Fast, Precise, Safe Prototypes with FDM

Mechanical Engineerin

Shareholder wealth effects of European takeovers : 1997-2004 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Business Studies in Finance at Massey University

This study provides an empirical analysis of the returns to acquirers and targets in European mergers and acquisitions. An event study has been carried out to test the announcement effect of a merger on the bidding and target company stock prices over the period. January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2004. for twenty-three markets in Europe. This is the first comprehensive study, the author is aware of, to complete such that includes transactions throughout all of Europe, including Eastern Europe and countries from the former Soviet Union. This thesis tests the hypothesis that the incentive mechanisms created by investor protection rights, along with the strength of legal enforcement across countries, affects the value created and destroyed by managers in domestic and cross-border acquisitions within Europe. Thus, the relative difference in corporate governance rules between nations is a source of value for merged firms in and of itself. Prior studies have found significant variation in the gains to acquiring and bidding firms as a function of the nationality of the bidder, but the ultimate source of this international variation in returns has not been satisfactorily addressed. It is argued that a firm's legal and corporate governance environment provides a partial explanation for the observed variation in returns for domestic and cross-border acquisitions and it is tested across all European countries, something that has not been done before. The results suggest that countries with stronger investor protection rules generate larger returns to target shareholders. The better accounting standards increase disclosure, helping acquirers identify potential targets. This reduces the cost of capital and thus increases the competition among bidders and the premium paid by the winning bid. Similarly, target shareholders in strong investor protection and disclosure regimes also experience a price drift in 30 days leading up to a takeover announcement. The sophistication of legal rules requires substantial legal and financial consultation resulting in leakages in the market. The analysis also looks at the difference between domestic and cross-border transactions, and confirms that targets in cross-border deals generate higher returns, implying that targets benefit from expanding into foreign marketplaces. However, acquirers receive lower benefits in cross-border deals than in national transactions, signalling that acquiring firms are to some extent penalized for engaging in a cross-border merger

Advancing Stability in an Era of Change

Argues for an integrated grantmaking strategy for world security, stewardship, and the peaceful management of change. Focuses on the individual, the nation-state, civil society organizations, private sector corporations, and multilateral institutions

Sustainable development in government : Wales 2009

English language version of 'Cynaliadwyedd llywodraeth cynulliad : Cymru 2009'.The first assessment of the Welsh Assembly government's performance against its Green Dragon targets.Publisher PD

The incidence of hypoglycaemia in children with type 1 diabetes and treated asthma

AIMS: To investigate whether treatment of coexisting asthma has any effect on the incidence of hypoglycaemia and on glycaemic control in children with type 1 diabetes. METHODS: An observational study of children attending the paediatric diabetes clinics of five hospitals in the North Trent Region. Information on the frequency of hypoglycaemia in the preceding three months, treatment for asthma, and the individual’s latest HbA1c, was recorded when they attended for review. RESULTS: Data were collected on 226 children, of whom 27 (12%) had treated asthma. Only 11/27 children with asthma were taking their prescribed inhaled steroids. All used ß agonists at least once a week. There was a reduction of 20% in the incidence of hypoglycaemia in the diabetic children with treated asthma. Of the children with diabetes and treated asthma, 52% reported an episode of hypoglycaemia in the previous three months compared to 72% of those with only diabetes. There was no difference in the proportion of children experiencing nocturnal or severe hypoglycaemia. Although not significant, those with asthma and diabetes also had better overall control (HbA1c 8.8%) compared to those with diabetes alone (HbA1c 9.3%). CONCLUSIONS: Diabetic children with treated asthma have significantly fewer episodes of hypoglycaemia and better glycaemic control compared to children with diabetes alone. This observation needs further investigation but raises an interesting question. Do the drugs used to treat asthma, in particular ß agonists, have the therapeutic potential to reduce hypoglycaemia and facilitate an improvement in glycaemic control

The Dynamics of Structural Transitions in Sodium Chloride Clusters

In recent experiments on sodium chloride clusters structural transitions between nanocrystals with different cuboidal shapes were detected. Here we presents results for the thermodynamics and dynamics of one of these clusters, (NaCl)35Cl-. As the time scales for the structural transitions can be much longer than those accessible by conventional dynamics simulations, we use a master equation to describe the probability flow within a large sample of potential energy minima. We characterize the processes contributing to probability flow between the different nanocrystals, and obtain rate constants and activation energies for comparison with the experimental values.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, revte

Global Minima for Transition Metal Clusters Described by Sutton-Chen Potentials

Using a Monte Carlo minimization approach we report the global minima for metal clusters modelled by the Sutton-Chen family of potentials with N<81, where N is the number of atoms. The resulting structures are discussed in the light of both experimental and theoretical data for clusters of the appropriate elements.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, revte

On the Thermodynamics of Global Optimization

Theoretical design of global optimization algorithms can profitably utilize recent statistical mechanical treatments of potential energy surfaces (PES's). Here we analyze a particular method to explain its success in locating global minima on surfaces with a multiple-funnel structure, where trapping in local minima with different morphologies is expected. We find that a key factor in overcoming trapping is the transformation applied to the PES which broadens the thermodynamic transitions. The global minimum then has a significant probability of occupation at temperatures where the free energy barriers between funnels are surmountable.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, revte

New skills for a new century? Challenging the orthodoxy: the role of citizenship and enterprise education in promoting effective learning

Citizenship and enterprise education are now compulsory in the English school curriculum; both offer challenges and opportunities for the development of effective learning. There is a long-standing problem of definition with enterprise education. One sees enterprise as teaching entrepreneurship, another sees it as more generic project development, and a final conceptualisation is the development of personal ‘enterprising’ dispositions, such as creativity, problem solving, and flexibility. These definitions have drastically different implications for teaching and the organisation of the curriculum. If the purpose of enterprise education is to prepare students to start businesses then enterprise education ought to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills that are relevant for running a company. In that case the link between enterprise education and business studies is close. However, if the purpose of enterprise education is to develop students’ capacity to take the initiative in any situation, this could arguably be created in any part of the curriculum. Citizenship has more in common with the third definition of enterprise. While offering a body of knowledge, it also aims to develop skills and attitudes which can influence not only the individual student but the culture of the schools thus enhancing student's experiences and possibly attainment

Protein Structure Prediction Using Basin-Hopping

Associative memory Hamiltonian structure prediction potentials are not overly rugged, thereby suggesting their landscapes are like those of actual proteins. In the present contribution we show how basin-hopping global optimization can identify low-lying minima for the corresponding mildly frustrated energy landscapes. For small systems the basin-hopping algorithm succeeds in locating both lower minima and conformations closer to the experimental structure than does molecular dynamics with simulated annealing. For large systems the efficiency of basin-hopping decreases for our initial implementation, where the steps consist of random perturbations to the Cartesian coordinates. We implemented umbrella sampling using basin-hopping to further confirm when the global minima are reached. We have also improved the energy surface by employing bioinformatic techniques for reducing the roughness or variance of the energy surface. Finally, the basin-hopping calculations have guided improvements in the excluded volume of the Hamiltonian, producing better structures. These results suggest a novel and transferable optimization scheme for future energy function development