427 research outputs found

    On Modelling the Persistence of Profits in the Long Run: An Analysis of 156 US Companies, 1950-1999

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    Long run persistence in company profits is analyzed for 156 US companies over a fifty-year period using AR1 and structural time series tests. A statistically significant degree of consitstency is found between them in identifying firms persistently above or below the competitive norm. However, the structural time series method detects a higher overall incidence of persistence, with nearly 70% of firms classed as not having converged on Zero, compared with 46% under AR1 estimation. The recently proposed structural approach is seen as a useful additional tool in analysing earnings dynamics, in particular where are complex trends and other dynamic complexities.

    The roots of organized resistance: African American political mobilization in southwest Georgia, 1918-1945

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    Following World War I, a new, militant spirit of resistance and activism burgeoned among African-American citizens across the United States. Empowered by the sense that blacks had played a crucial role in the conflict, the descendants of freedmen returned home to fight for their own rights only to find persecution; this dire situation called for immediate, decisive action. During the interwar years, African Americans in the southwest Georgia Black Belt fought for community empowerment and, through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and numerous other political and labor-oriented groups, established a significant organizing tradition, thereby laying the foundation for the modern civil rights movement in the area

    An Empirical Investigation of the Predictors of Executive Career Success

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    The present study examined the degree to which demographic, human capital,motivational, organizational, and industry/region variables predicted executive career success. Career success was assumed to comprise objective (pay, ascendancy) and subjective (job satisfaction, career satisfaction) elements. Results obtained from a sample of 1,388 U.S.executives suggested that demographic, human capital, motivational, and organizational variables explained significant variance in objective career success and in career satisfaction. Particularly interesting were findings that educational level, quality, prestige, and degree type all predicted financial success. In contrast, only the motivational and organizational variables explained significant amounts of variance in job satisfaction. These findings suggest that the variables that lead to objective career success often are quite different from those that lead to subjectively defined success

    Spectroscopy Of Hydrogen-bonded Formanilide Clusters In A Supersonic Jet: Solvation Of A Model Trans Amide

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    The gas-phase structures of trans-formanilide (FA) clusters containing varying numbers of water and ammonia molecules have been investigated by resonant two-photon ionization spectroscopy in a supersonic jet expansion. A single structure is found for the 1:1 cluster of FA with ammonia in which the amide NH group functions as a hydrogen bond donor to the ammonia nitrogen. In contrast, vibronically resolved spectra reveal two distinct structures for the 1:1 cluster with water in which either the amide NH group functions as a hydrogen bond donor or the carbonyl oxygen functions as a hydrogen bond acceptor. The 1:1 clusters with both ammonia and water exhibit characteristic spectral shifts that depend on which amide site participates in the hydrogen bond. Three distinct types of 1:2 clusters with water have been found. Two of these can be viewed as water dimers interacting through a single hydrogen bond with either the amide NH group or the carbonyl oxygen. The third structure involves a hydrogen bond at each amide site to a separate water molecule. Ternary FA clusters containing one ammonia and one water molecule have also been investigated and found to be present in two distinct structural forms. Although each structure contains a hydrogen bond between the amide NH and one of the solvents, the structures differ with regard to which solvent serves as the acceptor of this hydrogen bond as well as in the role of the second solvent. Finally, clusters containing four water molecules have been identified, although in this case only a single cluster structure has been observed. This species is assigned to a structure containing a hydrogen-bonded chain of four water molecules forming a bridge between the NH and carbonyl oxygen binding sites on opposite sides of the trans amide. These experimental observations and structural assignment are supported by ab initio Hartree-Fock calculations

    Electronic Spectroscopy of Jet-Cooled Benzylidenecyclobutane, a Sterically Hindered Styrene

