Environmental Determinants of Housing Prices: The Impact of Flood Zone Status

This study examines the valuation of homes located within 100-year flood plains. Utilizing a database of 29,887 property transactions in Alachua County, Florida, the results of this investigation suggest that comparable characteristic homes located within a flood zone sell, on average, for less than homes located outside flood zones. Interestingly, the price differential is less than the present value of future flood insurance premiums. In addition, the price differential is shown to have increased since passage of the National Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1994. Finally, it appears that property tax assessors have slightly over-assessed properties located in flood zones relative to those in other areas. The large database and the lengthy period of analysis (1980–1997) are much broader than that of previous research efforts.

The evolution of mass loaded supernova remnants: II. Temperature dependent mass injection rates

We investigate the evolution of spherically symmetric supernova remnants in which mass loading takes place due to conductively driven evaporation of embedded clouds. Numerical simulations reveal significant differences between the evolution of conductively mass loaded and the ablatively mass loaded remnants studied in Paper I. A main difference is the way in which conductive mass loading is extinguished at fairly early times, once the interior temperature of the remnant falls below ~ 107 K. Thus, at late times remnants that ablatively mass load are dominated by loaded mass and thermal energy, while those that conductively mass load are dominated by swept-up mass and kinetic energy. Simple approximations to the remnant evolution, complementary to those in Paper I, are given

The effect of exercise on venous gas emboli and decompression sickness in human subjects at 4.3 psia

The contribution of upper body exercise to altitude decompression sickness while at 4.3 psia after 3.5 or 4.0 hours of 100% oxygen prebreathing at 14.7 psia was determined by comparing the incidence and patterns of venous gas emboli (VGE), and the incidence of Type 1 decompression sickness (DCS) in 43 exercising male subjects and 9 less active male Doppler Technicians (DT's). Each subject exercised for 4 minutes at each of 3 exercise stations while at 4.3 psia. An additional 4 minutes were spent monitoring for VGE by the DT while the subject was supine on an examination cot. In the combined 3.5 and 4.0 hour oxygen prebreathe data, 13 subjects complained of Type 1 DCS compared to 9 complaints from DT's. VGE were detected in 28 subjects compared to 14 detections from DT's. A chi-square analysis of proportions showed no statistically significantly difference in the incidence of Type 1 DCS or VGE between the two groups; however, the average time to detect VGE and to report Tyep 1 DCS symptoms were statistically different. It was concluded that 4 to 6 hours of upper body exercise at metabolic rates simulating EVA metabolic rates hastens the initial detection of VGE and the time to report Type 1 DCS symptoms as compared to DT's

Naval History by Conspiracy Theory: The British Admiralty before the First World War and the Methodology of Revisionism

Revisionist interpretations of British naval policy in the Fisher era claim that an elaborate smoke screen was created to hide the Royal Navy’s real policies; while documents showing the true goals were systematically destroyed. By asserting this, revisionists are able to dismiss those parts of the documentary record that contradict their theories, while simultaneously excusing the lack of evidence for their theories by claiming it has been destroyed. This article shows that this methodology is misleading and untenable

Exploring how material cues drive sensorimotor prediction across different levels of autistic-like traits

This is the final version. Available from Springer (part of Springer Nature) via the DOI in this record.Recent research proposes that sensorimotor difficulties, such as those experienced by many autistic people, may arise from atypicalities in prediction. Accordingly, we examined the relationship between non-clinical autistic-like traits and sensorimotor prediction in the material-weight illusion, where prior expectations derived from material cues typically bias one’s perception and action. Specifically, prediction-related tendencies in perception of weight, gaze patterns, and lifting actions were probed using a combination of self-report, eye-tracking, motion-capture, and force-based measures. No prediction-related associations between autistic-like traits and sensorimotor control emerged for any of these variables. Follow-up analyses, however, revealed that greater autistic-like traits were correlated with reduced adaptation of gaze with changes in environmental uncertainty. These findings challenge proposals of gross predictive atypicalities in autistic people, but suggest that the dynamic integration of prior information and environmental statistics may be related to autistic-like traits. Further research into this relationship is warranted in autistic populations, to assist the development of future movement-based coaching methods.Economic and Social Research Counci

XUV Frequency Combs via Femtosecond Enhancement Cavities

We review the current state of tabletop extreme ultraviolet (XUV) sources based on high harmonic generation (HHG) in femtosecond enhancement cavities (fsEC). Recent developments have enabled generation of high photon flux (1014 photons/sec) in the XUV, at high repetition rates (>50 MHz) and spanning the spectral region from 40 nm - 120 nm. This level of performance has enabled precision spectroscopy with XUV frequency combs and promises further applications in XUV spectroscopic and photoemission studies. We discuss the theory of operation and experimental details of the fsEC and XUV generation based on HHG, including current technical challenges to increasing the photon flux and maximum photon energy produced by this type of system. Current and future applications for these sources are also discussed.Comment: invited review article, 38 page

Gravitational Properties of Monopole Spacetimes Near the Black Hole Threshold

Although nonsingular spacetimes and those containing black holes are qualitatively quite different, there are continuous families of configurations that connect the two. In this paper we use self-gravitating monopole solutions as tools for investigating the transition between these two types of spacetimes. We show how causally distinct regions emerge as the black hole limit is achieved, even though the measurements made by an external observer vary continuously. We find that near-critical solutions have a naturally defined entropy, despite the absence of a true horizon, and that this has a clear connection with the Hawking-Bekenstein entropy. We find that certain classes of near-critical solutions display naked black hole behavior, although they are not truly black holes at all. Finally, we present a numerical simulation illustrating how an incident pulse of matter can induce the dynamical collapse of a monopole into an extremal black hole. We discuss the implications of this process for the third law of black hole thermodynamics.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures RevTe

A thermal model for adaptive competition in a market

New continuous and stochastic extensions of the minority game, devised as a fundamental model for a market of competitive agents, are introduced and studied in the context of statistical physics. The new formulation reproduces the key features of the original model, without the need for some of its special assumptions and, most importantly, it demonstrates the crucial role of stochastic decision-making. Furthermore, this formulation provides the exact but novel non-linear equations for the dynamics of the system.Comment: 4 RevTeX pages, 3 EPS figures. Revised versio