177,544 research outputs found
La crescita esterna delle imprese assicurative europee
No full textIl settore assicurativo europeo è stato nell’ultimo decennio al centro di un importante processo di concentrazione stimolato da fattori quali, tra gli altri, deregulation e cicli positivi dei mercati azionari. Una parte rilevante delle M&A che hanno interessato assicurazioni europee ha avuto inoltre carattere cross-border.
Allo scopo di contribuire alla letteratura esistente, la presente tesi di dottorato analizza, tramite la tecnica dell’event study, gli effetti di creazione di valore determinati sui prezzi azionari delle imprese coinvolte dall’annuncio di 33 operazioni di aggregazione intraprese nel periodo 1997-2006 da assicurazioni europee nei confronti di altre assicurazioni ovvero di banche o altri intermediari finanziari.
I risultati, in linea con la prevalente letteratura in materia di aggregazioni nel settore finanziario, mostrano rendimenti anomali cumulati (CAR) lievemente negativi per l’assicurazione acquirente, sensibilmente positivi per l’impresa acquisita e complessivamente identificano effetti di tenue distruzione di valore per l’operazione nel suo complesso.
L’analisi multivariata dei rendimenti anomali mette in luce la preferenza del mercato verso operazioni di aggregazione su scala transnazionale, in accordo con le evidenze della letteratura che ipotizza una sorta di specialità del settore assicurativo rispetto al grado di internazionalità dei processi aggregativi, dimostrando la presenza di minori barriere implicite ad investimenti stranieri rispetto al mercato bancario. Il mercato ha inoltre attribuito una maggiore capacità di creazione di valore alle operazioni di crescita esterna che hanno interessato target di dimensione e volume d’affari relativamente piccoli rispetto all’acquirente, scontando minori difficoltà di integrazione. Infine, i CAR della società target sono risultati tanto più positivi quanto più l’assicurazione acquirente fosse caratterizzata da dimensione rilevante e performance reddituali positive, lasciando ipotizzare un beneficio per gli azionisti dell’impresa acquisita legato allo standing dell’acquirente.European insurance industry faced in the last 10 years a relevant consolidation process that was enhanced by, among others, deregulation and positive market cycles. A significant part of M&A transactions regarding European insurers was cross-border.
In order to contribute to the existing literature, this thesis analyses through an event study technique the wealth effects on share prices related to the announcement of 33 M&As in which a European insurer acquired an insurer, a bank or another financial institution in the period 1997-2006.
The results, in accordance with the major literature regarding consolidation in financial industry, show slightly negative cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) for the acquiring insurer, material positive CARs for the target institution and identify very little wealth destruction effects for the transaction as a whole.
A multivariate analysis of CAR shows market preference for cross-border integration; this result is in line with a literary strand that assumes sort of a specialty of insurance sector as regard to the internationality of M&A activity, indicating that implicit barriers to foreign investment are less relevant than in banking market. Moreover, market judged as value enhancing the acquisitions of targets of relative lower dimension compared to the acquirer, assuming lesser integration threats. Finally, the higher the dimension and the performance of the acquirer insurer, the higher the target CAR. This may indicate the existence for target shareholders of a “benefit” related to the acquirer standing
A health assessment for Imperial Roman burials recovered from the necropolis of San Donato and Bivio CH, Urbino, Italy
No full textImperial Roman burials recovered from the sites of San Donato and Bivio CH, located in the city of Urbino, Italy were examined for skeletal lesions. Observed pathologies include arthritis, trauma, periostitis, cranial pitting and enamel hypoplasia. All of the adults exhibited at least one enamel hypoplasia. In general, the adult males exhibit greater rates of skeletal pathologies than the females. Clearly, chronic health problems appear to be common among all adults; nearly 89% of them exhibit at least one form of skeletal lesion. This is in stark contrast to what is seen for the sub-adults. Only one sub-adult showed skeletal lesions. Acute health problems may have been the primary contributing factors for the death of the children recovered from the site. Despite previous research and attention to malaria as a critical health problem of Roman sub-adults, it does not seem to be an issue for this burial sample. We compare the frequency of cranial pitting and periostitis for the Urbino burials to several other Imperial Roman skeletal samples as a means to assess the potential for malaria and other casual factors for the observed lesions. In conclusion, we see the extreme rate of skeletal lesions for this community as indication of an extremely poor quality of life for these Romans
INSTRUMENTS AND METHODOLOGIES FOR THE UNDERWATER TRIDIMENSIONAL DIGITIZATION AND DATA MUSEALIZATION
No full textIn the research started within the SINAPSIS project of the Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa an underwater stereoscopic scanning aimed at surveying of submerged archaeological sites, integrable to standard systems for geomorphological detection of the coast, has been developed. The project involves the construction of hardware consisting of an aluminum frame supporting a pair of GoPro Hero Black Edition cameras and software for the production of point clouds and the initial processing of data.
