Tearing the Guts Out of the Wehrmacht: A Re-Examination of the Russo-German War

Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Hitler’s plan to annihilate Germany’s Eastern neighbor and populate the vast Russian expanse with his own people was as ambitious as it was adventuristic. Although it began successful, the Russo-German War quickly devolved into a quagmire as Russian troops outfought their German opponent and beat them back to Berlin. Contrary to prevailing historiography, the Wehrmacht’s loss on the Eastern Front cannot be solely attributed to a failure to equip German troops with proper winter clothing, an inadequate logistics network or Hitler’s interference in military decisions. For an army that had enjoyed rapid gains during late 1930s and 1940, only an enhanced tactical revolution, superior armor and a more aggressive martial ethos explains how the vaunted German military suffered ignominious defeat at the hands of what many consider a third-rate adversary

The Shifting Tides of Merger Litigation

In 2015, Delaware made several important changes to its laws concerning merger litigation. These changes, which were made in response to a perception that levels of merger litigation were too high and that a substantial proportion of merger cases were not providing value, raised the bar, making it more difficult for plaintiffs to win a lawsuit challenging a merger and more difficult for plaintiffs’ counsel to collect a fee award. We study what has happened in the courts in response to these changes. We find that the initial effect of the changes has been to decrease the volume of merger litigation, to increase the number of cases that are dismissed, and to reduce the size of attorneys’ fee awards. At the same time, we document an adaptive response by the plaintiffs’ bar in which cases are being filed in other state courts or in federal court in an effort to escape the application of the new rules. This responsive adaptation offers important lessons about the entrepreneurial nature of merger litigation and the limited ability of the courts to reduce the potential for litigation abuse. In particular, we find that plaintiffs’ attorneys respond rationally to these changes by shifting their filing patterns, and that defendants respond in kind. We argue, however, that more expansive efforts to shut down merger litigation, such as through the use of fee-shifting bylaws, are premature and create too great a risk of foreclosing beneficial litigation. We also examine Delaware’s dilemma in maintaining a balance between the rights of managers and shareholders in this area

Executive Compensation in the Courts: Board Capture, Optimal Contracting, and Officers\u27 Fiduciary Duties

This Article proposes a new approach to monitoring executive compensation. While the public seems convinced that executives at public corporations are paid too much, so far attempts to rein in executive compensation have met with little success. Several approaches have been tried - requiring large pay packages to consist predominantly of incentive pay, new procedures for approving pay, mobilization of public outrage at giant compensation packages. None, however, has stemmed the growth of executive compensation, or convinced opponents of large pay packages that such pay is either fair or deserved. Here we suggest a new approach, one that turns to an unlikely agency to oversee executive compensation: the courts. Foes of high executive compensation have generally dismissed the courts as ineffective allies in curbing executive compensation, reasoning that courts have never wished to become involved in pay decisions. We show, however, that at several points over the last century, courts have proven surprisingly willing to second-guess decisions on executive compensation. These courts ultimately retreated from activist approaches to executive compensation not because of complacency but because they did not wish to become entangled in setting pay. Recent developments in corporate law point a way out of this impasse. Last year, in Gantler v. Stephens , Delaware’s Supreme Court resolved a major unanswered issue in corporation law when it held that a corporation’s officers owe the same fiduciary duty to the corporation and its shareholders as do its directors. Gantler opens the door for courts to monitor executive compensation by scrutinizing rigorously officers’ actions in negotiating their own compensation agreements. The Delaware Chancery Court has already taken up this invitation by holding that corporate officers are bound by their duty of loyalty to negotiate employment contracts in an arm’s-length, adversarial manner. If the officers do not do so, but instead try to manipulate the process, they will open themselves up to shareholder lawsuits and judicial scrutiny of compensation agreements via their negotiations. This approach should be welcomed by the courts, which will not be required to determine whether compensation packages are fair or merited, but will instead be asked to engage in a familiar task, examining whether proper procedures were followed in setting compensation. This approach also promises to break an impasse between the two major academic approaches to executive compensation. Advocates of Board Capture theory have long argued that senior executives so dominate their boards that they can effectively set their own pay. Optimal contracting theorists doubt this, contending that, given legal and economic constraints, executive compensation agreements are likely to be pretty good and benefit shareholders. The approach advocated here should, surprisingly, please both camps. To Board Capture theorists, it offers to cast light on pay negotiations they believe are largely a sham; to Optimal Contracting theorists, it offers a way to improve the already adequate negotiating environment

