Service of process in the United States under Insolvency Rule 12.12

Explains the procedure to be followed by a UK based liquidator wishing to serve insolvency proceedings on parties based in the US under the Insolvency Rules 1986 r.12.12. Discusses the rule's requirements for obtaining leave of the court for service outside the jurisdiction, the court's discretion to order the manner of service, including the approach of the Chancery Division in Re Busytoday Ltd, and the obligations imposed by the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters 1965. Evaluates the methods of service authorised by the Convention and details the main elements involved in service by the Central Authority route or by a local process server

Latitudinal dependence of low cloud amount on cosmic ray induced ionization

A significant correlation between the annual cosmic ray flux and the amount of low clouds has recently been found for the past 20 years. However, of the physical explanations suggested, none has been quantitatively verified in the atmosphere by a combination of modelling and experiment. Here we study the relation between the global distributions of the observed low cloud amount and the calculated tropospheric ionization induced by cosmic rays. We find that the time evolution of the low cloud amount can be decomposed into a long-term trend and inter-annual variations, the latter depicting a clear 11-year cycle. We also find that the relative inter-annual variability in low cloud amount increases polewards and exhibits a highly significant one-to-one relation with inter-annual variations in the ionization over the latitude range 20--55$^\circ$S and 10--70$^\circ$N. This latitudinal dependence gives strong support for the hypothesis that the cosmic ray induced ionization modulates cloud properties.Comment: GRL, in pres

Invasive Species Management: Foot-and-Mouth Disease in the U.S. Beef Industry

A conceptual bio-economic framework that integrates dynamic epidemiologicaleconomic processes was designed to analyze the effects of invasive species introduction on decision-making in a livestock sector (e.g., production and feeding). The framework integrates an epidemiological model, a dynamic livestock production model, domestic consumption, and international trade. The integrated approach captures producer and consumer responses to, and welfare outcomes of, livestock disease outbreaks, as well as alternative invasive species management policies. Scenarios of foot-and-mouth disease are simulated to demonstrate the usefulness of the framework in facilitating invasive species policy design.bio-economics, livestock, invasive species, foot-and-mouth disease, beef cattle production, Livestock Production/Industries,

Bank Behavior with Access to Credit Risk Transfer Markets

One of the most important recent innovations in financial markets has been the development of credit derivative products that allow banks to more actively manage their credit portfolios than ever before.We analyze the effect that access to these markets has had on the lending behavior of a sample of banks, using a sample of banks that have not accessed these markets as a control group. We find that banks that adopt advanced credit risk management techniques (proxied by the issuance of at least one collateralized loan obligation) experience a permanent increase in their target loan levels of around 50%. Partial adjustment to this target, however, means that the impact on actual loan levels is spread over several years.Our findings confirm the general efficiency enhancing implications of new risk management techniques in a world with frictions suggested in the theoretical literature.credit risk transfer;risk management;bank lending

Solid propellant motor

A case bonded end burning solid propellant rocket motor is described. A propellant with sufficiently low modulus to avoid chamber buckling on cooling from cure and sufficiently high elongation to sustain the stresses induced without cracking is used. The propellant is zone cured within the motor case at high pressures equal to or approaching the pressure at which the motor will operate during combustion. A solid propellant motor with a burning time long enough that its spacecraft would be limited to a maximum acceleration of less than 1 g is provided by one version of the case bonded end burning solid propellant motor of the invention

ENDOGENOUS PROTECTION IN THE MEXICAN CORN AND SORGHUM MARKET

Trade relations between the United States (U.S) and Mexico are increasingly interrelated and important ever since the ratification of NAFTA in 1994. With the advent of NAFTA, tariffs on many agricultural products were lowered or are in the process of being lowered. Mexico implements a tariff-rate quota for corn which is to be phased out by 2009. This quota is divided among the various Mexican corn importers with "cupos", which are import permits. Import permits are administrative trade barriers that can be defined as any obstacle that appears and disappears as market conditions change. It is widely recognized in the literature that administrative trade barriers create numerous obstacles to the international exchange of agricultural products. In this paper a conceptual structural model of international marketing margins and trade uncertainty is specified that links the private market to political factors influencing administrative trade barriers. In doing so, this systematically links trade models specified by Gallagher (1998) and others, which characterize private markets under uncertainty but ignore direct influences from political markets, to work by Trefler (1993) and others, which focus on endogenous trade protection. The general objective of this study is to increase the understanding of the impact of institutional aspects on agricultural trade. The specific objectives are to quantify the impact of import permits for white and yellow corn on international marketing margins between the U.S. and Mexico for white corn, yellow corn, and sorghum, as well as approximate the impact of changing political market variables on total welfare. Conceptually understanding the underlying processes and estimating empirical relationships for these objectives leads to important insights into the effect of the Mexican government's policy of allocating corn import permits have on the price and quantity of corn and sorghum. A complete structural model of white corn, yellow corn, and sorghum is specified, wherein import demand equations are generalized to incorporate simultaneous variables of trade protection (Trefler 1993) and then estimated with a simultaneous tobit estimator. The results provide interesting insights into the way that import permits work in Mexico. Interestingly, generalizing the import demand equations to account for trade protection dramatically alters international marketing margins for white corn and sorghum in a manner consistent with findings in Trefler. However, yellow corn appears unaffected. Further, political and industry interests driving trade protection in Mexico are found to influence import demand. For example, political pressure from corn and sorghum producers has a negative affect on the import demand for corn and sorghum. These results are consistent with other conjectures and findings in public choice analysis, which indicate that increases in import penetration will increase lobbying efforts from domestic firms to decrease imports. These results indicate that as grain producers lobby for a decrease in import permit allocations the import demand for these grains decreases, meaning that they have succeeded in their efforts to reduce import competition. In all, these insights provide the means to better understand how subtle trade barriers affect the trade flow between countries.Crop Production/Industries,