A sign for The Blackstone Group L.P. investment firm stands in front of their offices, Monday, Oct. 15, 2018, in New York. Credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File
Private equity firms Vista Equity Partners and Blackstone are buying software maker Smartsheet for approximately $8.4 billion in cash.
Vista and Blackstone said Tuesday that they will pay $56.50 per Smartsheet Inc. share. The agreement includes a 45-day “go-shop” period during which Smartsheet and its advisers seek alternative acquisition proposals from certain third parties and possibly enter into talks with other parties that make alternative offers. Smartsheet’s board will have the right to end the deal with Vista and Blackstone to accept a superior proposal. The go-shop period expires on Nov. 8.
“We look forward to partnering closely with Blackstone and Smartsheet to support its ambitious goal of making its platform accessible for every organization, team and worker relying on collaborative work to achieve successful outcomes,” Monti Saroya, co-head of Vista’s Flagship Fund and senior managing director, and John Stalder, managing director at Vista, said in a statement.
The announcement comes shortly after the Federal Reserve said that it cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually large half-point. The central bank’s action lowered its key rate to roughly 4.8%, down from a two-decade high of 5.3%. A rate cut gives more favorable conditions for businesses looking at making acquisitions.
The deal, which was approved by Smartsheet’s board, is expected to close in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter. It still needs approval from Smartsheet’s shareholders.
Once the transaction closes, Smartsheet will become privately held. The Bellevue, Washington company will continue to run under the Smartsheet name and brand.
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Vista, Blackstone buying software maker Smartsheet for about $8.4 billion (2024, September 24)
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Drone image of sea ice being broken up by waves generated by the CCGS Amundsen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada. Credit: Élie Dumas-Lefebvre and Dany Dumont
University of Adelaide researchers have developed a new theoretical model to predict the distances ocean waves can travel to break up sea ice.
Monitoring of ocean wave propagation is important to predict how ice covering the Arctic and Antarctic seas responds to climate change, but the incumbent model was initially developed in the 1970s and 1980s.
Dr. Luke Bennetts and Jordan Pitt from the University of Adelaide’s School of Computer and Mathematical Sciences investigated how the changes in breaking up the ice affect wave propagation, and published their findings in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.
“Previously, distances ocean waves can break up sea ice cover were only considered in terms of gradual reductions in wave energy over distance,” said Dr. Bennetts.
“Our results show that large reductions can occur over a small distance until an unbroken ice cover begins to break up, and that this additional consideration can alter interpretations of field observations.”
When waves travel into frozen areas of the ocean surface, it can cause the break-up of the ice cover into discrete chunks known as floes, which drift away and melt rapidly.
“At the same time, waves become less intense over distance due to the ice cover, so that the break-up only occurs over a finite distance,” said Dr. Bennetts.
“Changes have been observed in the way waves travel through regions of sea ice before and after break-up events, but it is very difficult to measure the changes in the challenging polar seas.
“We used a mathematical model to understand the changes and were able to quantify local changes which occur where the ice cover begins and changes that occur over long distances.”
Dr. Bennetts said the findings have the potential to inform how wave–sea ice interactions are handled in numerical models used for climate studies.
“The main goal in this research field is to predict the distances over which ocean waves can break up a sea ice cover,” he said.
“The long-term aim is to advance predictions of numerical climate models about the future of the world’s sea ice.
“In the shorter-term, we aim to combine the model of the ice effect on the waves with a model of ice break-up due to waves, to generate predictions of the extent of ice break-up.”
More information:
Jordan P. A. Pitt et al, On transitions in water wave propagation through consolidated to broken sea ice covers, Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2023.0862
Citation:
The importance of wave modeling in predicting climate change’s effect on sea ice (2024, September 24)
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from https://phys.org/news/2024-09-importance-climate-effect-sea-ice.html
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Country GPI. Credit: Global Finance Journal (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.gfj.2024.101028
Do the United States and China truly shape the global economic agenda? A new study investigating the relationship between global powers and the stock market has revealed they have more economic influence than previously thought.
The study by Charles Darwin University (CDU) and Griffith University revealed how rich and powerful nations influence the policies of less powerful economies by exploring the correlation between the Global Power Index (GPI) and relative stock market performance and integration.
This study is the first of its kind to establish such a relationship. The research is published in the Global Finance Journal.
