The effect of acquisition annoucements on stock returns of acquiring firms: a short and long term study for developed and emerging countries focusing on domestic and cross border acquisitions and the impact of institutional environment

This paper uses an empirical event-study approach to investigate the effect of acquisition announcements on the share price of bidding firms. By using a globalised set of acquirers from 14 different markets, this work aims to develop an understanding of the impact of acquisition announcements on developed- and emerging-market acquirers. The sample contains 624 acquisition announcements with target firms located throughout the world between 1997 and 2015. The results contradict the conventional wisdom that developed-market acquirers generally experience losses. Both emerging-market and developed-market bidders gain significantly in the short term. Moreover, for developed-market acquirers, the announcement of cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) yields higher abnormal returns than the announcement of domestic acquisitions. On the other hand, emerging-market bidders gain from announcing domestic acquisitions, and lose substantially when publishing news about CBAs. In addition, the institutional environment is found to have an impact on acquirer returns

Larval performance of nun moth Lymantria monacha L. (Lepidoptera, Lymantriidae) in first and second year of an outbreak in Pinus syvestris L. in Saxony

Die Nonne gehört zu den Kieferngroßschädlingen des norddeutschen Tieflandes. Bei Gradationen werden bisher zur Verhinderung bestandesbedrohender Fraßschäden großflächig Insektizide eingesetzt. Nach bisherigen Beobachtungen dauern Gradationen dieser Art in mitteleuropäischen Kiefernbestockungen meist nur 2 Vegetationsperioden. Als Ursachen für den Zusammenbruch einer Gradation werden Nahrungsmangel sowie der Ausbruch von Krankheiten genannt (WELLENSTEIN &. SCHWENKE 1978). Für das Überleben der Kiefern und damit den Erhalt der Bestände ist entscheidend, dass die jeweiligen Maitriebnadeln und Knospenanlagen vom Fraß der Larven verschont bleiben. Somit ist der Zeitpunkt des Zusammenbruchs der Gradation vor, während oder nach der Konsumption der neuen Nadeln im 2. Gradationsjahr für das Überleben der Wirtspflanze entscheidend. Das Ziel dieser Untersuchung war die Beschreibung möglicher Wechselwirkungen zwischen der Entnadelung der Kiefer im 1. und 2. Jahr des Fraßes und der Larvalentwicklung der Nonnen-Population.Pinus sylvestris stands in the first and second year of an outbreak in Saxony, Germany. Larval density as well the defoliation of marked twigs in the tree crown was monitored weekly during the last 7 weeks of larval development in summer 2004. The comparison between both populations shows that in the second outbreak year the larval development was retarded and the larval mortality was increased. In the second year larvae attacked this year’s needles not till the previous year’s needles were consumed in contrast to the feeding behavior of larvae first outbreak year. Even though the larval densities of both stands were similar at the beginning of this investigation, this year’s needles in the first year outbreak stand were heavily defoliated as in the second year outbreak stand

Inverse ISAsomes in Bio-Compatible Oils—Exploring Formulations in Squalane, Triolein and Olive Oil

In contrast to their more common counterparts in aqueous solutions, inverse ISAsomes (internally self-assembled somes/particles) are formulated as kinetically stabilised dispersions of hydrophilic, lyotropic liquid-crystalline (LC) phases in non-polar oils. This contribution reports on their formation in bio-compatible oils. We found that it is possible to create inverse hexosomes, inverse micellar cubosomes (Fd3m) and an inverse emulsified microemulsion (EME) in excess squalane with a polyethylene glycol alkyl ether as the primary surfactant forming the LC phase and to stabilise them with hydrophobised silica nanoparticles. Furthermore, an emulsified L1-phase and inverse hexosomes were formed in excess triolein with the triblock-copolymer Pluronic® P94 as the primary surfactant. Stabilisation was achieved with a molecular stabiliser of type polyethylene glycol (PEG)-dipolyhydroxystearate. For the inverse hexosomes in triolein, the possibility of a formulation without any additional stabiliser was explored. It was found that a sufficiently strong stabilisation effect was created by the primary surfactant alone. Finally, triolein was replaced with olive oil which also led to the successful formation of inverse hexosomes. As far as we know, there exists no previous contribution about inverse ISAsomes in complex oils such as triolein or plant oils, and the existence of stabiliser-free (i.e., self-stabilising) inverse hexosomes has also not been reported until now

