Snow and leverage

Using a sample of highly (over-)leveraged Austrian ski hotels undergoing debt restructurings, we show that reducing a debt overhang leads to a significant improvement in operating performance (return on assets, net profit margin). In particular, a reduction in leverage leads to a decrease in overhead costs, wages, and input costs, and to an increase in sales. Changes in leverage in the debt restructurings are instrumented with Unexpected Snow, which captures the extent to which a ski hotel experienced unusually good or bad snow conditions prior to the debt restructuring. Effectively, Unexpected Snow provides lending banks with the counterfactual of what would have been the ski hotel's operating performance in the absence of strategic default, thus allowing to distinguish between ski hotels that are in distress due to negative demand shocks ("liquidity defaulters") and ski hotels that are in distress due to debt overhang ("strategic defaulters")

The competitive advantage of nations: an application to academia

Within the field of bibliometrics, there is sustained interest in how nations “compete” in terms of academic disciplines, and what determinants explain why countries may have a specific advantage in one discipline over another. However, this literature has not, to date, presented a comprehensive structured model that could be used in the interpretation of a country’s research profile and academic output. In this paper, we use frameworks from international business and economics to present such a model. Our study makes four major contributions. First, we include a very wide range of countries and disciplines, explicitly including the Social Sciences, which unfortunately are excluded in most bibliometrics studies. Second, we apply theories of revealed comparative advantage and the competitive advantage of nations to academic disciplines. Third, we cluster our 34 countries into five different groups that have distinct combinations of revealed comparative advantage in five major disciplines. Finally, based on our empirical work and prior literature, we present an academic diamond that details factors likely to explain a country’s research profile and competitiveness in certain disciplines

Problems to put students in a role close to a mathematical researcher

In this workshop, we present a model of problem that we call Research Situation for the Classroom (RSC). The aim of a RSC is to put students in a role close to a mathematical researcher in order to make them work on mathematical thinking/skills. A RSC has some characteristics : the problem is close to a research one, the statement is an easy understandable question, school knowledge are elementary, there is no end, a solved question postponed to new questions... The most important characteristic of a RSC is that students can manage their research by fixing themselves some variable of the problem. So, a RSC is completely different from a problem that students usually do in France. For short : there is no final answer, students can try to resolve their own questions : a RSC is a large open field where many sub-problems exist; the goal for the students is not to apply a technique: the goal is, as for a researcher, to search. These type of situations are particularly interesting to develop problem solving skills and mathematical thinking. They can also let students discover that mathematics are “alive” and “realistic”. This workshop will be split into two parts. First, we propose to put people in the situation of solving a RSC to make them discover practically what is it. After, we present the model of a RSC and some results of our experimentations

Secondary arts teachers\u27 perceptions of integrated arts

During the 1980s, research in the arts by Project Zero and Arts Propel revealed that in American schooling the areas of artistic intelligence and artistic education had been neglected. Gardner (1989) proposed a theory of multiple intelligences, suggesting that in addition to the linguistic and logical-mathematical forms, there are a number of distinct forms of intelligence that each individual may possess in varying degrees. The concept of multiple intelligences as opposed to talent in an art form offers the opportunity to view arts education in a new light. The original purpose of Arts Propel was to assess artistic potential in the same way that IQ or SAT instruments are designed to test scholastic potential. What began as an assessment endeavour, became a curricular undertaking and as a result, a number of educational institutions developed integrated arts approaches to arts learning, claiming that where the arts were integrated within the curriculum, higher achievement was recorded. The National Curriculum\u27s statement on The Arts for Australian Schools (1993) included the five arts forms of dance, drama, media, music and visual arts as Arts components and justified this stance by clearly stating that the common statements and profiles accommodated a wide range of approaches. However, the strands of arts experience and learning - Creating, Making and Presenting, Arts Criticism and Aesthetics, and Past and Present Contexts - have the potential to provide a common framework for integration of the various forms. During the course of this research the strands have already been subject to change and are now known as Expressing, Responding and Reflecting. During the trialling phase of The Arts\u27 Student Outcome Statements, divisions between the arts forms became apparent. Some of the issues included: attempts by arts teachers to maintain the status quo, strong boundaries between the arts, unequal representation of arts forms in schools and application of Student Outcome Statements Strands to all the arts forms. At the commencement of this research the divisions between the arts forms remained as strong as ever, yet a truly integrative approach has the potential to strengthen the place of arts in schools. This research documented ten secondary arts teachers\u27 perceptions of integrated arts. The teachers all taught in government schools and each art form was represented by two teachers. The purpose of the research was to record arts teachers\u27 perceptions of integrated arts at a time of rapid curriculum change. Qualitative methodology using the instrument of semi-structured scheduled interviews was the data gathering process. The interviews were audio-taped and once the data was compiled it was sent to the participants for their approval. This study found that arts teachers\u27 perceptions of integrated arts were, on the whole, positive. Most teachers believed that an integrated arts approach would give students a deeper understanding of the arts and promote bonding between arts teachers. Teachers felt that the combination of the five arts forms into one learning area (The Arts), provided long overdue recognition of the arts as a significant learning area. Other perceived benefits included the building of strength and support, and the overcoming of isolation that characterised the arts in schools in the past. It is recommended, as a result of this study, that where possible, the physical location of the arts departments in schools should be considered during the planning stage so that arts areas are not isolated. It is also recommended that media and dance should adopt the changes, so that The Arts area of learning will not be fragmented. This can be achieved through document support which will show dance and media teachers how they can work effectively within an Arts framework. Integrated Arts programs, such as those offered by some of the schools in this study, will provide strong guidelines for future arts consolidation and enrichment in schools

