Comparative Venture Capital Governance. Private versus Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Funds

Private independent limited partnership venture capital funds receive capital from institutional investors, without tax incentives. Limited partnership investment activities are governed by restrictive covenants that are determined by negotiated contract between the fund managers (general partners) and the institutional investors (limited partners). By contrast, Canadian Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Corporations (LSVCCs) receive capital only from individual investors who receive tax breaks on capital contributions of up to CAN$5,000. LSVCC investment activities are governed by statutory restrictions. This chapter contrasts the governance of LSVCCs to limited partnerships. We also summarize Canadian evidence on the impact of LSVCC governance and tax incentives: (1) on the distribution of venture capital funding between private and LSVCC funds; (2) on the unusually large overhang of uninvested capital in the Canadian venture capital industry; (3) the portfolio size (i.e. number of investee firms per fund) of private funds versus LSVCCs; and (4) the performance of LSVCCs relative to other types of venture capital organiziations and other comparable investments for individual investors.venture capital, Canada, tax, government, crowding out, portfolio size, governance

Comparative Venture Capital Governance. Private versus Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Funds

Private independent limited partnership venture capital funds receive capital from institutional investors, without tax incentives. Limited partnership investment activities are governed by restrictive covenants that are determined by negotiated contract between the fund managers (general partners) and the institutional investors (limited partners). By contrast, Canadian Labour Sponsored Venture Capital Corporations (LSVCCs) receive capital only from individual investors who receive tax breaks on capital contributions of up to CAN$5,000. LSVCC investment activities are governed by statutory restrictions. This chapter contrasts the governance of LSVCCs to limited partnerships. We also summarize Canadian evidence on the impact of LSVCC governance and tax incentives: (1) on the distribution of venture capital funding between private and LSVCC funds; (2) on the unusually large overhang of uninvested capital in the Canadian venture capital industry; (3) the portfolio size (i.e. number of investee firms per fund) of private funds versus LSVCCs; and (4) the performance of LSVCCs relative to other types of venture capital organiziations and other comparable investments for individual investors

Toward a Distinctive Canadian Corporate Law Regime

In this article, the authors consider the impact of the institutional and market environment in which Canadian business operates on the structure of corporate and securities law. The authors argue that the linkages between markets and law have been neglected by scholars, judges, and regulators concerned with Canadian corporate and securities law, resulting in the adaption of approaches that are ill-suited to the Canadian environment. Canadian capital markets, for instance, are characterized by high levels of share ownership concentration, thin trading problems, intensive inter-corporate linkages, and possibly lower levels of efficiency. In sum, these factors make the problems occasioned by separated ownership and control (the Berle and Means corporation) much less acute in Canada than the problems of majority shareholder opportunism. These factors also suggest that regulatory initiatives should be structured in a way that distinguishes between the problems of large, intensively traded companies and smaller, thinly traded companies populated by retail investors. The authors consider these issues in the context of three case studies: the private agreement exception, poison pills, and a self-interested transaction

Opioids depress cortical centers responsible for the volitional control of respiration

Respiratory depression limits provision of safe opioid analgesia and is the main cause of death in drug addicts. Although opioids are known to inhibit brainstem respiratory activity, their effects on cortical areas that mediate respiration are less well understood. Here, functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine how brainstem and cortical activity related to a short breath hold is modulated by the opioid remifentanil. We hypothesized that remifentanil would differentially depress brain areas that mediate sensory-affective components of respiration over those that mediate volitional motor control. Quantitative measures of cerebral blood flow were used to control for hypercapnia-induced changes in blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal. Awareness of respiration, reflected by an urge-to-breathe score, was profoundly reduced with remifentanil. Urge to breathe was associated with activity in the bilateral insula, frontal operculum, and secondary somatosensory cortex. Localized remifentanil-induced decreases in breath hold-related activity were observed in the left anterior insula and operculum. We also observed remifentanil-induced decreases in the BOLD response to breath holding in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, the cerebellum, and periaqueductal gray, brain areas that mediate task performance. Activity in areas mediating motor control (putamen, motor cortex) and sensory-motor integration (supramarginal gyrus) were unaffected by remifentanil. Breath hold-related activity was observed in the medulla. These findings highlight the importance of higher cortical centers in providing contextual awareness of respiration that leads to appropriate modulation of respiratory control. Opioids have profound effects on the cortical centers that control breathing, which potentiates their actions in the brainstem

The Degree Of Alignment Between Circumbinary Disks And Their Binary Hosts

All four circumbinary (CB) protoplanetary disks orbiting short-period (P \u3c 20 days) double-lined spectroscopic binaries (SB2s)—a group that includes UZ Tau E, for which we present new Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array data—exhibit sky-plane inclinations i disk that match, to within a few degrees, the sky-plane inclinations i★ of their stellar hosts. Although for these systems the true mutual inclinations θ between disk and binary cannot be directly measured because relative nodal angles are unknown, the near coincidence of i disk and i★ suggests that θ is small for these most compact of systems. We confirm this hypothesis using a hierarchical Bayesian analysis, showing that 68% of CB disks around short-period SB2s have θ \u3c 30. Near coplanarity of CB disks implies near coplanarity of CB planets discovered by Kepler, which in turn implies that the occurrence rate of close-in CB planets is similar to that around single stars. By contrast, at longer periods ranging from 30 to 105 days (where the nodal degeneracy can be broken via, e.g., binary astrometry), CB disks exhibit a wide range of mutual inclinations, from coplanar to polar. Many of these long-period binaries are eccentric, as their component stars are too far separated to be tidally circularized. We discuss how theories of binary formation and disk–binary gravitational interactions can accommodate all these observations

