Support and power plant documentation for the gas turbine powered bus demonstration program

The operational experience obtained for the GT404-4 gas turbine engines in the intercity and intracity Bus Demonstration Programs is described for the period January 1980 through September 1981. Support for the engines and automatic transmissions involved in this program provided engineering and field service, spare parts and tools, training, and factory overhauls. the Greyhound (intercity) coaches accumulated 183,054 mi (294,595 km) and 5154 hr of total operation. The Baltimore Transit (intracity) coaches accumulated 40,567 mi (65,285 km) and 1840 hr of total operation. In service, the turbine powered Greyhound and Transit coaches achieved approximately 25% and 40% lower fuel mileage, respectively, than did the production diesel powered coaches. The gas turbine engine will require the advanced ceramic development currently being sponsored by the DOE and NASA to achieve fuel economy equivalent not only to that of today's diesel engines but also to the projected fuel economy of the advanced diesel engines of the 1990s. Sufficient experience was not achieved with the coaches prior to the start of service to identify and eliminate many of the problems associated with the startup of new equipment. Because of these problems, the mean miles between incident were unacceptably low. The future gas turbine system should be developed sufficiently to establish satisfactory durability prior to evaluation in revenue service. Commercialization of the gas turbine bus engine remains a viable goal for the future

How Do Predatory Lending Laws Influence Mortgage Lending in Urban Areas? A Tale of Two Cities

This paper examines the effects of predatory lending laws in the cities of Chicago and Philadelphia. The level of mortgage activity in each of the cities is compared during the pre- and post-legislative periods relative to other parts of the state to assess the impact of localized legislation. In Chicago, where the predatory lending law focused on banks, a subprime origination in the city was found to be more likely to be made by a nonbank after the passage of the law. In Philadelphia, however, where the predatory legislation was aimed at all financial service providers, a decline was observed in the likelihood of a subprime loan being originated in the city during the post-legislation period, with the minority and low-income market segments experiencing the largest reduction.

The Influence of Bureau Scores, Customized Scores and Judgmental Review on the Bank Underwriting Decision-Making Process

In recent years commercial banks have moved toward automated forms of underwriting. This study employs unique bank loan-level data from a scoring lender to determine whether automated underwriting exhibits a potential ‘‘disparate impact’’ across income strata. The findings indicate that strict application of this custom scoring model leads to higher denial rates for low- to moderate-income borrowers when compared with both a naý¨ve judgmental system and a bureau scoring approach. These results suggest that financial regulators should focus more resources on the evaluation and study of customized scoring models.

Evidence of a new low field cross-over in the vortex critical velocity of type-II superconducting thin films

We measure current-voltage characteristics as function of magnetic field and temperature in Nb strips of different thickness and width. The instability voltage of the flux flow state related to the vortex critical velocity v* is studied and compared with the Larkin-Ovchinnikov theory. Beside the usual power-law dependence v* ~ B^-1/2, in the low field range a new cross-over field, Bcr1, is observed below which v* decreases by further lowering the external magnetic field B. We ascribe this unexpected cross-over to vortex channeling due to a fan-like penetration of the applied magnetic field as confirmed by magneto-optic imaging. The observation of Bcr1 becomes a direct evidence of a general feature in type-II superconducting films at low fields, that is a channel-like vortex motion induced by the inhomogeneous magnetic state caused by the relatively strong pinning

On the Integrable Structure of the Ising Model

Starting from the lattice $A_3$ realization of the Ising model defined on a strip with integrable boundary conditions, the exact spectrum (including excited states) of all the local integrals of motion is derived in the continuum limit by means of TBA techniques. It is also possible to follow the massive flow of this spectrum between the UV $c=1/2$ conformal fixed point and the massive IR theory. The UV expression of the eigenstates of such integrals of motion in terms of Virasoro modes is found to have only rational coefficients and their fermionic representation turns out to be simply related to the quantum numbers describing the spectrum.Comment: 18 pages, no figure

Space Archeology Overview at Gordion: 2010 to 2012

In fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012, Compton Tucker was the principal investigator of a NASA Space Archaeology project that worked at Gordion, in Central Turkey. Tucker was assisted by an excellent team of co-workers including Joseph Nigro and Daniel Slayback of Science Systems Applications Incorporated, Jenny Strum of the University of New Mexico, and Karina Yager, a post doctoral fellow at NASA/GSFC. This report summaries their research activities at Gordion for the field seasons of 2010, 2011, and 2012. Because of the possible use of our findings at Gordion for tomb robbing there and/or the encouragement of potential tomb robbers using our geophysical survey methods to locate areas to loot, we have not published any of our survey results in the open literature nor placed any of these results on any web sites. These 2010- 2012 survey results remain in the confidential archives of the University of Pennsylvania's University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the group that leads the Gordion Excavation and Research Project. Excavations are planned for 2013 at Gordion, including several that will be based upon the research results in this report. The site of Gordion in central Turkey, famous as the home of King Midas, whose father's intricately tied knot gave the site its name, also served as the center of the Phrygian kingdom that ruled much of Central Anatolia in Asia Minor during the early first millennium B.C. Gordion has been a University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology excavation project since 1950, yet the site is incompletely published despite six decades of research. The primary obstacles related to the site and its preservation were two problems that NASA technology could address: (1) critical survey errors in the hundreds of maps and plans produced by the earlier excavators, most of which used mutually incompatible geospatial referencing systems, that prevented any systematic understanding of the site; and (2) agricultural encroachment upon the site that was compromising its archaeological integrity. Our NASA Space Archaeology proposal was written to address both of these problems. When we started working at Gordion in 2010, we added a third objective, (3) ground penetrating radar and magnetic geophysical surveys of threatened areas. The first objective our NASA Space Archaeology Project was to provide the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology a system to rectify and incorporate all existing survey data from Gordion, including previous aerial photographs of the site, detailed site surveys, maps, and excavation plans, into a common mapping system. This was accomplished with a Geographic Information System (GIS) based upon a 60 cm Quickbird satellite image ortho-rectified using Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) 30 m digital elevation data and tied to a known datum at Gordion. This enabled the first accurate, multi-layer plan of this complex site, occupied almost continuously from the Bronze Age to the 1st millennium CE, and made possible Gordion's three-dimensional development for the first time

