Mississippi River Research Conclusions Executive Summary

Briefing paper requested by Senator Bond detailing the conclusions from the Mississippi River research to date.Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Product state control of bi-alkali chemical reactions

We consider ultracold, chemically reactive scattering collisions of the diatomic molecules KRb. When two such molecules collide in an ultracold gas, we find that they are energetically forbidden from reacting to form the trimer species K$_2$Rb or Rb$_2$K, hence can only react via the bond-swapping reaction 2KRb $\to$ K$_2$ + Rb$_2$. Moreover, the tiny energy released in this reaction can in principle be set to zero by applying electric or microwave fields, implying a means of controlling the available reaction channels in a chemical reaction.Comment: 4 pages double column, 2 figures, 2 table

Factors Affecting Locking Times at 600' and 1200' Locks on the Mississppi River with an Examination of Excessive Locking Time Charges

This research investigates factors influencing locking time as well as the source of variation in the locking time on the Upper Mississippi River, and includes tow characteristics and environmental conditions over 1992-2004. The newer 1,200 ft. locks reduce both locking time and time variation, improving efficiency on the system as a whole. Importantly, the analysis suggests lock capacity has declined over the 1992 to 2004 period for all locks. After correcting for tow and environmental characteristics, very little of the remaining variation is explained by a unique vessel identification number assigned by the Army Corps of Engineers, indicating that lockage fees based purely on relative locking times would not provide the intended result

Factors Affecting Locking Times at 600' and 1200' Locks on the Mississppi River with an Examination of Excessive Locking Time Charges

This research investigates factors influencing locking time as well as the source of variation in the locking time on the Upper Mississippi River, and includes tow characteristics and environmental conditions over 1992-2004. The newer 1,200 ft. locks reduce both locking time and time variation, improving efficiency on the system as a whole. Importantly, the analysis suggests lock capacity has declined over the 1992 to 2004 period for all locks. After correcting for tow and environmental characteristics, very little of the remaining variation is explained by a unique vessel identification number assigned by the Army Corps of Engineers, indicating that lockage fees based purely on relative locking times would not provide the intended result

Do jumbo-CD holders care about anything?

Uninsured deposits represent a theoretically appealing but relatively untested alternative to subordinated debt for incorporating market discipline into banking supervision. To make the deposit market a useful supervisory tool, it is necessary to know what types of risk are priced by depositors and in what proportions. Using a clustering technique to select from among a large set of potential regressors, as well as a carefully chosen set of control variables, we attempt to determine the types of risk that cause uninsured depositors to react in both the price and quantity dimensions. As a benchmark for economic significance, we estimate similar regressions on supervisory ratings. We find that, in contrast to government supervisors, depositors have not priced most types of risk since 1997. Indeed, the only risk variables that consistently come up as statistically significant are those that measure capital adequacy. Our interpretation of these results is that, because aggregate banking conditions are good, it is not worth depositors' effort to investigate individual bank quality very carefully. We conclude that, in the current economic and regulatory environment, the market is content to delegate most of its monitoring and discipline to the government. To the extent that it does monitor, it only monitors capital. The jumbo-CD market is thus not likely to be of much supervisory use, particularly given that examiners already have good information about capital levels. The depositor emphasis on capital also supports the conjecture that market discipline was responsible for much of the recent capital build-up.Bank deposits ; Bank supervision

The Physical Characteristics of the Small-Scale Interstellar Structure towards Mu Crucis

We present HST/GHRS echelle observations of multiple interstellar lines of CI, MgI, CrII, and ZnII towards both stars in the mu Cru binary system. Despite large differences in the profiles of the neutral species, no significant variations between the stars are seen in the CrII and ZnII line profiles. In particular, the ZnII absorption observed at -8.6 km/sec towards mu Cru is constant despite greatly enhanced columns of the neutral species at this velocity towards mu^1 Cru. An analysis of the fine-structure excitation of CI in this cloud implies that the density is n_H < 250 cm^{-3}. From the lack of variation in the (optical) NaI D2 line profiles towards mu^1 and mu^2 Cru in spectra taken 21 months apart, we can place a lower limit to the size of the structures of ~10 AU. These results are discussed in the context of recent radio and optical studies of apparently pervasive high density small-scale interstellar structure.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Astrophysical Journal (Letters

The Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Description of the Spitzer Legacy Science Database

We present the science database produced by the Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems (FEPS) Spitzer Legacy program. Data reduction and validation procedures for the IRAC, MIPS, and IRS instruments are described in detail. We also derive stellar properties for the FEPS sample from available broad-band photometry and spectral types, and present an algorithm to normalize Kurucz synthetic spectra to optical and near-infrared photometry. The final FEPS data products include IRAC and MIPS photometry for each star in the FEPS sample and calibrated IRS spectra.Comment: 64 pages, 12 figures, 5 tables; accepted for publication in ApJ

Influence of a humidor on the aerodynamics of baseballs

We investigate whether storing baseballs in a controlled humidity environment significantly affects their aerodynamic properties. To do this, we measure the change in diameter and mass of baseballs as a function of relative humidity (RH) in which the balls are stored. We then model trajectories for pitched and batted baseballs to assess the difference between those stored at 30% RH versus 50% RH. The results show that a drier baseball may be expected to curve slightly more than a humidified one for a given pitch velocity. We also find that the aerodynamics alone would add ~2 feet to the distance a moister ball is hit. However, this is compensated by a ~6 foot reduction in batted distance due to the well known change in coefficient of restitution of the ball. We discuss consequences of these results for baseball played at Coors Field in Denver, where baseballs have been stored in a humidor at 50% RH since 2002.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, modified and re-posted 2/2