Pressure-induced alpha-to-omega transition in titanium metal: A systematic study of the effects of uniaxial stress

We investigated the effects of uniaxial stress on the pressure-induced alpha-to-omega transition in pure titanium (Ti) by means of angle dispersive x-ray diffraction in a diamond-anvil cell. Experiments under four different pressure environments reveal that: (1) the onset of the transition depends on the pressure medium used, going from 4.9 GPa (no pressure medium) to 10.5 GPa (argon pressure medium); (2) the a and w phases coexist over a rather large pressure range, which depends on the pressure medium employed; (3) the hysteresis and quenchability of the w phase is affected by differences in the sample pressure environment; and (4) a short term laser-heating of Ti lowers the alpha-to-omega transition pressure. Possible transition mechanisms are discussed in the light of the present results, which clearly demonstrated the influence of uniaxial stress in the alpha-to-omega transition.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl

For a Few Dollars Less: Explaining State to State Variation in Limited Liability Company Popularity

The limited liability company (LLC) is a much more popular business entity in some U.S. states than in others. This empirical study provides the first detailed analysis of this phenomenon. I find that formation fees, rather than taxes or substantive rules or anything else, explain the variation in LLC popularity best. Differentials between the fees for organizing an LLC and the fees for organizing a corporation explain 17% to 28% of the state-to-state variation in LLC popularity. These formation fee differentials are not very big, but they are highly visible at the moment the business entity is formed. In contrast, the data show no relationship between LLC popularity and differentials in annual fees and entity-level taxes. Differences in substantive rules contained in LLC statutes are likely to be trivial in the sense that they are not important enough to affect entity choice. However, LLCs are more popular in those states whose LLC statutes expressly uphold the principle of contractual freedom and thus reassure LLC members that courts will not rewrite their contract in the event of a lawsuit. Finally, I found no evidence that LLC popularity is related to different levels of uniformity of LLC statutes, the age of LLC statutes, and other factors. The Digital Object Identifier of the dataset compiled for this study is doi:10.3886/ICPSR3156

The Case Against Statutory Menus in Corporate Law

The author challenges the view among corporate law scholars that state legislatures should enact menus of predefined statutory rules from which corporations may select the governance terms of their choice. The private sector has produced menus of contract terms, such as standard form contracts and model documents, long before the idea of statutory menus became fashionable. There is no evidence that the market for private menus has failed, and legislatures are unlikely to be efficient menu producers. Advocates of statutory menus have suggested a number of rationales, most notably considerations based on transaction costs, network and learning effects, bounded attention, or endogenous preferences. But at closer look, none of these justifications are plausible because, if nothing else, they equally apply to private menus. The existing statutory menus do, however, clarify that certain governance terms are legal in cases where this would otherwise be uncertain. Yet that uncertainty could be reduced by other legislative means than menus. For these reasons, menu production should be left to the private sector