The euarthropod Luohuilinella deletres sp. nov. is described from rare material from the Chengjiang biota, Cambrian Series 2, Stage 3, of Yunnan Province, China. Phylogenetic analysis recovers a xandarellid affinity for L. deletres, representing only the fifth described species of this clade. L. deletres possesses a head shield that is about one-fifth of the total body length and a trunk with 30 tergites, the reduced anterior-most tergite and terminal three tergites lacking pleural elongations. Anteriorly situated notches in the head shield are associated with stalked eyes, in contrast to the more posterior, enclosed eye slits present in Xandarella. Posterior to the antennae there are at least 11 pairs of biramous appendages preserved, including three pairs in the head. The morphology of the midline gut of L. deletres, in which lateral, unbranched diverticula are wider towards the front of the body, is a characteristic also found in various trilobites. The dorsoventrally flattened exoskeleton suggests a benthic or nektobenthic mode of life for L. deletres, as for other trilobitomorphs, and it likely used its well-developed anteriorly positioned eyes for searching out food, either to scavenge or to find prey.

We examine how organizational form affects corporate payouts. Conglomerates pay out more than pure plays in both cash dividends and total payouts (cash dividends plus share repurchases). Furthermore, their payouts are more sensitive to cash flows compared to pure-play firms. The sensitivity of payouts to cash flow increases as the cross-segment correlation in a conglomerate decreases. Corporate payouts increase after mergers and acquisitions (M&As), especially among M&As in which acquirers and targets are less correlated. These results suggest that the coinsurance among different divisions of a conglomerate allows them to pay out more cash flow to their shareholders than pure-play firms.

Using stock returns around recommendation changes to measure the information produced by analysts, I find that analysts produce more firm-specific than industry-level information. Analysts produce more firm-specific information on stocks with higher idiosyncratic return volatilities. The amount of industry information produced by analysts increases with the absolute value of the stock’s industry beta and decreases with the stock’s idiosyncratic volatility. Other stocks in the industry also respond to the recommendation change, and the magnitude of the response increases with the absolute value of the industry beta of the recommended stock and that of other stocks in the industry. I also offer results on how investors may use analyst research more effectively and potentially improve their investment performance.

Controlling neuropathic pain is an unmet medical need and we set out to identify new therapeutic candidates. AV411 (ibudilast) is a relatively nonselective phosphodiesterase inhibitor that also suppresses glial-cell activation and can partition into the CNS. Recent data strongly implicate activated glial cells in the spinal cord in the development and maintenance of neuropathic pain. We hypothesized that AV411 might be effective in the treatment of neuropathic pain and, hence, tested whether it attenuates the mechanical allodynia induced in rats by chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve, spinal nerve ligation (SNL) and the chemotherapeutic paclitaxel (Taxol¯). Twice-daily systemic administration of AV411 for multiple days resulted in a sustained attenuation of CCI-induced allodynia. Reversal of allodynia was of similar magnitude to that observed with gabapentin and enhanced efficacy was observed in combination. We further show that multi-day AV411 reduces SNL-induced allodynia, and reverses and prevents paclitaxel-induced allodynia. Also, AV411 cotreatment attenuates tolerance to morphine in nerve-injured rats. Safety pharmacology, pharmacokinetic and initial mechanistic analyses were also performed. Overall, the results indicate that AV411 is effective in diverse models of neuropathic pain and support further exploration of its potential as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of neuropathic pain.

We examine the role of financial analysts in forming institutional investors' investment decisions. In our model, a fund manager invests in a stock based on the optimal weighting of reports created by a biased sell-side analyst and an unbiased buy-side analyst. The manager puts a higher weight on the buy-side analyst's report when the quality of the buyside analyst's information relative to that of the sell-side analyst increases, or when the sell-side analyst's degree of bias or uncertainty about the bias increases. Utilizing a unique dataset of U.S. equity funds, we find evidence supporting our model predictions on how fund managers weigh buy-side research relative to sell-side and independent research.

We investigate the tail distribution of the virtual waiting times in a LRD/GI/1 queue where the arrival process is long-range dependent (LRD) and the service times are independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random variables. We present two lower bounds on the stationary waiting time tail asymptotics, which illustrate the different dominating components that influence server performance under various conditions. In particular, we show that the tail distribution of the stationary waiting time is bounded below by that of the associated LRD/D/1 queues resulting from replacing all random service times by the mean. This shows the performance impact purely due to the long-range dependency of the arrival process. On the other hand, when the service times are subexponential, we show that the tail distribution of the stationary waiting time is bounded below by that of the corresponding D/GI/1 queue by replacing the dependent arrival process with its associated independent version. This shows the minimum performance impact due to the tail distribution of the service times. The above two lower bounds indicate that the performance of LRD/GI/1 queues will be dominated by the heavier tail of the corresponding LRD/D/1 and D/GI/1 queues. These features are further illustrated and quantified through examples and via numerous simulation experiments.

Exposure of a vicinal Si(100) surface to oxygen at around 550 C produces etching-mediated step recession. In addition, some oxide islands are formed which locally pin receding steps. We develop an atomistic lattice-gas model for this process which accounts for the interplay between oxygen surface chemistry (adsorption, diffusion, oxide formation, and etching via SiO desorption) and the silicon surface and step dynamics (anisotropic diffusion and aggregation of di-vacancies formed by etching, and ad-dimer attachment-detachment dynamics at steps incorporating anisotropic energetics). Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of this model produces step morphologies retaining some qualitative but not quantitative features of their equilibrium structure (alternating rough SB steps and smooth SA steps), except for pinning which produces protruding “fingers”. These features are seen in Scanning Tunneling Microscopy studies.

Dielectric response of mesoporous silica films was monitored as a function of several gas-phase chemical species. The effects of humidity, ammonia, and methane on dielectric constant and dissipation factor of films subjected to different chemical treatments are described. Dielectric constant and dissipation factor of partially dehydroxylated films were found to be highly sensitive to both water vapor and ammonia in air. The capacitive devices based on mesoporous silica films show potential for use in chemical sensors.

Cuprous oxide (Cu2O) films have been grown on single-crystal MgO(110) substrates by a chemical vapor deposition process in the temperature range 690–790 °C. X-ray diffraction measurements show that phase-pure, highly oriented Cu2O films form at these temperatures. The Cu2O films are observed to grow by an island-formation mechanism on this substrate. Films grown at 690 °C uniformly coat the substrate except for micropores between grains. However, at a growth temperature of 790 °C, an isolated, three-dimensional island morphology develops. Using a transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscope, both dome- and hut-shaped islands are observed and are shown to be coherent and epitaxial. The isolated, coherent islands form under high mobility growth conditions where geometric strain relaxation occurs before misfit dislocation can be introduced. This rare observation for oxides is attributed to the relatively weak bonding of Cu2O, which also has a relatively low melting temperature.