25,419 research outputs found
What is Different about Government-Controlled Acquirers in Cross-Border Acquisitions?
We examine the motives for and consequences of 5,317 failed and completed cross-border acquisitions constituting $619 billion of total activity that were led by government-controlled acquirers over the period from 1990 to 2008. We benchmark this activity at the aggregate country level and also at the deal level with cross-border acquisitions involving corporate acquirers over the same period. We find that government-led deal activity is relatively more intense for geographically-closer countries, but also relatively less sensitive to differences in the level of economic development of the acquirer’s and target’s home countries, in the quality of their legal institutions and accounting standards, and to how stringent are restrictions on FDI flows in their countries. Government-led acquirers are more likely to pursue larger targets with greater growth opportunities and more financial constraints. But, the share-price reactions to the announcements of such acquisitions are not different. Among those deals involving government-controlled acquirers, we do find important differences involving sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). SWF-led acquisitions are less likely to fail, they are more likely to pursue acquirers that are larger in total assets and with fewer financial constraints, and the market reactions to SWF-led acquisitions, while positive, are statistically and economically much smaller. We discuss policy implications in terms of recent regulatory changes in the U.S. and other countries that seek to restrict foreign acquisitions by government-controlled entities.Government-controlled Acquirers, Cross-Border Acquisitions
Deformation of a Trapped Fermi Gas with Unequal Spin Populations
The real-space densities of a polarized strongly-interacting two-component
Fermi gas of Li atoms reveal two low temperature regimes, both with a
fully-paired core. At the lowest temperatures, the unpolarized core deforms
with increasing polarization. Sharp boundaries between the core and the excess
unpaired atoms are consistent with a phase separation driven by a first-order
phase transition. In contrast, at higher temperatures the core does not deform
but remains unpolarized up to a critical polarization. The boundaries are not
sharp in this case, indicating a partially-polarized shell between the core and
the unpaired atoms. The temperature dependence is consistent with a tricritical
point in the phase diagram.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter
Hole burning in a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a Cooper pair box
We propose a scheme to create holes in the statistical distribution of
excitations of a nanomechanical resonator. It employs a controllable coupling
between this system and a Cooper pair box. The success probability and the
fidelity are calculated and compared with those obtained in the atom-field
system via distinct schemes. As an application we show how to use the
hole-burning scheme to prepare (low excited) Fock states.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figure
Orientation-Constrained Rectangular Layouts
We construct partitions of rectangles into smaller rectangles from an input
consisting of a planar dual graph of the layout together with restrictions on
the orientations of edges and junctions of the layout. Such an
orientation-constrained layout, if it exists, may be constructed in polynomial
time, and all orientation-constrained layouts may be listed in polynomial time
per layout.Comment: To appear at Algorithms and Data Structures Symposium, Banff, Canada,
August 2009. 12 pages, 5 figure
On the Connection Between Momentum Cutoff and Operator Cutoff Regularizations
Operator cutoff regularization based on the original Schwinger's proper-time
formalism is examined. By constructing a regulating smearing function for the
proper-time integration, we show how this regularization scheme simulates the
usual momentum cutoff prescription yet preserves gauge symmetry even in the
presence of the cutoff scales. Similarity between the operator cutoff
regularization and the method of higher (covariant) derivatives is also
observed. The invariant nature of the operator cutoff regularization makes it a
promising tool for exploring the renormalization group flow of gauge theories
in the spirit of Wilson-Kadanoff blocking transformation.Comment: 28 pages in plain TeX, no figures. revised and expande
Effects of unilateral vs. bilateral resistance training interventions on measures of strength, jump, linear and change of direction speed: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Background: Exercises can be categorized into either unilateral or bilateral movements. Despite the topic popularity, the answer to the question as to which (unilateral or bilateral) is superior for a certain athletic performance enhancement remains unclear.
Purpose: To compare the effect of unilateral and bilateral resistance training interventions on measures of athletic performance.
Methods: Keywords related with unilateral, bilateral and performance were used to search in the Web of Science, Pubmed databases, and Google Scholar and ResearchGate™ websites.
Results: 6365 articles were initially identified, 14 met the inclusion criteria and were included in the final analysis, with overall article quality being deemed moderate. The quantitative analysis comprised 392 subjects (aged: 16 to 26 years). Sub-group analysis showed that unilateral exercise resistance training resulted in a large effect in improving unilateral jump performance compared to bilateral training (ES = 0.89 [0.52, 1.26]). In contrast, bilateral exercise resistance training showed a small effect in improving bilateral strength compared to unilateral (ES = -0.43 [-0.71, -0.14]). Non-significant differences were found in improving unilateral strength (ES = 0.26 [-0.03, 0.55]), bilateral jump performance (ES = -0.04 [-0.31, 0.23]), change of direction (COD) (ES = 0.31 [-0.01, 0.63]) and speed (ES = -0.12 [-0.46, 0.21]) performance.
Conclusion: Unilateral resistance training exercises should be chosen for improving unilateral jumping performance, and bilateral resistance training exercises should be chosen for improving bilateral strength performance
Gender quotas and bank risk
We assess the effects of board gender quota laws using a sample of banks from 39 countries. We document
an increase in both stand-alone and systemic risk post-quota among banks that did not meet the quota prereform; the effect is stronger for banks in countries with a smaller pool of women in finance and low gender
equality. We find that the propagation of poor governance practices by overlapping female directors and
deterioration in the information environment post quota are likely channels driving the results. The evidence
is consistent with some banks “gaming” the reform by strategically appointing insiders, which weakens the
board’s monitoring function. Our results have policy implications and suggest that supply-side factors are
key determinants of the outcome of mandated quotas
Scalable Mining of Common Routes in Mobile Communication Network Traffic Data
A probabilistic method for inferring common routes from mobile communication network traffic data is presented. Besides providing mobility information, valuable in a multitude of application areas, the method has the dual purpose of enabling efficient coarse-graining as well as anonymisation by mapping individual sequences onto common routes. The approach is to represent spatial trajectories by Cell ID sequences that are grouped into routes using locality-sensitive hashing and graph clustering. The method is demonstrated to be scalable, and to accurately group sequences using an evaluation set of GPS tagged data
Simulating Ability: Representing Skills in Games
Throughout the history of games, representing the abilities of the various
agents acting on behalf of the players has been a central concern. With
increasingly sophisticated games emerging, these simulations have become more
realistic, but the underlying mechanisms are still, to a large extent, of an ad
hoc nature. This paper proposes using a logistic model from psychometrics as a
unified mechanism for task resolution in simulation-oriented games
Metastability in Spin-Polarized Fermi Gases
We study the role of particle transport and evaporation on the phase
separation of an ultracold, spin-polarized atomic Fermi gas. We show that the
previously observed deformation of the superfluid paired core is a result of
evaporative depolarization of the superfluid due to a combination of enhanced
evaporation at the center of the trap and the inhibition of spin transport at
the normal-superfluid phase boundary. These factors contribute to a
nonequilibrium jump in the chemical potentials at the phase boundary. Once
formed, the deformed state is highly metastable, persisting for times of up to
2 s.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
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