Allan G. Gruchy: Master Teacher of Undergraduate Economics

Volume 4 - Paper #56_56AllanGGruchy.pdf: 665 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Payday Lenders Evade Regulations: A Summary of Findings from Surveying Payday Lending Establishments

The payday lending industry has grown exponentially from a few hundred locations in the early 1990s to nearly 25,000 locations nationwide. There are now more payday lending establishments than there are McDonald's and Starbucks locations combined. Nationwide, the Industry earns $6 billion in revenue. In California, there are 2,501 Payday Lending Licensees and Californians spend more than$757 million annually on payday loan fees.With such a massive small-dollar lending industry operating where an estimated 1.5 million California households use a payday lender 11 times annually, it would be reasonable to assume that California would have strict regulations to ensure compliance with the law, as well as robust protections for consumers against predatory payday lending. However, California has extremely lenient laws governing payday lenders.The reporting requirements of payday lenders to their regulatory agency, the California Department of Corporations, are minimal. This laissez-faire nature that "regulates" the payday industry pushed many financially-struggling consumers to turn to consumer advocacy groups to find small-dollar loan alternatives, as well as advocacy for greater restrictions for the payday industry

A Strong Merger Shock in Abell 665

Deep (103 ks) \chandra\ observations of Abell 665 have revealed rich structures in this merging galaxy cluster, including a strong shock and two cold fronts. The newly discovered shock has a Mach number of $M$ = 3.0 $\pm$ 0.6, propagating in front of a cold disrupted cloud. This makes Abell~665 the second cluster where a strong merger shock of $M \approx$ 3 has been detected, after the Bullet cluster. The shock velocity from jump conditions is consistent with (2.7 $\pm$ 0.7) $\times$ 10$^3$ km sec$^{-1}$. The new data also reveal a prominent southern cold front, with potentially heated gas ahead of it. Abell 665 also hosts a giant radio halo. There is a hint of diffuse radio emission extending to the shock at the north, which needs to be examined with better radio data. This new strong shock provides a great opportunity to study the re-acceleration model with the X-ray and radio data combined.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

An exploration of flow during Internet use

Several authors have suggested that the concept of flow is useful for understanding consumer behavior in computer mediated environments, (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Trevino and Webster, 1992; Hoffman and Novak, 1996)

Optical bonding agents for severe environments

Test results and applications of elastors (General Electric RTV 665, Dow Corning (DC) XR-63-488, DC 93-500, DC 182, and DC 184) considered for use as optical bonding agents in aerospace environments are presented

Inhibition of miR-665 alleviates neuropathic pain by targeting SOCS1

Purpose: To investigate the effect of miR-665 in neuropathic pain and the possible molecular mechanism involved.Methods: A neuropathic pain model was established using chronic constriction injury (CCI) methods in Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. Mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia were measured using paw withdrawal threshold (PWT) and paw withdrawal latency (PWL), respectively. The inflammation response was determined by assessing the production of inflammation factors. The target relationship of miR-665 and suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 (SOCS1) was verified by luciferase assay.Results: In the CCI rat model, PWT and PWL decreased following treatment with miR-665 (p < 0.01). MiR-665 was elevated in the spinal cord and microglia of CCI rats at different time points (p < 0.01). Down-regulation of miR-665 increased PWT and PWL and inhibited the production of interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α in CCI rats (p < 0.01). Luciferase assay results indicate that SOCS1 was the target of miR-665 (p < 0.01). SOCS1 decreased in CCI rats (p < 0.01) after treatment with miR-665. MiR-665 negatively regulated the expression of SOCS1 (p < 0.01). Down-regulation of SOCS1 reversed the alleviating effect of decreased miR-665 on pain sensitivity and inflammationresponse (p < 0.01).Conclusion: Down-regulation of miR-665 alleviates neuropathic pain by targeting SOCS1, and hence making miR-665 a promising therapeutic target for neuropathic pain. Keywords: MiR-665, SOCS1, Neuropathic pain, CCI, Spinal cor

IMPLEMENTASI PEMBERDAYAAN KELUARGA MELALUI PENDIDIKAN ANAK USIA DINI PADA POS PEMBERDAYAAN KELUARGA DI DUSUN SAMAN DESA BANGUNHARJO KECAMATAN SEWON KABUPATEN BANTUL