Quasiparticle scattering time in superconducting films: from dirty to clean limit

We study the quasiparticle energy relaxation processes in superconducting Nb films of different thicknesses corresponding to different electron mean free paths in a state far from equilibrium, that is the highly dissipative flux-flow state driven up to the instability point. From the measured current-voltage curves we derive the vortex critical velocity $v^{*}$ for several temperatures. From the $v^{*}(T)$ values, the quasiparticle energy relaxation time $\tau_{\epsilon}$ is evaluated within the Larkin-Ovchinnikov model and numerical calculations of the quasiparticle energy relaxation rates are carried out to support the experimental findings. Besides the expected constant behavior of $\tau_{\epsilon}(T)$ for the dirty samples, we observe a strong temperature dependence of the quasiparticle energy relaxation time in the clean samples. This feature is associated with the increasing contribution from the electron-phonon scattering process as the dirty limit is approached from the clean regime

NADPH oxidase and enhanced superoxide generation in intrauterine undernourished rats: involvement of the renin-angiotensin system

Objective: We previously reported that intrauterine undernutrition increased the oxidative stress by decreasing superoxide dismutase activity. in the present study, we tested whether NADPH oxidase, xanthine oxidase, cyclooxygenase or nitric oxide synthase are responsible for the increased O-2(-) generation observed in rats submitted to intrauterine undernutrition. in addition, we investigated the 2 effect of angiotensin II (ANG II on O-2(-) production via activation of NADPH oxidase. Methods: Female pregnant Wistar rats were fed either normal or 50% of the normal intake diets, during the whole gestational period. At 16 weeks of age, the rats were used for the study of intravital fluorescence microscopy; microvascular reactivity, local ANG II concentration and AT(1), p22(phox) and gp91(phox) gene expression. in this study only the male offspring was used. Results: Treatment of mesenteric arterioles with the xanthine oxidase inhibitor oxypurinol, the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor L-NAME or the cyclooxygenase, inhibitor diclofenac did not significantly change superoxide production. Thus, these vascular sources of superoxide were not responsible for the increased superoxide concentration. in contrast, treatment with the NADPH oxidase inhibitor apocynin significantly decreased superoxide generation and improved vascular function. On the other hand, intrauterine undernutrition did not alter the gene expression for p22(phox) and gp91(phox). the fact that the local ANG II concentration was increased and the attenuation of oxidative stress by blocking AT, receptor with losartan, led us to suggest that ANG II induces O-2 generation in intrauterine undernourished rats. Conclusion: Our study shows that NADPH oxidase inhibition attenuated superoxide anion generation and ameliorated vascular function in rats submitted to intrauterine undernutrition. Although it is not clear which mechanisms are responsible for the increase in NADPH oxidase activity, a role for ANG II-mediated superoxide production via activation of NADPH oxidase is suggested. (C) 2003 European Society of Cardiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Univ São Paulo, Inst Biomed Sci, Dept Pharmacol, Lab Hypertens, BR-05508900 São Paulo, SP, BrazilUNIFESP, Lab Nephrol, São Paulo, SP, BrazilUNIFESP, Lab Nephrol, São Paulo, SP, BrazilWeb of Scienc

Assessment of NASA's Physiographic and Meteorological Datasets as Input to HSPF and SWAT Hydrological Models

This paper documents the use of simulated Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer land use/land cover (MODIS-LULC), NASA-LIS generated precipitation and evapo-transpiration (ET), and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) datasets (in conjunction with standard land use, topographical and meteorological datasets) as input to hydrological models routinely used by the watershed hydrology modeling community. The study is focused in coastal watersheds in the Mississippi Gulf Coast although one of the test cases focuses in an inland watershed located in northeastern State of Mississippi, USA. The decision support tools (DSTs) into which the NASA datasets were assimilated were the Soil Water & Assessment Tool (SWAT) and the Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF). These DSTs are endorsed by several US government agencies (EPA, FEMA, USGS) for water resources management strategies. These models use physiographic and meteorological data extensively. Precipitation gages and USGS gage stations in the region were used to calibrate several HSPF and SWAT model applications. Land use and topographical datasets were swapped to assess model output sensitivities. NASA-LIS meteorological data were introduced in the calibrated model applications for simulation of watershed hydrology for a time period in which no weather data were available (1997-2006). The performance of the NASA datasets in the context of hydrological modeling was assessed through comparison of measured and model-simulated hydrographs. Overall, NASA datasets were as useful as standard land use, topographical , and meteorological datasets. Moreover, NASA datasets were used for performing analyses that the standard datasets could not made possible, e.g., introduction of land use dynamics into hydrological simulation