Reconciling Consumer Confidence and Permanent Income Consumption

The forecasting power of consumer confidence indexes for consumption spending runs counter to the predictions of the permanent income hypothesis (PIH). This paper resolves this discrepancy by developing a “confidence augmented” permanent income hypothesis (CAPIH). While it does not radically alter the estimated extent of permanent income consumption, the CAPIH model predicts a significantly smaller intertemporal elasticity of substitution than a standard PIH model. In addition, the results are largely invariant to the measure of consumer confidence used and the choice of instrumental variables.

The Senior Mentoring Program at VCU’s School of Medicine

Educational Objectives 1. To demonstrate the value of senior mentoring in geriatrics education for medical students. 2. To provide a framework for positively influencing student attitudes toward older adults. 3. To describe the underlying human relationships that contribute to patient-centered care. 4. To describe effective verbal and non-verbal skills to establish and build relationships

Fluorine gas as a cleaning agent for Apollo bulk-sample containers

A technique has been developed for cleaning Apollo bulk sample containers using fluorine gas as the cleaning agent

Radiometric temperature analysis of the Hayabusa spacecraft re-entry

Hayabusa, an unmanned Japanese spacecraft, was launched to study and collect samples from the surface of the asteroid 25143 Itokawa. In June 2010, the Hayabusa spacecraft completed it’s seven year voyage. The spacecraft and the sample return capsule (SRC) re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the central Australian desert at speeds on the order of 12 km/s. This provided a rare opportunity to experimentally investigate the radiative heat transfer from the shock-compressed gases in front of the sample return capsule at true-flight conditions. This paper reports on the results of observations from a tracking camera situated on the ground about 100 km from where the capsule experienced peak heating during re-entry

Quenched chirality in RbNiCl3_3

The critical behaviour of stacked-triangular antiferromagnets has been intensely studied since Kawamura predicted new universality classes for triangular and helical antiferromagnets. The new universality classes are linked to an additional discrete degree of freedom, chirality, which is not present on rectangular lattices, nor in ferromagnets. However, the theoretical as well as experimental situation is discussed controversially, and generic scaling without universality has been proposed as an alternative scenario. Here we present a careful investigation of the zero-field critical behaviour of RbNiCl$_3$, a stacked-triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnet with very small Ising anisotropy. From linear birefringence experiments we determine the specific heat exponent $\alpha$ as well as the critical amplitude ratio $A^+/A^-$. Our high-resolution measurements point to a single second order phase transition with standard Heisenberg critical behaviour, contrary to all theoretical predictions. From a supplementary neutron diffraction study we can exclude a structural phase transition at T$_N$. We discuss our results in the context of other available experimental results on RbNiCl$_3$ and related compounds. We arrive at a simple intuitive explanation which may be relevant for other discrepancies observed in the critical behaviour of stacked-triangular antiferromagnets. In RbNiCl$_3$ the ordering of the chirality is suppressed by strong spin fluctuations, yielding to a different phase diagram, as compared to e.g.\@ CsNiCl$_3$, where the Ising anisotropy prevents these fluctuations

Progressive internal gravity waves with bounded upper surface climbing a triangular obstacle

In this paper we discuss a theoretical model for the interfacial profiles of progressive non-linear waves which result from introducing a triangular obstacle, of finite height, attached to the bottom below the flow of a stratified, ideal, two layer fluid, bounded from above by a rigid boundary. The derived equations are solved by using a nonlinear perturbation method. The dependence of the interfacial profile on the triangular obstacle size, as well as its dependence on some flow parameters, such as the ratios of depths and densities of the two fluids, have been studied

Sub-micron, Metal Gate, High-к Dielectric, Implant-free, Enhancement-mode III-V MOSFETs

The performance of 300nm, 500nm and 1μm metal gate, implant free, enhancement mode III-V MOSFETs are reported. Devices are realised using a 10nm MBE grown Ga2O3/(GaxGd1-x)2O3 high-κ (κ=20) dielectric stack grown upon a δ-doped AlGaAs/InGaAs/AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure. Enhancement mode operation is maintained across the three reported gate lengths with a reduction in threshold voltage from 0.26 V to 0.08 V as the gate dimension is reduced from 1 μm to 300 nm. An increase in transconductance is also observed with reduced gate dimension. Maximum drain current of 420 μA/μm and extrinsic transconductance of 400 µS/µm are obtained from these devices. Gate leakage current of less than 100pA and subthreshold slope of 90 mV/decade were obtained for all gate lengths. These are believed to be the highest performance submicron enhancement mode III-V MOSFETs reported to date

LOW ENERGY SUPERSYMMETRY PHENOMENOLOGY

We summarize the current status and future prospects for low energy (weak scale) supersymmetry. In particular, we evaluate the capabilities of various $e^+e^-$, $p\bar p$ and $pp$ colliders to discover evidence for supersymmetric particles. Furthermore, assuming supersymmetry is discovered, we discuss capabilities of future facilities to dis-entangle the anticipated spectrum of super-particles, and, via precision measurements, to test mass and coupling parameters for comparison with various theoretical expectations. We comment upon the complementarity of proposed hadron and $e^+e^-$ machines for a comprehensive study of low energy supersymmetry.Comment: 74 page (Latex) file; a PS or uuencoded manuscript with embedded figures is available via anonymous ftp at ftp://hep.fsu.edu/preprints/baer/FSUHEP950401.ps or .uu . Contributed chapter to DPF study group on Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and Beyond the Standard Model