Determinants of director compensation in two-tier systems: evidence from German panel data

Building on a unique panel data set of German Prime Standard companies for the period 2005-2008, this paper investigates the influencing factors of both director compensation levels and structure, i.e. the probability of performance-based compensation. Drawing on agency theory arguments and previous literature, we analyze a comprehensive group of determinants, including detailed corporate performance, ownership and board characteristics. While controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, we find director compensation to be set in ways consistent with optimal contracting theory. I.e. compensation is systematically structured to mitigate agency conflicts and to encourage effective monitoring. Thus, our results indicate that similar types of agency conflicts exist in the German two-tier setting. --Director Compensation,Corporate Governance,Outside Directors,Two-tier System,Agency Costs

X-Ray Eclipse Timing in the LMXB EXO0748-676

Orbital period changes are an important diagnostic for understanding low mass X-ray binary (LMXB) accretion-induced angular momentum exchange and overall system evolution. We present our most recent results for the eclipse timing of the LMXB EXO0748-676. Since its discovery in 1985 it has apparently undergone three distinct orbital period "epochs", each characterized by a different orbital period than the previous epoch. We outline the orbital period behavior for EXO0748-676 over the past 18 years and discuss the implications of this behavior in light of current theoretical ideas for LMXB evolution.Comment: 4 Pages, 3 Figures, Submitted to the X-Ray Timing 2003: Rossi and Beyond conference, November 200

Criminal Authorities and the State: Gangs, Organized Crime, and Police in Brazil

Drug gangs and organized criminal groups rarely evolve into structured authorities governing their resident communities. Where this occurs, however, they may effectively replace the state in its most basic functions, and consequently exclude subject populations from the rights and protections supposedly guaranteed by the state. Employing qualitative research methods, this study compares criminal development and state public security policies in Rio de Janeiro and Recife, Brazil. The research is primarily concerned with the development of criminal authority structures, and asks when, where, why, and how they develop. Arguing that the extant literature on organized crime fails to adequately explain this phenomenon—particularly in the case of drug trafficking gangs—I draw from the civil wars literature to theoretically explain the rise of non-state authority structures. The parallels are compelling. In Rio de Janeiro, concentrated illicit wealth created by the cocaine boom in the 1980s attracted an international arms market that helped drug gangs dominate larger territories (i.e. opportunities), while indiscriminate and lethally violent state repression pushed non-criminal publics into a de facto alliance with drug traffickers (i.e. grievance). In this context gangs—and later, militias—developed clear and structured governing functions. Other factors, such as inhibiting geography, also contributed to this authoritative duality. In Recife, by contrast, drug gangs have remained small, disorganized, and unengaged in local political structures. A smaller drug market, flat and vehicle-accessible slums, and a comparatively much less violent police force help to explain the failure of gangs and other criminal groups to develop broader authoritative functions

Pinging the brain to reveal hidden working memory states

Maintaining information for short periods of time in working memory, without its existence in the outer world, is crucial for everyday life, allowing us to move beyond simple, reflexive actions, and towards complex, goal-directed behaviours. It has been the consensus that the continuous activity of specific neurons are responsible to keep these information “online” until they are no longer required. However, this classic theory has been questioned more recently. Working memories that are not actively rehearsed seem to be maintained in an “activity-silent” network, eliciting no measurable neural activity, suggesting that it is the short-term changes in the neural wiring patterns that is responsible for their maintenance. These memories are thus hidden from conventional measuring techniques making it difficult to research them.This thesis proposes an approach to reveal hidden working memories that is analogues to active sonar: Hidden structures can be inferred from the echo of a “ping”. Similarly, by pushing a wave of activity through the silent neural network via external stimulation (for example a white flash), the resulting recording patterns expose the previously hidden memories held in said network. This approach is demonstrated in a series of experiments where both visual and auditory working memories are revealed. It is also used to reconstruct specific working memories with high-fidelity after different maintenance periods, showing that the maintenance of even a single piece of information is by no means perfect, as it tends to randomly and gradually transform within 1 to 2 seconds (for example purple becomes blue)

Comptonization and the Spectra of Accretion-Powered X-Ray Pulsars

Accretion-powered X-ray pulsars are among the most luminous X-ray sources in the Galaxy. However, despite decades of theoretical and observational work since their discovery, no satisfactory model for the formation of the observed X-ray spectra has emerged. In this paper, we report on a self-consistent calculation of the spectrum emerging from a pulsar accretion column that includes an explicit treatment of the bulk and thermal Comptonization occurring in the radiation-dominated shocks that form in the accretion flows. Using a rigorous eigenfunction expansion method, we obtain a closed-form expression for the Green's function describing the upscattering of monochromatic radiation injected into the column. The Green's function is convolved with bremsstrahlung, cyclotron, and blackbody source terms to calculate the emergent photon spectrum. We show that energization of photons in the shock naturally produces an X-ray spectrum with a relatively flat continuum and a high-energy exponential cutoff. Finally, we demonstrate that our model yields good agreement with the spectra of the bright pulsar Her X-1 and the low luminosity pulsar X Per.Comment: 6 Pages, 2 Figures, To appear in "The Multicoloured Landscape of Compact Objects and their Explosive Progenitors" (Cefalu, Sicily, June 2006). Eds. L. Burderi et al. (New York: AIP

George Eliot\u27s First Family: The Bartons of Shepperton

There are a lot of \u27firsts\u27 in the few months between September 1856 when Marian Evans Lewes began \u27The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton\u27 and February 1857 when she adopted George Eliot as a pseudonym. The Bartons were the first of her many families. The words of the title were, according to her own recollection, the first words of her new career. She was at the time in the process of making a new, it could be argued, a \u27first family\u27, in the new life she was sharing with George Henry Lewes and his young sons. And George Eliot, himself or herself, made a first appearance, born of the new Evans-Lewes family and already the bearer of the Bartons. The creation of \u27George Eliot\u27 is the most important of a series of renamings which mark Mary Ann Evans\u27s struggle to find a satisfactory family for herself. Mary Ann had been a lonely and misunderstood girl with little social identity outside the Evans family. After her father\u27s death, finally free of family roles, she changed her given name from Mary Ann to the more adult Marian. Later, when she made her lifelong commitment to Lewes, she changed her family name to become Marian Evans Lewes. Now, the personal partnership with Lewes freed her to become George Eliot. Finally willing and able to risk putting her creativity into print, Marian Evans looked to memory for material. But the memories of her family were as yet too painful. Indeed, as a child she had felt less at home with parents in Griff than in the countryside immediately around Griff. She chose local settings for the Scenes of Clerical Life, \u27scenes\u27 in which she had been born and raised, where as a child she had felt most secure and comfortable. She chose \u27clerical life\u27 for her first story because the parish seemed to her the most natural of social organisms, and because through the clergy she could get the widest perspective on the whole village. And writing about the clergy lent itself to Marian Evans\u27s wish to establish George Eliot\u27s respectability. A return to her intense early immersion in religious and church affairs was an additional source of confidence. She began her first fiction with the village church because that was where she felt most secure as a writer. It was surely also one of the places where she felt safest as a child