DANCING WITH OUR HANDS TIED: AN IMBALANCED FOCUS ON DRUGS FOR ORPHAN DISEASE AND RESEARCH

Current efforts to foster research on orphan diseases are focused largely on pharmaceutical treatments. Currently, there are roughly 770 FDA approved pharmaceutical treatments designated for orphan diseases. The number of treatments has greatly improved and it can largely be attributed to government efforts to foster research on orphan diseases. However, more can be done to bridge the gap between the number of available treatments, both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical, and the number of different orphan diseases. These efforts should be supplemented by initiatives to bolster diffusion and commercialization of innovations made by the user-innovator community

Socialisations langagières, tension identitaires et investissement

This study aims to explore the relationships that can be established between identity tensions affecting a learner of French in an alloglotte context, its investment in the appropriation of the language and the contacts that can be established with the target language, the latter constituting a necessary mediation for a successful appropria tion. The empirical analysis is based on data concerning an Austrian living in French-speaking Switzerland and taking courses in an academic context

Quand la scénarisation côtoie les apprentissages : les complexités de l'esclavage et de son abolition

L'histoire est une discipline fondamentale qui traite constamment de complexités. Nous nous sommes intéressées à une méthode d'enseignement mettant les élèves acteurs de leur apprentissage au sein d'un travail de groupe. La mise en scène des connaissances du thème appris se faisait en élaborant par groupe une courte saynète présentée au reste de la classe. Ainsi, il a été possible de comparer et d'analyser deux méthodes d'enseignement pour enseigner les complexités de l'esclavage et de son abolition : la méthode transmissive et une méthode dans laquelle les élèves sont acteurs de leur apprentissage

Lipids of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Incorporation of [14C]Acetate, [14C]Palmitate and [14C]Oleate into Different Lipids and Evidence for Lipid-Linked Desaturation of Fatty Acids

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, parent strain (ssf), was pulse-labelled with [14C]acetate, [14C]-palmitate or [14C]oleate. Lipids were separated by TLC and HPLC. Radioactivity was measured in each class of lipids and in its fatty acids and molecular species. After 1 hour of incubation with acetate, the label was incorporated mainly into phosphatidylglycerol (PG), diacylglyceryl(N,N,N-trimethyl)homoserine (DGTS), digalactosyldiacylglycerol (DGDG) and monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG). Saturated, monoene and diene fatty acids were strongly labelled. Within 10 hours of incubation in the absence of labelled precursor, the label shifted from monoenes and dienes to trienes and tetraenes. The transfer of radioactivity from mono- to polyunsaturated MGDG and DGDG molecular species suggests a lipid-linked desaturation of the C-l position (and, in MGDG, also of the C-2 position) of these prokaryotic lipids. In the eukaryotic DGTS, all the species present were labelled simultaneously. On incubation with [14C]-palmitate or [14C]oleate, most of the label appeared in DGTS. Palmitate was immediately incorporated into the polyene species of DGTS, while oleate first appeared in the monoene species and then shifted to the polyene species. From these results it is concluded that, in DGTS, the acyl groups in the C-l position (mostly 16:0) were rapidly exchanged, while those in the C-2 position (mostly C18) became desaturated to give 18:3(5,9,12) and 18:4(5,9,12,15) acid