A method for using surface tension to determine the size of holes in hardware

To check the size of small holes in injectors, flow control orifices, filters, and similar hardware, a surface tension technique is used. The liquid surface tension causes it to act as a membrane when pressure is applied. This bubble pressure is a function of hole diameter and surface tension

Tax Reform, Investment, and the Value of the Firm

The taxation of corporate assets is well understood to influence investment and firm valuation. This paper explores the consequences of postwar U.S. tax changes in a dynamic model which incorporates costs of adjustment and investor expectations of future tax reforms and macroeconomic variability.When viewed in a dynamic context, the tax code can have very different incentives than those implied by the usual static analysis. Simulation results suggest that investment is sensitive to future tax changes and business-cycle movements. The paper also illustrates the implications of this analysis for the design of tax reforms.

Perfect Taxation with Imperfect Competition

This paper analyzes features of perfect taxation also known as optimal taxation when one or more private markets is imperfectly competitive. Governments with perfect information and access to lump-sum taxes can provide corrective subsidies that render outcomes efficient in the presence of imperfect competition. Relaxing either of these two conditions removes the government's ability to support efficient resource allocation and changes the perfect policy response. When governments cannot use lump-sum taxes, perfect tax policies represent compromises between the benefits of subsidizing output in the imperfectly competitive sectors of the economy and the costs of imposing higher taxes elsewhere. This tradeoff is formally identical for ad valorem and specific taxes, even though ad valorem taxation is welfare superior to specific taxation in the presence of imperfect competition. When governments have uncertain knowledge of the degree of competition in product markets, perfect corrective tax policy is generally of smaller magnitude than that when the degree of competition is known with certainty.

Engine technology challenges for a 21st Century High-Speed Civil Transport

Ongoing NASA-funded studies by Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas, General Electric, and Pratt & Whitney indicate that an opportunity exists for a 21st Century High-Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) to become a major part of the international air transportation system. However, before industry will consider an HSCT product launch and an investment estimated to be over $15 billion for design and certification, major technology advances must be made. An overview of the propulsion-specific technology advances that must be in hand before an HSCT product launch could be considered is presented

A Brief History of Quality Improvement in Health Care and Spinal Surgery.

While medical and technological advances continue to shape and advance health care, there has been growing emphasis on translating these advances into improvement in overall health care quality outcomes in the United States. Innovators such as Abraham Flexner and Ernest Codman engaged in rigorous reviews of systems and patient outcomes igniting wider spread interest in quality improvement in health care. Codman\u27s efforts even contributed to the founding of the American College of Surgeons. This society catalyzed a quality improvement initiative across the United States and the formation of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals. Since that time, those such as Avedis Donabedian and the Institute of Medicine have worked to structure the process of improving both the quality and delivery of health care. Significant advances include the defining of minimum standards for hospital accreditation, 7 pillars of quality in medicine, and the process by which quality in medicine is evaluated. All of these factors have affected current practice more each day. In a field such as spinal surgery, cost and quality measures are continually emphasized and led to large outcome databases to better evaluate outcomes in complex, heterogeneous populations. Going forward, these databases will be instrumental in developing practice patterns and improving spinal surgery outcomes

Anticipated Tax Changes and the Timing of Investment

This paper analyzes the short-run and long-run effects of corporate tax changes over the last three decades and the likely consequences of proposed future tax changes. Consideration of short-run effects of tax reform on investment and market value requires a careful analysis of three elements of behavior that are normally omitted from long run analyses: the state of investor expectations, the time lags involved in putting new capital in place, and the tax law's distinctions between new and old capital. The model described in this paper considers investment in equipment and investment in plant separately, and does so under different specifications of investor expectations. Our results for the period 1954-1985 suggest that investors did take account of fluctuations in profitability, real interest rates, and the tax code in making their investment plans. We examine the consequences of the nonindexation of depreciation benefits as well as the introduction of the investment tax credit and the Accelerated Cost Recovery System by simulating the corporate sector's performance in the absence of these features. In addition, we analyze the effects of changing the tax code in 1986 along the lines proposed in the Bradley-Gephardt "Fair Tax" plan, the Treasury II plan, and the Rostenkowski plan, H.R. 3838. The simulation results suggest that all three plans would reduce fixed investment in the short run, with the reduction coming primarily in equipment. At the same time, the simulations predict large wind-falls for existing capital assets under all three reform proposals.