The Sovereign-Debt Listing Puzzle

The claim that stock exchanges perform certification and monitoring roles in securities offerings is pervasive in the legal and financial literatures. This article tests the validity of this “bonding hypothesis” in the sovereign-bond market—one of the oldest and largest securities markets in the world. Using data on sovereign-bond listings for the entire post-World War II period, we provide the first comprehensive report on sovereigns’ historical listing patterns. We then test whether a sovereign bond issue’s listing jurisdiction affects its yield at issuance, as the bonding hypothesis would predict. We find little evidence of bonding in today’s sovereign-debt market. Instead, we hypothesize that sovereign-bond listings are primarily a form of regulatory arbitrage. Because certain investors may be restricted to investing abroad only in listed securities, sovereigns are incentivized to list their bonds, but to seek out the least restrictive exchange that qualifies

Spacecraft Fire Safety Research: Combustion of Lithium-ion Batteries to Predict Fire Scenarios

The purpose of this project was to research characteristics of a Lithium-ion battery fire to determine if trends exist in measured fire characteristics that can help predict different fire scenarios. These experiments will ultimately aid in developing an alarm threshold for a spacecraft smoke detector, specifically for Orion, a new, multi-purpose crew vehicle under development by NASA. Orion is the next-generation of spacecraft designed to replace the space shuttle and will play an important role in NASA’s journey to Mars. In the experiments performed, Lithium-ion batteries were placed in a test chamber and ignited while smoke concentration was measured, simulating a worst-case fire scenario. Meaningful conclusions about combustion in a confined volume were drawn by observing fires through video footage. It was concluded that physical characteristics of the fire corresponded to spikes in chamber pressure. This is of interest to NASA’s fire detection systems; if the pressure inside a spacecraft rises in the event of a fire, the crew may have to open a pressure relief valve, which can be extremely dangerous and is considered a last-resort measure. The work outlined in this report paves the way for future efforts to develop a smoke alarm threshold for the Orion capsule

INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY IN AGRICULTURE - TRADE-OFFS AND ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES DEMONSTRATED WITH A FARM MODEL IN BAVARIA

Within the German "Research Alliance on Agroecosystems Munich" (Forschungsverbund Agrarökosysteme München, FAM) optimal land use strategies are investigated since 1990 in terms of minimization of environmental impacts and maximization of profit from agricultural lands (Auerswald et al. 2000). For this purpose a conventional agricultural land use system was converted into two more sustainable forms of land use. One part of the farm was converted into an integrated land use system with reduced tillage, direct seeding methods and catch crops to minimize nutrient losses and to prevent soil erosion hazards. The other part of the farm was converted into a biological land use system with the omission of mineral fertilizers and pesticides and the enrichment of crop rotation. In order to evaluate changes in the state of the agroecosystem a goal and indicator system was elaborated which was aimed to represent important issues of sustainable agriculture. With the help of the goal and indicator system the impact of land use on issues of sustainability can be assessed. The indicators are furthermore integrated into a farm model to assess the implications of the realization of environmental issues in agriculture. For this purpose the model system MODAM (Zander & Kächele 1999) was used to compare different land use options at the farm level. The model system simulates agricultural land use, calculates the economic returns and runs farm optimizations with a linear programming tool. The integration of agro-environmental indicators in the model framework enables a multiple goal optimization and the calculation of trade-offs. For this study soil erosion was assessed with the algorithms of a site-specifically adapted version of the USLE (ABAG, Schwertmann et al. 1987). Optimization runs show, that e.g. soil conservation measures may not only improve soil conservation, but also the economic situation. A slight improvement of soil conservation results in marginal opportunity costs for the farm. With the realization of a higher level of soil protection opportunity costs rise exponentially. The calculated opportunity costs can give valuable hints on bottlenecks of the realization of sustainable agriculture and help to identify reasonable incentives for a better agriculture. Furthermore conflicts between divagating goals can be identified to find optimal pathways of a sustainable development of agriculture.Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management,

E-læring som pedagogisk virkemiddel for innlæring av anatomi, fysiologi og biokjemi i sykepleierutdanningen