Paternity patterns in a long-term resident bottlenose dolphin community

Genetic analyses, initiated in 1984, have played a major role in our understanding of the structure and social relationships of the long-term resident community of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in Sarasota Bay, Florida (SBDC). One component of our ongoing study of the community’s social system involves using blood samples from periodic catch-and-release sampling for life history and health assessment studies, as well as skin from biopsy dart sampling studies and strandings, to investigate paternity and mating strategies in this community. These analyses, covering a span of four generations of calves, were originally based on chromosomes and protein electrophoresis, but with the advent of microsatellite DNA technology, the latter has become our analysis of choice. We have performed paternity analyses on 204 known mother-calf pairs. For 151 of the calves (74%), sires were identified within the SBDC, but for the remaining 26% of the calves all sampled males associated with the community were excluded and it is likely that a substantial contribution of paternity to the SBDC comes from outside the community. Of the SBDC males, only 52 males of the more than 200 potential sires were sires. The age of sires at time of conception of a calf ranged from 10 to 43 years, averaging 24 years old. These males have sired 1-7 calves during a documented period of reproductive tenure of as much as 24 years (average = 21.4 years). Four males have sired 6-7 calves each, these males siring calves in the community for more than 20 years. Another 19 males have each sired 3-5 calves and the remaining 30 males were identified as sires of 1-2 calves. Paired males sired 75% of the calves while 25% of the calves were sired by unpaired males. Females with multiple offspring generally had multiple sires for these offspring. These paternity analyses support the hypothesis that a major avenue of gene flow in the SBDC is through the males given their greater ranges, with occasional exchange via visits from males from other areas, as well as the occasional brief movements of females from outside the community range into the community

Characterizing Soil Deformation by Direct Measurement Within the Profile

A unique feature of the University of Kentucky soil bin enables deformation to be characterized by studying a cross-sectional soil profile grid pattern. Modular sections of the bin are laterally removed to expose the cross-section after passes of a pneumatic tire. The measured displacements of the grid points were converted to values of volumetric strain and then compared to soil density as measured by a dual probe gamma-ray density gauge following tests at various soil conditions. Final soil bulk density determinations using the two methods were not statistically different.

What's in a voice? Dolphins do not use voice cues for individual recognition

Fieldwork for this study was funded by Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Grossman Family Foundation, Dolphin Quest, Inc., NOAA Fisheries, Disney, the Office of Naval Research, Morris Animal Foundations Betty White Wildlife Rapid Response Fund, the Batchelor Foundation, and the Joint Industry Program.Most mammals can accomplish acoustic recognition of other individuals by means of “voice cues,” whereby characteristics of the vocal tract render vocalizations of an individual uniquely identifiable. However, sound production in dolphins takes place in gas-filled nasal sacs that are affected by pressure changes, potentially resulting in a lack of reliable voice cues. It is well known that bottlenose dolphins learn to produce individually distinctive signature whistles for individual recognition, but it is not known whether they may also use voice cues. To investigate this question, we played back non-signature whistles to wild dolphins during brief capture-release events in Sarasota Bay, Florida. We hypothesized that non-signature whistles, which have varied contours that can be shared among individuals, would be recognizable to dolphins only if they contained voice cues. Following established methodology used in two previous sets of playback experiments, we found that dolphins did not respond differentially to non-signature whistles of close relatives versus known unrelated individuals. In contrast, our previous studies showed that in an identical context, dolphins reacted strongly to hearing the signature whistle or even a synthetic version of the signature whistle of a close relative. Thus, we conclude that dolphins likely do not use voice cues to identify individuals. The low reliability of voice cues and the need for individual recognition were likely strong selective forces in the evolution of vocal learning in dolphins.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

How do marine mammals manage and usually avoid gas emboli formation and gas embolic pathology? critical clues from studies of wild dolphins

