The centralized market for the settlement of credit default swaps (CDS), which governs more than $10 trillion’s worth of outstanding CDS contracts, has been criticized for mispricing the defaulted bonds that underlie the contracts. I take a mechanism design approach to the settlement of CDS contracts. I fully characterize robust settlement mechanisms that deliver unbiased prices for the underly...

1. Two common species of acorn barnacle, Chthamalus montagui and C. stellatus , with similar resource needs, occur together on rocky shores of NW Europe but differ in their adult distribution over two environmental gradients, wave exposure and vertical height on the shore. 2. A sampling programme was undertaken over 2 years to determine the causal mechanisms of this differential distribution. T...

The Blue Crab, Callinectes sapidus, is a commercially, culturally, and ecologically significant species in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), whose offshore stages were likely impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWH). To test for DWH effects and to better understand the planktonic ecology of this species, we monitored Callinectes spp. megalopal settlement and condition at sites within and outsi...

This paper suggests a new set of analytical solutions for predicting leakage-induced seepage field and ground settlement in saturated clay. A unique feature of the solutions presented is considering the effect of the tunnel lining through the relative permeability between the tunnel and the soil. Through the superposition method, the proposed method can be easily extended to twin parallel tunne...

Recruitment via settlement of pelagic larvae is critical for the persistence of benthic marine populations. For many benthic invertebrates, larval settlement occurs in response to surface microbial films. Larvae of the serpulid polychaete Hydroides elegans can be induced to settle by single bacterial species. Until now, only Pseudoalteromonas luteoviolacea had been subjected to detailed genetic...

Like most coral reef organisms, crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster spp.) are expected to be highly vulnerable to predation as they transition from a planktonic larval phase to settling among reef habitats. Accordingly, crown-of-thorns starfish might be expected to exhibit behavioural adaptations which moderate exposure to predation at this critical stage in their life history. Using pairwise...

Marine biofouling poses a severe threat to maritime and aquaculture industries. To prevent the attachment of marine biofouling organisms on man-made structures, countless cost and effort was spent annually. In particular, most attention has been paid on the development of efficient and environmentally friendly fouling-resistant coatings, as well as larval settlement mechanism of several major b...

in present research, 17 centrifuge tests have been conducted to study the effect of various parameters such as the number of piles, the distance between piles, gradation and thickness of the granular layer on the load-settlement behavior of a pile raft system. the results showed the importance of granular layer to reduce the settlement of non-connected pile raft system when the roles of piles a...

Life-cycle transitions connecting larval and juvenile stages in metazoans are orchestrated by neuroendocrine signals including neuropeptides and hormones. In marine invertebrate life cycles, which often consist of planktonic larval and benthic adult stages, settlement of the free-swimming larva to the sea floor in response to environmental cues is a key life cycle transition. Settlement is regu...

Drained thermokarst lake basins (DTLBs) are ubiquitous landforms on Arctic tundra lowland. Their dynamic states are seldom investigated, despite their importance for landscape stability, hydrology, nutrient fluxes, and carbon cycling. Here we report results based on highresolution Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) measurements using space-borne data for a study area located on th...