You Had Me At Hello or Let Them Go? : Law Firm Selection, Retention, and Defection in the Investment Banking Industry

Drawing upon the theoretical concepts of reputation and social networking, this article\u27s main objective is to assess how investment banks choose external law firms. Using qualitative methods, I show that investment banks, to varying degrees, rely on internal counsel, procurement specialists, and boards of directors to decide which firm to select. When choosing a specific law firm for the first time, corporate decision-makers are likely to evaluate law firms based on intangible factors like reputation and the word-of-mouth referrals of their colleagues. In subsequent selections of a law firm, these factors are transplanted by past results. Firm expertise and cost considerations impact procurement decisions regardless of whether a law firm has been previously retained. Despite claiming that the individual lawyers providing the service is a more important selection criterion than the firm that employs those lawyers, investment banks seem to experience a degree of embeddedness that keeps them using the same firms time after time

Application of spectral analysis to determine the magnetic source depths in ibarapa district, oyo state, sw nigeria

The method of spectral analysis was applied to the total aeromagnetic intensity data covering the district of Ibapara, located on the Nigeria Basement Complex in Oyo State, SW Nigeria. Prior to the spectral analysis, inclined magnetisation was converted to vertical, reduced to the pole and filtered out in order to more correctly reflect spatial location and morphology of magnetic sources over geological bodies, and enhance the effects of shallower sources over deeper ones. The data was divided into blocks and sub-blocks, and was spectrally analysed for the depths to the deep- and shallow-seated magnetic sources. The Curie-point-depths computed from these depths vary between 20.8 and 32.73 km, indicating that the magnetized basement rocks are at different elevations and are probably block faulted. The correlation of shallow Curie-point-depth with the Older Granites inferred that the low Curie-point-depth is due to magmatic intrusion in the highly deformed migmatite unit, the main geologic unit. The surface heat flows derived from the Curie-point-depths vary between 40.82 and 62.84 with a mean of 50.10 mW m-2, with areas having high surface heat flow presumed to be areas of recent intrusions where the elevated heat has transformed appropriate minerals to sapphire, tourmaline and aquamarine. Correlations of the surface heat flows and the average geothermal gradients on one hand and the Curie-point-depth on the other, unlike global compilation, yielded close empirical relations that are attributed to homogeneous geology of the area

The effect of “Gadagi” tea on liver function and serum glucose concentration in albino rats

Effect of oral administration of “Gadagi” tea on liver function and serum glucose concentration was assessed on thirty (30) healthy non – pregnant female albino rats. The animals were grouped and administered different doses (mg/kg) i.e. (low dose; 0.75mg/kg for “Sak,” 1.40mg/kg for “Sada” and 2.10mg/kg for “magani.” Standard dose; 1.50mg/kg for “Sak,” 2.80mg/kg for “Sada” and 4.20mg/kg for “magani.” High dose; 3.00mg/kg for “Sak,” 5.60mg/kg for “Sada” and 8.30mg/kg for “magani”) for a period of one week. Animals that were not administered the tea constituted the control group. At the end of one week, the animals were sacrificed and their serum alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), bilirubin (total and direct) and glucose levels were determined. Mean serum glucose level of the control animals was significantly higher (

Fitting the Phenomenological MSSM

We perform a global Bayesian fit of the phenomenological minimal supersymmetric standard model (pMSSM) to current indirect collider and dark matter data. The pMSSM contains the most relevant 25 weak-scale MSSM parameters, which are simultaneously fit using `nested sampling' Monte Carlo techniques in more than 15 years of CPU time. We calculate the Bayesian evidence for the pMSSM and constrain its parameters and observables in the context of two widely different, but reasonable, priors to determine which inferences are robust. We make inferences about sparticle masses, the sign of the $\mu$ parameter, the amount of fine tuning, dark matter properties and the prospects for direct dark matter detection without assuming a restrictive high-scale supersymmetry breaking model. We find the inferred lightest CP-even Higgs boson mass as an example of an approximately prior independent observable. This analysis constitutes the first statistically convergent pMSSM global fit to all current data.Comment: Added references, paragraph on fine-tunin