This study aims to describe: (1) Implementation Process empowering families through early childhood education at Posdaya, (2) The benefits of early childhood for the Saman’s people, (3) supporting and obstacles factors in the implementation of early childhood through Posdaya in Saman village. The approach in this research uses a qualitative approach, with managers of Posdaya early childhood education, early childhood educators, and students parents as the subjects in this study. The data was collected using observation, interviews, and documentation. The researcher is the main instrument in conducting the research, supported by the research questions, interview guidelines, and documentation. Techniques used in data analysis are data reduction, data display and making conclusions. Triangulation performed to explain the validity of the data using the data source. The results indicated that (1) The process of implementation of empowering families through early childhood education on Posdaya recruitment of students, recruiting teachers, the interaction between educators and learners is good enough, the communication in learning, educators as a motivator and friend in playing, the material provided covers all aspects of child development, the learning strategy applied is a strategy that focused on teachers, teaching methods used are lectures and practice. (2) Benefits of empowering families with early childhood through Posdaya is that the citizen have the awareness about the importance of education started from early age, since the parents can see the talent of children from an early age; children can learn to socialize with their surroundings, mentally training, and development of children's intelligence. (3) The supporting factors of the Posdaya motivation program implementation of Saman’s community, the liveliness of village officials, educators, and managers in promoting Posdaya programs especially in Saman village early childhood education. The enthusiasm of Saman’s early age children in following early childhood learning is enormous. While the inhibiting factor is the lack of awareness in the community to participate the Posdaya activities, also the inadequate infrastructure and facilities to support early childhood education implementation Keywords: Implementation, Empowerment, Family, Early Childhood Educatio

Bovine tuberculosis in Swedish farmed deer

Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) was introduced into Swedish farmed deer herds in 1987. Epidemiological investigations showed that 10 deer herds had become infected (July 1994) and a common source of infection, a consignment of 168 imported farmed fallow deer, was identified (I). As trace-back of all imported and in-contact deer was not possible, a control program, based on tuberculin testing, was implemented in July 1994. As Sweden has been free from BTB since 1958, few practising veterinarians had experience in tuberculin testing. In this test, result relies on the skill, experience and conscientiousness of the testing veterinarian. Deficiencies in performing the test may adversely affect the test results and thereby compromise a control program. Quality indicators may identify possible deficiencies in testing procedures. For that purpose, reference values for measured skin fold thickness (prior to injection of the tuberculin) were established (II) suggested to be used mainly by less experienced veterinarians to identify unexpected measurements. Furthermore, the within-veterinarian variation of the measured skin fold thickness was estimated by fitting general linear models to data (skin fold measurements) (III). The mean square error was used as an estimator of the within-veterinarian variation. Using this method, four (6%) veterinarians were considered to have unexpectedly large variation in measurements. In certain large extensive deer farms, where mustering of all animals was difficult, meat inspection was suggested as an alternative to tuberculin testing. The efficiency of such a control was estimated in paper IV and V. A Reed Frost model was fitted to data from seven BTB-infected deer herds and the spread of infection was estimated (< 0.6 effective contacts per deer and year) (IV). These results were used to model the efficiency of meat inspection in an average extensive Swedish deer herd. Given a 20% annual slaughter and meat inspection, the model predicted that BTB would be either detected or eliminated in most herds (90%) 15 years after introduction of one infected deer. In 2003, an alternative control for BTB in extensive Swedish deer herds, based on the results of paper V, was implemented

Consumers Reactions to Tesco's market entry in Taiwan - a comparison with the UK experience

The purpose of this paper is to research consumer response to retail branding models in Taiwan by means of exploratory qualitative research comparing Tesco’s retail branding in the UK and Taiwan in order to find out the level of consumer acceptance of Tesco in Taiwan as a new market entrant. From the consumers’ viewpoint, Taiwanese Tesco’s retail corporate images, store positioning and retail branding process are not understood or clearly differentiated and identified by local consumers. This was a big problem for grocery shoppers and should therefore be considered as one of the key factors in Tesco`s withdrawal from the Taiwan market. It demonstrates the consumer acceptance issues even a strong retail brand faces transferring its brand to a new market with consumers unfamiliar with its retail brand proposition