Credit and information in universal banking : a clinical study

We studied information and interaction processes in six lending relationships between a universal bank and medium sized firms. The study is based on the credit files of the respective firms. If no problems occur in these lending relationships, bank monitoring is based mainly on cheap, retrospective and internal data. In case of distress, more expensive, prospective and external information is used. The level of monitoring and the willingness to renegotiate the lending relationship depends on what the lending officers can learn about the future prospects of the firm from the behaviour of the debtors. We identify both signalling and bonding activities. Such learning from past behaviour seems to allow monitoring at low cost, whereas the direct observation of the firm's investment outlook seems to be very costly. Also, too much knowledge about the firm's investments might leave the bank in a very strong bargaining position and distort investment incentives. Therefore, the traditional view of credit assessment as observation of the quality of a borrower's investment programme needs to be reconsidered

Cavity QED with an ultracold ensemble on a chip: prospects for strong magnetic coupling at finite temperatures

We study the nonlinear dynamics of an ensemble of cold trapped atoms with a hyperfine transition magnetically coupled to a resonant microwave cavity mode. Despite the minute single atom coupling one obtains strong coupling between collective hyperfine qubits and microwave photons enabling coherent transfer of an excitation between the long lived atomic qubit state and the mode. Evidence of strong coupling can be obtained from the cavity transmission spectrum even at finite thermal photon number. The system makes it possible to study further prominent collective phenomena such as superradiant decay of an inverted ensemble or the building of a narrowband stripline micromaser locked to an atomic hyperfine transition.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figure

Trends in Undergraduate General Education in the U.S., the Texas Core Curriculum, and Communication Course Requirements

In October 2011, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board revised Texas Core Curriculum (TCC) rules impacting all public higher education institutions in Texas. The new rules were implemented in the fall semester of 2014. In this study, we review the history of undergraduate general education requirements in the United States and recent changes to the TCC. Then to determine how recent changes reflect historical trends in general education and affect the course offerings of departments of English and communication, we use descriptive statistics to examine courses included under the TCC Communication Foundational Component Area of 37 state universities and 53 community colleges. Findings indicate the number of re-quired English and speech communication courses decreased both at community colleges (-11.5%) and universities (-15.9%), signaling a shift toward providing students greater choice in course selection which could impact academic programs in the years to come.Educatio

Fusion of Head and Full-Body Detectors for Multi-Object Tracking

In order to track all persons in a scene, the tracking-by-detection paradigm has proven to be a very effective approach. Yet, relying solely on a single detector is also a major limitation, as useful image information might be ignored. Consequently, this work demonstrates how to fuse two detectors into a tracking system. To obtain the trajectories, we propose to formulate tracking as a weighted graph labeling problem, resulting in a binary quadratic program. As such problems are NP-hard, the solution can only be approximated. Based on the Frank-Wolfe algorithm, we present a new solver that is crucial to handle such difficult problems. Evaluation on pedestrian tracking is provided for multiple scenarios, showing superior results over single detector tracking and standard QP-solvers. Finally, our tracker ranks 2nd on the MOT16 benchmark and 1st on the new MOT17 benchmark, outperforming over 90 trackers.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures; Winner of the MOT17 challenge; CVPRW 201

A handy vacuum collector for catching spiders and insects

Ein motorangetriebenes Vakuumsauggerät kann eingesetzt werden, um die Anzahl Arthropoden pro Einheitsvolumen in der Vegetation zu ermitteln (MÜHLENBERG 1993) oder um einzelne Arthropoden schnell einzufangen. Für meine Untersuchungen an Spinnen, Weberknechten und deren potentieller Beute benutze ich für diesen Zweck ein kleines elektrisches Vakuumgerät, mit dem ich Arthropoden unbeschädigt einfangen kann, ohne dabei allzu viel unerwünschtes Streumaterial mit aufzunehmen. Ich beschreibe im Folgenden die Anpassung des von mir verwendeten Modells an meine Arbeitsanforderungen

Polymorphism of the glass former ethanol confined in mesoporous silicon

X-ray diffraction patterns of ethanol confined in parallel-aligned channels of approx. 10 nm diameter and 50 micrometer length in mesoporous silicon have been recorded as a function of filling fraction, temperature and for varying cooling and heating rates. A sorption isotherm, recorded in the liquid state, indicates a three monolayer thick, strongly adsorbed wall layer and a capillary condensed fraction of molecules in the pore center. Though the strongly adsorbed film remains in an amorphous state for the entire temperature range investigated, the capillary condensed molecules reproduce the polymorphism of bulk solid ethanol, that is the formation of either crystalline or glass-like states as a function of cooling rate. The critical rate necessary to achieve a vitrification in the mesopores is, however, at least two orders of magnitude smaller than in the bulk state. This finding can be traced both to pure geometrical constraints and quenched disorder effects, characteristic of confinement in mesoporous silicon.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Demographic Change and Regional Labour Markets: The Case of Eastern Germany

Demographic change will be one of the most challenging issues for industrialized economies in the decades to come. In this paper, we focus on the impact of demographic change on labour markets. By setting up a stylized model of a regional labour market, we are able to analyze the interaction of labour demand and supply during demographic transitions. The simulation results for eastern Germany, a forerunner in the demographic process, show that the population decline will not help to reduce the currently high unemployment among the low-skilled dramatically. Among the high-skilled, scarcities will play a major role and could impede the development of industrial centers.demographic change, labour market, unemployment, long-run projection, general equilibrium

Crystallization of medium length 1-alcohols in mesoporous silicon: An X-ray diffraction study

The linear 1-alcohols n-C16H33OH, n-C17H35OH, n-C19H37OH have been imbibed and solidified in lined up, tubular mesopores of silicon with 10 nm and 15 nm mean diameters, respectively. X-ray diffraction measurements reveal a set of six discrete orientation states (''domains'') characterized by a perpendicular alignment of the molecules with respect to the long axis of the pores and by a four-fold symmetry about this direction, which coincides with the crystalline symmetry of the Si host. A Bragg peak series characteristic of the formation of bilayers indicates a lamellar structure of the spatially confined alcohol crystals in 15 nm pores. By contrast, no layering reflections could be detected for 10 nm pores. The growth mechanism responsible for the peculiar orientation states is attributed to a nano-scale version of the Bridgman technique of single-crystal growth, where the dominant growth direction is aligned parallelly to the long pore axes. Our observations are analogous to the growth phenomenology encountered for medium length n-alkanes confined in mesoporous silicon (Phys. Rev. E 75, 021607 (2007)) and may further elucidate why porous silicon matrices act as an effective nucleation-inducing material for protein solution crystallization.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear as a Brief Report in Physical Review