The Origins of the German Corporation – Finance, Ownership and Control

The ownership of German corporations is quite different today from that of Anglo-American firms. How did this come about? To what extent is it attributable to regulation? A specially constructed data set on financing and ownership of German corporations from the end of the 19th century reveals that, as in the UK, there was a high degree of activity on German stock markets with firms issuing equity in preference to borrowing from banks, and insider and family ownership declining rapidly. However, unlike in the UK, other companies and banks emerged as the main holders of equity, with banks holding shares primarily as custodians of other investors rather than on their own account. The changing pattern of ownership concentration was therefore very different from that of the UK with regulation reinforcing the control that banks exercised on behalf of other investors

The Origins of the German Corporation – Finance, Ownership and Control

The ownership of German corporations is quite different today from that of Anglo-American firms. How did this come about? To what extent is it attributable to regulation? A specially constructed data set on financing and ownership of German corporations from the end of the 19th century reveals that, as in the UK, there was a high degree of activity on German stock markets with firms issuing equity in preference to borrowing from banks, and insider and family ownership declining rapidly. However, unlike in the UK, other companies and banks emerged as the main holders of equity, with banks holding shares primarily as custodians of other investors rather than on their own account. The changing pattern of ownership concentration was therefore very different from that of the UK with regulation reinforcing the control that banks exercised on behalf of other investors.Evolution of ownership; German stock markets; financial regulation

Thermodynamic fluid equations-of-state

As experimental measurements of thermodynamic properties have improved in accuracy, to five or six figures, over the decades, cubic equations that are widely used for modern thermodynamic fluid property data banks require ever-increasing numbers of terms with more fitted parameters. Functional forms with continuity for Gibbs density surface (p,T) which accommodate a critical-point singularity are fundamentally inappropriate in the vicinity of the critical temperature (T-c) and pressure (p(c)) and in the supercritical density mid-range between gas- and liquid-like states. A mesophase, confined within percolation transition loci that bound the gas- and liquid-state by third-order discontinuities in derivatives of the Gibbs energy, has been identified. There is no critical-point singularity at T-c on Gibbs density surface and no continuity of gas and liquid. When appropriate functional forms are used for each state separately, we find that the mesophase pressure functions are linear. The negative and positive deviations, for both gas and liquid states, on either side of the mesophase, are accurately represented by three or four-term virial expansions. All gaseous states require only known virial coefficients, and physical constants belonging to the fluid, i.e., Boyle temperature (T-B), critical temperature (T-c), critical pressure (p(c)) and coexisting densities of gas ((cG)) and liquid ((cL)) along the critical isotherm. A notable finding for simple fluids is that for all gaseous states below T-B, the contribution of the fourth virial term is negligible within experimental uncertainty. Use may be made of a symmetry between gas and liquid states in the state function rigidity (dp/d)(T) to specify lower-order liquid-state coefficients. Preliminary results for selected isotherms and isochores are presented for the exemplary fluids, CO2, argon, water and SF6, with focus on the supercritical mesophase and critical region.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Epitaxial growth of deposited amorphous layer by laser annealing

We demonstrate that a single short pulse of laser irradiation of appropriate energy is capable of recrystallizing in open air an amorphous Si layer deposited on a (100) single-crystal substrate into an epitaxial layer. The laser pulse annealing technique is shown to overcome the interfacial oxide obstacle which usually leads to polycrystalline formation in normal thermal annealing

Kopplung zwischen strukturmechanischer und thermodynamischer FEM-Simulation zur thermischen Auslegung von Bremsscheiben

