Recession and the Employment of Demographic Groups

macroeconomics, Recession, Demographic

BOOTSTRAPPING YOUR FISH OR FISHING FOR BOOTSTRAPS?: PRECISION OF WELFARE LOSS ESTIMATES FROM A GLOBALLY CONCAVE INVERSE DEMAND MODEL OF COMMERCIAL FISH LANDINGS IN THE U.S. GREAT LAKES

Replaced with revised version of paper 06/30/04.Demand and Price Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

MOXE: An X-ray all-sky monitor for Soviet Spectrum-X-Gamma Mission

A Monitoring Monitoring X-Ray Equipment (MOXE) is being developed for the Soviet Spectrum-X-Gamma Mission. MOXE is an X-ray all-sky monitor based on array of pinhole cameras, to be provided via a collaboration between Goddard Space Flight Center and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The objectives are to alert other observers on Spectrum-X-Gamma and other platforms of interesting transient activity, and to synoptically monitor the X-ray sky and study long-term changes in X-ray binaries. MOXE will be sensitive to sources as faint as 2 milliCrab (5 sigma) in 1 day, and cover the 2 to 20 KeV band

Managing Queuing Problems Through Online Booking System

Queuing is one of the important issues to the service industry due to its impact towards the operations capabilities and customer satisfaction of the organization. The determination of how long a customer should wait for a product or service has long been a major concern for service management specialists who bear the trade-off between minimizing operation costs incurred in optimizing the configuration of a queue system, as well as, minimizing the cost of queuing of the customers. As the current economies progressively changing into a service dominated one, it is essential to thoroughly understand the know-how to effectively deal with queuing lines to improve customer satisfaction of service. Fast food restaurants are popular among price-sensitive youths and working adults who value the conducive environment and convenient services. McDonald’s chains of restaurants promote their sales by offering package meals which are perceived to be inexpensive. These promotional meals attract good response, resulting in occasional long queues and inconvenient queuing times. However, customers are willing to queue and pay to get food. Restaurants should avoid losing their customers due to a long wait on the line. It is because people today demand not only for quality food but also for speed. Fast food restaurant players explore on the approaches to optimize the efficiency of restaurant management. One important area that defines how well and efficient a fast food restaurant delivers its product and services to customers is by their implementation of the queue management practices at the restaurant and the level of customers satisfaction. A study is conducted to monitor the distribution of queuing time, queue length, customer arrival and departure patterns at a McDonald’s restaurant located in Tampines, Singapore. Thus, the purpose of this study is to propose an online system that will aid in managing queue during the service and hence, to optimize the queuing time. There were few methods involved in order to achieve the objectives, including conducting observation, interview, time study and develop the online booking system. Through this system, it can help to manage queue and improving the customer satisfaction

Aggregating available soil water holding capacity data for crop yield models

The total amount of water available to plants that is held against gravity in a soil is usually estimated as the amount present at -0.03 MPa average water potential minus the amount present at -1.5 MPa water potential. This value, designated available water-holding capacity (AWHC), is a very important soil characteristic that is strongly and positively correlated to the inherent productivity of soils. In various applications, including assessing soil moisture status over large areas, it is necessary to group soil types or series as to their productivity. Current methods to classify AWHC of soils consider only total capacity of soil profiles and thus may group together soils which differ greatly in AWHC as a function of depth in the profile. A general approach for evaluating quantitatively the multidimensional nature of AWHC in soils is described. Data for 902 soil profiles, representing 184 soil series, in Indiana were obtained from the Soil Characterization Laboratory at Purdue University. The AWHC for each of ten 150-mm layers in each soil was established, based on soil texture and parent material. A multivariate clustering procedure was used to classify each soil profile into one of 4, 8, or 12 classes based upon ten-dimensional AWHC values. The optimum number of classes depends on the range of AWHC in the population of oil profiles analyzed and on the sensitivity of a crop to differences in distribution of water within the soil profile

Cryptic choice of conspecific sperm controlled by the impact of ovarian fluid on sperm swimming behavior

Despite evidence that variation in male–female reproductive compatibility exists in many fertilization systems, identifying mechanisms of cryptic female choice at the gamete level has been a challenge. Here, under risks of genetic incompatibility through hybridization, we show how salmon and trout eggs promote fertilization by conspecific sperm. Using in vitro fertilization experiments that replicate the gametic microenvironment, we find complete interfertility between both species. However, if either species’ ova were presented with equivalent numbers of both sperm types, conspecific sperm gained fertilization precedence. Surprisingly, the species’ identity of the eggs did not explain this cryptic female choice, which instead was primarily controlled by conspecific ovarian fluid, a semiviscous, protein-rich solution that bathes the eggs and is released at spawning. Video analyses revealed that ovarian fluid doubled sperm motile life span and straightened swimming trajectory, behaviors allowing chemoattraction up a concentration gradient. To confirm chemoattraction, cell migration tests through membranes containing pores that approximated to the egg micropyle showed that conspecific ovarian fluid attracted many more spermatozoa through the membrane, compared with heterospecific fluid or water. These combined findings together identify how cryptic female choice can evolve at the gamete level and promote reproductive isolation, mediated by a specific chemoattractive influence of ovarian fluid on sperm swimming behavior

Reports of planetary geology program, 1980

This is a compilation of abstracts of reports which summarize work conducted in the Planetary Geology Program. Each report reflects significant accomplishments within the area of the author's funded grant or contract

Increasing the Strength of Aluminum-alloy Columns by Prestressing

A series of tests was made in which the column strength of 17ST tubing was increased as much as 50 percent by prestressing the tubing to 40,000 pounds per square inch in compression under conditions of support that prevented column failure at this stress. This prestressing achieves it's beneficial effects entirely by improving the compressive properties of the material, principally the proportional limit

Kleingrass-75.

6 p