Legionella Pneumophila: A Continuing Threat

Legionnaires' Disease has been a continuing source of concern to researchers and to medical personnel. As a result of the questions regarding how it is spread, innkeepers must take certain precautions to protect their property and their guests. The authors offer several legal cautions as well as background information for everyone in the industry.

The High Cost of Hasty Hiring

Carefully reading employment applications and checking out all references and prior-employment records is vital to hotel managers and personnel directors today. Many legal suits are the result of employees who, hired quickly because of an immediate need, commit some crime in relation to guest rooms or property.

Using Tax Incentives Reduces Construction Costs

Rehabilitation tax credits can save developers a significant amount of money. The author discusses the tests used to lower overall tax liability by renovating older structures.

The Foodservice Industry's Social Responsibility Regarding the Obesity Epidemic, Part I: Parallels to Other Public Health Issues and Potential Legal Implications

The incidence of obesity among both children and adults in the United States (U.S.) has reached epidemic level. If not quickly curtailed, it represents significant long-term costs to all facets of the U.S. economy. The foodservice industry has contributed to this major public health issue. Parallels between the obesity epidemic and the public health issues of smoking and foodborne illnesses could influence the foodservice industry's response to obesity concerns. Of particular note are the parallels between the liability litigation and legislative actions related to smoking and the tobacco industry. This industry has a history of taking socially responsible actions regarding public health issues. There is potential for costs to the foodservice industry from similar anti-obesity litigation and legislation if the industry does not once again assume social responsibility relative to the current obesity crisis and is not proactive in efforts to combat obesity

Adult Alternatives for Social Drinking: A Direction

In their survey/study - Adult Alternatives for Social Drinking: A Direction - by John Dienhart and Sandra Strick, Assistant Professors, Department of Restaurant, Hotel and Institutional Management, Purdue University, Dienhart and Strick begin with: “Changes in consumer habits have brought about a change in the business of selling alcoholic drinks and have impacted upon hotel food and beverage operations. The authors surveyed a sample of hotel corporate food and beverage directors to ascertain how they are handling this challenge.” Dienhart and Strick declare that the alcoholic beverage market, sale and consumption thereof, has taken a bit of a hit in contemporary society. “Even to the casual observer, it's obvious that the bar and beverage industry has undergone a great deal of change in the past few years,” say the authors. “Observations include a change in the types of drinks people are ordering, as well as a decrease in the number of drinks being sold,” they qualify. Dienhart and Strick allude to an increase in the federal excise tax, attacks from alcohol awareness groups, the diminished capacity of bars and restaurants to offer happy hours, increased liability insurance premiums as well as third-party liability issues, and people’s awareness of their own mortality as some of the reasons for the change. To quantify some empirical data on beverage consumption the Restaurant, Hotel, and Institutional Management Department of Purdue University conducted a study “… to determine if observed trends could be documented with hard data.” In regards to the subject, the study asks and answers a lot of interesting questions with the results presented to concerned followers via percentages. Typical of the results are: “When asked whether the corporation experienced a change in alcoholic sales in the past year, 67 percent reported a decrease in the amount of alcohol sold.” “Sixty-two percent of the respondents reported an increase in non-alcoholic sales over the past year. The average size of the increase was 8 percent. What Dienhart and Strick observe is that the decrease in alcoholic beverage consumption has resulted in a net increase for non-alcoholic beverage consumption. What are termed specialty drinks are gaining a foothold in the market, say the authors. “These include traditional cocktails made with alcohol-free products, as well as creative new juice based drinks, cream based drinks, carbonated beverages, and heated drinks,” say Dienhart and Strick by way of citation . Another result of the non-alcoholic consumption trend is the emergence of some novel marketing approaches by beer, wine, and spirits producers, including price increases on their alcohol based beverages as well as the introduction of faux alcoholic drinks like non-alcoholic beer and wine. Who or what is the big winner in all of this? That distinction might go to bottled water!

