Electromagnetic wave characteristics of a fully ionized gas Final report

Electromagnetic wave propagation in fully ionized ga

Corporate Restructuring and Corporate Auctions

We study 298 firms that announce the intent to consider restructuring during the 1989 to 1998 period. We find that the actions taken subsequent to the initial restructuring consideration are equally divided between (i) being acquired, (ii) divesting one or more subsidiaries, or (iii) either terminating the process or declaring bankruptcy. There is a greater completion rate in the second half of the sample, which suggests that economywide factors influence the restructuring decision. For the average firm in the sample, restructuring is a positive net present value decision, although sustained positive shareholder returns accrue only to the firms that actually complete restructuring. For a sub-sample of firms that are acquired, we detail the private auction process that is initiated and conducted by the selling firms and their investment banks. In the private auction, 80 percent of the selling firms have multiple bidders, even though only 20 percent of these cases have more than one publicly announced bidder. The depth of the private auction affects the runup of stock prices prior to the formal acquisition offer, suggesting a reinterpretation of the traditional explanations for the variation in premiums across target firms. The use of private auctions by selling firms also suggests one reason for the absence of toeholds in many mergers as well as the occurrence of multiple public bids even when there is only a single public bidder in a merger.

Valuing the Process of Corporate Restructuring

We study the process of corporate restructuring for a sample of 298 firms during the 1989-98 period that announce that they are considering restructuring alternatives. We find that restructuring is a lengthy process, with the majority of the restructuring period occurring prior to any definitive proposals for corporate change. Only 70 percent of the firms that initially propose restructuring later make a definitive proposal to sell either all or part of the firm, with other firms taking themselves out of play or declaring bankruptcy. Hence, the market reaction to the initial restructuring announcement underestimates the full wealth effects of completed restructurings. The estimate of the full value of restructuring across the sample firms averages 7.5 percent, with the greatest gains of 30 percent accruing to firms that are acquired. The average gain for the full restructuring period for firms divesting a unit is 5 percent, which is roughly double that estimated for the initial announcement in prior studies of corporate divestitures.

The Implications of Galaxy Formation Models for the TeV Observations of Current Detectors

This paper represents a step toward constraining galaxy formation models via TeV gamm a ray observations. We use semi-analytic models of galaxy formation to predict a spectral distribution for the intergalactic infrared photon field, which in turn yields information about the absorption of TeV gamma rays from extra-galactic sources. By making predictions for integral flux observations at >200 GeV for several known EGRE T sources, we directly compare our models with current observational upper limits obtained by Whipple. In addition, our predictions may offer a guide to the observing programs for the current population of TeV gamma ray observatories.Comment: 6 pages, 11 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the 6th TeV Workshop at Snowbird, U

Valuing the Process of Corporate Restructuring

We study the process of corporate restructuring for a sample of 298 firms during the 1989-98 period that announce that they are considering restructuring alternatives. We find that restructuring is a lengthy process, with the majority of the restructuring period occurring prior to any definitive proposals for corporate change. Only 70 percent of the firms that initially propose restructuring later make a definitive proposal to sell either all or part of the firm, with other firms taking themselves out of play or declaring bankruptcy. Hence, the market reaction to the initial restructuring announcement underestimates the full wealth effects of completed restructurings. The estimate of the full value of restructuring across the sample firms averages 7.5 percent, with the greatest gains of 30 percent accruing to firms that are acquired. The average gain for the full restructuring period for firms divesting a unit is 5 percent, which is roughly double that estimated for the initial announcement in prior studies of corporate divestitures

Outlier-Resistant L1 Orthogonal Regression via the Reformulation-Linearization Technique

Assessing the linear relationship between a set of continuous predictors and a continuous response is a well-studied problem in statistics and data mining. L2-based methods such as ordinary least squares and orthogonal regression can be used to determine this relationship. However, both of these methods become impaired when influential values are present. This problem becomes compounded when outliers confound standard diagnostics. This work proposes an L1-norm orthogonal regression method (L1OR) formulated as a nonconvex optimization problem. Solution strategies for finding globally optimal solutions are presented. Simulation studies are conducted to assess the resistance of the method to outliers and the consistency of the method. The method is also applied to real-world data arising from an environmental science application

A Call for the Structured Physicist Report

Introduction: The field of diagnostic radiology continues to struggle with the clinical adoption of the structured interpretive report, with many radiologists preferring a semistructured, free-text dictation style to a more rigid, highly structured approach that some professional leaders have promoted [1]. Although structured reporting compliance in the radiologist community has been difficult to achieve, diagnostic radiologists have been thinking about and discussing this important issue for many years; it is also a part of the ACR’s Imaging 3.0_ campaign [2]. In the breast imaging community, the well-established BI-RADS_ recommendations produce a very structured report, with a discussion of interpretive findings culminating in a numeric BI-RADS score ranging from 0 to 6 [3]. Unlike some interpretive radiology reports, which can be ambiguous in terms of the next course of action, the BI-RADS scale is not only a diagnostic scale but also prescriptive of what the necessary follow-up should be

Feeding AGN: new results from the NUGA survey

The NUGA project is a high-resolution (0.5''-1'') CO survey of low luminosity AGN including the full sequence of activity types (Seyferts, LINERs and transition objects). NUGA aims to systematically study the different mechanisms for gas fueling of AGNs in the Local Universe. In this paper we discuss the latest results of this recently completed survey, which now includes newly acquired subarcsec resolution observations for all targets of the sample. The large variety of circumnuclear disk morphologies found in NUGA galaxies (m=1, m=2 and stochastic instabilities) is a challenging result that urges the refinement of current dynamical models. In this paper we report on new results obtained in 4 study cases for NUGA: NGC4826, NGC7217, NGC4579 and NGC6951Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Contributed talk to appear in "The Interplay among Black Holes, Stars and ISM in Galactic Nuclei," Proc. IAU 222 (Gramado, Brazil), eds. Th. Storchi Bergmann, L.C. Ho, H.R. Schmit

A Combined Digital-Analog Tracker for Terrestrial Applications

A combined Digital-Analog Tracker is suggested to allow maximum efficiency in a solar-electrical energy converter, utilizing a twelve-foot parabolic collector. The analog tracker compares solar beam radiation to ambient (diffuse) light to obtain optimum placement of the collector when the sun is visible. The digital portion of the tracker utilizes a wired program which derives information on solar position from a non-volatile random-access semiconductor memory. This arrangement allows accurate mapping of the sun even when the sun is obscured by atmospheric phenomena which would make mapping impossible