Securities Fraud or Mere Puffery: Refinement of the Corporate Puffery Defense

A corporation\u27s use of forward-looking corporate statements\u27 is a common, arguably essential, element of the landscape of modern financial markets. Unfortunately, the failure to meet the expectations created by forward-looking statements often serves as the basis for a potentially devastating private action for securities fraud. Before Congress responded to frivolous private securities fraud class actions with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, ( Reform Act ) the judiciary took it upon itself to provide relief to burdened corporations. In doing so, the courts focused on the materiality of the corporation\u27s statements, an essential building block in the plaintiffs construction of a viable private securities fraud suit. These courts developed two principal means by which a corporate defendant could seek dismissal of such suits as a matter of law: the Bespeaks Caution Doctrine and the Corporate Puffery Defense

Calculation of the spectrum of 12Li by using the multistep shell model method in the complex energy plane

The unbound nucleus $^{12}$Li is evaluated by using the multistep shell model in the complex energy plane assuming that the spectrum is determined by the motion of three neutrons outside the $^9$Li core. It is found that the ground state of this system consists of an antibound $1/2^+$ state and that only this and a $1/2^-$ and a $5/2^+$ excited states are physically meaningful resonances.Comment: 9 pages, 5 tables, 7 figures, printer-friendly versio

Non-Maxwellian velocity distribution functions associated with steep temperature gradients in the solar transition region. Paper 2: The effect of non-Maxwellian electron distribution functions on ionization equilibrium calculations for carbon, nitrogen and oxygen

Non-Maxwellian electron velocity distribution functions, previously computed for Dupree's model of the solar transition region are used to calculate ionization rates for ions of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Ionization equilibrium populations for these ions are then computed and compared with similar calculations assuming Maxwellian distribution functions for the electrons. The results show that the ion populations change (compared to the values computed with a Maxwellian) in some cases by several orders of magnitude depending on the ion and its temperature of formation

A graph-theoretic method for detecting potential Turing bifurcations

The conditions for diffusion-driven (Turing) instabilities in systems with two reactive species are well known. General methods for detecting potential Turing bifurcations in larger reaction schemes are, on the other hand, not well developed. We prove a theorem for a graph-theoretic condition originally given by Volpert and Ivanova [Mathematical Modeling (Nauka, Moscow, 1987) (in Russian), p. 57] for Turing instabilities in a mass-action reaction-diffusion system involving n substances. The method is based on the representation of a reaction mechanism as a bipartite graph with two types of nodes representing chemical species and reactions, respectively. The condition for diffusion-driven instability is related to the existence of a structure in the graph known as a critical fragment. The technique is illustrated using a substrate-inhibited bifunctional enzyme mechanism which involves seven chemical species

SPIRE imaging of M 82: Cool dust in the wind and tidal streams

M 82 is a unique representative of a whole class of galaxies, starbursts with superwinds, in the Very Nearby Galaxy Survey with Herschel. In addition, its interaction with the M 81 group has stripped a significant portion of its interstellar medium from its disk. SPIRE maps now afford better characterization of the far-infrared emission from cool dust outside the disk, and sketch a far more complete picture of its mass distribution and energetics than previously possible. They show emission coincident in projection with the starburst wind and in a large halo, much more extended than the PAH band emission seen with Spitzer. Some complex substructures coincide with the brightest PAH filaments, and others with tidal streams seen in atomic hydrogen. We subtract the far-infrared emission of the starburst and underlying disk from the maps, and derive spatially-resolved far-infrared colors for the wind and halo. We interpret the results in terms of dust mass, dust temperature, and global physical conditions. In particular, we examine variations in the dust physical properties as a function of distance from the center and the wind polar axis, and conclude that more than two thirds of the extraplanar dust has been removed by tidal interaction, and not entrained by the starburst wind

Non-Maxwellian velocity distribution functions associated with steep temperature gradients in the solar transition region. Paper 1: Estimate of the electron velocity distribution functions

It was shown that, in the presence of the steep temperature gradients characteristic of EUV models of the solar transition region, the electron and proton velocity distribution functions are non-Maxwellian and are characterized by high energy tails. The magnitude of these tails are estimated for a model of the transition region and the heat flux is calculated at a maximum of 30 percent greater than predicted by collision-dominated theory

Thiourea:diethyl oxalate(2:1) complex: Single crystal diffraction at 100K

The crystal structure of thiourea:diethyl oxalate at 100k was solved using single crystal x-ray diffraction. The system crystallized in triclinic system, similar to that at room temeperature. No phase transition is observed at low temperature. The R-factor obtained was R[F2 > 2Σ(F2)] = 0.03. The crystal structure at low temperature induces closer packing of the molecules and general shrinkage of the unit cell and shortening of the hydrogen bonds to the by about 2%