I examine the ability of the U.S. investor protection regime to limit insider trading returns, absent Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the short-swing rule). I find that in this setting, U.S. insiders execute short-swing trades that i) beat the market by approximately 15 basis points per day and ii) systematically divest ahead of disappointing earnings announcements. These results indicate that the bright-line rule restricting short-horizon round-trip insider trading plays a substantial role in protecting outside investors from privately informed insiders in the United States.

John Warner, Bishop of Rochester (1580–1666), celebrated in his lifetime for his munificence, left provision in his will for the foundation of an almshouse or hospital for ‘twenty poore widdowes being the relicts of Orthodox and loyall Clergie-men’. His intention was that it should be built adjacent to Rochester Cathedral but this proved impractical, and after an Act of Parliament in 1670 had given them leave to build elsewhere his executors purchased a site at Bromley, not far from Warner’s own episcopal residence. Building was effectively complete by September 1672. Edward Hasted, the historian of Kent, described Warner’s hospital as ‘a charity as unexampled at the time of its institution as it has been without compare since’, and in terms of size and architectural treatment it certainly surpasses its immediate successors at Winchester (1672) and Salisbury (1682).

Sussex is not normally considered a particularly rewarding county for the historian of eighteenth-century architecture. In terms of great house building its heyday was the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a period which produced a notable string of mansions along the northern foot of the Downs — Glynde, Danny, Wiston, and Parham, among others. To the more refined sensibilities of the eighteenth century the county was little short of primeval. Thomas Fuller’s judgement in 1662 (‘A fruitfull County, though very durty for the travellers therein, so that it may be better measured to its advantage, by days journeys then by miles’) was endorsed with interest in the next century by Horace Walpole, who reckoned that ‘the whole country has a Saxon air, and the inhabitants are savage, as if King George the 2nd was the first monarch of the East Angles’.

To solve the problem of induction we had first better know what it is. Some ways of formulating the worry about induction are underwhelming as they depend on assumptions that don't survive much scrutiny. Perhaps the most disturbing argument for inductive skepticism appeals to the claim that we could not possibly be justified in taking our inductive methods to be reliable independently of our use of those methods. And the use of inductive methods cannot give us justification to suppose that they are reliable. I argue for a new way to escape the first horn of this dilemma.

In this paper we consider near inclusions $A\,{{\subseteq }_{\gamma }}\,B$ of ${{\text{C}}^{*}}$ -algebras. We show that if $B$ is a separable type $\text{I}$ ${{\text{C}}^{*}}$ -algebra and $A$ satisfies Kadison's similarity problem, then $A$ is also type $\text{I}$ . We then use this to obtain an embedding of $A$ into $B$ .

Important modifications in ambulance design were suggested and introduced by Safar in 1965 and in 1971. However, most of these modifications have not reached the developing countries. The present “ambulance” in these countries are low ceiling and carry no equipment or trained personnel. They could be better defined as “taxis for horizontal transportation.” Recently, we have been able to introduce onto the market of these countries, a new ambulance that is competitive in price and adapted to the availability of materials, equipment, and personnel.

In this paper we present results on the use of x-ray absorption spectroscopy and in particular extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) to study non-destructively buried interfaces between polymers and metals. In particular we study the interaction between isolated metal atoms (Ti or Cr) and the surrounding polymer matrix (polyimide or triazine). The metal atoms have been introduced into the polymer matrix using ion-implantation. We find that Cr forms a π complex with the aromatic structures of polyimide and triazine in agreement with model compound and XPS data. Ti on the other hand seems to form Ti-O-C bonds with both polymers.

Lamination of metal-coated elastomeric stamps against thin films of electroactive organics provides non-invasive, high resolution electrical contacts for investigations of charge transport in these materials. This approach uses the features of relief on the stamps to define, with nanometer resolution, the geometry and separation of electrodes that are formed by uniform evaporation of a thin metal film onto the stamp. Soft, room temperature contact of an element of this type with an organic semiconductor film on a gate dielectric and a gate yields a high performance top contact transistor with source/drain electrodes supported by the stamp. We review here our use of this approach to study the electrical properties of the organic semiconductor pentacene in thin film transistors structures. We also introduce a method for using the same techniques and structures to probe transport through organic monolayers.

It is becoming increasingly clear that understanding the small scale polishing mechanisms operating during CMP requires knowledge of the nature of the pad-wafer contact. Dual Emission Laser Induced Fluorescence (DELIF) can be used to study the fluid layer profile between the polishing pad and the wafer during CMP. Interactions between the polishing pad surface and the wafer can then be deduced from the fluid layer profile. Previous investigations of pad-wafer interactions using DELIF include in-situ measurements of average fluid layer thickness and asperity layer compressibility, surface roughness measurements and polishing pad rebound into etched wells. In this paper, DELIF is used to determine pad-wafer contact, the point at the fluid film thickness goes to zero. We present a technique and some preliminary data for instantaneous measurement of in-situ pad-wafer contact using DELIF. The imaging area is 1.30×1.74 mm with a resolution of 2.5 μm/pixel. At this magnification, some regions imaged contain contact, whereas others do not. For the contact regions discussed in this paper, contact percentage varies from 0.07% to 0.27% on a Cabot Microelectronics D100 polishing pad. The asperity contact area increases with applied load, which was varied from 0.28 to 3.1 psi.

This paper describes the fabrication and calibration of micromachined shear stress sensors intended for characterization of the local pad-wafer contact forces present during chemical-mechanical polishing. Sensors consist of arrays of microfabricated poly-dimethyl-siloxane (PDMS) posts and are able to measure forces ranging from 2 to 200 μN. The posts are 100 μm high and have diameters of 40-100 μm. Calibrated post deflection sensitivities are linear and lie between 0.2 μm/μN and 1.3μm/μN. Sensor design, fabrication, and calibration are detailed. Feasibility is established for sensor integration into a CMP scale model test setup, including an optical viewing method for observing post deflection during polishing. Initial micrographs of post deflection during polishing do not yet have sufficient resolution to determine the microscale forces during polishing.

Significant system performance improvements can be realized by stacking die layers. This approach, known as 3-D integration, can reduce RC delay as well as the system form factor. Die are typically thinned in wafer form prior to integration into the modules allowing even greater functional density. However, certain applications require the thinning of individual die. A detailed technique including die lamination, lapping, chemical mechanical planarization (CMP), and release has been developed to thin die to 35 μm thickness. During lamination, the die are temporarily adhered with their active side down to a glass substrate using an adhesive. Mechanical lapping is performed to remove the majority of silicon from the back side. The final thickness of approximately 35 μm is achieved using CMP. The CMP step is critical for the removal of sub-surface damage and prevention of device failure. After thinning, the adhesive is dissolved and the die are handled using porous end effectors. The process can effectively produce die thinned to 35 μm with ± 1.5 μm total thickness variation (TTV).