3,248 research outputs found
DEBT REFINANCING AND CREDIT RISK
Many firms choose to refinance their debt. We investigate the long run effects of this extended practice on credit ratings and credit spreads. We find that debt refinancing generates systematic rating downgrades unless a minimum firm value growth is observed. Deviations from this growth path imply asymmetric results: A lower value growth generates downgrades and a higher value growth upgrades as expected. However, downgrades will tend to be higher in absolute terms. On the other hand, credit spreads will be independent of the risk free interest rate in the short run, but positively correlated with this rate in the long run.
Anomaly-Induced Magnetic Screening in 2+1 dimensional QED at Finite Density
We show that in 2+1 dimensional Quantum Electrodynamics an external magnetic
field applied to a finite density of massless fermions is screened, due to a
-dimensional realization of the underlying -dimensional axial anomaly
of the space components of the electric current. This is shown to imply
screening of the magnetic field, i.e., the Meissner effect. We discuss the
physical implications of this result.Comment: 8 pages, DFTT-93-10 [ Eq.(15) and (16) were scrambled in previous
version
Criteria for Bayesian model choice with application to variable selection
In objective Bayesian model selection, no single criterion has emerged as
dominant in defining objective prior distributions. Indeed, many criteria have
been separately proposed and utilized to propose differing prior choices. We
first formalize the most general and compelling of the various criteria that
have been suggested, together with a new criterion. We then illustrate the
potential of these criteria in determining objective model selection priors by
considering their application to the problem of variable selection in normal
linear models. This results in a new model selection objective prior with a
number of compelling properties.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AOS1013 the Annals of
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Ultrashort Lifetime Expansion for Indirect Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering
In indirect resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) an intermediate state
is created with a core-hole that has a ultrashort lifetime. The core-hole
potential therefore acts as a femtosecond pulse on the valence electrons. We
show that this fact can be exploited to integrate out the intermediate states
from the expressions for the scattering cross section. By this we obtain an
effective scattering cross section that only contains the initial and final
scattering states. We derive in detail the effective cross section which turns
out to be a resonant scattering factor times a linear combination of the charge
response function and the dynamic longitudinal spin density
correlation function. This result is asymptotically exact for both strong and
weak local core-hole potentials and ultrashort lifetimes. The resonant
scattering pre-factor is shown to be weakly temperature dependent. We also
derive a sum-rule for the total scattering intensity and generalize the results
to multi-band systems. One of the remarkable outcomes is that one can change
the relative charge and spin contribution to the inelastic spectral weight by
varying the incident photon energy.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures embedde
Doping dependence of magnetic excitations of 1D cuprates as probed by Resonant Inelastic x-ray Scattering
We study the dynamical, momentum dependent two- and four-spin response
functions in doped and undoped 1D cuprates, as probed by resonant inelastic
x-ray scattering, using an exact numerical diagonalization procedure. In the
undoped system the four-spin response vanishes at , whereas the
two-spin correlator is peaked around , with generally larger spectral
weight. Upon doping spectra tend to soften and broaden, with a transfer of
spectral weight towards higher energy. However, the total spectral weight and
average peak position of either response are only weakly affected by doping up
to a concentration of 1/8. Only the two-spin response at changes
strongly, with a large reduction of spectral weight and enhancement of
excitation energy. At other momenta the higher-energy, generic features of the
magnetic response are robust against doping. It signals the presence of strong
short-range antiferromagnetic correlations, even after doping mobile holes into
the system. We expect this to hold also in higher dimensions.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Book I of Josephus’ ‘Bellum Iudaicum’ : sources and classical echoes revisited
The Bellum Iudaicum by Flavius Josephus is a complex literary project, which, at least in part, seeks to link the causes and consequences of the fall of Jerusalem. This study began through an interest in revisiting the basis for the classical literature which other scholars had already detected in the work. Josephus’ debt to Tacitus and Greek historians has been noted and debated for centuries. However, the present study brings the reader not only certain echoes of Tacitus not previously mentioned, but also marks of other exponents of Greek literature who had remained unnoticed.The language of the tragic poets provided Flavius Josephus with a means as much to seduce a non-Jewish audience, as to guide Jewish readers collectively towards a deeper understanding of the tragic nature of the story.O Bellum Iudaicum, de Flávio Josefo, é um projecto literário complexo que, pelo menos em parte, intenta articular causas e consequências da queda de Jerusalém. O nosso estudo começou por um interesse em revisitar o lastro da literatura clássica que já outros estudiosos haviam detectado nessa obra. A dÃvida de Josefo para com Tácito e outros historiadores gregos tem sido anotada e debatida por séculos. Porém a nossa investigação faculta ao leitor não só alguns ecos de Tácito nunca antes referenciados,mas também marcas de outros expoentes da literatura grega que tinham passado desapercebidas. A linguagem dos poetas trágicos servirá a Flávio Josefo tanto para seduzir uma audiência não-judaica, quanto para guiar o conjunto dos leitores judeus na compreensão mais profunda da tragicidade da sua história
Design, Fabrication, and Run-time Strategies for Hardware-Assisted Security
Today, electronic computing devices are critically involved in our daily lives, basic infrastructure, and national defense systems. With the growing number of threats against them, hardware-based security features offer the best chance for building secure and trustworthy cyber systems. In this dissertation, we investigate ways of making hardware-based security into a reality with primary focus on two areas: Hardware Trojan Detection and Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs). Hardware Trojans are malicious modifications made to original IC designs or layouts that can jeopardize the integrity of hardware and software platforms. Since most modern systems critically depend on ICs, detection of hardware Trojans has garnered significant interest in academia, industry, as well as governmental agencies. The majority of existing detection schemes focus on test-time because of the limited hardware resources available at run-time. In this dissertation, we explore innovative run-time solutions that utilize on-chip thermal sensor measurements and fundamental estimation/detection theory to expose changes in IC power/thermal profile caused by Trojan activation. The proposed solutions are low overhead and also generalizable to many other sensing modalities and problem instances. Simulation results using state-of-the-art tools on publicly available Trojan benchmarks verify that our approaches can detect Trojans quickly and with few false positives. Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are circuits that rely on IC fabrication variations to generate unique signatures for various security applications such as IC authentication, anti-counterfeiting, cryptographic key generation, and tamper resistance. While the existence of variations has been well exploited in PUF design, knowledge of exactly how variations come into existence has largely been ignored. Yet, for several decades the Design-for-Manufacturability (DFM) community has actually investigated the fundamental sources of these variations. Furthermore, since manufacturing variations are often harmful to IC yield, the existing DFM tools have been geared towards suppressing them (counter-intuitive for PUFs). In this dissertation, we make several improvements over current state-of-the-art work in PUFs. First, our approaches exploit existing DFM models to improve PUFs at physical layout and mask generation levels. Second, our proposed algorithms reverse the role of standard DFM tools and extend them towards improving PUF quality without harming non-PUF portions of the IC. Finally, since our approaches occur after design and before fabrication, they are applicable to all types of PUFs and have little overhead in terms of area, power, etc. The innovative and unconventional techniques presented in this dissertation should act as important building blocks for future work in cyber security
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