This thesis offers a comparative study of Chinese and the U.S. legislations on the issue of cross-border insolvency. China has included one article concerning this issue in its Enterprise Bankruptcy Law promulgated in 2006. Four years after that, when facing a real case, it is found that the legislation is too preliminary to be used. In the meantime, great efforts have been made among many western countries in order to promote international cooperation on this issue. The United States is one of the most active countries. This thesis analyzes the Chinese version of cross-border insolvency legislation, factor by factor. It also does case study of mostly U.S. cases and some other countries’ cases and tries to find out how the courts interpret the corresponding factors. In doing so, it hopes to improve the Chinese legislation by taking international experience as reference.

In this thesis, I investigate economic and policy implications of corporate debt financing. In the first chapter, I examine whether or not leverage has a negative effect on corporate investment due to a debt overhang problem. Existing empirical studies face a challenging endogeneity problem inherent in the investment-leverage relationship, the source of which is the firm's anticipation of its growth opportunities. I develop a novel approach to control for this problem by using analysts' earnings forecasts as an anticipation measure. I show that anticipations influence the investment-leverage relationship in that firms that do anticipate future growth opportunities suffer less from debt overhang. In the second chapter, I extend Chapter One's analysis to a dynamic setting. I first establish that there is a stable long-term relationship between investment and leverage, and then disentangle the short-term dynamics of leverage and investment and find that the deviation of leverage from its benchmark path has a negative impact on the change in investment. I also employ dynamic panel models to estimate the causal dynamic effects of leverage on investment. The estimations show that the impact is negative for recent leverage, but positive for leverage in the more distant past. Also, the effects of leverage are attenuated when the investment uncertainties are further controlled. This suggests that the firm's response to investment uncertainties might explain dynamic effects of leverage on investment. In Chapter Three, I investigate the effects of the U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy-reorganization law on firm operating performance, and adopt matching methods to account for self-selection and heterogeneity in firms' pre-filing characteristics. Matching methods entail the selection of a control group of non-bankrupt firms that are comparable to Chapter 11 filing firms in a wide range of pre-filing characteristics that affect filing decisions. Comparing the operating performances of the two groups, I find that filing firms' net cash flows, but not operating incomes, improve significantly during bankruptcy. Furthermore, firms reduce their leverage levels and incur lower interest expenses after bankruptcy. The results suggest that the reduction in interest expenses contributes to the improvement in firms' net cash flows during bankruptcy.

ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA / Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) personnel developed the Video Bus Integrated Telemetry System (VBITS) for air delivery testing at YPG. The system consists of a common rack for mounting both video and telemetry equipment, which makes installation easier and more time efficient. Prior to the one-rack concept, the video, TSPI, and telemetry were all installed as separate entities competing for space, power, and time. Requirements to downlink High-Definition (HD) video from the aircraft prompted research into technological improvements in transmitters, onboard encoders, and recorders. These advances allowed the integration of video, analog sensors, and aircraft bus data into a single telemetry stream. Future advancements will include combining multiple HD video sources in a single downlink.

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Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

This article deals with the interest groups which were spawned by the creation of the first canonries for the Mexican cathedral. The article shows that it was the royal university which gave rise to these interest groups because it viewed those canonries as future occupations for its students and a political means for its own institutional consolidation. Likewise, the text brings out the fact that the cathedral chapter initially opposed the creation of these prebends arguing that they altered the traditional forms of promotion of canons and increased competition, opening the doors to lettered Creoles and brought about the direct intervention of bishops and viceroys in the election of the people that would make up the chapter. / Este trabajo trata sobre las redes de intereses que se crearon alrededor de la provisión de las primeras canonjías de oficio en la catedral de México. El texto muestra cómo fue la universidad la que promovió su creación, pues vio en esas plazas un destino profesional para sus estudiantes y un medio político para su consolidación institucional. Del mismo modo, se da cuenta de la oposición inicial del cabildo de la catedral a la creación de esas prebendas, pues alteraban las formas tradicionales de promoción de los capitulares e incrementaban la competencia, dando cabida a los letrados criollos y a la intervención directa de prelados y virreyes en la elección de quienes conformarían el cabildo.

