Why is the market share of adjustable-rate mortgages so low?

Over the past several years, U.S. homebuyers have increasingly favored fixed-rate mortgages over adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Indeed, ARMs have dropped to less than 10 percent of all residential mortgage originations, a near-record low. One might speculate that the decline in the ARM share has been driven by “one-off” factors relating to the financial crisis. However, a statistical analysis suggests that recent trends can largely be explained by the same factors that have historically shaped mortgage choice—most notably, the term structure of interest rates and its effects on the relative price of different types of mortgages. Supply-side factors, in particular a rise in the share of mortgages eligible to be securitized by the housing government-sponsored enterprises, also play a role in the low current ARM share.Adjustable rate mortgages ; Households - Economic aspects ; Economic surveys ; Interest rates ; Mortgages

Vernakalant: Perception of state of health in patients with a recent-onset atrial fibrillation

Background: Vernakalant is a new, safe and effective drug used intravenously, which has proved to be more rapid in converting recent onset atrial fibrillation (AF) to sinus rhythm compared to placebo, amiodarone, propafenone, and flecainide in clinical studies. Until now no study has been conducted comparing the perception of state of health in patients who received vernakalant versus propafenone or flecainide for conversion of recent-onset AF. The aim of ourstudy is to compare the change of perception of state of health from screening to hour 2 in patients treated with vernakalant and propafenone or flecainide for conversion of recent-onset AF.Methods: Eighty hemodynamically stable patients with recent onset AF without structural heart disease were prospectively included. A single oral dose of propafenone 600 mg was administered to 30 patients, 30 patients received intravenous vernakalant and the remaining 20 patients received a single oral dose of flecainide 300 mg. Clinical, laboratory variables and perception of state of health from screening to hour 2 treated with these drugs measured by the EQ-5 D quality-of-life assessments visual analog scale were recorded.Results: Baseline characteristics were similar in the three groups. Treatment with vernakalant resulted in a significantly greater improvement in patient perception of state of health athour 2 compared with propafenone and flecainide. In the vernakalant group, a mean increase (from baseline) of 12.1 points was seen compared with a mean increase of 5.4 points in the propafenone group or 5.2 points in flecainide group (p < 0.01).Conclusions: The change of perception of state of health from screening to hour 2 treated with vernakalant had a significantly statistical improvement compared with propafenone or flecainide for conversion recent-onset AF.

Towards Hierarchical Task Decomposition using Deep Reinforcement Learning for Pick and Place Subtasks

Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is emerging as a promising approach to generate adaptive behaviors for robotic platforms. However, a major drawback of using DRL is the data-hungry training regime that requires millions of trial and error attempts, which is impractical when running experiments on robotic systems. Learning from Demonstrations (LfD) has been introduced to solve this issue by cloning the behavior of expert demonstrations. However, LfD requires a large number of demonstrations that are difficult to be acquired since dedicated complex setups are required. To overcome these limitations, we propose a multi-subtask reinforcement learning methodology where complex pick and place tasks can be decomposed into low-level subtasks. These subtasks are parametrized as expert networks and learned via DRL methods. Trained subtasks are then combined by a high-level choreographer to accomplish the intended pick and place task considering different initial configurations. As a testbed, we use a pick and place robotic simulator to demonstrate our methodology and show that our method outperforms a benchmark methodology based on LfD in terms of sample-efficiency. We transfer the learned policy to the real robotic system and demonstrate robust grasping using various geometric-shaped objects.Comment: This work has been accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR) 202

Designing an Environmental Zone in a Mediterranean City to Support City Logistics

[EN] European cities are facing enormous challenges in accessibility and livability terms due to several European directives, which are compulsory in the mid/long term, traffic congestion levels are still increasing, and air pollution and noise disturbs citizens’ lives. This work presents the study carried out in a Mediterranean city to define an Environmental Zone with traffic restrictions for vehicles in the historical centre of the city of Cartagena (Spain) by exploring different urban logistics measures to tackle main problems caused by freight deliveries and pickups in the city centre. These solutions aimed to enhance the efficiency of vehicles, and to reduce both traffic congestion the environmental impacts caused by freight delivery in the city in order to improve urban sustainability.The research that has led to these results forms part of the work conducted by the students of the subject “Industrial Logistics” in the Master of Industrial Engineering during academic year 2016-2017 at the Technical University of Cartagena.Ros-Mcdonnell, L.; De-La-Fuente-Aragon, MV.; Ros-Mcdonnell, D.; Cardós Carboneras, M. (2018). Designing an Environmental Zone in a Mediterranean City to Support City Logistics. International Journal of Production Management and Engineering. 6(1):1-9. doi:10.4995/ijpme.2018.8771SWORD196

