The 2004 survey of community banks in the Tenth District

Periodically, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City surveys Tenth District bankers for their views on a variety of matters. In February 2004, we solicited banker opinion on a number of topics pertaining to governance and staffing practices, vendor management practices, competitive environment and future prospects, interest rate risk management practices, internet banking services, and payments system issues. This article briefly sets out the survey methodology and describes the applicability of survey results to the entire population of District banks. It also reviews what bankers told us about their environment, competition, and future challenges. Broadly speaking, survey results can be generalized for all Tenth District banks. The representative community bank in the District has assets less than $150 million, is family-owned and locally controlled, and is headquartered outside a metropolitan area. The economic and competitive environment these banks face depends, in part, on growth prospects and diversification opportunities within their communities. Their most intense loan and deposit competitors are other community banks. Their greatest challenges involve basic aspects of successfully managing a bank: funding, income sources, and meeting competition. Despite identifying many problems, all but a few bankers expect their banks will remain in business and succeed.Federal Reserve District, 10th ; Community banks

Why a Particle Physicist is Interested in DNA Branch Migration

We describe an explicitly discrete model of the process of DNA branch migration. The model matches the existing data well, but we find that branch migration along long strands of DNA (N \simge 40~bp) is also well modeled by continuum diffusion. The discrete model is still useful for guiding future experiments.Comment: Talk presented at LATTICE96(theoretical developments); 3 pages, TeXsis w/ LAT96.txs (available from ftp://lifshitz.ph.utexas.edu/texsis/styles/LAT96.txs and will be a part of the next Elsevier.txs) and TXSdcol.te

High temperature power electronics for space

A high temperature electronics program at NASA Lewis Research Center focuses on dielectric and insulating materials research, development and testing of high temperature power components, and integration of the developed components and devices into a demonstrable 200 C power system, such as inverter. An overview of the program and a description of the in-house high temperature facilities along with experimental data obtained on high temperature materials are presented

Clinical Evaluation of Risankizumab-rzaa in the Treatment of Plaque Psoriasis.

Risankizumab-rzaa (Skyrizi®; AbbVie) is a humanized IgG monoclonal antibody directed against interleukin-23p19 (IL-23p19) indicated for the treatment of moderate-to-severe psoriasis in adults who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy. Four pivotal Phase III trials: UltIMMa-1, UltIMMa-2, IMMhance, and IMMvent have demonstrated efficacy and safety in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. This review highlights important findings from these and other clinical trials that have evaluated risankizumab. In addition, we discuss the mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, dosing recommendations, drug interactions, other potential indications, and ongoing clinical trials

The Idea of a Citizen: The Role of Higher Education Institutions in the Development of Citizens and an Exploration of Innovative Teaching Techniques to Aid in the Process

This work seeks to explain how institutions of higher education and political science educators within those institutions can develop students into citizens. Understanding the role of each (institution, educator, and student) within American democracy is important and the focus of this research. As the roles of each are demarcated, it becomes clear that higher education institutions and their political science educators have a unique ability to nurture students into citizens with a strong sense of civic purpose and understanding. The subsequent chapters in this work explore the use of experiential education and other innovative teaching methods to determine if students can be taught to be better citizens. Findings in those chapters suggest that traditional means of measuring engagement (i.e. social capital) may display some change (i.e. political and civic engagement), while other areas remain stagnant (i.e. religious participation, informal social connections, and trust). Also, the inclusion of innovative teaching techniques, like virtual reality, do increase bridging and bonding social capital, as well as empathy. Additionally, student responses to the experiences does yield important results that suggests students do positively evaluate their experiential education experience. This research suggests that political science educators have the ability to impact a student’s development as a citizen, but the educator must be willing to engage the student using methods not typically employed in classroom settings

Nature and the Divine: Classical Greek Philosophy and the Political in the Thought of Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin.

The following work is an attempt to clarify the relationship of two of the most significant political thinkers of the later part of the twentieth century. Previous scholarship on the relationship between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin has focused on the two men\u27s different interpretations of the religious traditions of Judaism and Christianity. In this work, we explore the two men\u27s presentations of classical Greek philosophy to illuminate how their differing readings of the classics come to similar conclusions regarding the nature and limits of the political. Our investigation probes how Strauss\u27s treatment of philosophy as being slightly more comic than tragic and history as being political differs from Voegelin\u27s understanding of philosophy as the successor to tragedy and history as a record of spiritual irruptions. Despite these important differences, both men interpret philosophy as a hopeful search for an elusive ground of order. The structural similarity of both men\u27s understandings of philosophy raises questions whether the differences that are so prominent in the two men\u27s treatment of their respective religious traditions are grounded within the nature of the philosophic enterprise or their different estimates of the vitality of Jewish and Christian worldviews. Strauss\u27s philosophy emphasizes the gap between natural man and the divine and his subsequent need for a divine law, whereas Voegelin focuses on man\u27s need to attune his soul to the divine sources of order in their historic variety and the subsequent spiritual requirement of resisting totalitarian political claims. Both men emphasize a transcendent source of political authority and display a certain amount of skepticism regarding the vessels of the transcendent

Multi-megawatt inverter/converter technology for space power applications

Large power conditioning mass reductions will be required to enable megawatt power systems envisioned by the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Air Force, and NASA. Phase 1 of a proposed two phase interagency program has been completed to develop an 0.1 kg/kW DC/DC converter technology base for these future space applications. Three contractors, Hughes, General Electric (GE), and Maxwell were Phase 1 contractors in a competitive program to develop a megawatt lightweight DC/DC converter. Researchers at NASA Lewis Research Center and the University of Wisconsin also investigated technology in topology and control. All three contractors, as well as the University of Wisconsin, concluded at the end of the Phase 1 study, which included some critical laboratory work, that 0.1-kg/kW megawatt DC/DC converters can be built. This is an order of magnitude lower specific weight than is presently available. A brief description of each of the concepts used to meet the ambitious goals of this program are presented

Design Mixers to Minimize Effects of Erosion and Corrosion Erosion

A thorough review of the major parameters that affect solid-liquid slurry wear on impellers and techniques for minimizing wear is presented. These major parameters include (i) chemical environment, (ii) hardness of solids, (iii) density of solids, (iv) percent solids, (v) shape of solids, (vi) fluid regime (turbulent, transitional, or laminar), (vii) hardness of the mixer's wetted parts, (viii) hydraulic efficiency of the impeller (kinetic energy dissipation rates near the impeller blades), (ix) impact velocity, and (x) impact frequency. Techniques for minimizing the wear on impellers cover the choice of impeller, size and speed of the impeller, alloy selection, and surface coating or coverings. An example is provided as well as an assessment of the approximate life improvement

Poly-Pattern Compressive Segmentation of ASTER Data for GIS

Pattern-based segmentation of multi-band image data, such as ASTER, produces one-byte and two-byte approximate compressions. This is a dual segmentation consisting of nested coarser and finer level pattern mappings called poly-patterns. The coarser A-level version is structured for direct incorporation into geographic information systems in the manner of a raster map. GIs renderings of this A-level approximation are called pattern pictures which have the appearance of color enhanced images. The two-byte version consisting of thousands of B-level segments provides a capability for approximate restoration of the multi-band data in selected areas or entire scenes. Poly-patterns are especially useful for purposes of change detection and landscape analysis at multiple scales. The primary author has implemented the segmentation methodology in a public domain software suite