Country-Specific Goal-Scoring in the “Dying Seconds” of International Football Matches

This paper investigates whether there are country-specific characteristics in goalscoring in the final stage of important international football matches. We examine goal-scoring from 1960 onwards in full `A' international matches of six national teams: Belgium, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. We analyze qualifying matches for the European Championship and World Cup and the matches at the final tournaments of these two events, the Copa America and the Confederations Cup. We find that the national teams of Germany, England and the Netherlands are more likely than the three other national teams to score in the last minute { including stoppage time. However, for Germans this comes at a cost. Germany is more likely to concede a goal in the dying seconds of a match than other countries. During our period of analysis, the national teams of Brazil and Italy only conceded one goal in the last minute. As to winning penalty shootouts, Germany outperforms the other five countries.football;goal-scoring;national team matches;full `A' international matches

A parallel nearly implicit time-stepping scheme

Across-the-space parallelism still remains the most mature, convenient and natural way to parallelize large scale problems. One of the major problems here is that implicit time stepping is often difficult to parallelize due to the structure of the system. Approximate implicit schemes have been suggested to circumvent the problem. These schemes have attractive stability properties and they are also very well parallelizable.\ud The purpose of this article is to give an overall assessment of the parallelism of the method

Do Global Risk Factors Matter for International Cost of Capital Computations?

International financial markets are becoming integrated. Hence, globalrisk factor are increasingly important for portfolio selection andasset pricing. The recent empirical finance literature has confirmedthat both the global market portfolio and exchange rate risk factorsconstitute important determinants of asset returns. We show, however,that global risk factors do not importantly affect estimates of thecost of equity capital for a remarkably wide variety of companies. Weanalyze almost 3,300 stocks from nine industrialized countries overthe period 1980-1999. Incorporating global factors into cost ofcapital estimations leads to an adjustment of roughly 50 basis pointsper annum on average for the U.S. and 70 to 100 basis points for theother countries. Adjustments of this magnitude easily fall inside themargin of error associated with actual cost of capital computations.Specifically for U.S. companies, the amendment of the cost of capitalestimate is generally very small. This suggests that global riskfactors do not really matter for computing the cost of capital of U.S.firms.capital budgeting;cost of equity capital;exchange rate risk;valuation

Calculated and measured Auger lineshapes in clean Si(100)2×1, SiOx and Si-NO

The measurements were performed on the clean 2*1 reconstructed Si(100) surface and this surface exposed to molecular oxygen (O2) or nitric oxide (NO) at room temperature. The data were corrected for electron loss and spectrometer distortions using the authors' newly developed deconvolution method. This method which uses global approximation and spline functions can overcome several difficulties with respect to deconvolution and allows them to derive high-quality auger lineshapes from the SiL2.3 VV Auger electron spectra. The authors experimentally obtained Auger lineshapes were compared with theoretical lineshapes utilising quantum chemical cluster calculations. They used this type of calculation for the interpretation of the Auger lineshape in the actual p-like and s-like partial local density of states for different types of silicon atom. The observed intensities of the major features are in reasonable agreement with the authors' calculations

Transition density of states (TDOS) of the Si(100)2 × 1 surface derived from the L2,3VV Auger lineshape compared with cluster calculations

The termination of a silicon crystal along the (100) orientation resulting in a 2 × 1 reconstructed surface induces relatively large variations in the local density of states (LDOS) of the different types of surface atoms, such as the up and down dimer atom and the backbond atom. Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) is able to probe the LDOS of the silicon atom in which the L2,3 core hole has been created and is therefore a candidate to analyze the LDOS of the surface atoms. A detailed analysis of the SiL2,3VV Auger electron spectrum allows us to determine a high quality transition density of state (TDOS) of the Si(100)2 × 1 reconstructed surface. The resolved peaks in the TDOS were compared with previous AES, UPS and EELS measurements reported by other investigators. Quantum chemical cluster calculations were used for the interpretation of the TDOS in the actual p-like and s-like partial local density of states for different types of silicon atoms. These quantum chemical cluster calculations of the partial LDOS localized at atoms of the Si(100)2 × 1 surface were found to be in agreement with other types of calculations. Comparing the experimental and the calculated DOS we were able to distinguish several new peaks in the TDOS obtained with AES and to discriminate features in the experimentally obtained TDOS into local electron distributions localized at different surface atoms

Impact of single and repeated applications of the insecticide chlorpyrifos on tropical freshwater plankton communities

This paper describes the effects of a single and a repeated application of the organophosphorus insecticide chlorpyrifos on zooplankton and phytoplankton communities in outdoor microcosms in Thailand. Treatment levels of 1 mu g L-1 were applied once or twice with a 2-week interval. Both treatments led to a significant decrease in cladocerans followed by an increase in rotifers, although the extent by which species were affected was different. Ceriodaphnia cornuta was the most responding cladoceran after the first treatment, while Moina micrura responded most to the second. This is explained by differences in the growth phase of M. micrura at the time of application and an increase in Microcystis abundance over the course of the experiment. Several phytoplankton taxa either increased or decreased as a result of the chlorpyrifos-induced changes in zooplankton communities. Even though chlorpyrifos disappeared fast from the water column, effects on plankton communities persisted till the end of the experiment (42 days) when the insecticide concentrations had dropped below the detection limit. This was presumably due to the increasing population trend of Microcystis, favouring rotifers over cladocerans

The influence of the (2 × 1) reconstruction of the Si(1 0 0) surface on the Si---L2,3 VV Auger lineshape

The extreme surface sensitiveness of the Si---L2,3 VV Auger process and its ability to probe the atomic electron distribution in the direct neighbourhood of the L2,3-core-hold makes this electron spectroscopic technique a candidate for investigations of the local changes in the electron distribution due to surface reconstruction. In this paper we show, explicitly, the influence of the (2 × 1) reconstruction of the Si(1 0 0) surface on the Si---L2,3 VV Auger lineshape. Furthermore, the calculated Auger lineshape will be compared with an experimentally obtained line profile

Commercial integration and fiscal policy in interdependent, financially integrated two-sector economies with real and nominal wage rigidity

Macroeconomic Models;Economic Integration;international economics

Simulation of density segregation in vibrated beds

We have investigated by numerical simulation the density segregation of fine equal-sized bronze and glass particles subject to vertical vibrations. The model was found to be capable of predicting the two main segregation forms (“bronze on top” and “sandwich”) in roughly the same regions of the phase diagram as was found experimentally by Burtally et al. We investigated the effects of pressure air forcing, friction and restitution of kinetic energy in collisions, and box size on the segregation behavior. We find that next to the interstitial air friction also has a large influence on the formation of the sandwich structure