Underlying causes of commercial bank failures in the 1980s

An examination of the contributions of economic and managerial factors to commercial bank failures in the 1980s.Bank failures

Simulating Your Estate Transfer Alternatives (Input Form)

Exact date of working paper unknown

Dust devils on Earth and Mars: Extension of particle threshold laboratory simulations

Abstract not available

Do Differences in Pleadings Standards Cause Forum Shopping in Securities Class Actions?: Doctrinal and Empirical Analyses

Federal appellate courts have promulgated divergent legal standards for pleading fraud in securities fraud class actions after the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA). Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision in Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd. that could have resolved these differences, but did not do so. This Paper provides two significant contributions. We first show that Tellabs avoids deciding the hard issues that confront courts and litigants daily in the wake of the PSLRA\u27s heightened pleading standard. As a consequence, the opinion keeps very much alive the circuits\u27 disparate interpretations of the PSLRA\u27s fraud pleading standard. To be sure, Tellabs might ultimately be applied by lower courts to narrow the range of permissible approaches to satisfying the strong inference standard, but leaves a good deal of room within which wide variations in approach will continue. Our second contribution is empirical in that we seek to answer the question: do plaintiffs\u27 attorneys take advantage of the differences among the circuits\u27 interpretation of the pleading standard to select more favorable venues to file their cases, as some scholars have claimed? We find that 85 percent of the securities fraud class actions in our sample are filed in the home circuit of the defendant corporation. While we find that the differences in the circuits\u27 pleading standards do not have a statistically significant impact on the plaintiffs\u27 choice of venue, we find that plaintiffs are more likely to file low-value cases in jurisdictions other than the one in which the defendant\u27s headquarters is located

FLOWERING LOCUS C -dependent and -independent regulation of the circadian clock by the autonomous and vernalization pathways

Background The circadian system drives pervasive biological rhythms in plants. Circadian clocks integrate endogenous timing information with environmental signals, in order to match rhythmic outputs to the local day/night cycle. Multiple signaling pathways affect the circadian system, in ways that are likely to be adaptively significant. Our previous studies of natural genetic variation in Arabidopsis thaliana accessions implicated FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) as a circadian-clock regulator. The MADS-box transcription factor FLC is best known as a regulator of flowering time. Its activity is regulated by many regulatory genes in the "autonomous" and vernalization-dependent flowering pathways. We tested whether these same pathways affect the circadian system. Results Genes in the autonomous flowering pathway, including FLC, were found to regulate circadian period in Arabidopsis. The mechanisms involved are similar, but not identical, to the control of flowering time. By mutant analyses, we demonstrate a graded effect of FLC expression upon circadian period. Related MADS-box genes had less effect on clock function. We also reveal an unexpected vernalization-dependent alteration of periodicity. Conclusion This study has aided in the understanding of FLC's role in the clock, as it reveals that the network affecting circadian timing is partially overlapping with the floral-regulatory network. We also show a link between vernalization and circadian period. This finding may be of ecological relevance for developmental programing in other plant species

The effect of cultural and environmental factors on potato seed tuber morphology and subsequent sprout and stem development

Seed crops of the variety Estima were grown in each of 2 years using two planting dates, two harvest dates, two plant densities and two irrigation regimes to produce seed tubers which had experienced different cultural and environmental conditions. The effects of these treatments on tuber characteristics, sprout production and stem development in the ware crop were then determined in subsequent experiments using storage regimes of 3 and 10 °C. Time of planting the seed crop affected numbers of eyes, sprouts and above ground stems in the subsequent ware crop because environmental conditions around the time of tuber initiation appeared to alter tuber shape. Cooler, wetter conditions in the 7 days after tuber initiation were associated with tubers which were longer, heavier and had more eyes, sprouts and above ground stems. In contrast, the time of harvesting the seed crop did not affect tuber shape or numbers of above ground stems and there was no interaction with tuber size. The density of the seed crop had no effect on any character measured and irrigation well after tuber initiation did not affect tuber shape, numbers of sprouts or numbers of stems. Seed production treatments, which resulted in earlier dormancy break, were associated with tubers that produced more sprouts and above ground stems, in contrast to the conventional understanding of apical dominance. Storage at 3 °C gave fewer sprouts, a lower proportion of eyes with sprouts and fewer stems than storage at 10 °C. The major effects on stem production appear to result from environmental conditions at the time of tuber initiation of the seed crop and sprouting temperature