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    The electronic spectrum of the styrene derivative, benzylidenecyclobutane, seeded in a supersonic jet expansion has been recorded using resonantly enhanced two-photon ionization spectroscopy. The main vibronic features in the spectrum are associated with a low frequency progression assigned to the torsional motion of the phenyl ring. Analysis of the observed torsional levels reveals an excited state potential energy surface characteristic of a planar equilibrium geometry which undergoes large amplitude motion and a ground state surface having a minimum at a torsional angle of 25° between the phenyl and vinyl groups. Ab initio calculations of the ground state torsional potential surface predict a minimum in the range of 28°-26°, depending on the size of the basis set. In these structures the cyclobutane ring adopts a puckering angle between 17° and 19°. Deuterated isotopomers have also been synthesized and their corresponding photoionization spectra analyzed to reveal the mixing between the torsion and other low frequency modes such as cyclobutane ring puckering. The extent of this mixing is found to be sensitive to the sites of deuteration on the molecule. © 1996 American Institute of Physics

    Electronic Spectroscopy of Jet-Cooled Benzylidenecyclobutane, a Sterically Hindered Styrene

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    The electronic spectrum of the styrene derivative, benzylidenecyclobutane, seeded in a supersonic jet expansion has been recorded using resonantly enhanced two-photon ionization spectroscopy. The main vibronic features in the spectrum are associated with a low frequency progression assigned to the torsional motion of the phenyl ring. Analysis of the observed torsional levels reveals an excited state potential energy surface characteristic of a planar equilibrium geometry which undergoes large amplitude motion and a ground state surface having a minimum at a torsional angle of 25° between the phenyl and vinyl groups. Ab initio calculations of the ground state torsional potential surface predict a minimum in the range of 28°-26°, depending on the size of the basis set. In these structures the cyclobutane ring adopts a puckering angle between 17° and 19°. Deuterated isotopomers have also been synthesized and their corresponding photoionization spectra analyzed to reveal the mixing between the torsion and other low frequency modes such as cyclobutane ring puckering. The extent of this mixing is found to be sensitive to the sites of deuteration on the molecule. © 1996 American Institute of Physics

    Conformations And Relative Stabilities Of The Cis And Trans Isomers In A Series Of Isolated N-phenylamides

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    The gas-phase conformations of a series of isolated N-phenylamides have been determined from vibrationally resolved electronic spectra obtained by resonant two-photon ionization in a supersonic jet expansion. Both the cis and trans isomers of formanilide were identified, with the cis isomer in 6.5% abundance. The spectral features displayed by this isomer are consistent with a nonplanar geometry which undergoes a large change in the phenyl torsional angle following electronic excitation. The more abundant trans isomer of formanilide adopts a planar structure and is stabilized by 2.5 kcal/mol with respect to the cis isomer. In the excited electronic state the relative stabilities of the two isomers are reversed. Acetanilide, in contrast, is found exclusively as the trans isomer, also having a planar structure. N-Methyl substitution causes a reversal of the relative isomer stabilities found in formanilide and leads to an isomer distribution consisting of approximately 90% E and 10% Z in N-methylformanilide. These experimental observations are compared to previous condensed phase structural determinations as well as to the relative energies and structures predicted from ab initio Hartree-Fock geometry optimizations

    Substituent Effects on the Electronic Spectroscopy of Tryptophan Derivatives in Jet Expansions

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    Electronic excitation spectra of seven tryptophan derivatives entrained in a supersonic expansion have been recorded using both resonantly enhanced two-photon ionization and laser induced fluorescence. Two derivatives, tryptophan amide and tryptophan methyl amide, were found to have substantial low frequency vibrational progressions in their excitation spectra, yet in both compounds this behavior was apparent in only one conformer. Other derivatives did not display as much vibronic activity. Conformers which had vibrational progressions were found to emit in a broad band far to the red of excitation. All other conformers were found to fluoresce most strongly in resonance with excitation. The presence of low frequency vibrational activity and red shifted fluorescence correlates well with the ability of the derivative to form an intramolecular hydrogen bond between the amine and the carboxylic acid. Backbone conformers that contain an intramolecular hydrogen bond are expected to have large dipole moments, which may strongly perturb the electronic structure of the indole chromophore. © 1990 American Institute of Physics
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