Issues Surrounding the mp3 and Its Effects On Business

The mp3 is a rising issue in today\u27s news. Through research and documentation of interviews, this thesis covers: what the mp3 is; issues surrounding its use; technology versus intellectual property; ethics involved in file swapping; past and current litigations involving the mp3; and possible solutions to the mp3 issue. The mp3 is a great technology that can be a boon to both music listeners and the recording industry alike, if both sides are willing to find a compromise that can balance fair use of technology versus the right to be compensated for intellectual property

Credit Reporting, Relationship Banking, and Loan Repayment

This paper examines the impact of credit reporting on the repayment behavior of borrowers. We implement an experimental credit market in which loan repayment is not third-party enforceable. We then compare market outcome with a public credit registry to that without a credit registry. This experiment is conducted for two market environments: first, a market in which repeat interaction between borrowers and lenders is not feasible and, second, a market in which borrowers and lenders can choose to trade repeatedly with each other. In the market without repeat interaction the credit market collapses without a credit registry, as lenders rightly fear that borrowers will default. The introduction of a registry in this environment significantly raises repayment rates and the credit volume extended by lenders. When repeat transactions are possible a credit registry is not necessary to sustain high market performance as relationship banking enforces repayment even when lenders cannot share information. In this environment credit reporting has little impact on market efficiency, it does however affect trading structure and distribution. The presence of a credit registry leads to fewer banking relationships and reduces the ability of lenders to extract rents from such relationships.Credit Market, Information Sharing, Relationship Banking

Contingency Model Predictive Control for Automated Vehicles

We present Contingency Model Predictive Control (CMPC), a novel and implementable control framework which tracks a desired path while simultaneously maintaining a contingency plan -- an alternate trajectory to avert an identified potential emergency. In this way, CMPC anticipates events that might take place, instead of reacting when emergencies occur. We accomplish this by adding an additional prediction horizon in parallel to the classical receding MPC horizon. The contingency horizon is constrained to maintain a feasible avoidance solution; as such, CMPC is selectively robust to this emergency while tracking the desired path as closely as possible. After defining the framework mathematically, we demonstrate its effectiveness experimentally by comparing its performance to a state-of-the-art deterministic MPC. The controllers drive an automated research platform through a left-hand turn which may be covered by ice. Contingency MPC prepares for the potential loss of friction by purposefully and intuitively deviating from the prescribed path to approach the turn more conservatively; this deviation significantly mitigates the consequence of encountering ice.Comment: American Control Conference, July 2019; 6 page

The Influence of Premarital Counseling on Marital Satisfaction for African-American Couples

Many factors influence marital satisfaction (Ayub, 2010). Some couples prepare themselves with premarital counseling and try to help increase the likelihood of marital satisfaction. When looking at African-American couples, should researchers assume that some African-American couples take premarital education to increase their marital satisfaction? Prior literature has stated that premarital counseling has decreased marital discord and increased marital satisfaction (Parker, 2007). This study will be a qualitative study using a phenomenological design. The researcher collected data from seven participants. Once the interviews were completed, the researcher was able to analyze the data by identifying common themes as well as capturing the essence of the participants’ narratives. Using this design helped the researcher to understand how premarital counseling creates the meaning of marital satisfaction for African-American couples

Firing costs and the business cycle: Policy implications in light of the financial crisis.

This lecture is a tour dhorizon of the financial crisis aimed at extracting lessons for future financial regulation. It combines normative recommendations based on conventional welfare economics with positive assessments of the kind of measures likely to be adopted based on political economy considerations.Konjunktur; Kündigung; Arbeitsmobilität; Kosten; Währungsunion; Arbeitnehmerschutz;

Petit Algebras and their Automorphisms

In this thesis, we study the properties of a nonassociative algebra construction from skew polynomial rings. This construction was introduced by Petit in the 1960s but largely ignored until recently. In particular, the automorphism groups of these algebras are studied, paying particular attention to the case when the construction yields a finite semifield. The thesis is concluded by revisiting a result on associative solvable crossed product algebras by both Petit and Albert. We show a crossed product algebra is solvable if and only if it can be written as a chain of Petit algebras satisfying certain conditions

Assessing red spruce (Picea rubens) restoration potential under current and future predicted climate change in Virginia

Global climate change threatens many species across the planet. High-elevation species, such as red spruce (Picea rubens), face significant and immediate threats from climate change. Red spruce has faced anthropogenic disturbances for over a century and is only recently beginning to regenerate across its range, making it an ideal restoration candidate. Ecological niche modeling has become a common method of identifying the suitable habitat of a species, providing vital information to land managers carrying out restoration efforts. In this study ecological niche models were used in a novel way, predicting distribution and habitat suitability separately to determine the spatial extent to which red spruce can be restored. In addition to models, surveys were conducted to elucidate the current regeneration trends of red spruce. Furthermore, climate projections were used to determine how restoration potential may change over the course of the 21st century. Comparisons between distribution and habitat suitability models indicate that there is additional habitat available for red spruce to expand into. Regeneration surveys show that there is positive regeneration both within and beyond red spruce canopies, validating model comparisons. Climate change projections indicate total elimination of suitable habitat in Virginia by 2100. However, these projections likely predict increased competition for red spruce from low elevation competitors as opposed to physiological limitations imposed by climate change. It is therefore prudent to protect established populations and encourage further regeneration by planting in higher elevations where competition is more limited

Stabilisation, bordism and embedded spheres in 4--manifolds

It is one of the most important facts in 4-dimensional topology that not every spherical homology class of a 4-manifold can be represented by an embedded sphere. In 1978, M. Freedman and R. Kirby showed that in the simply connected case, many of the obstructions to constructing such a sphere vanish if one modifies the ambient 4-manifold by adding products of 2-spheres, a process which is usually called stabilisation. In this paper, we extend this result to non-simply connected 4-manifolds and show how it is related to the Spin^c-bordism groups of Eilenberg-MacLane spaces.Comment: Published by Algebraic and Geometric Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/agt/AGTVol2/agt-2-10.abs.htm