15,301 research outputs found
Wealth Effects of Banks' Rights to Market and Originate Annuities
We examine wealth effects, for banks and insurers, of bank rights to sell and underwrite annuities. The stock-price reactions to four court and regulatory decisions are consistent with expectations of bank gains at insurers' expense. Cross-sectionally, smaller, riskier insurers with higher distribution costs and substantial annuity business sustain larger wealth losses. Larger, riskier bank holding companies with fee- based and consumer business gain most, consistent with the extension of federal safety-net guarantees as a source of gains. Banking stock-price reactions to the Supreme Court's decision are opposite other findings, possibly reflecting unfulfilled expectations of a broader mandate for expanded bank rights.Annuities, VALIC, financial modernization, deregulation, deposit insurance, Blackfeet National Bank, event studies
First- and second-time parents’ couple relationship: from pregnancy to second year postpartum
First- and second-time parents’ couple relationships were studied from early pregnancy to the second year postpartum. The Relationship Questionnaire (RQ) was administered to Portuguese couples (N = 82), first- or second-time parents, at the first, second and third pregnancy trimester, childbirth, 3 and 18 months postpartum. Adverse changes in positive and negative partner relationship dimensions were reported from early pregnancy to the second year postpartum by all participants; in the same way by mothers and fathers and by first- and second-time parents. Second-time parents reported a worse couple relationship (lower RQ-positive scores) than first-time parents, but only during pregnancy. Results from the present study suggest a decline in partner relationship quality during the transition to parenthood both in mothers and fathers, as well as in first- and second-time parents.This research was supported by FEDER Funds through the Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade – COMPETE and by National Funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the project [PTDC/SAU/ SAP/116738/2010]
A Study of Compact Radio Sources in Nearby Face-on Spiral Galaxies. II. Multiwavelength Analyses of Sources in M51
We report the analysis of deep radio observations of the interacting galaxy
system M51 from the Very Large Array, with the goal of understanding the nature
of the population of compact radio sources in nearby spiral galaxies. We detect
107 compact radio sources, 64% of which have optical counterparts in a deep
H Hubble Space Telescope image. Thirteen of the radio sources have
X-ray counterparts from a {\em Chandra} observation of M51. We find that six of
the associated H sources are young supernova remnants with resolved
shells. Most of the SNRs exhibit steep radio continuum spectral indices
onsistent with synchrotron emission. We detect emission from the Type Ic SN
1994I nearly a decade after explosion: the emission (Jy
beam at 20 cm, Jy beam at 6cm,
) is consistent with light curve models for Type Ib/Ic
supernovae. We detect X-ray emission from the supernova, however no optical
counterpart is present. We report on the analysis of the Seyfert 2 nucleus in
this galaxy, including the evidence for bipolar outflows from the central black
hole.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures (5 color) in separate files, AASTeX. Full
resolution figures and preprint may be obtained by contacting
[email protected]. AJ accepte
Non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering involving excitonic excitations
In a recent publication Larson \textit{et al.} reported remarkably clear
- excitations for NiO and CoO measured with x-ray energies well below the
transition metal edge. In this letter we demonstrate that we can obtain an
accurate quantitative description based on a local many body approach. We find
that the magnitude of can be tuned for maximum sensitivity for
dipole, quadrupole, etc. excitations. We also find that the direction of
with respect to the crystal axes can be used as an equivalent to
polarization similar to electron energy loss spectroscopy, allowing for a
determination of the local symmetry of the initial and final state based on
selection rules. This method is more generally applicable and combined with the
high resolution available, could be a powerful tool for the study of local
distortions and symmetries in transition metal compounds including also buried
interfaces
Large magnetic circular dichroism in resonant inelastic x-ray scattering at the Mn L-edge of Mn-Zn ferrite
We report resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) excited by circularly
polarized x-rays on Mn-Zn ferrite at the Mn L2,3-resonances. We demonstrate
that crystal field excitations, as expected for localized systems, dominate the
RIXS spectra and thus their dichroic asymmetry cannot be interpreted in terms
of spin-resolved partial density of states, which has been the standard
approach for RIXS dichroism. We observe large dichroic RIXS at the L2-resonance
which we attribute to the absence of metallic core hole screening in the
insulating Mn-ferrite. On the other hand, reduced L3-RIXS dichroism is
interpreted as an effect of longer scattering time that enables spin-lattice
core hole relaxation via magnons and phonons occurring on a femtosecond time
scale.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures,
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.74.17240
Samuel D. Gross, M.D. (1805-1884): an innovator, even in death.
Dr. Samuel Gross\u27 contributions to the field of surgery are well known and range from numerous clinical advances to pioneering scholarship and professional activities. Dr. Gross was ceaselessly ambitious and even remarked in his autobiography that his ‘‘conviction has always been that is far better for a man to wear out than to rust out.’’1 It is through this frame of motivation that Dr. Gross lived his life
The Ubiquity of the Rapid Neutron-Capture Process
To better characterize the abundance patterns produced by the r-process, we
have derived new abundances or upper limits for the heavy elements zinc (Zn),
yttrium (Y), lanthanum (La), europium (Eu), and lead (Pb). Our sample of 161
metal-poor stars includes new measurements from 88 high resolution and high
signal-to-noise spectra obtained with the Tull Spectrograph on the 2.7m Smith
Telescope at McDonald Observatory, and other abundances are adopted from the
literature. We use models of the s-process in AGB stars to characterize the
high Pb/Eu ratios produced in the s-process at low metallicity, and our new
observations then allow us to identify a sample of stars with no detectable
s-process material. In these stars, we find no significant increase in the
Pb/Eu ratios with increasing metallicity. This suggests that s-process material
was not widely dispersed until the overall Galactic metallicity grew
considerably, perhaps even as high as [Fe/H]=-1.4. We identify a dispersion of
at least 0.5 dex in [La/Eu] in metal-poor stars with [Eu/Fe]<+0.6 attributable
to the r-process, suggesting that there is no unique "pure" r-process elemental
ratio among pairs of rare earth elements. We confirm earlier detections of an
anti-correlation between Y/Eu and Eu/Fe bookended by stars strongly enriched in
the r-process (e.g., CS 22892-052) and those with deficiencies of the heavy
elements (e.g., HD 122563). We can reproduce the range of Y/Eu ratios using
simulations of high-entropy neutrino winds of core-collapse supernovae that
include charged-particle and neutron-capture components of r-process
nucleosynthesis. The heavy element abundance patterns in most metal-poor stars
do not resemble that of CS 22892-052, but the presence of heavy elements such
as Ba in nearly all metal-poor stars without s-process enrichment suggests that
the r-process is a common phenomenon.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 25 pages, 13
figure
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