The authors examined economic and stock market data over 25 years for 11 nations: Australia, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Italy, Korea, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.
These regions represent 58.05% of the gross domestic product of global markets and 46.17% of the global population.
Lead author and CDU Associate Professor of Accounting and Finance Rakesh Gupta said the results showed the Australia and United States stock market changes with respect to other markets were more stable, whereas India’s and China’s stock market changes with respect to other markets were more volatile.
“The findings of the study are significant for investors who seek to benefit from investing in international investments,” Dr. Gupta said.
“A portfolio manager from a market with strong global power who seeks international diversification benefits is less likely to benefit from diversifying into markets that have stronger and increasing global power. They will need to invest in markets with weaker and declining global power.”
The study also found education and environmental awareness are likely to impact the stock market.
“Findings suggest that more environmentally aware investors cause stock markets to deviate from each other,” Dr. Gupta said.
“Similarly, a higher level of education impacts negatively on the convergence of the stock markets. This can also be interpreted as environmentally aware investors and more educated investors looking at domestic markets more favorably and, as such, cause investors to invest locally.”
Dr. Gupta said based on the study’s findings, Australia should continue aligning itself economically with major powers such as the United States.
“When we consider Australia, it is developed but not powerful from a global perspective and as such it may not have an impact on global markets,” Dr. Gupta said.
“Whereas China, which is a developing economy but powerful, may influence more. This has implications for Australian investors who seek to invest in overseas markets. To gain benefits of diversification, investors need to consider investments in markets that have lesser global power.
“From an economic perspective, Australia’s alignment with strong global power, such as the U.S. may be implicitly a good and strategic decision in terms of influencing global economic policy. Australia may continue to benefit from its alignment with China as well because of its rising global power.”
More information:
Rakesh Gupta et al, Global power and Stock market co-movements: A study of G20 markets, Global Finance Journal (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.gfj.2024.101028
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New study reveals how much influence global powers have on the economy (2024, September 24)
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The southern small white is spreading throughout Europe. It is only a matter of time before it also flies across the English Channel (Image: Martin Wiemers). Credit: Martin Wiemers
Until a few years ago, the butterfly known as the southern small white could barely be found north of the Alps. That was before a Europe-wide invasion that brought a huge increase in the insect’s distribution—at the same time as a rapid decrease in genetic diversity within the species.
It took a while for zoologist Daniel Berner to notice that a butterfly species that wasn’t local to his area had become established in his garden. Then, suddenly, he saw it everywhere: Pieris mannii—also known as the southern small white—with its wingspan of around four centimeters and white wings adorned with large black spots.
Indeed, until a few years ago, only a few small, localized populations of this principally Mediterranean species existed in Switzerland, in Valais and Ticino. But at some point in around 2005, the butterfly began its journey north and east—and it has now been identified at the North Sea and in the Czech Republic.
Comparison with museum specimens
With its expansion, however, came a significant loss of genetic diversity.
“We found that, as it invaded, the southern small white standardized local populations of its own species,” says Dr. Daniel Berner of the University of Basel. Together with researchers from the University of Greifswald and the Senckenberg German Entomological Institute, Berner has published a study in Current Biology investigating how the butterfly’s expansion has impacted diversity within its own species.
The researchers compared the genetic make-up of freshly caught butterflies with that of significantly older museum specimens—in other words, specimens that had been caught and preserved before the invasion began. In doing so, they demonstrated that the genetic composition of the researched local populations has changed considerably. Indeed, a large part of the original genetic make-up has now been replaced with that of the expanding population.
“If we hadn’t made the comparison with the museum specimens, we wouldn’t have spotted this genetic change,” says Berner.
For their analyses, the researchers were able to sequence butterflies from the collection of the Natural History Museum of Bern and therefore to characterize the insects genetically. They were very lucky that, over the decades, the lepidopterist (butterfly researcher) Heiner Ziegler had amassed an extensive collection of specimens of none other than the southern small white—and that they could use this collection in their research.
Thanks to the museum specimens, the researchers were able to compare the genetics of the southern small white over time (Image: Daniel Berner/University of Basel). Credit: Daniel Berner
Favorite plants in gardens
Urbanization is helping the butterfly to spread rapidly. In fact, the southern small white doesn’t like to fly long distances. Instead, it spends its lifespan of approximately three weeks fluttering around within a modest radius of its birthplace, in which the caterpillars’ food plants also thrive—namely arugula and, above all, candytuft.
