The Legal Status of “Dump & Sue”: Should Plaintiffs and their Attorneys be Prohibited from Trading the Stock of Companies they Sue? – a Law and Economics Approach

There is some evidence that plaintiffs and their attorneys are profitably short-selling the stock of the companies they intend to sue. The status of such short sales is undecided in the law. Lawsuits against companies can cause large drops in market value, and hence such an action by the plaintiff should cause concern. Plaintiffs, however, are not traditional insiders, and they do not owe the shareholders any fiduciary duties. They can therefore consent to their attorneys also short-selling the stock of the defendant corporation. The attorneys need to receive such permission to avoid misappropriating the information concerning their client’s decision to sue. A plaintiff’s decision to sue after short-selling does not constitute market manipulation in the traditional sense, since the decision to sue is a true fact that causes the drop in the share price as opposed to those who commit fraud by spreading false negative stories about the company. Plaintiffs need, therefore, to be legally deemed temporary insiders until they publicly reveal their intention to sue or actually sue. The reasons for deeming them insiders, and hence prohibiting them from short-selling, are threefold. First, allowing such activities would raise the same concerns regarding market integrity raised by those opposed to insider trading. Second, allowing such short-selling is a form of fraud by silence against those who purchase the shares. Third, allowing short-selling would give the plaintiffs double recovery for their lawsuit, as they could gain a large share of their claim against the company from the profitable short sales in addition to any verdict or settlement. Furthermore, proposals to extend Regulation FD to plaintiff’s attorneys would be ineffective in combating the harm from such short-selling. The law, therefore, through either developments by the courts, regulatory promulgations by the SEC, an act of Congress, or a combination of any of the preceding three mechanisms should be used to treat plaintiffs as insiders until they sue or announce their intention to sue

Evolution of a curved vortex filament into a vortex ring

The deformation of a hairpin-shaped vortex filament under self-induction and in the presence of shear is studied numerically using the Biot-Savart law. It is shown that the tip region of an elongated hairpin vortex evolves into a vortex ring and that the presence of mean shear impedes the process. Evolution of a finite-thickness vortex sheet under self-induction is also investigated using the Navier-Stokes equations. The layer evolves into a hairpin vortex which in turn produces a vortex ring of high Reynolds stress content. These results indicate a mechanism for the generation of ring vortices in turbulent shear flows, and a link between the experimental and numerical observation of hairpin vortices and the observation of ring vortices in the outer regions of turbulent boundary layers

Distribution and Diversity of Archaeal and Bacterial Ammonia Oxidizers in Salt Marsh Sediments

Diversity and abundance of ammonia-oxidizing Betaproteobacteria (β-AOB) and archaea (AOA) were investigated in a New England salt marsh at sites dominated by short or tall Spartina alterniflora (SAS and SAT sites, respectively) or Spartina patens (SP site). AOA amoA gene richness was higher than β-AOB amoA richness at SAT and SP, but AOA and β-AOB richness were similar at SAS. β-AOB amoA clone libraries were composed exclusively of Nitrosospira-like amoA genes. AOA amoA genes at SAT and SP were equally distributed between the water column/sediment and soil/sediment clades, while AOA amoA sequences at SAS were primarily affiliated with the water column/sediment clade. At all three site types, AOA were always more abundant than β-AOB based on quantitative PCR of amoA genes. At some sites, we detected 109 AOA amoA gene copies g of sediment−1. Ratios of AOA to β-AOB varied over 2 orders of magnitude among sites and sampling dates. Nevertheless, abundances of AOA and β-AOB amoA genes were highly correlated. Abundance of 16S rRNA genes affiliated with Nitrosopumilus maritimus, Crenarchaeota group I.1b, and pSL12 were positively correlated with AOA amoA abundance, but ratios of amoA to 16S rRNA genes varied among sites. We also observed a significant effect of pH on AOA abundance and a significant salinity effect on both AOA and β-ΑΟΒ abundance. Our results expand the distribution of AOA to salt marshes, and the high numbers of AOA at some sites suggest that salt marsh sediments serve as an important habitat for AOA

Eddies, streams, and convergence zones in turbulent flows

Recent studies of turbulent shear flows have shown that many of their important kinematical and dynamical properties can be more clearly understood by describing the flows in terms of individual events or streamline patterns. These events or flow regions are studied because they are associated with relatively large contributions to certain average properties of the flow, for example kinetic energy, Reynolds stress, or to particular processes in the flow, such as mixing and chemical reactions, which may be concentrated at locations where streamlines converge for fast chemical reactions (referred to as convergence or C regions), or in recirculating eddying regions for slow chemical reactions. The aim of this project was to use the numerical simulations to develop suitable criteria for defining these eddying or vortical zones. The C and streaming (S) zones were defined in order to define the whole flow field. It is concluded that homogeneous and sheared turbulent flow fields are made up of characteristic flow zones: eddy, C, and S zones. A set of objective criteria were found which describe regions in which the streamlines circulate, converge or diverge, and form high streams of high velocity flow

Shareholders, Creditors, and Directors’ Fiduciary Duties: A Law and Finance Approach