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Fahlman, A., Moore, M. J., & Wells, R. S. How do marine mammals manage and usually avoid gas emboli formation and gas embolic pathology? critical clues from studies of wild dolphins. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, (2021): 598633, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.598633.Decompression theory has been mainly based on studies on terrestrial mammals, and may not translate well to marine mammals. However, evidence that marine mammals experience gas bubbles during diving is growing, causing concern that these bubbles may cause gas emboli pathology (GEP) under unusual circumstances. Marine mammal management, and usual avoidance, of gas emboli and GEP, or the bends, became a topic of intense scientific interest after sonar-exposed, mass-stranded deep-diving whales were observed with gas bubbles. Theoretical models, based on our current understanding of diving physiology in cetaceans, predict that the tissue and blood N2 levels in the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) are at levels that would result in severe DCS symptoms in similar sized terrestrial mammals. However, the dolphins appear to have physiological or behavioral mechanisms to avoid excessive blood N2 levels, or may be more resistant to circulating bubbles through immunological/biochemical adaptations. Studies on behavior, anatomy and physiology of marine mammals have enhanced our understanding of the mechanisms that are thought to prevent excessive uptake of N2. This has led to the selective gas exchange hypothesis, which provides a mechanism how stress-induced behavioral change may cause failure of the normal physiology, which results in excessive uptake of N2, and in extreme cases may cause formation of symptomatic gas emboli. Studies on cardiorespiratory function have been integral to the development of this hypothesis, with work initially being conducted on excised tissues and cadavers, followed by studies on anesthetized animals or trained animals under human care. These studies enabled research on free-ranging common bottlenose dolphins in Sarasota Bay, FL, and off Bermuda, and have included work on the metabolic and cardiorespiratory physiology of both shallow- and deep-diving dolphins and have been integral to better understand how cetaceans can dive to extreme depths, for long durations.Many of the studies that have resulted in the data in this review, and that have been integral to develop the selective gas exchange hypothesis have been funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR Awards # N000141010159, N000141613088, N000141410563, N000140811220, and ONR YIP Award # N000141410563), and Dolphin Quest. The authors declare that Dolphin Quest was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication

Democracy and Dysfunction: Rural Electric Cooperatives and the Surprising Persistence of the Separation of Ownership and Control

Since the 1930s, corporate law scholarship has focused narrowly on the public corporation and the problem of the separation of ownership and control-a problem many now believe has been mitigated or even solved. With rare exceptions, scholars have paid far less heed to other business forms that still play important roles in the American economy. In this Article, we examine a significant and almost completely overlooked business form, the Rural Electric Cooperative (REC). RECs were founded in a moment of optimism during the New Deal. As with other cooperatives, their organizational rules differed sharply from those of for-profit corporations. They were owned by their customers, with each customer-member having one vote irrespective of their energy consumption, and it was hoped these owners would provide active oversight of the REC\u27s managers and activities. Reality has proven otherwise. Corporate governance innovations of the last forty years have passed RECs by, leaving an organizational sector mired in governance dysfunctions stemming from the separation of ownership and control. Here we explain why RECs evolved as they did and why New Deal planners seized on the cooperative form to electrify the countryside; how significant governance problems have persisted, largely unaddressed, from the 1930s to today; and how a change in corporate governance rules, allowing for a market for corporate control in RECs, could fix some persistent problems in this still-important sector. Alternatively, we propose that RECs take up a new public role as rural broadband internet providers with a reinvigorated federal regulator to police governance failures

Superlight gravitinos in electron-photon collisions

Motivated by recent studies of supersymmetry in higher-dimensional spaces, we discuss the experimental signatures of a superlight gravitino, mass < 0.001 eV. We concentrate on the process (e- gamma -> selectronR gravitino) as a probe of supersymmetry, where a single heavy superpartner and a superlight gravitino are produced. The fact that there is only one heavy superpartner in the final state in this process would require a lower center-of-mass energy for on-shell production compared to conventional pair production. For instance, for a 500 GeV machine, we find that a positive signal will be found if the supersymmetry breaking scale is less than about 2 TeV. If no positive signal is found, this process puts a bound on the supersymmetry breaking scale.Comment: 8 pages Added 2 terms to eqn(3) for easy reference and other minor changes to improve clarit

Precision Electroweak Data and the Mixed Radion-Higgs Sector of Warped Extra Dimensions

We derive the Lagrangian and Feynman rules up to bilinear scalar fields for the mixed Higgs-radion eigenstates interacting with Standard Model particles confined to a 3-brane in Randall-Sundrum warped geometry. We use the results to compute precision electroweak observables and compare theory predictions with experiment. We characterize the interesting regions of parameter space that simultaneously enable a very heavy Higgs mass and a very heavy radion mass, both masses being well above the putative Higgs boson mass limit in the Standard Model derived from the constraints of precision electroweak observables. For parameters consistent with the precision constraints the Higgs boson physical eigenstate is typically detectable, but its properties may be difficult to study at the Large Hadron Collider. In contrast, masses and couplings are allowed for the physical radion eigenstate that make it unobservable at the LHC. A Linear Collider will significantly improve our ability to study the Higgs eigenstate, and will typically allow detection of the radion eigenstate if it is within the machine's kinematical reach.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures; revisions: typo correction for Feynman rules and 1 reference adde