to the CR program, of which 26,411 were linked to the APPROACH database for a 93.99\% linkage rate. After excluding patients who did not receive CABG, a total of 8,118 patients were identified as the study population [mean age 66.2 (SD 10.2) years, 18.9\% female] during the study period: 5,103 prior to implementation of automated referral, and 3,015 post-automation. Rates of referral increased from 39.5\% prior to automation to 75.0\% post-automation (p Conclusion/Implications Automated referral to CR is associated with increased referral rates but less dramatic increases in CR completion rates post-CABG. Given the significant improvement in survival associated with CR completion, further work is needed to improve CR referral, and more importantly, CR completion rates