The Creditors' Financial Reorganization Decision: New Evidence from Canadian Data

The paper examines a data set of 338 randomly selected financial reorganization plans filed in Canada during the period 1978-87. Creditors reject roughly 25% of reorganization plans, while about 20% of the plans creditors accept fail before completion, providing evidence of filtering failure in the reorganization process. A logit model of the creditors' reorganization decision produces two interesting results. Plans offering a high proportion of cash payments are more likely to be accepted by creditors, which we interpret as evidence that cash is a signal of financial viability. Plans with high ratios of secured debt are more likely to be accepted, which we interpret as evidence that secured creditors with insider knowledge signal information about the financial viability of firms to unsecured creditors. Ce document a pour but d'étudier le processus de réorganisation financière au Canada sur la base d'un échantillon de 338 propositions de réorganisations commerciales au cours de la période 1978-1987. Les données démontrent que 25 % des propositions sont rejetées par les créanciers non-garantis et qu'environ 20 % des propositions acceptées résultent éventuellement en un échec. Une analyse du comportement des créanciers lors du vote sur une proposition génère deux résultats intéressants. Premièrement, la probabilité d'acceptation d'une proposition augmente avec la proportion des paiements comptants fait aux créanciers. L'utilisation de paiements comptants est interprêtée comme un signal quand à la viabilité d'une firme. Deuxièmement, la probabilité d'acceptation d'une proposition augmente avec la proportion des créances garanties à l'intérieur de la firme. Ce résultat supporte la thèse à l'effet que les banques possèdent de l'information privilégiée sur la viabilité des entreprises et fournit une nouvelle évidence quant au rôle des banques dans la transmission de cette information vers les créanciers non-garantis.Financial reorganization; Creditors; Financial viability of firms, Réorganisation financière ; Créanciers ; Viabilité des entreprises

Should We Abolish Chapter 11 : Evidence from Canada

Over the last decade, Chapter 11 has been the brunt of serious criticism. Some American jurists arguing in favor of revising Chapter 11 have raised the possibility that the Canadian reorganization system might be a good alternative to the existing U.S. system. This article argues that there are fruitful lessons to be learned from the Canadian experience with court-supervised reorganization. Canadian evidence shows that acceptance, confirmation, and consummation rates of proposals are very high. Moreover, firms reorganizing in Canada are almost ten times more likely to survive reorganization than their American counterparts. Furthermore, Canadian data yield no support for the claim that problems with bankruptcy law result from an over-abundance of small firms in reorganization. The analysis also shows that the Canadian reorganization procedure offers a very rapid solution to financial distress and that creditors gain, in expected value terms, from reorganization over liquidation. Based on our evaluation of the relative performance of both systems, we argue that Chapter 11 be revised rather than repealed. Au cours de la dernière décennie, le Chapitre 11 du U.S. Bankruptcy Code a été l'objet de critiques importantes de la part de juristes et d'économistes américains. Récemment, un certain nombre de ces juristes ont soulevé la possibilité de réformer le Chapitre 11 sur la base du système canadien en matière de réorganisation commerciale. Le but du présent article est de démontrer que l'expérience canadienne en matière de réorganisation commerciale est révélatrice sur les réformes potentielles à apporter au Chapitre 11. Les données canadiennes montrent clairement que les taux d'acceptation, de confirmation et de succès des propositions commerciales sont très élevés. De plus, la probabilité de survie des firmes canadiennes en réorganisation est de dix fois supérieure à celle des firmes américaines. Les données canadiennes permettent également de rejeter l'affirmation selon laquelle l'échec de la procédure de réorganisation origine de son utilisation par les petites entreprises. Qui plus est, la procédure canadienne offre une solution rapide aux entreprises en difficultés financières et un rendement espéré aux créanciers supérieur par rapport à la procédure de liquidation. Sur la base de notre évaluation comparative des deux systèmes d'insolvabilité, nous suggérons la révision plutôt que l'abolition du Chapitre 11.Bankruptcy, Reorganization, Chapter 11, Bankruptcy Act, Faillite, Réorganisation, Chapitre 11, Loi sur la faillite

Solar: L0L_0 solution path averaging for fast and accurate variable selection in high-dimensional data

