The development of contingency clauses: appraisal and implications for financial stability.

The sustained growth in corporate debt over the past decade has led to an increasingly widespread use of contingency clauses. These clauses, also known as “triggers”, are written into bond issue contracts or bank loan agreements, and aim to facilitate borrowers’ access to financing by offering a certain degree of protection to creditors. They result in a tightening of the company’s borrowing conditions (for example an increment in the coupon or an early repayment), should its financial situation deteriorate. These clauses may have significant effects on the functioning of financial markets. First, because they complicate both credit risk analysis and the valuation process of debt securities with such triggers embedded. Second, because they complicate credit rating agencies’ task of rating debt-security issuers. And lastly, because their triggering could result in the opposite effect to that sought, that is to say, instead of protecting the creditor, they may cause a sharp deterioration in the borrower’s financial position. At the same time, they may also result in a series of destabilising effects for financial markets, exacerbated by the fact that investors are often unaware of their existence. While these clauses must be used with caution by borrowers, adequate transparency is also essential so that rating agencies, analysts and investors might fully understand their potential effects.

Spontaneous Scaling Emergence in Generic Stochastic Systems

We extend a generic class of systems which have previously been shown to spontaneously develop scaling (power law) distributions of their elementary degrees of freedom. While the previous systems were linear and exploded exponentially for certain parameter ranges, the new systems fulfill nonlinear time evolution equations similar to the ones encountered in Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking (SSB) dynamics and evolve spontaneously towards "fixed trajectories" indexed by the average value of their degrees of freedom (which corresponds to the SSB order parameter). The "fixed trajectories" dynamics evolves on the edge between explosion and collapse/extinction. The systems present power laws with exponents which in a wide range ($\alpha < -2.$) are universally determined by the ratio between the minimal and the average values of the degrees of freedom. The time fluctuations are governed by Levy distributions of corresponding power. For exponents $\alpha > -2$ there is no "thermodynamic limit" and the fluctuations are dominated by a few, largest degrees of freedom which leads to macroscopic fluctuations, chaos and bursts/intermitency.Comment: latex, 11 page

"Profits: The Views of Jerome Levy and Michal Kalecki"

Profits are the incentive for production and therefore employment in almost all of the world's economies; they also may represent exploitation of workers and consumers. Jerome Levy, using a complex process, derived the profits identity during the years 1908-1914. Michal Kalecki, taking advantage of the development of national accounting, derived it in the 1930s. Levy viewed the equation as a tool for developing policies that would enable capitalist economies to achieve high rates of employment. Recent American experience gives weight to his views. Kalecki's insights from the identity strengthened his belief that unemployment was inescapable under capitalism. He would find empirical support in Europe's high unemployment rates during the past two decades.

Magnetic flares in the protoplanetary nebula and the origin of meteorite chondrules

This study proposes and analyzes a model for the chondrule forming heating events based on magnetohydrodynamic flares in the corona of the protoplanetary nebula which precipitate energy in the form of energetic plasma along magnetic field lines down toward the face of the nebula. It is found that flare energy release rates sufficient to melt the prechondrular matter, leading to the formation of the chondrules, can occur in the tenuous corona of a protostellar disk. Energy release rates sufficient to achieve melting require that the ambient magnetic field strength be in the range that has been inferred separately from independent meteorite remanent magnetization studies

Differences in clinicopathologic variables between Borrelia C6 antigen seroreactive and Borrelia C6 seronegative glomerulopathy in dogs.

BackgroundRapidly progressive glomerulonephritis has been described in dogs that seroreact to Borrelia burgdorferi, but no studies have compared clinicopathologic differences in Lyme-seroreactive dogs with protein-losing nephropathy (PLN) versus dogs with Borrelia-seronegative PLN.Hypothesis/objectivesDogs with Borrelia C6 antigen-seroreactive PLN have distinct clinicopathologic findings when compared to dogs with Borrelia seronegative PLN.AnimalsForty dogs with PLN and Borrelia C6 antigen seroreactivity and 78 C6-seronegative temporally matched dogs with PLN.MethodsRetrospective prevalence case-control study. Clinical information was retrieved from records of dogs examined at the University of California, Davis, Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. Histopathologic findings in renal tissue procured by biopsy or necropsy of dogs with PLN were reviewed.ResultsRetrievers and retriever mixes were overrepresented in seroreactive dogs (P &lt; .001). Seroreactive dogs were more likely to have thrombocytopenia (P &lt; .001), azotemia (P = .002), hyperphosphatemia (P &lt; .001), anemia (P &lt; .001), and neutrophilia (P = .003). Hematuria, glucosuria, and pyuria despite negative urine culture were more likely in seroreactive dogs (all P ≤ .002). Histopathologic findings were consistent with immune-complex glomerulonephritis in 16 of 16 case dogs and 7 of 23 control dogs (P = 006). Prevalence of polyarthritis was not different between groups (P = .17).Conclusions and clinical importanceC6 seroreactivity in dogs with PLN is associated with a clinicopathologically distinct syndrome when compared with other types of PLN. Early recognition of this syndrome has the potential to improve outcomes through specific aggressive and early treatment

Tip vortex computer code SRATIP. User's guide

This User's Guide applies to the three dimensional viscous flow forward marching analysis, PEPSIG, as used for the calculation of the helicopter tip vortex flow field. The guide presents a discussion of the program flow and subroutines, as well as a list of sample input and output

Applying Bag of System Calls for Anomalous Behavior Detection of Applications in Linux Containers

In this paper, we present the results of using bags of system calls for learning the behavior of Linux containers for use in anomaly-detection based intrusion detection system. By using system calls of the containers monitored from the host kernel for anomaly detection, the system does not require any prior knowledge of the container nature, neither does it require altering the container or the host kernel.Comment: Published version available on IEEE Xplore (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7414047/) arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1611.0305

Multi-feed cone Cassegrain antenna Patent

Design and operation of multi-feed cone Cassegrain antenn

"Overcoming America's Infrastructure Deficit, A Fiscally Responsible Plan for Public Capital Investment"

Condemned bridges, dilapidated school buildings, contaminated water supplies, and other infrastructure shortcomings threaten American growth, productivity, and prosperity. S Jay Levy and Walter M. Cadette propose a plan for financing infrastructure projects that is designed to have minimal effect on the federal budget and to promote sound fiscal operation. Federal zero-interest mortgage loans to state and local governments for capital projects specified by Congress can cut the cost of such projects, achieve needed improvements in the nation's infrastructure, and thereby contribute to the American economy's future.

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence: Telecommunications technology

Efforts to discover evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life have become not only feasible, but respectable. Fledgling observational projects have begun that will use state-of-the-art hardware to develop sophisticated receiving and data processing systems. The rationale behind the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, the manner in which the program is taking shape, and the implications for telecommunications are described. It is concluded that the breadth of technological development required for the detection of signals from galactic brethren has particular relevance for the future of telecommunications in Earth oriented uses