Out of credit: Evaluating the impact of the EU structural funds on Hungarian small business growth and access to finance

Totaling EUR 29 billion, Hungary is in the midst of implementing its largest economic development program in its young democratic history. At the center of the European Union led development program is an effort to revitalize and reequip Hungary’s languishing small and medium sized enterprises (SME), long the country's heart of employment. This paper examines the efficiency and impact of two Structural Fund's instruments to enhance SME development – ECOP 2.1.1 and JEREMIE. A survey of 1275 SME and interviews with dozens of top policy-makers paint a flawed development program in dire need of reform. Despite this, empirical analysis suggests JEREMIE funds may have dampened the effects of the financial crisis and are crucial for the continued liquidity of SME, who have been particularly hit hard by the world financial crisis

Population Dynamics and Occupancy Patterns of Eastern Screech Owls (Megascops Asio) in New York City Parks and Adjacent Suburbs

Eastern screech owls (Megascops asio) are one of the few raptor species that permanently reside in New York City (NYC). To better inform management of this charismatic species in urban parks, I sought to determine the present status and future viability of existing screech owl populations in NYC and identify potential landscape characteristics that affect park occupancy by screech owls. Using captive, non-releasable owls and isolated free-living owls, I developed a method of identifying individual screech owls via vocalization analysis. Using call-broadcast surveys and subsequent recording of owl responses, I gathered capture-recapture histories of urban owls in three NYC parks and one comparison nature preserve, the Mianus River Gorge Preserve (MRGP), a rural/suburban nature preserve in Bedford, NY. These histories were used to estimate abundance and survival rate in each of the parks. I then projected simulated populations using my estimated adult survival and previously published yearling survival and reproductive rates. I built my projection model to include density dependence based on park area, realistic sex ratio fluctuations, and periodic drops in survival rate due to hypothetical environmental events. Survival in urban parks was 0.98 - 1.0, much greater than in the MRGP, 0.57 ± 0.15. Despite the high adult survival, populations in parks could be extirpated within 10 - 20 years by severe drops in survival rate (e.g., extreme winters, storms, or secondary poisoning) if such conditions occurred more often than once every ten years or if parks were smaller than 1.0km2. In 2008 and 2009, my colleagues and I conducted a citizen science-based study on screech owl occupancy patterns across three counties adjacent to NYC: Westchester and Putnam, NY, and Fairfield, CT. Volunteers conducted call-broadcast surveys on their own properties and sent my colleagues and me the results in 2008 and 2009. Occupancy and detection were modeled as functions of the amount of forest cover and impervious surface cover at each survey point. These models were validated against an independent dataset collected by myself and other trained scientists. Validated models indicated a negative association between occupancy and percent forest cover or, similarly, a positive association with percent impervious cover. Both the citizen science and the systematic datasets supported similar owl-habitat patterns of higher occupancy probabilities in developed areas compared to rural. The above patterns described eastern screech owl habitat use in rural and suburban areas outside of NYC. I hypothesized that at some point urbanization would become too intense for owls to tolerate, and they would be primarily relegated to protected greenspaces in extremely urbanized cities, as I observed in NYC. In 2010, I surveyed 13 additional parks in NYC and the more urban southern sections of Westchester to characterize occupancy patterns in highly urban areas. I used similar landscape measurements as in the citizen science study, only these measurements were taken across the entire park. Occupancy appeared to decline sharply if the percent impervious cover surrounding a park rose above 50 - 60%. I interpreted this pattern as evidence that high urbanization around a park acts primarily as a barrier to immigration. It is also possible that high urbanization around a park leads to higher mortality from vehicles. In terms of management, my work has indicated that in large parks (e.g., \u3e1km2), extinction probability is relatively low, but parks larger than 3km2 may be less suitable if big parks allow the establishment of larger raptors such as barred (Strix varia) or great horned owls (Bubo virginianus). Managers can enhance population persistence by increasing the amount of available habitat via habitat restoration and reforesting or re-meadowing developed but unused parks (e.g., large lawns and paved areas) and increasing over-winter survival and reproductive rates by installing nest boxes. However, frequent chance events can extirpate any park-bound population, and thus managers and city planners should also look to enhance the probability of dispersal and recolonization via corridors or reducing the general level of urbanization around protected parks

Urban park characteristics, genetic variation, and historical demography of white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) populations in New York City