We propose a new variable selection algorithm, subsample-ordered least-angle regression (solar), and its coordinate descent generalization, solar-cd. Solar re-constructs lasso paths using the $L_0$ norm and averages the resulting solution paths across subsamples. Path averaging retains the ranking information of the informative variables while averaging out sensitivity to high dimensionality, improving variable selection stability, efficiency, and accuracy. We prove that: (i) with a high probability, path averaging perfectly separates informative variables from redundant variables on the average $L_0$ path; (ii) solar variable selection is consistent and accurate; and (iii) the probability that solar omits weak signals is controllable for finite sample size. We also demonstrate that: (i) solar yields, with less than $1/3$ of the lasso computation load, substantial improvements over lasso in terms of the sparsity (64-84\% reduction in redundant variable selection) and accuracy of variable selection; (ii) compared with the lasso safe/strong rule and variable screening, solar largely avoids selection of redundant variables and rejection of informative variables in the presence of complicated dependence structures; (iii) the sparsity and stability of solar conserves residual degrees of freedom for data-splitting hypothesis testing, improving the accuracy of post-selection inference on weak signals with limited $n$; (iv) replacing lasso with solar in bootstrap selection (e.g., bolasso or stability selection) produces a multi-layer variable ranking scheme that improves selection sparsity and ranking accuracy with the computation load of only one lasso realization; and (v) given the computation resources, solar bootstrap selection is substantially faster (98\% lower computation time) than the theoretical maximum speedup for parallelized bootstrap lasso (confirmed by Amdahl's law)

The association of dyslexia and developmental speech and language disorder candidate genes with reading and language abilities in adults

Reading and language abilities are critical for educational achievement and success in adulthood. Variation in these traits is highly heritable, but the underlying genetic architecture is largely undiscovered. Genetic studies of reading and language skills traditionally focus on children with developmental disorders; however, much larger unselected adult samples are available, increasing power to identify associations with specific genetic variants of small effect size. We introduce an Australian adult population cohort (41.7–73.2 years of age, N = 1505) in which we obtained data using validated measures of several aspects of reading and language abilities. We performed genetic association analysis for a reading and spelling composite score, nonword reading (assessing phonological processing: a core component in learning to read), phonetic spelling, self-reported reading impairment and nonword repetition (a marker of language ability). Given the limited power in a sample of this size (~80% power to find a minimum effect size of 0.005), we focused on analyzing candidate genes that have been associated with dyslexia and developmental speech and language disorders in prior studies. In gene-based tests, FOXP2, a gene implicated in speech/language disorders, was associated with nonword repetition (p < .001), phonetic spelling (p = .002) and the reading and spelling composite score (p < .001). Gene-set analyses of candidate dyslexia and speech/language disorder genes were not significant. These findings contribute to the assessment of genetic associations in reading and language disorders, crucial for understanding their etiology and informing intervention strategies, and validate the approach of using unselected adult samples for gene discovery in language and reading

EXPRESS Rack Technology for Space Station

The EXPRESS rack provides accommodations for standard Mid-deck Locker and ISIS drawer payloads on the International Space Station. A design overview of the basic EXPRESS rack and two derivatives, the Human Research Facility and the Habitat Holding Rack, is given in Part I. In Part II, the design of the Solid State Power Control Module (SSPCM) is reviewed. The SSPCM is a programmable and remotely controllable power switching and voltage conversion unit which distributes and protects up to 3kW of 12OVDC and 28VDC power to payloads and rack subsystem components. Part III details the development and testing of a new data storage device, the BRP EXPRESS Memory Unit (BEMU). The BEMU is a conduction-cooled device which operates on 28VDC and is based on Boeing-modified 9GB commercial disk-drive technology. In Part IV results of a preliminary design effort for a rack Passive Damping System (PDS) are reported. The PDS is intended to isolate ISPR-based experiment racks from on-orbit vibration. System performance predictions based on component developmental testing indicate that such a system can provide effective isolation at frequencies of 1 Hz and above

Mechanism of Thermal Conductivity Reduction in Few-Layer Graphene

Using the linearized Boltzmann transport equation and perturbation theory, we analyze the reduction in the intrinsic thermal conductivity of few-layer graphene sheets accounting for all possible three-phonon scattering events. Even with weak coupling between layers, a significant reduction in the thermal conductivity of the out-of-plane acoustic modes is apparent. The main effect of this weak coupling is to open many new three-phonon scattering channels that are otherwise absent in graphene. However, reflection symmetry is only weakly broken with the addition of multiple layers, and ZA phonons still dominate thermal conductivity. We also find that reduction in thermal conductivity is mainly caused by lower contributions of the higher-order overtones of the fundamental out-of-plane acoustic mode. The results compare remarkably well over the entire temperature range with measurements of graphene and graphite