Utgangspunktet for studien er at naturvitenskaplige fag, særlig anatomi, fysiologi og biokjemi (AFB), oppleves som vanskelig for sykepleierstudentene. Hensikten var å undersøke om læringsverktøyet e-læring, i form av nettester, kan være et effektivt virkemiddel til innlæring av og påvirke læringsutbyttet i AFB. Førsteårsstudentene i bachelorutdanningen i sykepleie ved Høgskolen i Akershus fikk et spørreskjema med 23 spørsmål som ble besvart anonymt. Resultatet av studentundersøkelsen viste at nettoppgavene ble mye brukt, og at studentene mente de ga et godt læringsutbytte. Nettoppgaver med umiddelbar feedback gir stor studentaktivitet og «time-on-task». Testene kan tette hullet mellom det studentene forventes å kunne og det de faktisk kan, og egner seg til faktafag som m å pugges og forstås. E-læring kan gi god hjelp til studenters strukturering av tid, læringsstrategier og selvregulering. Læringsutbyttet av nettester diskuteres i lys av nytten av umiddelbar feedback i et pedagogisk perspektiv

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: A Postmodern Analysis

This thesis project discusses Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as an example of postmodern drama. It further examines the style of the authorship, often likened to Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, and in this examination seeks to define and discuss postmodernist theater. As part of the study, a working definition of postmodernism, its history, proposed tenets, and leading critical theories are analyzed. Meyer states, “A literary movement so new and controversial among critics and academics as postmodernism is, requires thorough investigation, definition, and exemplification.” Chapter Two establishes the definition for postmodernist theater, which is used as the basis for the discussion of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in subsequent chapters. More specifically, Chapter Three examines the deconstruction and subversion of hierarchical orders regarding characters from Hamlet as well as the hierarchy of authorship regarding Shakespeare and Stoppard. And finally, the author discusses postmodern linguistic features in the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, particularly the function of word games and language as postmodernism, for discussion of Stoppard\u27s plays

Smoke Aerosol Characterization for Spacecraft Fire Detection Systems

Appropriate design of fire detection systems requires knowledge of both the expected fire signature and the background aerosol levels. Terrestrial fire detection systems have been developed based on extensive study of terrestrial fires. Unfortunately there is no corresponding data set for spacecraft fires and consequently the fire detectors in current spacecraft were developed based upon terrestrial designs. There are a number of factors that affect the smoke particle size distribution in spacecraft fires. In low gravity, buoyant flow is negligible which causes particles to concentrate at the smoke source, increasing their residence time, and increasing the transport time to smoke detectors. Microgravity fires have significantly different structure than those in 1-g which can change the formation history of the smoke particles. Finally the materials used in spacecraft are different from typical terrestrial environments where smoke properties have been evaluated. It is critically important to detect a fire in its early phase before a flame is established, given the fixed volume of air on any spacecraft. Consequently, the primary target for spacecraft fire detection is pyrolysis products rather than soot. This dissertation is a compilation of experimental investigations performed at three different NASA facilities which characterize smoke aerosols from overheating common spacecraft materials. The earliest effort consists of aerosol measurements in low gravity, called the Smoke Aerosol Measurement Experiment (SAME), and subsequent ground-based testing of SAME smoke in 55-gallon drums with an aerosol reference instrument. The feasibility of the moment method for characterizing smoke from limited data, including the lognormal assumption, is explored. Experiments in low gravity are very rare and expensive, so detailed studies to exploit every possible aspect of the data to increase the science outcome are warranted. Another set of experiments were performed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center White Sands Test Facility (WSTF), with additional fuels and an alternate smoke production method. Measurements of these smoke products include mass and number concentration, and a thermal precipitator was designed for this investigation to capture particles for microscopic analysis. Smoke particle morphology and chemical composition are analyzed for various fuels. The final data presented are from NASA’s Gases and Aerosols from Smoldering Polymers (GASP) Laboratory, with selected results focusing on realistic fuel preparations and heating profiles with regards to early detection of smoke. Additional research on ambient air quality in the International Space Station (ISS) is presented which sheds light on background aerosols that may interfere with smoke detection in spacecraft