Reassessing FHA Risk

Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insurance has doubled over the past two years and is projected to redouble to $1.5 trillion over the next five. Despite clear signs of strain in the FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, a recent actuarial review indicates that the FHA will not need any form of government support. We identify four risk factors that make such a funding request more likely; the review underestimates how many FHA borrowers are underwater and in economic distress; it uses measures of house values that lower loss estimates; it does not incorporate early-warning signals of future losses that are available from mortgage delinquency; and it ignores potential risks associated with recent down-payment assistant programs despite higher losses on previous programs of this type. We propose measures that could be taken to improve the predictive accuracy of FHA risk assessment.

Los pueblos indígenas son parte de la solución

The coronavirus pandemic illustrates the model of society that began to be imposed globally since the 17th century (de Souza Santos 2010). One of the essential characteristics of this model is the violent and devastating appropriation of nature, of the "common goods" of "our common home", of "our mother earth", in terms of indigenous peoples, whose value systems/cosmovision’s/ontologies orient relations toward human and non-human otherness in terms of reciprocity/gift/protection rather than production and predatory appropriation. This is why the expression "indigenous peoples are part of the solution" appears, to show that their collective-community practices and knowledge constitute alternative ways of life that can contribute to the reduction of phenomena such as global warming, loss of biodiversity, the increasingly frequent occurrence of extreme climate events, and the outbreak of epidemics and pandemics such as that caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This situation, which shocks the entire world, calls on us to join forces to face the new challenges it poses and the old problems it exacerbates. In the case of the indigenous peoples of Argentina, the effects of the pandemic have exacerbated the complex situations that these groups have been facing in the areas of health, education, environment, food, work, access to information, judicialization, criminalization, and racism. This raises the need to deepen the knowledge of the ways in which pre-existing inequalities have been aggravated, in order to propose concrete measures for their attention. At the same time, indigenous communities are making a great effort to comply with the measure of Preventive and Obligatory Social Isolation (ASPO, Spanish initials) established by Decree 297/2020, mobilizing and deploying collective-community knowledge and practices in order to adapt their socio-cultural dynamics to the requirements of this decree.   We developed the project "Indigenous Knowledge and Practices in a Health Emergency Context: Contributions to Health, Education and the Environment in the Framework of Planning Strategies for the Control, Prevention and Monitoring of Covid-19", with the aim of deepening knowledge and evaluating the impact of ASPO on indigenous peoples, but also and fundamentally, to recognize and record knowledge and practices that - based on gift and reciprocity - can constitute, in this state of things, a contribution to the resolution of emerging problems and the design and implementation of social programs that involve them. To this end, we have proposed a methodology that prioritizes respect and commitment to the subjects with whom we build knowledge and, given the known conditions that so far restrict the movement and gathering of people throughout the national territory, the implementation of techniques characteristic of a "digital ethnography" that will allow us to achieve the proposed objectives while respecting preventive measures: observation and interviews "at a distance" mediated by various technologies (video conference platforms, telephone and instant messaging services, emails, social networks, among others.) Indigenous peoples must be part of the planning of strategies for control, prevention and monitoring of COVID-19. The value of their practices and knowledge cannot and should not be underestimated, as they are of singular importance in this health emergency situation, representing other possible ways of "taking care of each other". In this sense, they are also essential for finding future solutions, that is, for thinking about other post-pandemic emergencies.La pandemia de coronavirus pone de manifiesto el modelo de sociedad que comenzó a imponerse a nivel mundial a partir del siglo XVII (de Souza Santos 2010). Una de las características esenciales de este modelo es la apropiación violenta y devastadora de la naturaleza, de los “bienes comunes”, de “nuestro hogar común”, de “nuestra madre tierra”, en términos de los pueblos indígenas, cuyos sistemas de