The software has features for stereoscopic vision system calibration, reduction of noise and the of distortion of underwater captured images, searching for corresponding points of stereoscopic images using stereo-matching algorithms (dense and sparse), for points cloud generating and filtering.
Only after various calibration and survey tests carried out during the excavations envisaged in the project, the mastery of methods for an efficient acquisition of data has been achieved.
The current development of the system has allowed generation of portions of digital models of real submerged scenes. A semi-automatic procedure for global registration of partial models is under development as a useful aid for the study and musealization of sites
The pathophysiology of concussion.
No full textConcussion is defined as a biomechanically induced brain injury characterized by the absence of gross anatomic lesions. Early and late clinical symptoms, including impairments of memory and attention, headache, and alteration of mental status, are the result of neuronal dysfunction mostly caused by functional rather than structural abnormalities. The mechanical insult initiates a complex cascade of metabolic events leading to perturbation of delicate neuronal homeostatic balances. Starting from neurotoxicity, energetic metabolism disturbance caused by the initial mitochondrial dysfunction seems to be the main biochemical explanation for most postconcussive signs and symptoms. Furthermore, concussed cells enter a peculiar state of vulnerability, and if a second concussion is sustained while they are in this state, they may be irreversibly damaged by the occurrence of swelling. This condition of concussion-induced brain vulnerability is the basic pathophysiology of the second impact syndrome. N-acetylaspartate, a brain-specific compound representative of neuronal metabolic wellness, is proving a valid surrogate marker of the post-traumatic biochemical damage, and its utility in monitoring the recovery of the aforementioned "functional" disturbance as a concussion marker is emerging, because it is easily detectable through proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy
A phase 1 study of buparlisib and bevacizumab in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma progressing on vascular endothelial growth factor-targeted therapies
No full textAbstract not availableRana R. McKay, Guillermo De Velasco, Lillian Werner, Joaquim Bellmunt, Lauren Harshman, Christopher Sweeney, Jonathan E. Rosenberg, Michelle Hirsch, Sabina Signoretti, Eliezer M. Van Allen, Meghara Walsh, Ulka Vaishampayan, David F. McDermott, and Toni K. Choueir
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Regulation and Self-Regulation of Related Party Transactions in Italy: An Empirical Analysis
No full textThis paper assesses how Italian companies have implemented the regulation on related party
transactions enacted by Consob in 2010. Companies have been given some degree of freedom in devising
their internal codes: they may “opt-up” or “opt-down” from some of the default provisions set forth in the
regulation, thus tailoring internal codes to their own individual needs. We investigate how firms have
made use of these options, building an ad hoc firm-specific indicator which focuses on five key provisions.
We find that the options we focus on have been taken advantage of in a variety of ways. We also verify
the hypothesis that firms adopt stricter/looser procedures depending on corporate governance characteristics.
While non-controlled firms seem to have set up stricter procedures, among controlled-companies
those where a single shareholder or a coalition holds a stake lower than 50% of voting and cash flow
rights have weaker procedures. Finally, while a higher presence of independent directors does not seem to
play a role, the presence of a director nominated by institutional investors is positively correlated with
stricter procedures
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