The differential effects of *American and British trial proceedings on juror decision-making

Seven basic elements differentiate British from American trial procedures: confining attorneys to their tables; dealing with objections outside the presence of the jury; resolving disagreements between attorneys prior to objections being made; presenting the defense opening statement at the close of the prosecution case; the judge directly questions witnesses and has a wider latitude in controlling the evidence; and the judge gives a summation of all the evidence presented to the jury (Fulero & Turner, 1997). The present experiment examined the influence of these different courtroom procedures, judges' non-verbal behavior, and evidence strength on juror decision-making. Using models of persuasion to understand how the varying elements may effect juror decision-making, it was predicted that trials following American courtroom procedures would be more distracting for jurors and as such, they would be more likely to rely on the peripheral cue of the judge's expectations for trial outcome as expressed in his nonverbal behavior. In trials following British procedures jurors should be less distracted and better able to scrutinize the strength of the evidence that in turn should minimize the influence of the judge's nonverbal behavior. Two hundred forty-five participants viewed a mock civil trial in which courtroom procedure, judge's nonverbal behavior, and evidence strength were varied. Analyses suggest that courtroom procedure and evidence strength influenced the direction of participants' verdicts, but that judge's nonverbal behavior did not have a direct impact on verdict preference. Judge's nonverbal behavior appeared to influence other measures related to verdict. Participants were more confident in their verdicts when they agreed with judge's nonverbal behavior and when they viewed British courtroom procedures. Participants were more likely to return estimates of the defendant's liability that reflected judge's nonverbal behavior and a congruency with evidence strength. Participants also recalled more facts in the British conditions than in the American conditions. These findings are interpreted as indicating the importance of the impact of trial procedures and of nonverbal influence. ^

The market value implications of pension asset allocation

Pension funds have been part of the private sector since the 1850's. Defined Benefit pension plans [DB], where a company promises to make regular contributions to investment accounts held for participating employees in order to pay a promised lifelong annuity, are significant capital markets participants, amounting to 2.3 trillion dollars in 2010 (Federal Reserve Board, 2013). In 2006, Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No.158 (SFAS 158), Employers' Accounting for Defined Benefit Pension and Other Postemployment Plans, shifted information concerning funding status and pension asset/liability composition from disclosure in the footnotes to recognition in the financial statements. I add to the literature by being the first to examine the effect of recent pension reform during the financial crisis of 2008-09. This dissertation is comprised of three related essays. In my first essay, I investigate whether investors assign different pricing multiples to the various classes of pension assets when valuing firms. The pricing multiples on all classes of assets are significantly different from each other, but only investments in bonds and equities were value-relevant during the recent financial crisis. Consistent with investors viewing pension liabilities as liabilities of the firm, the pricing multiples on pension liabilities are significantly larger than those on non-pension liabilities. The only pension costs significantly associated with firm value are actual rate of return and interest expense. In my second essay, I investigate the role of accruals in predicting future cash flows, extending the Barth et al. (2001a) model of the accrual process. Using market value of equity as a proxy for cash flows, the results of this study suggest that aggregate accounting amounts mask how the components of earnings affect investors' ability to predict future cash flows. Disaggregating pension earnings components and accruals results in an increase in predictive power. During the 2008-2009 financial crisis, however, investors placed a greater (and negative) weight on the incremental information contained in the individual components of accruals. The inferences are robust to alternative specifications of accruals. Finally, in my third essay I investigate how investors view under-funded plans. On average, investors: view deficits arising from under-funded plans as belonging to the firm; reward firms with fully or over-funded pension plans; and encourage those funds with unfunded pension plans to become funded. Investors also encourage conservative pension asset allocations to mitigate firm risk, and smaller firms are perceived as being better able to handle the risk associated with underfunded plans. During the financial crisis of 2008-2009 underfunded status had a lower negative association with market value. In all three models, there are significant differences in pre- and post- SFAS 158 periods. These results are robust to various scenarios of the timing of the financial crisis and an alternative measure of funding.

Developing brownfields ranking models using decision analytic methods

The redevelopment of Brownfields has taken off in the 1990s, supported by federal and state incentives, and largely accomplished by local initiatives. Brownfields redevelopment has several associated benefits. These include the revitalization of inner-city neighborhoods, creation of jobs, stimulation of tax revenues, greater protection of public health and natural resources, the renewal and reuse existing civil infrastructure and Greenfields protection. While these benefits are numerous, the obstacles to Brownfields redevelopment are also very much alive. Redevelopment issues typically embrace a host of financial and legal liability concerns, technical and economic constraints, competing objectives, and uncertainties arising from inadequate site information. Because the resources for Brownfields redevelopment are usually limited, local programs will require creativity in addressing these existing obstacles in a manner that extends their limited resources for returning Brownfields to productive uses. Such programs may benefit from a structured and defensible decision framework to prioritize sites for redevelopment: one that incorporates the desired objectives, corresponding variables and uncertainties associated with Brownfields redevelopment. This thesis demonstrates the use of a decision analytic tool, Bayesian Influence Diagrams, and related decision analytic tools in developing quantitative decision models to evaluate and rank Brownfields sites on the basis of their redevelopment potential.