Blocking Java Applets at the Firewall

This paper explores the problem of protecting a site on the Internet against hostile external Java applets while allowing trusted internal applets to run. With careful implementation, a site can be made resistant to current Java security weaknesses as well as those yet to be discovered. In addition, we describe a new attack on certain sophisticated firewalls that is most effectively realized as a Java applet

Washington State Constitutional Limitations on Gifting of Funds to Private Enterprise: A Need for Reform

This Comment argues that the donative intent analysis shields government proprietary transactions from proper review by seeking only prima facie evidence of consideration.This Comment is divided into four parts. First, it traces the historical emergence of the current standard of constitutional analysis under Article VIII, sections 5 and 7. Second, the Comment discusses the court\u27s constitutional analysis and its relation to the historical intent of the framers, and proposes a new standard of review. Third, the proposed and current standards are applied to two instances of modern public financial assistance to private enterprise: legislative financing of a thoroughbred racetrack, and a state agency\u27s subsidy of intrastate freight rail. Finally, this Comment concludes that the proposed standard should be adopted

New Clayton Act and the Crown Zellerbach Case

It is the purpose of this Article to examine the Federal Trade Commission\u27s handling, in the Crown Zellerbach case, of the problem of deciding whether a particular merger may reasonably be expected substantially to lessen competition or to tend to create a monopoly in a market in violation of the law

Quenching or Bursting: Star Formation Acceleration--A New Methodology for Tracing Galaxy Evolution

We introduce a new methodology for the direct extraction of galaxy physical parameters from multi-wavelength photometry and spectroscopy. We use semi-analytic models that describe galaxy evolution in the context of large scale cosmological simulation to provide a catalog of galaxies, star formation histories, and physical parameters. We then apply stellar population synthesis models and a simple extinction model to calculate the observable broad-band fluxes and spectral indices for these galaxies. We use a linear regression analysis to relate physical parameters to observed colors and spectral indices. The result is a set of coefficients that can be used to translate observed colors and indices into stellar mass, star formation rate, and many other parameters, including the instantaneous time derivative of the star formation rate which we denote the {\it Star Formation Acceleration (SFA)}, We apply the method to a test sample of galaxies with GALEX photometry and SDSS spectroscopy, deriving relationships between stellar mass, specific star formation rate, and star formation acceleration. We find evidence for a mass-dependent SFA in the green valley, with low mass galaxies showing greater quenching and higher mass galaxies greater bursting. We also find evidence for an increase in average quenching in galaxies hosting AGN. A simple scenario in which lower mass galaxies accrete and become satellite galaxies, having their star forming gas tidally and/or ram-pressure stripped, while higher mass galaxies receive this gas and react with new star formation can qualitatively explain our results.Comment: 33 pages, 31 figures, ApJ accepte

Regulatory solvency prediction in property-liability insurance: risk-based capital, audit ratios, and cash flow simulation

This paper analyzes the accuracy of the principal models used by U.S. insurance regulators to predict insolvencies in the property-liability insurance industry and compares these models with a relatively new solvency testing approach--cash flow simulation. Specifically, we compare the risk-based capital (RBC) system introduced by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) in 1994, the FAST (Financial Analysis and Surveillance Tracking) audit ratio system used by the NAIC, and a cash flow simulation model developed by the authors. Both the RBC and FAST systems are static, ratio-based approaches to solvency testing, whereas the cash flow simulation model implements dynamic financial analysis. Logistic regression analysis is used to test the models for a large sample of solvent and insolvent property-liability insurers, using data from the years 1990-1992 to predict insolvencies over three-year prediction horizons. We find that the FAST system dominates RBC as a static method for predicting insurer insolvencies. Further, we find the cash flow simulation variables add significant explanatory power to the regressions and lead to more accurate solvency prediction than the ratio-based models taken alone.Insurance industry