Time to wind up Hollington v Hewthorn?

Explains how evidence, which would otherwise be inadmissible under either the hearsay rule or the rule in Hollington v F Hewthorn & Co Ltd, may be admissible in winding-up proceedings or directors disqualification proceedings under either the Civil Evidence Act 1995 s.1 or an implied exception to the rules. Comments on the Court of Appeal ruling in Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform v Aaron on the admissibility in directors disqualification proceedings of a Financial Services Authority report and Financial Ombudsman Service decisions

Confiscation orders and abuse of process: discretion to prevent "double whammy" under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002

Explores the circumstances in which the making of an application for a confiscation order might amount to an abuse of process entitling the court to grant a stay of proceedings. Outlines the facts leading to the Court of Appeal decision in R. (on the application of BERR) v Lowe and reviews the case law referred to by the Court of Appeal. Highlights other cases decided subsequent to Lowe

Investment and Capital Constraints: Repatriations Under the American Jobs Creation Act

The American Jobs Creation Act (AJCA) significantly lowered US firms' tax cost when accessing their unrepatriated foreign earnings. Using this temporary shock to the cost of internal financing, we examine the role of capital constraints in firms' investment decisions. Controlling for the capacity to repatriate foreign earnings under the AJCA, we find that a majority of the funds repatriated by capital constrained firms were allocated to approved domestic investment. While unconstrained firms account for a majority of repatriated funds, no increase in investment resulted. Contrary to other examinations of the AJCA, we find little change in leverage and equity payouts.

Reconsidering the evidence: Are Eurozone business cycles converging

This paper, using 40 years of monthly industrial production data, examines the relationship between the business cycles of the 12 Eurozone countries. Since estimates of the business cycle have been found to be sensitive to how the cycle is measured, a range of alternative measures are considered. We focus on both parametric and nonparametric univariate measures of the ‘classical’ and ‘growth’ cycles. We then investigate whether Eurozone business cycles have converged. This is based on an analysis of the distribution of bivariate correlation coefficients between the 12 countries’ business cycles. This extends previous work that has tested for convergence, in a similar manner by focusing on correlation, but has not considered the entire distribution, instead focusing on the mean correlation coefficient or particular bivariate correlation coefficients. Although empirical inference about individual Eurozone business cycles is found to be sensitive to the measure of the business cycle considered, our measure of convergence between the Eurozone business cycles exhibits common features across the alternative measures of the business cycle. Interestingly, we find that there have been periods of convergence, identified by the distribution tending to unity, and periods of divergence. Although further data are required to corroborate the story, there is evidence to suggest that the Euro-zone has entered a period of convergence after the clear period of divergence in the early 1990s in the aftermath of German unification and at the time of the currency crises in Europe. This is encouraging for the successful operation of a common monetary policy in the Eurozone. --

Production of Living Nanoparticles for Blood Cancer Therapy

Current cancer therapies leave much to be desired because they are very harmful to the patient and cause a significant decrease in quality of life. Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CAR) are a promising novel approach for treating specific types of leukemia due to their binding affinity for proteins expressed solely on leukemia B cells. This approach increases specificity of how cells receive treatment, thus allowing for the destruction of cancerous cells while leaving the healthy cells unharmed. In this experiment, we show that production of CAR expressing exosomes (liposome like vesicles produced naturally by human cells) is possible through cell transfection. This finding demonstrates that a new wave of cancer therapeutics, that are more specific and have less harmful side effects, are producible

Real-space renormalization group flow in quantum impurity systems: local moment formation and the Kondo screening cloud

The existence of a length-scale $\xi_K\sim 1/T_K$ (with $T_K$ the Kondo temperature) has long been predicted in quantum impurity systems. At low temperatures $T\ll T_K$, the standard interpretation is that a spin-$\tfrac{1}{2}$ impurity is screened by a surrounding `Kondo cloud' of spatial extent $\xi_K$. We argue that renormalization group (RG) flow between any two fixed points (FPs) results in a characteristic length-scale, observed in real-space as a crossover between physical behaviour typical of each FP. In the simplest example of the Anderson impurity model, three FPs arise; and we show that `free orbital', `local moment' and `strong coupling' regions of space can be identified at zero temperature. These regions are separated by two crossover length-scales $\xi_{\text{LM}}$ and $\xi_K$, with the latter diverging as the Kondo effect is destroyed on increasing temperature through $T_K$. One implication is that moment formation occurs inside the `Kondo cloud', while the screening process itself occurs on flowing to the strong coupling FP at distances $\sim \xi_K$. Generic aspects of the real-space physics are exemplified by the two-channel Kondo model, where $\xi_K$ now separates `local moment' and `overscreening' clouds.Comment: 6 pages; 5 figure

Standardization versus customisation. The role of culture

Fast food restaurants have expanded globally in recent years. As companies become global marketers to acquire new knowledge and a greater understanding of the fast food business and the environment, in which they operate in order to determine and adopt an appropriate marketing mix. Managers can use knowledge of a market's national culture to develop successful image strategies. This paper aims to explore the role of culture in the formation of consumer perceptions. To measure cultural influences a store image scale was constructed for fast food restaurants. An eight - step process based on Churchill's (1979), model, guided the development, validation and refinement of the scale. The final structure of the scale included six factors consisting of 14 items. The six factors are a) Adaptation to Locality b) Service c) Facilities d) Food quality e) Place to be and g) Sales incentive program. Then the relative weights of the six factor dimensions in influencing customers' overall image, as well as satisfaction and loyalty ratings were explored. Adaptation to locality has been found as the most important factor in the formation of store image as well as in predicting satisfaction and loyalty. The results of structural equation analysis have shown that the local culture factor is strongly associated with 'food quality' and especially with the "Place to be factor". The results can be very useful to marketers who want to invest in the local or other foreign markets.Store image, internationalisation, Adaptation to locality, Consumer/Household Economics,