In 1541 Doctor Juan Negrete arrived in Mexico, the first lay professor of theology, and who was also named the archdeacon of the new cathedral. Twelve years later he participated as the first rector in the inauguration of the Royal University of Mexico, and a few months before he died in 1555 he also taught theology there. Several documents relating to Negrete, many of them unpublished, reveal the internal difficulties which the first bishop and the cathedral chapter experienced as they attempted to lay the basis for the secular aspects of the church. Negrete, instead of being a factor of cohesion in the chapter, was the source ofdivisions and conflicts given his disorderly life style and propensity to speak ill of others and initiate rumors. He created many enemies and instigated proceedings which often led to prison. His case in particular reveals the ambivalent nature of many personalities who participated in the creation of Spanish institutions in the newly conquered lands. / En 1541 llegó a México el doctor Juan Negrete, el primer catedrático secular deTeología, quien tenía el nombramiento adicional de arcediano de la naciente iglesia catedral. Doce años después, participó en la inauguración de la Real Universidad de México en calidad de primer rector, y pocos meses antes de morir, en 1555, también enseñó Teología en dicha institución. Diversos documentos relacionados con Negrete, en su mayoría inéditos, nos revelan las dificultades internas que debieron sortear el primer obispo y cabildo eclesiástico de México para asentar la Iglesia secular. Negrete, antes que factor de cohesión en el cabildo,fue causa de divisiones y conflictos, debido a su disipado estilo de vida y, especialmente, a su carácter, inclinado a la maledicencia y a la murmuración, y fuente de enemistades, procesos y cárceles. Su caso muestra también la ambivalencia de no pocas personalidades que participaron en la creación de las instituciones peninsulares en los territorios de conquista.

Insolvency law is a progressive and dynamic legal discipline closely interrelated with economics and business. A quality legal framework of insolvency is indispensable for modern market economies: it helps to identify companies or individuals in financial distress and to restructure their debts, or liquidate their assets in an efficient and transparent way. The main purpose of the insolvency law is to provide creditors and debtors with a ground for negotiations and to help them reach qualified decisions based on the available information. In the Czech Republic, the insolvency law had long been criticized for its insufficient protection of creditors and for the loopholes that made extensive property frauds possible without having the wrongdoers punished. The current Czech Insolvency Act which took effect in 2008 was broadly inspired by the U.S. Bankruptcy Code Chapter 11 and eliminated most of the weaknesses of the earlier law. This thesis shows that valuable inspiration can be found not only in texts of statutes but also in the real life. On the example of reorganizations of Kordárna and GM described here, main principles of insolvency law are being discussed.

1 Summary The thesis, Imago gratiosa - Crowned Madonnas in Central Europe in the Baroque Period presents original research results primarily focused on the Madonne Coronate collection in the Archivio Capitolo di San Pietro at the Vatican Library, which was realised as part of Charles University grant project no. 356911 Coronation of Merciful Marian Imagos in Central Europe in the 17th and 18th Century. To become merciful (imago gratiosa) or miraculous (imago miraculosa) a Marian imago must demonstrate divine mercy (save lives during a disaster, cause miraculous recovery from illness, conception, etc.). The greatest expression of veneration and devotion to a merciful or miraculous imago or statue of the Virgin Mary is its coronation. The theological basis of this liturgical ceremony is the coronation of the Virgin Mary on her assumption to heaven. On earth, the Virgin Mary was crowned with imitations of the crowns of worldly monarchs and her crowned imago placed on a royal throne or altar, usually made especially for this occasion for greater honour and glory. This was always the exquisite work of goldsmiths and silversmiths, which if not preserved until today, we can see in numerous manuscripts, prints and engravings specially published to mark the coronation. The nature of the coronation ceremony developed...

The dissertation "St Cosmas and St Damian collegiate chapter at Stará Boleslav" deals with the history of the oldest chapter of its kind in Bohemia. The gist of the thesis is introduced by a general essay on the institution of the chapter. The core part studies the development of the chapter at Stará Boleslav from its establishment by prince Břetislav up to the present. Special emphasis is laid on the period between the two world wars 1919-1938. This period is elaborated in detail on the basis of available sources and literature. The dissertation investigates the political and religious situation in the country, namely at Stará Boleslav, of that time, deals with personal issues at the chapter, and analyses its social conditions and pastoral activity. The personalities of four significant canons are introduced in conclusion.