Application of electrical methods to assess the quality of concrete

The desire for a non-destructive testing method for concrete strength has always been present in civil engineering. An emphasis on testing the electrical properties of concrete has existed for many years without the connection drawn between the electrical properties and strength of concrete. This study was designed to determine if a relationship between the electrical properties and strength of concrete exists. It was found that a linear relationship exists between the capacitive reactance and strength of concrete, as concrete cures and sets. It was also found that increasing the electrode distance increases the reactance, increasing the electrode contact area decreases the reactance and decreasing the cement content decreases the reactance

100 Years of American Folklore Studies: A Conceptual History

A Centennial Publication of the American Folklore Society published in conjunction with The 1988 Centennial Meeting Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 26-30, 1988. Production editors: David Stanley and Marta Weigle

Essays in Asset Pricing and Applied Micro-Economics

In the first chapter, Christian Goulding and I present a model of asset prices with recursive preferences and the simple consumption growth dynamics of Mehra and Prescott (1985) but relax the assumption that preference parameters are constant over time. We show that rare, temporary, and plausible fluctuations in the elasticity of inter-temporal substitution (EIS) and risk aversion (RA) can quantitatively explain numerous regularities in U.S. asset prices including: the equity premium and risk-free rate puzzles, excess return and consumption growth predictability, a counter-cyclical risk premium and an upward-sloping real yield curve. A novel implication is that time-varying EIS is more important than time-varying RA for explaining many of these regularities, suggesting a new source of risk in investors\u27 ability to plan their consumption over long horizons. In addition, our model can accommodate a behavioral interpretation of psychological factors (e.g. fear) that drive fluctuations in asset prices beyond traditional risk factors. The second chapter is an empirical study of the value of star college athletes. Collegiate athletes in the U.S. are not allowed to be paid directly for their athletic ability. Under the current regulations imposed by the NCAA, any compensation beyond scholarships and grant-in-aid to cover some basic living expenses is forbidden. This artificial constraint on athletes\u27 wages, when university athletic programs are generating significant revenues, has sparked much recent debate over the compensation of college athletes. To help inform this debate, I quantify the value of a NCAA Division 1 FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) star football and NCAA Division 1 star basketball players by estimating their marginal revenue product using a novel dataset of individual player and team performance statistics and publicly available athletic program revenue data. I find that a star college football player is worth up to $1.2-$2.1 million while star college basketball players are worth up to $655,000-$1.1 million a year. Interestingly, I also find evidence suggesting that a college recruiter\u27s ability to identify revenue generating star players is limited and that the marginal revenue product of star college players declines as the team\u27s media coverage increases

The Types of the Polack Joke

Revised edition, with a Foreward and Introduction by the series editors

Validation of the Air Force Weather Agency Ensemble Prediction Systems

Air Force Weather Agency\u27s (AFWA) Ensemble Prediction Systems (EPS), Global Ensemble Prediction System (GEPS), 20km Mesoscale Ensemble Prediction System (MEPS20) and 4km Mesoscale Prediction System (MEPS4), were evaluated from April to October 2013 for 10 locations around the world to determine how accurately forecast probabilities for wind and precipitation thresholds and lightning occurrence match observed frequencies using Aerodrome Routine Meteorological Reports (METARs) and Aerodrome Special Meteorological Reports (SPECIs). Reliability diagrams were created for each forecast hour detailing the Brier skill score (BSS) to depict EPS performance compared to climatology for each site and score composition through reliability, resolution and uncertainty. To illustrate how the BSS changed, the score and its decomposition were plotted for all forecast hours. This study showed that all three EPS suffered from a lightning overforecasting bias at all locations and most forecast hours. For wind speeds, it was clear that decreased model grid spacing allowed better resolution of terrain features, producing a better BSS. Likewise, precipitation was better resolved with increased horizontal resolution as explicit resolution of precipitation processes outperformed cumulus parameterization schemes

Worldly Ascetics: Managing Family, Status, and Territory in Early Modern Shugendō

Definitions of Japan’s Shugendō tradition often emphasize how its adherents, known as yamabushi or shugenja, took as their primary goal the acquisition of supernatural power and enlightenment via ascetic practice in the mountains. While mountain austerities were central to the tradition, settled, spouse-keeping yamabushi organized into households constituted the majority of its members in the late medieval and early modern periods; the study of their economic, political, and social activities have been neglected. The Shugendō organization headquartered at Mt. Haguro, one of the Dewa Sanzan triad of sacred mountains within present-day Yamagata prefecture, administered yamabushi and miko priestesses based in communities throughout northern Japan. Using the Sanada Shichirōzaemon and Sanada Shikibu households, elite yamabushi families based in Tōge at the foot of Mt. Haguro, this study investigates the lives and activities of spouse-keeping shugenja within the Shugendō tradition during Japan’s early modern period (1600-1867). Existing in a liminal space between the seeming dichotomies of worldly and ascetic, lay and monastic, and folk and elite, the Sanadas and their peers navigated a complicated web of relationships to preserve their positions and fortunes. Working with documents from the previously unread Sanada Gyokuzōbō archive, this study argues for the centrality of the household unit within Japanese religious traditions. The privileges and obligations of the Sanada households, as well as their relationships with superiors and subordinates, both at Mt. Haguro and in its parishes, were based on the household rather than the individual, and were passed on from house head to house head. As local elites, the Sanada households enjoyed a hereditary place of honor within Haguro’s social, ritual, and political hierarchies. Documentation was a necessary strategy to maintain their customary privileges and duties both at the organization’s headquarters at Mt. Haguro and within its parishes across northern Japan. Networks that linked the Sanada families with superiors on Haguro’s summit and subordinates in parishes, as well as their lay patrons, the Nanbu family of daimyo, were defined and defended by documents exchanged within these networks