21,162 research outputs found
How effective is lifeline banking in assisting the 'unbanked'?
Many consumers who lack checking accounts are paying relatively high costs to access the nation's payments system. Legislation aimed at opening the system to these unbanked individuals has centered on requiring commercial banks to offer low-cost "lifeline" accounts. But will cost savings alone motivate these consumers to access the payments system through banks?Checking accounts ; Banks and banking - Service charges ; Poverty
Reproducibilty of partial weight bearing
Objectives: To find out whether partial weight bearing can be reproduced and retained. Design: In vivo experiment in normal subjects. Intervention: Training for partial weight bearing (25% of body weight) using bathroom scales. Main outcome measurement: Reproducibility on force platform immediately after training and after 60 min. Results: Twelve subjects were asked to reproduce 25% of their body weight through either the dominant or non-dominant limb on force platform after three practice attempts on bathroom scales with concurrent visual feedback. No feedback was provided after the measurements on force plate. The process was repeated after 1 h without any practice sessions in the interim period to find out if the weight practised could be retained. The mean 0-min reading was found to be 25.9% of body weight while the mean 60-min reading was found to be 24.4%. The p-value for the difference between the two means was found to be 0.3841. Conclusions: This study indicates that partial weight bearing instructions can be quantified and graded. Simple bathroom scales are sufficient to educate the patients and this can be practised at home after an initial period of supervision
Measuring device Patent
Expulsion and measuring device for determining quantity of liquid in tank under conditions of weightlessnes
A Prototype for the PASS Permanent All Sky Survey
A prototype system for the Permanent All Sky Survey (PASS) project is
presented. PASS is a continuous photometric survey of the entire celestial
sphere with a high temporal resolution. Its major objectives are the detection
of all giant-planet transits (with periods up to some weeks) across stars up to
mag 10.5, and to deliver continuously photometry that is useful for the study
of any variable stars. The prototype is based on CCD cameras with short focal
length optics on a fixed mount. A small dome to house it at Teide Observatory,
Tenerife, is currently being constructed. A placement at the antarctic Dome C
is also being considered. The prototype will be used for a feasibility study of
PASS, to define the best observing strategies, and to perform a detailed
characterization of the capabilities and scope of the survey. Afterwards, a
first partial sky surveying will be started with it. That first survey may be
able to detect transiting planets during its first few hundred hours of
operation. It will also deliver a data set around which software modules
dealing with the various scientific objectives of PASS will be developed. The
PASS project is still in its early phase and teams interested in specific
scientific objectives, in providing technical expertise, or in participating
with own observations are invited to collaborate.Comment: Accepted for Astronomische Nachrichten (special issue for 3rd Potsdam
Thinkshop 'Robotic Astronomy' in July 2004). 4 pages, 4 fig
Buffer gas cooling and trapping of atoms with small magnetic moments
Buffer gas cooling was extended to trap atoms with small magnetic moment
(mu). For mu greater than or equal to 3mu_B, 1e12 atoms were buffer gas cooled,
trapped, and thermally isolated in ultra high vacuum with roughly unit
efficiency. For mu < 3mu_B, the fraction of atoms remaining after full thermal
isolation was limited by two processes: wind from the rapid removal of the
buffer gas and desorbing helium films. In our current apparatus we trap atoms
with mu greater than or equal to 1.1mu_B, and thermally isolate atoms with mu
greater than or equal to 2mu_B. Extrapolation of our results combined with
simulations of the loss processes indicate that it is possible to trap and
evaporatively cool mu = 1mu_B atoms using buffer gas cooling.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure
Calculating effective resistances on underlying networks of association schemes
Recently, in Refs. \cite{jsj} and \cite{res2}, calculation of effective
resistances on distance-regular networks was investigated, where in the first
paper, the calculation was based on stratification and Stieltjes function
associated with the network, whereas in the latter one a recursive formula for
effective resistances was given based on the Christoffel-Darboux identity. In
this paper, evaluation of effective resistances on more general networks which
are underlying networks of association schemes is considered, where by using
the algebraic combinatoric structures of association schemes such as
stratification and Bose-Mesner algebras, an explicit formula for effective
resistances on these networks is given in terms of the parameters of
corresponding association schemes. Moreover, we show that for particular
underlying networks of association schemes with diameter such that the
adjacency matrix possesses distinct eigenvalues, all of the other
adjacency matrices , can be written as polynomials of ,
i.e., , where is not necessarily of degree . Then, we use
this property for these particular networks and assume that all of the
conductances except for one of them, say , are zero to give a
procedure for evaluating effective resistances on these networks. The
preference of this procedure is that one can evaluate effective resistances by
using the structure of their Bose-Mesner algebra without any need to know the
spectrum of the adjacency matrices.Comment: 41 page
A Dynamical Analysis of the Proposed Circumbinary HW Virginis Planetary System
In 2009, the discovery of two planets orbiting the evolved binary star system
HW Virginis was announced, based on systematic variations in the timing of
eclipses between the two stars. The planets invoked in that work were
significantly more massive than Jupiter, and moved on orbits that were mutually
crossing - an architecture which suggests that mutual encounters and strong
gravitational interactions are almost guaranteed. In this work, we perform a
highly detailed analysis of the proposed HW Vir planetary system. First, we
consider the dynamical stability of the system as proposed in the discovery
work. Through a mapping process involving 91,125 individual simulations, we
find that the system is so unstable that the planets proposed simply cannot
exist, due to mean lifetimes of less than a thousand years across the whole
parameter space. We then present a detailed re-analysis of the observational
data on HW Vir, deriving a new orbital solution that provides a very good fit
to the observational data. Our new analysis yields a system with planets more
widely spaced, and of lower mass, than that proposed in the discovery work, and
yields a significantly greater (and more realistic) estimate of the uncertainty
in the orbit of the outermost body. Despite this, a detailed dynamical analysis
of this new solution similarly reveals that it also requires the planets to
move on orbits that are simply not dynamically feasible. Our results imply that
some mechanism other than the influence of planetary companions must be the
principal cause of the observed eclipse timing variations for HW Vir. If the
sys- tem does host exoplanets, they must move on orbits differing greatly from
those previously proposed. Our results illustrate the critical importance of
performing dynamical analyses as a part of the discovery process for
multiple-planet exoplanetary systems.Comment: Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Societ
Assessment of the visibility impairment caused by the emissions from the proposed power plant at Boron, California
The current atmospheric conditions and visibility were modeled, and the effect of the power plant effluent was then added to determine its influence upon the prevailing visibility; the actual reduction in visibility being a function of meteorological conditions and observer-plume-target geometry. In the cases investigated, the perceptibility of a target was reduced by a minimum of 10 percent and a maximum of 100 percent. This significant visual impact would occur 40 days per year in the Edwards area with meteorological conditions such as to cause some visual impact 80 days per year
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