Appraisers and the Fair Housing Law: Accessibility Requirements for the Disabled

In 1988 the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was amended to include the "handicapped" as being protected from discrimination in multiunit housing. The three general categories of discriminatory acts are refusal to make or allow reasonable physical modifications to a covered multiunit dwelling, refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules and practices, and failure to follow certain design and construction standards. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines, which provide technical guidance on multiunit dwelling design and construction standards. This study examines these guidelines and the impact the Act may have upon value when discriminatory practices are observed.

Predominance of Bacillus Anthracis in the Biological Population of an Activated Sludge Reactor

The effects of heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, and other contaminants on activated sludge and wastewater treatment operations have been studied extensively. However, the potential for infiltration of bacterial species not native to activated sludge has not been extensively examined. This project investigated the effect of the contamination of activated sludge wastewater treatment systems by Bacillus anthracis. From a pure culture of Bacillus megaterium inoculations of two bench-scale, sequencing batch reactors with different solids retention times was studied. Microbial enumeration testing was initially done on the mixed liquor alone, but to further detail the Bacillus path through the reactor, further testing was done to examine the supernatant. The data indicated that little effect would be caused from Bacillus inoculation of activated sludge reactors as population diversity returned to normal within a period of time equal to approximately one quarter of the solids retention time

The Effectiveness of Insurance Fraud Statutues: Evidence from Automobile Insurance

Insurance fraud, which adds an estimated $85 billion per year to the total insurance bill in the U.S., is an extremely serious problem for consumers, regulators, and insurance companies. This paper analyzes the effects of state legislation and market conditions on automobile insurance fraud from 1988 to 1999, a period representing a substantial increase in the enactment of antifraud legislation. Our empirical results show that the laws have mixed effects; two laws have no statistically significant effect on fraud. The strongest evidence of fraud mitigation effects are associated with mandatory Special Investigation Units, classification of insurance fraud as a felony, and mandatory reporting of professionals to licensing authorities. However, laws requiring insurers to report potentially fraudulent claims to law enforcement authorities increase fraud, which may reflect some substitution from more efficacious private efforts to less productive state activity. Many underlying characteristics of the market also affect fraud.Insurance Fraud, Automobile Insurance, Moral Hazard

The Multi-Application Survivable Tether (MAST) Experiment

Tethers Unlimited, Inc (TUI) and Stanford University’s Space Systems Development Laboratory (SSDL) are collaboratively developing the Multi-Application Survivable Tether (MAST) experiment, which will obtain data on tether performance, survivability, and dynamics. This data is crucial to the development of operational tether systems for propellantless propulsion and deorbit, formation-flying, and momentum-exchange transportation applications. The first objective of the MAST experiment is to obtain detailed on-orbit data on the survivability of space tethers and other gossamer spacecraft structures in the micrometeorite/orbital (M/OD) debris environment. The MAST experiment will deploy three 1-kg Cube- Sats along a 1-km Hoytether that incorporates both conducting and nonconducting materials. The middle CubeSat will then slowly translate along the tether, inspecting the tether as it moves and returning data on the rate of damage to the tether by M/OD impacts. The second objective of the experiment will be to study the dynamics of tethered formations of spacecraft and rotating tether systems. This data is required to enable the validation of space tether simulation tools such as TetherSim and GTOSS. The third objective of the experiment will be to demonstrate momentum-exchange tether concepts. In this paper we will present results of initial design studies and analyses of MAST system dynamics and performance

IV.1. Moving Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Expanding Global Movement of Engaged Universities

Peer Reviewe

Academic Libraries and the Academy: Strategies and Approaches to Demonstrate Your Value, Impact, and Return on Investment, Volume 1

Jacalyn A. Kremer and Robert Hoyt are contributing authors, Answering the Question Before It’s Asked: Building a Library Impact Dashboard. Book description: Decreased student enrollments, diminished budgets, and the fiscal reality of declining state appropriations are forcing higher education administrators to closely examine the allocation of funds and resources across the institution. With increased expectations of accountability and transparency for budget expenditures, institutions scrambling to do more with less, and the emergence of new budgeting models that view units as either cost centers or profit centers, academic libraries are under new pressures and scrutiny. It’s become incredibly important and necessary for academic libraries to clearly articulate to their institutional administrators their contributions to institutional outcomes, short-term and long-term value, and in essence, their return-on-investment. Academic Libraries and the Academy is a thorough collection of best practices, lessons learned, approaches, and strategies of how librarians, library professionals, and others in academic libraries around the world are successfully providing evidence of their contributions to student academic success and effectively demonstrating their library’s value and worth to institutional administrators and stakeholders. Forty-two case studies over two volumes—Volume One and Volume Two—are divided into four sections, from beginning assessment work through assessment activities that are more difficult to measure and generally more time- and resource-intensive. Each study provides practicable ideas and effective strategies for all levels of experience, assessment skills, stages of implementation, and access to resources. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to demonstrating a library’s worth and value, so Academic Libraries and the Academy captures a range of successful approaches and strategies utilized in different types of academic libraries around the world. Each case study opens with a one-page summary presenting fourteen descriptors of the chapter’s content that will allow you to quickly ascertain if the case study is of immediate interest based on your individual needs, interests, and goals. This book is designed to provide guidance and support to many of you—librarians, library professionals, and others involved in library assessment—who struggle to find the best approach and strategy at the right time in your assessment journey, and help you successfully articulate your academic library’s value.https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/library-books/1010/thumbnail.jp

Analysis of The Interaction of Space Tethers with Catalogued Space Objects

The potential for collisions or close passes with other space objects presents a significant issue for many space tether applications, representing a potential risk both to the integrity of the tether system and t o the safety of other spacecraft. Potential collisions between tethers and other space objects may be possible to avoid if close encounters can be predicted with sufficient precision and advance notice. In order to provide a method for predicting the frequency with which a tether must be maneuvered to avoid collisions, and to provide a resource for accurate close-encounter prediction during tether flight experiments, we have developed a software tool that compares the trajectory of a tether object with that of all of the objects in the NORAD space catalogue. In this paper we describe the models and algorithms used in this tool, and discuss results of test cases conducted to predict the close-encounter frequency of a tether systems ranging from a short nanosatellite-based tether experiment to a hundred-kilometer long MXER tether system