EINLEITUNG UND ZIELSTELLUNG: Die genaue Kenntnis über die thermische Beanspruchung einer Bremsscheibe ist für ihre funktionsgerechte Dimensionierung neben der mechanischen Belastung unabdingbar. Überdimensionierte Bremsscheiben führen zu einer größeren Fahrzeugmasse und somit erhöhten Energieverbrauch eines Straßenfahrzeugs. Etablierte Auslegungsstrategien berücksichtigen den Einfluss des Bremssattels nicht. Im Folgenden soll daher eine Möglichkeit aufgezeigt werden, die ungleichmäßige Pressung des Bremssattels in der thermischen Auslegung der Bremsscheibe zu berücksichtigen und eine genauere Temperaturverteilung in dieser zu ermitteln. Die angestrebten Erkenntnisse erlangen zunehmend Bedeutung durch die verschärfte Regulierung (Euro 7) zur Reduzierung von Bremsabrieb und den hierzu eingesetzten Werkstoffvariationen der Reibpartner. || METHODIK: Im Ersten Schritt wird eine strukturmechanische Simulation des Bremssattels durchgeführt, um die Pressungsverteilung zwischen Bremsbelag und –scheibe zu ermitteln. Diese Pressungsverteilung wird mittels nummerischer Integration und weiterer Berechnungen in eine Reibleistungsfunktion überführt. Anschließend kann mit der Reibleistungsfunktion der Wärmeeintrag in die Reibflächen der Bremsscheibe beschrieben werden und somit die thermodynamische Simulation zur Auslegung der Bremsscheibe durchgeführt werden. || ERGEBNISSE: Um die Genauigkeit der Simulation zu bewerten, wurden parallel zur Entwicklung der Methodik Versuche auf einem Schwungmassenprüfstand durchgeführt. Die von der Simulation vorhergesagte Bremsscheibentemperatur zeigt eine gute Übereinstimmung mit den durchgeführten Versuchen. || EINSCHRÄNKUNGEN: Als besonders kritisch erwies sich das Finden der Wärmeübergangskoeffizienten für die Abkühlung der Bremsscheibe während der thermodynamischen Simulation. Hier können CFD-Simulationen zukünftig für eine noch bessere Modellbildung sorgen. || ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Die vorgestellten Ergebnisse der Simulationsmethodik zur thermischen Auslegung einer Bremsscheibe zeigen gute Übereinstimmungen mit den durchgeführten Versuchen. Durch die Kopplung von strukturmechanischer und thermodynamischer Simulation über die Reibleistungsfunktion, werden vergleichsweise wenige Berechnungsressourcen für die Simulation benötigt. Weitere Validierung des Modells wird derzeit durchgeführt

Interaction-induced effects in the nonlinear coherent response of quantum-well excitons

Interaction-induced processes are studied using the third-order nonlinear polarization created in polarization-dependent four-wave-mixing experiments (FWM) on a ZnSe single quantum well. We discuss their influence by a comparison of the experimental FWM with calculations based on extended optical Bloch equations including local-field effects, excitation-induced dephasing, and biexciton formation. The investigations show that, for copolarized input fields, excitation-induced dephasing is the dominant FWM mechanism, followed by the conventional density-grating FWM process, biexcitonic contributions, and local-field effects. For cross-linear polarized input fields the excitation-induced dephasing mechanism is canceled so that the conventional density-grating FWM process and biexcitonic contributions are dominating

Dependence of aptamer activity on opposed terminal extensions: improvement of light-regulation efficiency

Aptamers that can be regulated with light allow precise control of protein activity in space and time and hence of biological function in general. In a previous study, we showed that the activity of the thrombin-binding aptamer HD1 can be turned off by irradiation using a light activatable ‘caged’ intramolecular antisense-domain. However, the activity of the presented aptamer in its ON state was only mediocre. Here we studied the nature of this loss in activity in detail and found that switching from 5′- to 3′-extensions affords aptamers that are even more potent than the unmodified HD1. In particular we arrived at derivatives that are now more active than the aptamer NU172 that is currently in phase 2 clinical trials as an anticoagulant. As a result, we present light-regulatable aptamers with a superior activity in their ON state and an almost digital ON/OFF behavior upon irradiation