A Reference System Architecture with Data Sovereignty for Human-Centric Data Ecosystems

Since the European information economy faces insufficient access to and joint utilization of data, data ecosystems increasingly emerge as economical solutions in B2B environments. Contrarily, in B2C ambits, concepts for sharing and monetizing personal data have not yet prevailed, impeding growth and innovation. Their major pitfall is European data protection law that merely ascribes human data subjects a need for data privacy while widely neglecting their economic participatory claims to data. The study reports on a design science research (DSR) approach addressing this gap and proposes an abstract reference system architecture for an ecosystem centered on humans with personal data. In this DSR approach, multiple methods are embedded to iteratively build and evaluate the artifact, i.e., structured literature reviews, design recovery, prototyping, and expert interviews. Managerial contributions embody novel design knowledge about the conceptual development of human-centric B2C data ecosystems, considering their legal, ethical, economic, and technical constraints

Reversal of Nonlocal Vortex Motion in the Regime of Strong Nonequilibrium

We investigate nonlocal vortex motion in weakly pinning a-NbGe nanostructures, which is driven by a transport current I and remotely detected as a nonlocal voltage Vnl. At high I, the measured Vnl exhibits dramatic sign reversals that at low and high temperatures T occur for opposite polarities of I. The sign of Vnl becomes independent of that of the drive current at large abs(I). These unusual effects can be nearly quantitatively explained by a novel enhancement of magnetization, arising from a nonequilibrium distribution of quasiparticles at high T, and a Nernst-like effect resulting from local electron heating at low T

Expansion of the Yeast Modular Cloning Toolkit for CRISPR-Based Applications, Genomic Integrations and Combinatorial Libraries

Standardisation of genetic parts has become a topic of increasing interest over the last decades. The promise of simplifying molecular cloning procedures, while at the same time making them more predictable and reproducible has led to the design of several biological standards, one of which is modular cloning (MoClo). The Yeast MoClo toolkit provides a large library of characterised genetic parts combined with a comprehensive and flexible assembly strategy. Here we aimed to (1) simplify the adoption of the standard by providing a simple design tool for including new parts in the MoClo library, (2) characterise the toolkit further by demonstrating the impact of a BglII site in promoter parts on protein expression, and (3) expand the toolkit to enable efficient construction of gRNA arrays, marker-less integration cassettes and combinatorial libraries. These additions make the toolkit more applicable for common engineering tasks and will further promote its adoption in the yeast biological engineering community

Nonlocal vs local vortex dynamics in the transversal flux transformer effect

In this follow-up to our recent Letter [F. Otto et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 027005 (2010)], we present a more detailed account of the superconducting transversal flux transformer effect (TFTE) in amorphous (a-)NbGe nanostructures in the regime of strong nonequilibrium in local vortex motion. Emphasis is put on the relation between the TFTE and local vortex dynamics, as the former turns out to be a reliable tool for determining the microscopic mechanisms behind the latter. By this method, a progression from electron heating at low temperatures T to the Larkin-Ovchinnikov effect close to the transition temperature Tc is traced over a range 0.26 < T/Tc < 0.95. This is represented by a number of relevant parameters such as the vortex transport entropy related to the Nernst-like effect at low T, and a nonequilibrium magnetization enhancement close to Tc. At intermediate T, the Larkin-Ovchinnikov effect is at high currents modified by electron heating, which is clearly observed only in the TFTE