420 research outputs found
Need a Push? Restoring EU Influence in the Balkans
The credibility of the European Union is declining in the Western Balkans. Candidate states see the date for accession negotiations fading further into the future and doubt whether they’ll ever be able to join
The Future of Sino-Russian Cooperation: A Rough Road Ahead
After spending two semesters on the Chinese-Russian border, Henry reflects on the future of Sino-Russian relations and whether the West should worry
Home Appreciation Participation Notes: A Solution to Housing Affordability and the Current Mortgage Crisis
This paper introduces Home Appreciation Participation Notes (HAPNs), an innovative new housing finance tool. Housing is a commodity providing two distinct utilities: shelter and investment. Traditionally, buyers have had to purchase both elements in tandom. HAPNs allow buyers to purchase these elements individually. Thus, buyers can focus on purchasing housing units that best fit their shelter needs, investing in housing appreciation to whatever extent is appropriate for the needs of their investment portfolio. HAPNs are different from previous financing tools in three key ways: there is no payment burden until ownership of the home is transferred, the risk of housing price declines is shifted to investors, and the final payoff is indexed to the appreciation rates of local housing prices. With these three features, HAPNs considerably improve the affordability of homeownership while reducing the risk of default and avoiding the moral hazard associated with shared appreciation instruments.
An Optimality Theoretic analysis of vowel harmony in Kazan Tatar
Kazan Tatar is a Kipchak language spoken in the Republic of Tatarstan (Ethnologue). Previous literature has described a backness harmony system, with weak rounding harmony in the mid vowels (Comrie 1997, Berta 1998, Poppe 1968). This work utilizes novel data to investigate Tatar's harmony under an Optimality Theory (OT) (Prince & Smolensky 1993) framework, contributing new observations regarding the lack of rounding harmony in Tatar, contrary to previous accounts. Through investigation of Tatar's harmony system, we gain insight into the workings of the language's phonology and find crucial evidence for the gradual decay of rounding harmony in Turkic languages
Long-term Geophysical Monitoring of Simulated Clandestine Graves using Electrical and Ground Penetrating Radar Methods: 4–6 Years After Burial
This ongoing monitoring study provides forensic search teams with systematic geophysical data over simulated clandestine graves for comparison to active cases. Simulated “wrapped,”“naked,” and “control” burials were created. Multiple geophysical surveys were collected over 6 years, here showing data from 4 to 6 years after burial. Electrical resistivity (twin electrode and ERI), multifrequency GPR, grave and background soil water were collected. Resistivity surveys revealed that the naked burial had low-resistivity anomalies up to year four but then difficult to image, whereas the wrapped burial had consistent large high-resistivity anomalies. GPR 110- to 900-MHz frequency surveys showed that the wrapped burial could be detected throughout, but the naked burial was either not detectable or poorly resolved. 225-MHz frequency GPR data were optimal. Soil water analyses showed decreasing (years 4 to 5) to background (year 6) conductivity values. Results suggest both resistivity and GPR surveying if burial style unknown, with winter to spring surveys optimal and increasingly important as time increases
The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler (HEK): I. Description of a New Observational Project
Two decades ago, empirical evidence concerning the existence and frequency of
planets around stars, other than our own, was absent. Since this time, the
detection of extrasolar planets from Jupiter-sized to most recently Earth-sized
worlds has blossomed and we are finally able to shed light on the plurality of
Earth-like, habitable planets in the cosmos. Extrasolar moons may also be
frequent habitable worlds but their detection or even systematic pursuit
remains lacking in the current literature. Here, we present a description of
the first systematic search for extrasolar moons as part of a new observational
project called "The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler" (HEK). The HEK project
distills the entire list of known transiting planet candidates found by Kepler
(2326 at the time of writing) down to the most promising candidates for hosting
a moon. Selected targets are fitted using a multimodal nested sampling
algorithm coupled with a planet-with-moon light curve modelling routine. By
comparing the Bayesian evidence of a planet-only model to that of a
planet-with-moon, the detection process is handled in a Bayesian framework. In
the case of null detections, upper limits derived from posteriors marginalised
over the entire prior volume will be provided to inform the frequency of large
moons around viable planetary hosts, eta-moon. After discussing our
methodologies for target selection, modelling, fitting and vetting, we provide
two example analyses.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables, accepted in Ap
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