Financial market incompleteness and (partial) segmentation of financial markets internationally may endow some firms with a financial advantage which can be exploited through foreign direct investment. We argue that this advantage appears as a distinct cost-of-capital effect on FDI, and identify possible channels for such an effect. Using a sample of European firms’ cross-border acquisitions, and

Migratory land birds perform extreme endurance flights when crossing ecological barriers, such as deserts, oceans and ice-caps. When travelling over benign areas, birds are expected to migrate by shorter flight steps, since carrying the heavy fuel loads needed for long non-stop flights comes at considerable cost. Here, we show that great snipes Gallinago media made long and fast non-stop flights (

Congenital muscular dystrophy with laminin α2 chain-deficiency (MDC1A) is one of the most severe forms of muscular disease and is characterized by severe muscle weakness and delayed motor milestones. The genetic basis of MDC1A is well-known, yet the secondary mechanisms ultimately leading to muscle degeneration and subsequent connective tissue infiltration are not fully understood. In order to obt

Phenological changes among plants due to climate change are well documented, but often hard to interpret. In order to assess the adaptive value of observed changes, we study how annual plants with and without growth constraints should optimize their flowering time when productivity and season length changes. We consider growth constraints that depend on the plant's vegetative mass: self-shading, c

Sugarcane bagasse is a lignocellulosic residue obtained from sugarcane milling, and a potentially interesting raw material that can be used for fuel ethanol production. In the present study, bagasse was steam pretreated at temperatures between 180 and 205 ◦C, with holding times of 5–10 min using SO2 as a catalyst to determine conditions that provide a good recovery of pentoses and a suitable mater

Femoral radiographs are affected by the degree of rotation of the femur with respect to the plane of projection. We aimed to determine the 3D rotation of the proximal femur in 2D radiographs. A 3D Statistical Appearance Model (SAM), which was built from CT images of cadaver proximal femurs (n = 33) was randomly sampled to form a training set of 500 bones. Nineteen clinical CT images were collected

BACKGROUND: LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) is a modifiable cardiovascular disease risk factor. We used 3 LDL-C methods to study the agreement between fasting and postprandial LDL-C in type 2 diabetes (T2DM) patients. METHODS: We served 74 T2DM patients a standardized meal and sampled blood at fasting and 1.5, 3.0, 4.5, and 6.0 h postprandially. We measured LDL-C by use of modified beta quantification (MB

Numerical properties of the smooth particle mesh Ewald (SPME) sum [U. Essmann, L. Perera, M. L. Berkowitz, T. Darden, H. Lee, and L. G. Pedersen, J. Chem. Phys. 103, 8577 (1995)] have been investigated by molecular dynamics simulation of ionic solutions and dipolar fluids. Scaling dependence of execution time on the number of particles at optimal performance have been determined and compared with

Whether risk factors for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) differ by subtype (i.e., dualistic pathway of carcinogenesis, histologic subtype) is not well understood; however, data to date suggest risk factor differences. We examined associations between reproductive and hormone-related risk factors for EOC by subtype in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. A

We report on a full-Holocene pollen, charcoal and macrofossil record from a small forest hollow in Gribskov, eastern Denmark. The Fagus sylvatica pollen record suggests the establishment of a small Fagus population at Gribskov in the early Holocene together with early establishment of other thermophilous broadleaved trees, including Quercus sp., Tilia sp. and Ulmus sp. The macrofossils contribute

This article explores translocal practices of German merchants settled in the late medieval town of Kalmar, Sweden. It focuses on the dual life of migrants, their simultaneous attachments to their places of origin and residence, and the significance of this splitting for the internal dynamics of diaspora. This case study also illustrates the importance of engagement with the material world for mai

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: The aim of this prospective randomized multicenter study was to compare retropubic tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) with TVT Secur in terms of efficacy and safety. METHODS: We set out to enrol 280 stress urinary incontinent (SUI) women with a half-time interim analysis of short-term cure and adverse events. The short-term results have previously been published. Of t

The very last of words of Naming and Necessity are `The third lecture suggests that a good deal of what contemporary philosophy regards as mere physical necessity is actually necessary tout court. The question how far this can be pushed is one I leave for further work.' Kripke (1980). To my knowledge he never conducted that further work; moreover, no one following him has wished to take up the bat

Fifty-four type 2 diabetic patients with neuroischemic foot ulcers were randomised to treatment with 5000 IU of dalteparin, (n = 28), or physiological saline, (n = 26), once daily until ulcer healing or for a maximum of 6 months. Thirty-three patients had normo-, 15 micro-, and 6 macroalbuminuria. The urinary levels of IgM and IgG(2) were elevated in 47 and 50 patients, respectively. Elevated urin

While it is known that scleral search coils-measuring the rotation of the eye globe-and modern, video based eye trackers-tracking the center of the pupil and the corneal reflection (CR)-produce signals with different properties, the mechanisms behind the differences are less investigated. We measure how the size of the pupil affects the eye-tracker signal recorded during saccades with a common pup

While emissions of many biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), such as terpenoids, have been studied quite intensively in North American and Scandinavian boreal forests, the vast Siberian boreal forests have remained largely unexplored by experimental emission studies. In this study the shoot-scale terpenoid emission rates from two mature Larix cajanderi trees growing in their natural habita

OBJECTIVES: To design and validate a scoring system for tomosynthesis (digital tomography) in pulmonary cystic fibrosis. METHODS: A scoring system dedicated to tomosynthesis in pulmonary cystic fibrosis was designed. Three radiologists independently scored 88 pairs of radiographs and tomosynthesis examinations of the chest in 60 patients with cystic fibrosis and 7 oncology patients. Radiograph