The debate surrounding fiduciary duties owed to creditors by directors, especially in the vicinity of insolvency, has resurfaced in light of two court decisions in Canada and the United States. In this paper, we contribute to the discussion by looking at the issue from a corporate finance perspective, where we utilize well-established theorems and results. We show that creditors are able to protect themselves by the use of covenants. While this idea has been reported extensively in previous discussions about fiduciary duties, we focus on studies that show the extent to which creditors use covenants to protect themselves against opportunistic behavior by managers and shareholders. Additionally, we show that debt can actually increase the value of the firm and the shares, and therefore, the idea that shareholders use debt for opportunistic behavior is misplaced. If anything, debt is used to align managerial incentives to maximize the value of the firm. The Fisher Separation theorem is also introduced and used to show that all stakeholders in a firm will want the firm to pursue projects with the maximum net present value. Hence, we propose that fiduciary duties should always be owed to the corporation as a whole, where the main focus of the managers is investing in those projects that have the highest expected net present value

Non-local modulation of the energy cascade in broad-band forced turbulence

Classically, large-scale forced turbulence is characterized by a transfer of energy from large to small scales via nonlinear interactions. We have investigated the changes in this energy transfer process in broad-band forced turbulence where an additional perturbation of flow at smaller scales is introduced. The modulation of the energy dynamics via the introduction of forcing at smaller scales occurs not only in the forced region but also in a broad range of length-scales outside the forced bands due to non-local triad interactions. Broad-band forcing changes the energy distribution and energy transfer function in a characteristic manner leading to a significant modulation of the turbulence. We studied the changes in this transfer of energy when changing the strength and location of the small-scale forcing support. The energy content in the larger scales was observed to decrease, while the energy transport power for scales in between the large and small scale forcing regions was enhanced. This was investigated further in terms of the detailed transfer function between the triad contributions and observing the long-time statistics of the flow. The energy is transferred toward smaller scales not only by wavenumbers of similar size as in the case of large-scale forced turbulence, but by a much wider extent of scales that can be externally controlled.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. E, 15 pages, 18 figures, uses revtex4.cl

Two-qubit parametric amplifier: large amplification of weak signals

Using numerical simulations, we show that two coupled qubits can amplify a weak signal about hundredfold. This can be achieved if the two qubits are biased simultaneously by this weak signal and a strong pump signal, both of which having frequencies close to the inter-level transitions in the system. The weak signal strongly affects the spectrum generated by the strong pumping drive by producing and controlling mixed harmonics with amplitudes of the order of the main harmonic of the strong drive. We show that the amplification is robust with respect to noise, with an intensity of the order of the weak signal. When deviating from the optimal regime (corresponding to strong qubit coupling and a weak-signal frequency equal to the inter-level transition frequency) the proposed amplifier becomes less efficient, but it can still considerably enhance a weak signal (by several tens). We therefore propose to use coupled qubits as a combined parametric amplifier and frequency shifter.Comment: 6 figure

Albumin uptake in human podocytes: a possible role for the cubilin-amnionless (CUBAM) complex

Abstract Albumin re-uptake is a receptor-mediated pathway located in renal proximal tubuli. There is increasing evidence of glomerular protein handling by podocytes, but little is known about the mechanism behind this process. In this study, we found that human podocytes in vitro are committed to internalizing albumin through a receptor-mediated mechanism even after exposure to low doses of albumin. We show that these cells express cubilin, megalin, ClC-5, amnionless and Dab2, which are partners in the tubular machinery. Exposing human podocytes to albumin overload prompted an increase in CUBILIN, AMNIONLESS and CLCN5 gene expression. Inhibiting cubilin led to a reduction in albumin uptake, highlighting its importance in this mechanism. We demonstrated that human podocytes are committed to performing endocytosis via a receptor-mediated mechanism even in the presence of low doses of albumin. We also disclosed that protein overload first acts on the expression of the cubilin-amnionless (CUBAM) complex in these cells, then involves the ClC-5 channel, providing the first evidence for a possible role of the CUBAM complex in albumin endocytosis in human podocytes

Disease causing mutations in inverted formin 2 regulate its binding to G-actin, F-actin capping protein (CapZ α-1) and profilin 2

Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is a devastating form of nephrotic syndrome which ultimately leads to end stage renal failure (ESRF). Mutations in inverted formin 2 (INF2), a member of the formin family of actin-regulating proteins, have recently been associated with a familial cause of nephrotic syndrome characterized by FSGS. INF2 is a unique formin that can both polymerize and depolymerize actin filaments. How mutations in INF2 lead to disease is unknown. In the present study, we show that three mutations associated with FSGS, E184K, S186P and R218Q, reduce INF2 auto-inhibition and increase association with monomeric actin. Furthermore using a combination of GFP–INF2 expression in human podocytes and GFP-Trap purification coupled with MS we demonstrate that INF2 interacts with profilin 2 and the F-actin capping protein, CapZ α-1. These interactions are increased by the presence of the disease causing mutations. Since both these proteins are involved in the dynamic turnover and restructuring of the actin cytoskeleton these changes strengthen the evidence that aberrant regulation of actin dynamics underlies the pathogenesis of disease

The first resolved imaging of milliarcsecond-scale jets in Circinus X-1

We present the first resolved imaging of the milliarcsecond-scale jets in the neutron star X-ray binary Circinus X-1, made using the Australian Long Baseline Array. The angular extent of the resolved jets is ~20 milliarcseconds, corresponding to a physical scale of ~150 au at the assumed distance of 7.8 kpc. The jet position angle is relatively consistent with previous arcsecond-scale imaging with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. The radio emission is symmetric about the peak, and is unresolved along the minor axis, constraining the opening angle to be less than 20 degrees. We observe evidence for outward motion of the components between the two halves of the observation. Constraints on the proper motion of the radio-emitting components suggest that they are only mildly relativistic, although we cannot definitively rule out the presence of the unseen, ultra-relativistic (Lorentz factor >15) flow previously inferred to exist in this system.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters. 6 pages, 4 figure