The latter is particularly widespread in gardens within settled areas. Accordingly, the increasing expansion of the built environment has given the southern small white the opportunity to spread far and wide.
Moreover, there are five or six generations of southern small white per year, rather than just one.
“This species can therefore quickly build up large populations in a newly settled area, favoring the settlement of new land over large distances,” Berner explains. It is very likely, he says, that the butterfly will expand further—provided that its food plants are available. “In any case, butterfly researchers in England are just waiting to spot the first one.”
Expansion and genetic mixing—loss or gain?
From a conservation perspective, the expansion of the southern small white is a double-edged sword. As the species uses largely human-designed habitats in the newly settled area, it is not expected to compete with indigenous butterflies. Moreover, expansion means that this butterfly species is now much more numerous overall, which tends to reduce its risk of dying out.
However, these positives are offset by the disappearance of genetic diversity that had built up over the course of millennia: “Although it’s the fate of living things that some local groups can die out, what’s special about the situation facing the southern small white is that the loss of original population diversity accompanies expansion of the built environment—and is therefore caused by humans,” Berner says.
As yet, the researchers don’t know why the southern small white in particular has embarked on major expansion or where exactly this process began.
“Presumably, nothing fundamentally new has happened on the side of the butterfly. So far, we haven’t found signs of major genetic change in the expansive population, and climate change doesn’t appear to play a key role in the situation,” says Berner.
The researchers want to continue looking into these questions, but they already have their suspicions as to the starting point: the invasion may have begun in eastern France.
More information:
Lucas A. Blattner et al, Urbanization-associated range expansion genetically homogenizes a butterfly species, Current Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.09.006
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How a butterfly invasion minimizes genetic diversity (2024, September 24)
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Metal thin film patterns on (left to right) 2D planar, 3D curvilinear, and stretchable substrates. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51585-2
A research team has developed a printing-based selective metal film deposition technique that enables the facile and fast fabrication of high-performance soft electronic devices and circuits in various forms.
The results of this research were published in Nature Communications. The team was led by Prof. Yongtaek Hong from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, in collaboration with Prof. Byeongmoon Lee from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST).
Metal thin films formed using vapor deposition have excellent electrical conductivity and surface quality, making them key components of electronic devices and circuits. However, patterning these metal thin films into desired shapes typically requires the use of rigid masks such as shadow masks or photomasks, which makes it difficult to modify patterns and limits the ability to carry out processes on surfaces of various forms.
To address this issue, the research team developed a printing-based selective metal thin film deposition technique. This method utilizes polymer patterns to block the condensation of metal vapor, allowing the vapor deposition and patterning processes to be performed at the same time without the need for a separate mask. This approach enables the production of patterns with line widths ranging from micrometers (μm) to millimeters (mm) on a large scale.
(a) Demonstration of wireless power transfer (b) Demonstration of stretchable light-emitting diode. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51585-2
According to the research team, the polymer pattern’s excellent stretchability and mechanical durability allow metal thin film patterns to be easily formed on multi-curvature or elastic substrates, which were previously impossible with conventional methods. During the research, they demonstrated next-generation free-form electronic devices and circuits, including wireless power transmission, curvilinear OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diodes), and stretchable LED arrays, by using metal thin films in various shapes.
Prof. Yongtaek Hong said, “This study not only developed a technology for easily custom-fabricating high-performance metal thin film patterns based on vapor deposition, but also set the stage for maximizing the utility of metal thin films in the field of soft electronics by applying this technology to curved and stretchable systems.
“In the future, this selective metal thin film deposition technology is expected to be directly applied to forming porous transparent structures in the top common electrode of OLED panels, a key element for under-display camera and under-display face recognition sensor technologies that require various form factors.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Sujin Jeong and Dr. Hyungsoo Yoon, co-first authors of the paper, are currently working at Samsung Display Research Center, focusing on the development of next-generation future displays, including stretchable displays.
More information:
Sujin Jeong et al, Printable, stretchable metal-vapor-desorption layers for high-fidelity patterning in soft, freeform electronics, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51585-2
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Selective metal films deposition technique enables fabrication of soft electronics with various form factors (2024, September 24)
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