Taking Stock of Startup Stock Options: Addressing Disclosure and Liquidity Concerns of Startup Employees

U.S. capital markets are becoming increasingly private. Initial public offerings have steadily declined since the 1990s, and private companies are remaining private over twice as long as they have in the past. Furthermore, private company financing has reached unprecedented levels. Private securities offerings now greatly outpace the value of publicly traded securities. Additionally, recent regulatory changes seem to be accelerating this shift from the public to the private markets. One result of this shift is that private company valuations have grown immensely, so much so that private companies with valuations of over $1 billion exist and are known as “unicorns.” While the term “unicorn” connotes rarity, these companies are no longer rare—-there are now over 1,200 worldwide. Although this investment and growth in private companies benefits the entrepreneurship industry, it raises serious concerns in the U.S. securities law regime, which inherently assumes that private companies need to go public for access to public investors’ money, and are willing to provide information to these public investors to receive said money. As it appears, however, private companies are progressively less reliant on money from public investors. One stakeholder group caught in the middle of this dilemma is large, private company employees. Employees of private companies commonly receive stock ownership in the company as compensation, and many companies base a large portion of an employee’s payment in stock. As a result, employees are substantially invested in their employer. But these large private companies are now staying private much longer than in the past, so employees cannot convert their shares to cash by selling them nor can they rely on others to value their shares by relying on mandatory public disclosures. Furthermore, scholarship has demonstrated that the prevailing private-company valuation method leads to substantial overvaluation. Additionally, the founders of these companies can misrepresent to employees the value of their compensation. If one of these large companies fails or underperforms, its employees leave the firm undercompensated for their work. This Note proposes that implementing modifications to the existing securities laws will provide employees with information that will help them accurately value their stock options and convert these options to cash. Through this solution, employees and employers will have closer bargaining positions without overburdening employers

Leachable Phosphorus Levels of Urban Street Trees: Contributions to Urban Runoff

Intelligent environmental management of urban areas depends upon a thorough understanding of urban ecosystem properties, such as structure, energy flow and materials cycles. This report examines the phosphorous cycle in urban runoff - a portion of the urban phosphorous cycle - which is involved in diffuse (non-point) source pollution from urban areas. The goals of my research were to determine if street tree leaves and seeds are a source of phosphorous in urban runoff and if so, how these levels varied between tree species

Land use changes in Southeastern Wisconsin: The landscape pattern project

Since settlement began in the 1830\u27s, the native forest, wetland and prairie vegetation has been replaced by pasture, cultivated fields, highways, towns and cities. Fragmentation of the forest into smaller and smaller isolated patches influences the biological diversity of the remaining patches, as well as species replacement patterns and dispersal of seed and other propagules. This drastically alters the integrity of the regional system. This study documents changes in patterns of land use and forest vegetation and investigates factors influencing these changes and the effect of the present pattern on ecosystem maintenance. This work is part of a larger study examining many areas throughout the Deciduous Forest biome

Momentum Transfer in a Spinning Fuel Tank Filled with Xenon

Transient spin-up and spin-down flows inside of spacecraft fuel tanks need to be analyzed in order to properly design spacecraft control systems. Knowledge of the characteristics of angular momentum transfer to and from the fuel is used to size the de-spin mechanism that places the spacecraft in a controllable in-orbit state. In previous studies, several analytical models of the spin-up process were developed. However, none have accurately predicted all of the flow dynamics. Several studies have also been conducted using Navier-Stokes based methods. These approaches have been much more successful at simulating the dynamic processes in a cylindrical container, but have not addressed the issue of momentum transfer. In the current study, the spin-up and spin-down of a fuel tank filled with gaseous xenon has been investigated using a three-dimensional unsteady Navier-Stokes code. Primary interests have been concentrated on the spin-up/spin-down time constants and the initial torque imparted on the system. Additional focus was given to the relationship between the dominant flow dynamics and the trends in momentum transfer. Through the simulation of both a cylindrical and a spherical tank, it was revealed that the transfer of angular momentum is nonlinear at early times and tends toward a linear pattern at later times. Further investigation suggests that the nonlinear spin up is controlled by the turbulent transport of momentum, while the linear phase is controlled by a Coriolis driven (Ekman) flow along the outer wall. These results indicate that the spinup and spin-down processes occur more quickly in tanks with curved surfaces than those with defined top, bottom, and side walls. The results also provide insights for the design of spacecraft de-spin mechanisms

Flambeau Forest Blowdown

On July 4,1977, the 160 acre Flambeau River Forest Scientific Area was struck by a downburst of hurricane proportions (Fujita 1977) which destroyed most of the preserve. This stand had been one of the few relatively untouched old growth northern hardwood forest stands in the Upper Great Lakes region. Hemlock, yellow birch, and sugar maple are the dominant canopy tree species. The vegetation of this stand had been studied in 1967 (Anderson 1968) and 1973 (Anderson unpublished). Thus, the Flambeau River Forest Scientific Area in northern Wisconsin provides a unique opportunity to examine the changes following large scale disturbance in a stand of known composition. The purpose of our work was to quantify the extent of destruction from the 1977 blowdown and examine the reestablishment of woody species in a naturally disturbed northern hardwood forest stand

Recent Advances in Cancer Fusion Transcript Detection

Extensive investigation of gene fusions in cancer has led to the discovery of novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets. To date, most studies have neglected chromosomal rearrangement-independent fusion transcripts and complex fusion structures such as double or triple-hop fusions, and fusion-circRNAs. In this review, we untangle fusion-related terminology and propose a classification system involving both gene and transcript fusions. We highlight the importance of RNA-level fusions and how long-read sequencing approaches can improve detection and characterization. Moreover, we discuss novel bioinformatic tools to identify fusions in long-read sequencing data and strategies to experimentally validate and functionally characterize fusion transcripts

South Florida Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Pilot Project

In 2013, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sponsored climate resilience pilot studies in selected states and metropolitan areas in the U.S. The intent of these pilot studies was to examine approaches to \u201cconduct climate change and extreme weather vulnerability assessments of transportation infrastructure and to analyze options for adapting and improving resiliency.\u201d The Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), as lead agency on behalf of the region\u2019s three MPOs, and in partnership with other agencies, received one of the pilot projects. The project studied the southeast Florida four-county region. This report presents the results of this study. Five study objectives were adopted to guide the analysis: 1) provide adaptation analysis capability, 2) identify adaptation projects and strategies, 3) apply a vulnerability framework and provide feedback to the planning process, 4) enhance decision support and 5) strengthen institutional capacity. The study examined three climate change-related stresses: sea level rise inundation, storm surge flooding, and heavy precipitation induced flooding. Only roadway and passenger rail facilities on the designated regional transportation network were considered as part of this analysis. The overall approach to the vulnerability assessment was based on the FHWA\u2019s Climate Change and Extreme Weather Vulnerability Assessment Framework. A scoring system was used to rate each road and rail link in the region with respect to their vulnerability to permanent sea level rise inundation and periodic inundation from storm surge and heavy rainfall

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO