Winners and Losers from Enacting the Financial Modernization Statute

Previous studies of the announcement effects of relaxing administrative and legislative restraints show that signal events leading up to the enactment of the Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA) increased the prices of several classes of financial-institution stocks. An unsettled question is whether the gains observed for these stocks arise mainly from projected increases in efficiency or from reductions in customer or competitor bargaining power. This paper documents that the value increase came at the expense of customers and competitors. The stock prices of credit-constrained customers declined during FSMA event windows and experienced significant increases in beta in the wake of its enactment. These findings reinforce evidence in the literature on bank mergers that large-bank consolidation is adversely affecting access to credit for capital-constrained firms.

MANET Hidden and Exposed Terminal - Challenges and Survey

Mobile Adhoc Network (MANET)is a self organized wireless Network which was created to communicate among  the nodes without support of the any Infrastructure. While transmission of the packets between the nodes, many challenges the every nodes faces. One of the Major challenges is Hidden and Exposed nodes issues in the MANET. This causes the packet drop or packet failure while the transmitting the packets. Also which  reflects in degrades the throughput of the MANET and performance of the MANET nodes when the heavy traffic ,retransmission of the dropped packets delayed the communication. This article discussed about hidden and Exposed terminal problem and challenges in MANET and also dissimilar survey in MANET

Order parameter symmetry and mode coupling effects at dirty superconducting quantum phase transitions

We derive an order-parameter field theory for a quantum phase transition between a disordered metal and an exotic (non-s-wave) superconductor. Mode coupling effects between the order parameter and other fermionic soft modes lead to an effective long-range interaction between the anomalous density fluctuations which is reflected in singularities in the free energy functional. However, this long-range interaction is not strong enough to suppress disorder fluctuations. The asymptotic critical region is characterized by run-away flow to large disorder. For weak coupling, this asymptotic region is very narrow. It is preempted by a wide crossover regime with mean-field critical behavior and, in the p-wave case, logarithmic corrections to scaling in all dimensions.Comment: final version as publishe

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Fairness Opinions in Mergers and Acquisitions

Fairness opinions provided by investment banks advising on mergers and acquisitions have been criticized for being conflicted in aiding bankers further their goal of completing the deal as opposed to aiding boards (and shareholders) by providing an honest appraisal of deal value. We find empirical support for this criticism. We find that shareholders on both sides of the deal, aware of the conflict of interest facing advisors, rationally discount deals where advisors provide fairness opinions. The reputation of the advisor serves to mitigate this discount, while the contingent nature of advisory fees appears to have no impact. Furthermore, consistent with the criticism of fairness opinions, we find evidence suggesting that fairness opinions are sought by boards for the legal cover they provide against shareholders unhappy with the deal's terms. Thus, altogether our findings suggest that investment bankers and boards may be complicit in using fairness opinions to further their own interests at an expense to shareholders.

Welfare effects of expanding banking organization opportunities in the securities arena.

This study examines the welfare consequences of expanding, via deregulation, securities activities of banking organizations. The wealth effect of expanding the permissible scale of Bank Holding Company (BHC) securities activities is redistributive: when revenue limits are relaxed, BHCs gain at the expense of investment banks and their customers. However, removing prudential interaffiliate firewalls to permit BHCs to freely pursue synergies from the joint performance of banking and securities activities shows negative wealth effects for BHCs and an increase in their idiosyncratic risk. Relaxing firewalls appears to raise concerns about stockholder and customer exposure to “ethical risk” loss from management conflicts of interest

Relaxing Glass-Steagall provisions: Wealth and risk effects on foreign banks and their domestic corporate customers.

We provide evidence that expanding the permissible scale of Bank Holding Company (BHC) securities activities in the US redistributes wealth from foreign banks and their domestic customers to domestic BHCs. However, removing prudential interaffiliate firewalls to permit BHCs to freely pursue synergies from the joint performance of banking and securities activities results in wealth losses for all interest groups. Securities activity deregulation increases the systematic risk for the foreign bank sector. Our evidence highlights that the application of the US regulatory policy of national treatment, which seeks to provide equality of competitive opportunity to foreign banking institutions operating in domestic markets, results in competitive inequities

Antiretroviral Drug-Resistant Mutations at Baseline and at Time of Failure of Antiretroviral Therapy in HIV Type 1-Coinfected TB Patients

There is limited information on the prevalence and pattern of HIV drug-resistant mutations (DRMs) among HIV-1-coinfected tuberculosis (TB) patients before and after antiretroviral treatment. Patients with HIV-1 and TB were recruited into a clinical trial from two different once-daily antiretroviral regimens and followed for a period of 6 months after ART initiation. Patients were treated with standard short-course anti-TB treatment (2EHRZ3=4RH3) and were randomized to receive ddI=3TC with either nevirapine or efavirenz, once daily. Genotypic drug resistance (DR) testing was carried out for the pol gene at baseline and at the time of virological failure. At baseline, major DRMs with respect to NNRTIs (G190GA) and TAMs (T215S and I) were observed in 3 out of 107 patients. Of 15 treatment failures, 14 had more than one major NRTI and NNRTI mutation. V106M was the major NNRTI mutation that emerged in EFZ and Y181C in the NVP group. Among NRTI mutations, M184V was the commonest followed by L74I=V. Primary drug resistance to antiretroviral drugs was low among HIV-1 co-infected TB patients in south India. A once-daily regimen of ddI=3TC=EFZ or NVP results in a specific pattern of NNRTI mutations and negligible thymidine analog mutations (TAMs)