A body-bound navigation system. Analysis and design of a capsule landing system and surface vehicle control system for Mars exploration

Large angle gyro sensing system for body mount on unmanned Mars surface vehicl

Country funds and asymmetric information

Using data on country funds, the authors study how differential access to information affects international investment. They find that past changes in net asset values (NAVs) and discounts predict current country fund prices more commonly than prices and discounts predict NAVs. The price (NAV) adjustment coefficients are low and negatively correlated with the local (foreign) market variability -- but not with the fund price (NAV) variability. NAVs seem to be closer to local information. They are the asset prices that react first to local news. Later the country fund holders receive the information and those prices react after NAVs have reacted. The 1995Mexican crisis and the 1997 Asian crisis are two examples of this type of behavior. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis of asymmetric information, according to which the holders of the underlying assets have more information about local assets than the country fund holders do. The authors empirically test the asymmetric information hypothesis against the noise traders hypothesis. A theoretical model is presented in the appendix.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Financial Intermediation,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Intermediation,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Insurance Law,Environmental Economics&Policies

Country Fund Discounts, Asymmetric Information and the Mexican Crisis of 1994: Did Local Residents Turn Pessimistic Before International Investors?

It has been suggested that Mexican investors were the front-runners in the peso crisis of December 1994, turning pessimistic before international investors. Different expectations about their own economy, perhaps due to asymmetric information, prompted Mexican investors to be the first ones to leave the country. This paper uses data from three Mexican country funds to investigate the hypothesis of divergent expectations. We find that, right before the devaluation, Mexican fund Net Asset Values (mainly driven by Mexican investors) dropped faster than Mexican country fund prices (mainly driven by foreign investors). Moreover, we find that Mexican NAVs tend to Granger-cause the country fund prices. This suggests that causality, in some sense, flows from the Mexico City investor community to the Wall Street investor community. More generally, the paper proposes an asymmetric information approach that differs from the existing explanations of country fund discounts.

Study of personal hygiene concepts for future manned missions Final report

Personal hygiene concepts for long-duration manned space fligh

Abortion policy implementation: Understanding the availability of abortion services in the United States

This study examines five factors predicted to be related to abortion, and assesses their influence on the availability and use of abortion services. A policy implementation framework is used to explore, conceptualize and analyze the extent to which these factors may have important effects on abortion services. Availability and use of abortion services are viewed as measures of the implementation of the 1973 Supreme Court rulings on abortion. State level data are used to investigate the extent to which the predicted factors influence abortion services. This study reveals that many factors associated with the issue of abortion work together to influence abortion policy implementation. It demonstrates that availability and use of abortion services are conceptually distinct measures of policy implementation, and that the demand for abortion is separate from how readily services are available. Availability is affected by differing views concerning the family, economic status of women, pressures of social movements and availability of physicians. Use of abortion services is affected by the social and political climate primarily through availability of abortion providers, along with existing characteristics of the health care system and with the level of demand for abortion. In order to increase the availability of abortion services, it is recommended that the social and political climate of a community be assessed in conjunction with the limitations associated with the availability of health care services

Assessing Quality of Life and Mental Health Differences Among Young Adult Informal Caregivers and Non-Caregivers in Nebraska

The goal of this project is to identify differences in quality of life and mental health between younger informal caregivers and non-caregivers, ages 19-40, in Nebraska. To address this goal, a demographic and health assessment battery was disseminated to eligible participants (N=60), comprised of informal caregivers (N=30) and age-, education-, and gender-matched non-caregivers (N=30). The health assessment included reliable and validated questionnaires, including the RAND SF-36, EuroQol 5D, Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, and the General Health Questionnaire. By discovering relationships between quality of life and mental health with the length of time providing care, programming and intervention recommendations can be made to improve the health of informal caregivers in Nebraska