The Assault on Section 11 of the Securities Act: A Study in Judicial Activism

This article focuses on the federal courts\u27 restrictive interpretation of Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933, the most investor-friendly express remedy that the New Deal Congress enacted. This judicial erosion has resulted in a cause of action that extends to fewer investors and is riddled with uncertainty at the pleading stage. The authors posit that recent federal court decisions that have added reliance as an element of Section 11 claims and rejected the use of statistical evidence to prove tracing are inconsistent with Section 11\u27s text and legislative history. The article then explores the inconsistencies associated with pleading Section 11 claims that sound in fraud by asserting that these claims should be extended the longer statute of limitations available to such fraud-based claims under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The authors conclude that the federal courts\u27 focus on impeding vexatious litigation has resulted in unduly restrictive judicial interpretations that have altered the very nature of Section 11

Minimizing Corporate Liability Exposure When the Whistle Blows in the Post Sarbanes-Oxley Era

Over the past few years, numerous newspapers and magazines have featured stories discussing whistleblowers. From Sherron Watkins at Enron to Cynthia Cooper at Worldcom, employees who reported perceived corporate fraud have received widespread attention. With this increased public focus, Congress chose to provide statutory protection in the whistleblower corporate or securities law context through enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). Prior to SOX, federal and state statutes (as well as common law) existed to protect whistleblowers in specific settings. For example, the False Claims Act provides protection to individuals who report fraudulent activities committed against the federal government. States likewise provide some degree of whistleblower protection, but each state\u27s laws can vary regarding the persons protected, the procedural requirements for establishing the existence of retaliation, the type of evidence required to prove retaliation, and the available remedies. In part to eliminate the patchwork and vagaries of current state [whistleblower] laws, Congress enacted SOX. For attorneys who provide legal counsel to corporations, the contours of the SOX whistleblower provisions merit exploration. In-house as well as outside lawyers must understand the complexities implicated to advise their clients to minimize potentially massive liability exposure

Conditional probabilities in quantum theory, and the tunneling time controversy

It is argued that there is a sensible way to define conditional probabilities in quantum mechanics, assuming only Bayes's theorem and standard quantum theory. These probabilities are equivalent to the ``weak measurement'' predictions due to Aharonov {\it et al.}, and hence describe the outcomes of real measurements made on subensembles. In particular, this approach is used to address the question of the history of a particle which has tunnelled across a barrier. A {\it gedankenexperiment} is presented to demonstrate the physically testable implications of the results of these calculations, along with graphs of the time-evolution of the conditional probability distribution for a tunneling particle and for one undergoing allowed transmission. Numerical results are also presented for the effects of loss in a bandgap medium on transmission and on reflection, as a function of the position of the lossy region; such loss should provide a feasible, though indirect, test of the present conclusions. It is argued that the effects of loss on the pulse {\it delay time} are related to the imaginary value of the momentum of a tunneling particle, and it is suggested that this might help explain a small discrepancy in an earlier experiment.Comment: 11 pages, latex, 4 postscript figures separate (one w/ 3 parts

Correlation energy of an electron gas in strong magnetic fields at high densities

The high-density electron gas in a strong magnetic field B and at zero temperature is investigated. The quantum strong-field limit is considered in which only the lowest Landau level is occupied. It is shown that the perturbation series of the ground-state energy can be represented in analogy to the Gell-Mann Brueckner expression of the ground-state energy of the field-free electron gas. The role of the expansion parameter is taken by r_B= (2/3 \pi^2) (B/m^2) (\hbar r_s /e)^3 instead of the field-free Gell-Mann Brueckner parameter r_s. The perturbation series is given exactly up to o(r_B) for the case of a small filling factor for the lowest Landau level.Comment: 10 pages, Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Parametric Generation of Second Sound by First Sound in Superfluid Helium

We report the first experimental observation of parametric generation of second sound (SS) by first sound (FS) in superfluid helium in a narrow temperature range in the vicinity of $T_\lambda$. The temperature dependence of the threshold FS amplitude is found to be in a good quantitative agreement with the theory suggested long time ago and corrected for a finite geometry. Strong amplitude fluctuations and two types of the SS spectra are observed above the bifurcation. The latter effect is quantitatively explained by the discreteness of the wave vector space and the strong temperature dependence of the SS dissipation length.Comment: 4 pages, 4 postscript figures, REVTE

Nonequilibrium evolution thermodynamics

A new approach - nonequilibrium evolution thermodynamics, is compared with classical variant of Landau approachComment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Sub-femtosecond determination of transmission delay times for a dielectric mirror (photonic bandgap) as a function of angle of incidence

Using a two-photon interference technique, we measure the delay for single-photon wavepackets to be transmitted through a multilayer dielectric mirror, which functions as a ``photonic bandgap'' medium. By varying the angle of incidence, we are able to confirm the behavior predicted by the group delay (stationary phase approximation), including a variation of the delay time from superluminal to subluminal as the band edge is tuned towards to the wavelength of our photons. The agreement with theory is better than 0.5 femtoseconds (less than one quarter of an optical period) except at large angles of incidence. The source of the remaining discrepancy is not yet fully understood.Comment: 5 pages and 5 figure

Elastic turbulence in curvilinear flows of polymer solutions

Following our first report (A. Groisman and V. Steinberg, \sl Nature $\bf 405$, 53 (2000)) we present an extended account of experimental observations of elasticity induced turbulence in three different systems: a swirling flow between two plates, a Couette-Taylor (CT) flow between two cylinders, and a flow in a curvilinear channel (Dean flow). All three set-ups had high ratio of width of the region available for flow to radius of curvature of the streamlines. The experiments were carried out with dilute solutions of high molecular weight polyacrylamide in concentrated sugar syrups. High polymer relaxation time and solution viscosity ensured prevalence of non-linear elastic effects over inertial non-linearity, and development of purely elastic instabilities at low Reynolds number (Re) in all three flows. Above the elastic instability threshold, flows in all three systems exhibit features of developed turbulence. Those include: (i)randomly fluctuating fluid motion excited in a broad range of spatial and temporal scales; (ii) significant increase in the rates of momentum and mass transfer (compared to those expected for a steady flow with a smooth velocity profile). Phenomenology, driving mechanisms, and parameter dependence of the elastic turbulence are compared with those of the conventional high Re hydrodynamic turbulence in Newtonian fluids.Comment: 23 pages, 26 figure