Stellar Companions to Stars with Planets

A combination of high-resolution and wide-field imaging reveals two binary stars and one triple star system among the sample of the first 11 stars with planets detected by radial velocity variations. High resolution speckle or adaptive optics (AO) data probe subarcsecond scales down to the diffraction limit of the Keck 10-m or Lick 3-m, and direct images or AO images are sensitive to a wider field, extending to 10" or 38", depending upon the camera. One of the binary systems -- HD 114762 -- was not previously known to be a spatially resolved multiple system; additional data taken with the combination of Keck adaptive optics and NIRSPEC are used to characterize the new companion. The second binary system -- Tau Boo -- was a known multiple with two conflicting orbital solutions; the current data will help constrain the discrepant estimates of periastron time and separation. Another target -- 16 Cyg B -- was a known common proper motion binary, but the current data resolve a new third component, close to the wide companion 16 Cyg A. Both the HD 114762 and 16 Cyg B systems harbor planets in eccentric orbits, while the Tau Boo binary contains an extremely close planet in a tidally-circularized orbit. Although the sample is currently small, the proportion of binary systems is comparable to that measured in the field over a similar separation range. Incorporating the null result from another companion search project lowers the overall fraction of planets in binary systems, but the detections in our survey reveal that planets can form in binaries separated by less than 50 AU.Comment: 5 Tables, 16 Figures. ApJ, accepte

Rotational Velocities of Very Low Mass Binaries

We present rotational velocities for individual components of eleven very low mass (VLM) binaries with spectral types between M7.5 and L4. These results are based on observations taken with the near-infrared spectrograph, NIRSPEC, and the Keck II laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO) system. The binaries were targeted as part of a dynamical mass program, and their orbital inclinations are used to translate vsini into a rotational velocity for each component. We find that the observed sources tend to be rapid rotators (vsini > 10 km s^(-1)), consistent with previous measurements for ultracool objects. Five systems have component vsini's that are statistically different, with three binaries having velocity differences greater than 25 km s^(-1). To bring these discrepant rotational velocities into agreement would require their rotational axes to be inclined between 10 to 40° with respect to each other, and that at least one component has a significant inclination with respect to the orbital plane. Alternatively, each component could be rotating at a different rate, even though they have similar spectral types. Both differing rotational velocities and inclinations have interesting implications for binary star formation. Two of the binaries with large differences in rotational velocity are also known radio sources, LP 349-25AB and 2MASS 0746+20AB. LP 349-25B is rotating at ∼95 km s^(-1), within a factor of ∼3 of the break up speed, and is one of the most rapidly rotating VLM objects known

HST NICMOS Imaging of the Planetary-mass Companion to the Young Brown Dwarf 2MASS J1207334-393254

Multi-band (0.9 to 1.6 um) images of the TW Hydrae Association (TWA) brown dwarf, 2MASS J1207334-393254 (also known as 2M1207), and its candidate planetary mass companion (2M1207b) were obtained on 2004 Aug 28 and 2005 Apr 26 with HST/NICMOS. The images from these two epochs unequivocally confirm the two objects as a common proper motion pair (16.0 sigma confidence). A new measurement of the proper motion of 2M1207 implies a distance to the system of 59+-7 pc and a projected separation of 46+-5 AU. The NICMOS and previously published VLT photometry of 2M1207b, extending overall from 0.9 to 3.8 um, are fully consistent with an object of a few Jupiter masses at the canonical age of a TWA member (~8 Myr) based on evolutionary models of young giant planets. These observations provide information on the physical nature of 2M1207b and unambiguously establish that the first direct image of a planetary mass companion in orbit around a self-luminous body, other than our Sun, has been secured.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables. Accepted in Ap

Characterizing the Adaptive Optics Off-Axis Point-Spread Function. II. Methods for Use in Laser Guide Star Observations

Most current astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems rely on the availability of a bright star to measure the distortion of the incoming wavefront. Replacing the guide star with an artificial laser beacon alleviates this dependency on bright stars and therefore increases sky coverage, but it does not eliminate another serious problem for AO observations. This is the issue of PSF variation with time and field position near the guide star. In fact, because a natural guide star is still necessary for correction of the low-order phase error, characterization of laser guide star (LGS) AO PSF spatial variation is more complicated than for a natural guide star alone. We discuss six methods for characterizing LGS AO PSF variation that can potentially improve the determination of the PSF away from the laser spot, that is, off-axis. Calibration images of dense star fields are used to determine the change in PSF variation with field position. This is augmented by AO system telemetry and simple computer simulations to determine a more accurate off-axis PSF. We report on tests of the methods using the laser AO system on the Lick Observatory Shane Telescope. [Abstract truncated.]Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, accepted by PAS