Design and Optimisation of Shea Butter Mixer

A shea butter mixer was designed, fabricated and tested.  The machine mixed milled shea paste with water and extract shea butter oil from the paste. Its major component parts included mixing blade, mixing tank, gear system, diesel engine and burner.  The machine capacity was 56 kg per hour. The results of testing of the machine revealed that the yield of oil ranged between 26.52 % and 39.43 %. The highest oil yield of 39.43 % was obtained from interaction between container diameter of 50 cm, blade type 5 numbers and speed of 110 rpm, while the least oil yield of 26.52 % was obtained from interaction between container diameter of 33.2 cm, blade type of 3 numbers and speed of 110 rpm. The blade type, container diameter and speed of mixing were found to have significant effects on yield of the shea butter. The development of this mixer would have a positive economic impact on the local processors. The mixer would improve oil extraction and increase the product throughput for the local investors Keywords: shea butter, mixer, blade, yiel

Students’ Psychosocial Perception of Automobile Technology Learning Environment and Attitudinal Outcomes in North-eastern Nigeria Tertiary Institutions

AbstractStudents’ perception of their learning environment is a crucial factor in improving quality of learning. Several researches revealed that students’ perception of the learning environment has a significant impact on the students’ academic performance and attitude. This study investigated relationships between students’ perception of automobile technology learning environments and their attitude towards automobile technology in north-eastern tertiary institutions of Nigeria. The research design of the study was a correlational survey design and the sample comprised 474 students offering automobile technology as a course in the institutions. The data were collected using ATLEI and ATAQ and these were analyzed using descriptive statistics, simple correlation, and multiple correlation analysis. The findings revealed that the automobile technology learning environments remain traditional and students anxiety-dominated the learning environment in the north-eastern tertiary institutions of Nigeria. It was recommended that lecturers in the institutions of learning should be sensitized on the importance of students’ perception of learning environment and enhanced student-student and student-lecturer relationships in their institutions

Prospects of endosperm DNA in maize seed characterization

DNA based characterisation of maize germplasm has become the easiest and fastest approach to identify genetic diversity as compared to phenotyping. The conventional DNA source for genotyping is the leaf which required at least 2 weeks waiting period from seed planting to leaves sampling. This work exploits the use of endosperm DNA (EDNA) for the genotyping of maize germplasm. Maize endosperm was excised from maize seeds using pli¬ers, ground and used for Genomic DNA extraction (gDNA). Leaves DNA (LDNA) was also extracted concurrently. The extracted LDNA and EDNA were quantified and subjected to SSR-PCR. The mean concentrations of DNA extracted were 1575 ng/ul for the leaves and 526 ng/ul for endosperm. Though the difference in quantity of EDNA and LDNA were highly significant, the quality (A260/A280) for both EDNA and LDNA fall within 1.6-1.8 range of pure DNA index. SSR-PCR products using phi032 were similar for both EDNA and LDNA, indicating the usability of EDNA in genotyping. This seed based method of gDNA extraction takes less than 24 hours from sampling to quantification and genotyping. It also allows germination of sampled seeds, selection before planting, avoids the delay of planting and waiting in leaf sampling and saves field space

In-silico Investigation of the Interaction between Beta-class Glutathione S-Transferase and Five Antibiotics, namely; Ampicillin, Tetracycline, Chloramphenicol, Ciprofloxacin and Cephalexin

Glutathione s-transferases(GSTs) are enzymes involved in the conjugation and deactivation of various xenobiotics including drugs. Thisin-silico study was undertaken in order to investigate the interaction between beta-class glutathione s-transferase and five selected antibiotics, namely; ampicillin, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin and cephalexin using molecular docking study. RaptorX server was used to predict the amino acids involved at the binding sitewhile molecular docking study was employed in order to investigate the binding interactions.RaptorX predicted several amino acids which were different from the ones observed in molecular docking because of the variability in the substrate binding site of GSTs however, all the amino acids predicted by RaptorX were also found to be involved in the GSH binding.Lys107, Phe109, Ser110, Leu113, Trp114, His115 and Arg123, Leu168 were the amino acids involved in the binding of various antibiotics to the substrate binding site of the protein while Ala9, Cys10, Leu32, Tyr51, Val52, Pro53, Glu65 and Ala66were involved in the binding of the co-substrate GSH to the binding site of the protein. The results indicated that all the antibiotics showed a good binding affinity with the beta class GST and are therefore capable of deactivating the drugs. With these, finding a beta class GST inhibitors alongside antibiotics during a treatment of diseases will be of beneficial in the current fight against antibiotic resistance