Con Edison: The Crisis of the Investor-Owned Utility

Consolidated Edison of New York, Inc. (Con Edison) is an investor-owned urban utility which provides electricity to New York City and most of Westchester County. It is representative of the older investor-owned utilities which are currently in the poorest financial condition. Although these utilities do not serve rapidly expanding service areas, the replacement of obsolete generating plants necessitates continued large capital expenditures. Present conditions raise the possibility that older investor-owned utilities cannot survive in their present form of regulated private monopoly. The failure of Con Edison to pay a quarterly dividend on April 23, 1974 focused attention on the deteriorating financial condition of the utility industry. Investor confidence in all utility securities plummeted and an unprecedented plunge in the value of such securities followed. The key to Con Edison\u27s financial dilemma is that revenues have not increased sufficiently to compensate for higher operating and capital costs. While some of Con Edison\u27s problems are unique, its financial crisis stems from forces buffeting the entire utility industry. This Comment will examine its problems and make suggestions for ameliorating them

Con Edison: The Crisis of the Investor-Owned Utility

Consolidated Edison of New York, Inc. (Con Edison) is an investor-owned urban utility which provides electricity to New York City and most of Westchester County. It is representative of the older investor-owned utilities which are currently in the poorest financial condition. Although these utilities do not serve rapidly expanding service areas, the replacement of obsolete generating plants necessitates continued large capital expenditures. Present conditions raise the possibility that older investor-owned utilities cannot survive in their present form of regulated private monopoly. The failure of Con Edison to pay a quarterly dividend on April 23, 1974 focused attention on the deteriorating financial condition of the utility industry. Investor confidence in all utility securities plummeted and an unprecedented plunge in the value of such securities followed. The key to Con Edison\u27s financial dilemma is that revenues have not increased sufficiently to compensate for higher operating and capital costs. While some of Con Edison\u27s problems are unique, its financial crisis stems from forces buffeting the entire utility industry. This Comment will examine its problems and make suggestions for ameliorating them

Focus drive mechanism for the IUE scientific instrument

A compact, lightweight mechanism was developed for in-orbit adjustment of the position of the secondary mirror (focusing) of the International Ultraviolet Explored telescope. This device is a linear drive with small (.0004 in.) and highly repeatable step increments. Extremely close tolerances are also held in tilt and decentering. The unique mechanization is described with attention to the design details that contribute to positional accuracy. Lubrication, materials, thermal considerations, sealing, detenting against launch loads, and other features peculiar to flight hardware are discussed. The methods employed for mounting the low expansion quartz mirror with minimum distortion are also given

Polarization singularities in the clear sky

Ideas from singularity theory provide a simple account of the pattern of polarization directions in daylight. The singularities (two near the Sun and two near the anti-Sun) are points in the sky where the polarization line pattern has index +1/2 and the intensity of polarization is zero. The singularities are caused by multiple scattering that splits into two each of the unstable index +1 singularities at the Sun and anti-Sun, which occur in the single-dipole scattering (Rayleigh) theory. The polarization lines are contours of an elliptic integral. For the intensity of polarization (unnormalized degree), it is necessary to incorporate the strong depolarizing effect of multiple scattering near the horizon. Singularity theory is compared with new digital images of sky polarization, and gives an excellent description of the pattern of polarization directions. For the intensity of polarization, the theory can reproduce not only the zeros but also subtle variations in the polarization maxima

Gastric Adenocarcinoma Presenting as Chronic Back Pain: A Case Report

Introduction: Early stage gastric cancer is usually asymptomatic. It is not until later stages of the disease, usually with metastasis, that patients typically develop symptoms that would prompt further evaluation.Case Report: We present a case of a patient with chronic back pain who was found to have a gastric antral mass as the etiology of her pain. The patient proceeded to have a partial gastrectomy with complete surgical excision of her early-stage gastric cancer, after which her chronic back pain resolved.Conclusion: This case demonstrates the importance of considering significant pathology in patients presenting with chronic complaints to the emergency department

Cation-pi interactions in aromatics of biological and medicinal interest: Electrostatic potential surfaces as a useful qualitative guide

The cation-pi interaction is an important, general force for molecular recognition in biological receptors. Through the sidechains of aromatic amino acids, novel binding sites for cationic ligands such as acetylcholine can be constructed. We report here a number of calculations on prototypical cation-pi systems, emphasizing structures of relevance to biological receptors and prototypical heterocycles of the type often of importance in medicinal chemistry. Trends in the data can be rationalized using a relatively simple model that emphasizes the electrostatic component of the cation-pi interaction. In particular, plots of the electrostatic potential surfaces of the relevant aromatics provide useful guidelines for predicting cation-pi interactions in new systems

Mobile Education On-Demand: True Anytime/Anywhere Education

Does true anytime/anywhere education exist yet? True anytime/anywhere education does not exist yet, but within the next five to ten years certain technological advancements will make true mobile education on demand a reality. Soon, high-speed broadband wireless networks will blanket the developed world combined with the continued miniaturization and proliferation of wireless hand-held devices which may soon become the preferred internet access tool. This article will discuss the challenges to wireless on-demand education and some of the possible advantages, as well as, how these technological advancements could affect post secondary education and corporate training as we know it

Construction and Software Design for a Microcomputer Controlled pH/Ion Titrator

The construction of an automated titration device is described. The major components include an Apple II+ Microcomputer and 8-bit parallel interface. Fisher Accumet, Model 520 Digital pH/lon Meter, Gilmont Micrometer Buret of 2.5 mL capacity, Sigma stepper motor, power supply and driver to operate the buret, and a constant temperature bath of ± 0.005 °C stability. The limitations of the system are 0.001 pH/0.1 mv for the pH/ion sensing system, and 0.125 μL per step for the buret. The system as described is designed to determine equilibrium constants for metal ion-amino acid complexes. By changing the software a variety of different pH and redox titration experiments may be performed. A computer program used to operate the stepper motor driven syringe buret and record the pH from a digital pH meter is described. The program uses both Apple BASIC and assembly language. This is a closed loop operation in which the data from the pH meter is used to control the amount of reagent delivered by the buret. The results are displayed graphically as the titration proceeds. The variance of the pH readings are calculated using an assembly language subroutine and the calculations are done with zero round-off error