valores/cosmovisiones/ontologías orientan las relaciones hacia la alteridad humana y no humana en términos de reciprocidad/don/protección y no de producción y apropiación depredatoria. De allí que aparezca la expresión “los pueblos indígenas son parte de la solución” para dar cuenta de que sus prácticas y conocimientos colectivos-comunitarios constituyen alternativas de vida que pueden aportar a la reducción de fenómenos como el calentamiento global, la pérdida de biodiversidad, la ocurrencia cada vez más frecuente de eventos climáticos extremos y el brote de epidemias y pandemias como la ocasionada por el virus SARS-CoV-2. Esta situación, que conmociona al mundo entero, nos convoca a aunar esfuerzos para enfrentar los nuevos desafíos que plantea y los viejos problemas que agudiza. En el caso de los pueblos indígenas de Argentina, los efectos de la pandemia han exacerbado las complejas situaciones que estos colectivos venían enfrentando en torno a la salud, la educación, el ambiente, la alimentación, el trabajo, el acceso a la información, la judicialización, la criminalización y el racismo. Esto plantea la necesidad de profundizar en el conocimiento de las formas en que se han agravado desigualdades preexistentes, a los fines de proponer medidas concretas para su atención. A su vez, las comunidades indígenas están cumpliendo con mucho esfuerzo la medida de Aislamiento Social Preventivo y Obligatorio (ASPO) establecida por Decreto 297/2020, movilizando y desplegando saberes y prácticas colectivas-comunitarias ante la preocupación por adecuar su dinámica sociocultural a los requerimientos de este decreto.  Elaboramos entonces el proyecto “Saberes y prácticas indígenas en un contexto de emergencia sanitaria: aportes a la salud, la educación y el ambiente en el marco de la planificación de estrategias de control, prevención y monitoreo del covid-19”, a los fines de profundizar en el conocimiento y evaluación del impacto del ASPO en los pueblos indígenas, pero también y fundamentalmente, para reconocer y registrar conocimientos y prácticas que -fundadas en el don y la reciprocidad- pueden constituir, en este estado de las cosas, un aporte a la resolución de problemáticas emergentes y al diseño e implementación de programas sociales que los involucren. Para ello hemos propuesto una metodología que prioriza el respeto y el compromiso con los sujetos junto a los cuales construimos conocimiento y, dados los sabidos condicionamientos que restringen hasta hoy la circulación y reunión de personas en todo el territorio nacional, la puesta en marcha de técnicas propias de una “etnografía digital” que nos permitirá alcanzar los objetivos propuestos respetando las medidas preventivas: observación y entrevistas “a distancia” mediadas por distintas tecnologías (plataformas de video conferencia, servicios de telefonía y mensajería instantánea, correos electrónicos, redes sociales, entre otras.). Los pueblos indígenas deben formar parte de la planificación de estrategias de control, prevención y monitoreo del COVID-19. No se puede y no se debe subestimar el valor de sus prácticas y conocimientos, que revisten una singular importancia en esta coyuntura de emergencia sanitaria, al representar otras posibles formas de “cuidarse entre todos”. Y, en este sentido, son esenciales también para encontrar soluciones a futuro, es decir, para pensar otras emergencias en la pospandemia

Self-similarity and universality of void density profiles in simulation and SDSS data

The stacked density profile of cosmic voids in the galaxy distribution provides an important tool for the use of voids for precision cosmology. We study the density profiles of voids identified using the ZOBOV watershed transform algorithm in realistic mock luminous red galaxy (LRG) catalogues from the Jubilee simulation, as well as in void catalogues constructed from the SDSS LRG and Main Galaxy samples. We compare different methods for reconstructing density profiles scaled by the void radius and show that the most commonly used method based on counts in shells and simple averaging is statistically flawed as it underestimates the density in void interiors. We provide two alternative methods that do not suffer from this effect; one based on Voronoi tessellations is also easily able to account from artefacts due to finite survey boundaries and so is more suitable when comparing simulation data to observation. Using this method, we show that the most robust voids in simulation are exactly self-similar, meaning that their average rescaled profile does not depend on the void size. Within the range of our simulation, we also find no redshift dependence of the mean profile. Comparison of the profiles obtained from simulated and real voids shows an excellent match. The mean profiles of real voids also show a universal behaviour over a wide range of galaxy luminosities, number densities and redshifts. This points to a fundamental property of the voids found by the watershed algorithm, which can be exploited in future studies of voids