Conditional Allocation of Control Rights in Venture Capital Finance

When a young entrepreneurial firm matures, it is often necessary to replace the founding entrepreneur by a professional manager. This replacement decision can be affected by the private benefits of control enjoyed by the entrepreneur which gives rise to a conflict of interest between the entrepreneur and the venture capitalist. We show that a combination of convertible securities and contingent control rights can be used to resolve this conflict efficiently. This contractual arrangement is frequently observed in venture capital finance

Historical sampling reveals dramatic demographic changes in western gorilla populations

Background: Today many large mammals live in small, fragmented populations, but it is often unclear whether this subdivision is the result of long-term or recent events. Demographic modeling using genetic data can estimate changes in long-term population sizes while temporal sampling provides a way to compare genetic variation present today with that sampled in the past. In order to better understand the dynamics associated with the divergences of great ape populations, these analytical approaches were applied to western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) and in particular to the isolated and Critically Endangered Cross River gorilla subspecies (G. g. diehli).Results: We used microsatellite genotypes from museum specimens and contemporary samples of Cross River gorillas to infer both the long-term and recent population history. We find that Cross River gorillas diverged from the ancestral western gorilla population ~17,800 years ago (95% HDI: 760, 63,245 years). However, gene flow ceased only ~420 years ago (95% HDI: 200, 16,256 years), followed by a bottleneck beginning ~320 years ago (95% HDI: 200, 2,825 years) that caused a 60-fold decrease in the effective population size of Cross River gorillas. Direct comparison of heterozygosity estimates from museum and contemporary samples suggests a loss of genetic variation over the last 100 years.Conclusions: The composite history of western gorillas could plausibly be explained by climatic oscillations inducing environmental changes in western equatorial Africa that would have allowed gorilla populations to expand over time but ultimately isolate the Cross River gorillas, which thereafter exhibited a dramatic population size reduction. The recent decrease in the Cross River population is accordingly most likely attributable to increasing anthropogenic pressure over the last several hundred years. Isolation of diverging populations with prolonged concomitant gene flow, but not secondary admixture, appears to be a typical characteristic of the population histories of African great apes, including gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos

Predicting range shifts of African apes under global change scenarios

Aim: Modelling African great ape distribution has until now focused on current or past conditions, while future scenarios remain scarcely explored. Using an ensemble forecasting approach, we predicted changes in taxon-specific distribution under future scenarios of climate, land use and human populations for (1) areas outside protected areas (PAs) only (assuming complete management effectiveness of PAs), (2) the entire study region and (3) interspecies range overlap. Location: Tropical Africa. Methods: We compiled occurrence data (n = 5,203) on African apes from the IUCN A.P.E.S. database and extracted relevant climate-, habitat- and human-related predictors representing current and future (2050) conditions to predict taxon-specific range change under a best- and a worst-case scenario, using ensemble forecasting. Results The predictive performance of the models varied across taxa. Synergistic interactions between predictors are shaping African ape distribution, particularly human-related variables. On average across taxa, a range decline of 50% is expected outside PAs under the best scenario if no dispersal occurs (61% in worst scenario). Otherwise, an 85% range reduction is predicted to occur across study regions (94% worst). However, range gains are predicted outside PAs if dispersal occurs (52% best, 21% worst), with a slight increase in gains expected across study regions (66% best, 24% worst). Moreover, more than half of range losses and gains are predicted to occur outside PAs where interspecific ranges overlap. Main Conclusions: Massive range decline is expected by 2050, but range gain is uncertain as African apes will not be able to occupy these new areas immediately due to their limited dispersal capacity, migration lag and ecological constraints. Given that most future range changes are predicted outside PAs, Africa's current PA network is likely to be insufficient for preserving suitable habitats and maintaining connected ape populations. Thus, conservation planners urgently need to integrate land use planning and climate change mitigation measures at all decision-making levels both in range countries and abroad

The time scale of recombination rate evolution in great apes

We present three linkage-disequilibrium (LD)-based recombination maps generated using whole-genome sequence data from 10 Nigerian chimpanzees, 13 bonobos, and 15 western gorillas, collected as part of the Great Ape Genome Project (Prado-Martinez J, et al. 2013. Great ape genetic diversity and population history. Nature 499:471-475). We also identified species-specific recombination hotspots in each group using a modified LDhot framework, which greatly improves statistical power to detect hotspots at varying strengths. We show that fewer hotspots are shared among chimpanzee subspecies than within human populations, further narrowing the time scale of complete hotspot turnover. Further, using species-specific PRDM9 sequences to predict potential binding sites (PBS), we show higher predicted PRDM9 binding in recombination hotspots as compared to matched cold spot regions in multiple great ape species, including at least one chimpanzee subspecies. We found that correlations between broad-scale recombination rates decline more rapidly than nucleotide divergence between species. We also compared the skew of recombination rates at centromeres and telomeres between species and show a skew from chromosome means extending as far as 10-15Mb from chromosome ends. Further, we examined broad-scale recombination rate changes near a translocation in gorillas and found minimal differences as compared to other great ape species perhaps because the coordinates relative to the chromosome ends were unaffected. Finally, on the basis of multiple linear regression analysis, we found that various correlates of recombination rate persist throughout the African great apes including repeats, diversity, and divergence. Our study is the first to analyze within- And between-species genome-wide recombination rate variation in several close relatives

Interlocking directorates as a thrust substitute: The case of the Italian non-life insurance industry

This paper investigates the market structure of the insurance business by analyzing the (interlock) linkages among companies created by their directors. We focus on the non-life business since this is a sector relatively closed with respect to the competition with other financial activities; an absence of industry competition cannot thus be compensated by other agents. We apply the graph theory to describe the network and the principal component analysis to summarize information and verify the correlation between direct interlocking and companies’ market shares