Areas of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) outbreaks in the Black Hills can provide habitat for black-backedwoodpeckers (Picoides arcticus), a U.S. Forest Service, Region 2 Sensitive Species. These outbreaks are managed through removal of trees infested with mountain pine beetles to control mountain pine beetle populations and salvage timber resources. To minimize impacts t...

Many blame the recent financial market turmoil on malfeasance of ratings agencies, who had incentives to bias their ratings. But these incentives had existed for decades. Why did the ratings bias issue only recently emerge? We model asset issuers who can shop for ratings – observe multiple ratings and disclose only a subset – before auctioning their assets. When assets are simple, agencies’ rat...

The specialization of equid limbs for cursoriality is a classic case of adaptive evolution, but the role of the axial skeleton in this famous transition is not well understood. Extant horses are extremely fast and efficient runners, which use a stiff-backed gallop with reduced bending of the lumbar region relative to other mammals. This study tests the hypothesis that stiff-backed running in ho...

This paper proposes an integrated framework to address three empirical findings of the literature on initial public offerings. (i) Why do investment banks earn positive profits in a competitive market? (ii) Why do banks receive lower gross spreads in venture capitalist (VC) backed IPOs? (iii) Why is underpricing more pronounced in VC than in non-VC backed IPOs? We model the IPO procedure as a t...

Total shoulder replacement is a successful procedure for degenerative or some inflammatory diseases of the shoulder. However, fixation of the glenoid seems to be the main weakness with a high rate of loosening. The results using all-polyethylene components have been better than those using metal-backed components. We describe our experience with 35 consecutive total shoulder replacements using ...

Mortgage termination due to prepayment is an important issue in pricing of mortgage and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) due to its stochastic nature. In developing countries where MBS is not yet fully developed, mortgage termination affects the flow of funds to the lenders. Recent literature has used option price models (OPM) to analyze prepayments. Prepayment is a ‘call option’ whose price is...