Severe fragmentation is a typical fate of native remnant habitats in cities, and urban wildlife with limited dispersal ability are predicted to lose genetic variation in isolated urban patches. However, little information exists on the characteristics of urban green spaces required to conserve genetic variation. In this study, we examine whether isolation in New York City (NYC) parks results in genetic bottlenecks in white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus), and test the hypotheses that park size and time since isolation are associated with genetic variability using nonlinear regression and information-theoretic model selection. White-footed mice have previously been documented to exhibit male-biased dispersal, which may create disparities in genetic variation between males and females in urban parks. We use genotypes of 18 neutral microsatellite data and four different statistical tests to assess this prediction. Given that sex-biased dispersal may create disparities between population genetic patterns inferred from bi- vs. uni-parentally inherited markers, we also sequenced a 324 bp segment of the mitochondrial D-loop for independent inferences of historical demography in urban P. leucopus. We report that isolation in urban parks does not necessarily result in genetic bottlenecks; only three out of 14 populations in NYC parks exhibited a signature of a recent bottleneck at 18 neutral microsatellite loci. Mouse populations in larger urban parks, or parks that have been isolated for shorter periods of time, also do not generally contain greater genetic variation than populations in smaller parks. These results suggest that even small networks of green spaces may be sufficient to maintain the evolutionary potential of native species with certain characteristics. We also found that isolation in urban parks results in weak to nonexistent sex-biased dispersal in a species known to exhibit male-biased dispersal in less fragmented environments. In contrast to nuclear loci, mitochondrial D-loop haplotypes exhibited a mutational pattern of demographic expansion after a recent bottleneck or selective sweep. Estimates of the timing of this expansion suggest that it occurred concurrent with urbanization of NYC over the last few dozens to hundreds of years. Given the general non-neutrality of mtDNA in many systems and evidence of selection on related coding sequences in urban P. leucopus, we argue that the P. leucopus mitochondrial genome experienced recent negative selection against haplotypes not favored in isolated urban parks. In general, rapid adaptive evolution driven by urbanization, global climate change, and other human-caused factors is underappreciated by evolutionary biologists, but many more cases will likely be documented in the near future

A Case of Spontaneous Adrenal Hemorrhage in Pregnancy

A case study looking at a 25 year old patient at 31 weeks gestation with spontaneous adrenal hemorrhage

The NASA landing gear test airplane

A tire and landing gear test facility has been developed and incorporated into a Convair 990 aircraft. The system can simulate tire vertical load profiles to 250,000 lb, sideslip angles to 15 degrees, and wheel braking on actual runways. Onboard computers control the preprogrammed test profiles through a feedback loop and also record three axis loads, tire slip angle, and tire condition. The aircraft to date has provided tire force and wear data for the Shuttle Orbiter tire on three different runways and at east and west coast landing sites. This report discusses the role of this facility in complementing existing ground tire and landing gear test facilities, and how this facility can simultaneously simulate the vertical load, tire slip, velocity, and surface for an entire aircraft landing. A description is given of the aircraft as well as the test system. An example of a typical test sequence is presented. Data collection and reduction from this facility are discussed, as well as accuracies of calculated parameters. Validation of the facility through ground and flight tests is presented. Tests to date have shown that this facility can operate at remote sites and gather complete data sets of load, slip, and velocity on actual runway surfaces. The ground and flight tests have led to a successful validation of this test facility

Investigating the group-level impact of advanced dual-echo fMRI combinations

Multi-echo fMRI data acquisition has been widely investigated and suggested to optimize sensitivity for detecting the BOLD signal. Several methods have also been proposed for the combination of data with different echo times. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether these advanced echo combination methods provide advantages over the simple averaging of echoes when state-of-the-art group-level random-effect analyses are performed. Both resting-state and task-based dual-echo fMRI data were collected from 27 healthy adult individuals (14 male, mean age = 25.75 years) using standard echo-planar acquisition methods at 3T. Both resting-state and task-based data were subjected to a standard image pre-processing pipeline. Subsequently the two echoes were combined as a weighted average, using four different strategies for calculating the weights: (1) simple arithmetic averaging, (2) BOLD sensitivity weighting, (3) temporal-signal-to-noise ratio weighting and (4) temporal BOLD sensitivity weighting. Our results clearly show that the simple averaging of data with the different echoes is sufficient. Advanced echo combination methods may provide advantages on a single-subject level but when considering random-effects group level statistics they provide no benefit regarding sensitivity (i.e., group-level t-values) compared to the simple echo-averaging approach. One possible reason for the lack of clear advantages may be that apart from increasing the average BOLD sensitivity at the single-subject level, the advanced weighted averaging methods also inflate the inter-subject variance. As the echo combination methods provide very similar results, the recommendation is to choose between them depending on the availability of time for collecting additional resting-state data or whether subject-level or group-level analyses are planned

Unbonded Thermal Blankets in Orbiter Aft Compartment

No abstract availabl

A Model for Space Shuttle Orbiter Tire Side Forces Based on NASA Landing Systems Research Aircraft Test Results

Forces generated by the Space Shuttle orbiter tire under varying vertical load, slip angle, speed, and surface conditions were measured using the Landing System Research Aircraft (LSRA). Resulting data were used to calculate a mathematical model for predicting tire forces in orbiter simulations. Tire side and drag forces experienced by an orbiter tire are cataloged as a function of vertical load and slip angle. The mathematical model is compared to existing tire force models for the Space Shuttle orbiter. This report describes the LSRA and a typical test sequence. Testing methods, data reduction, and error analysis are presented. The LSRA testing was conducted on concrete and lakebed runways at the Edwards Air Force Flight Test Center and on concrete runways at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Wet runway tire force tests were performed on test strips made at the KSC using different surfacing techniques. Data were corrected for ply steer forces and conicity