Buyer Satisfaction with Residential Brokerage Services

This study employs ordered probit to estimate a model of buyer satisfaction with real estate brokerage services. The model provides evidence that: (1) satisfaction falls with length of search; (2) satisfaction is lower for married homebuyers; (3) satisfaction falls when the buyer experiences difficulty with housing finance; and (4) buyer satisfaction is increased when the broker fully discloses the requirements of the fair housing law.

Methodological challenges in following up patients of a hospital child protection team: is there a recruitment bias?

BACKGROUND: The aims of this study are to describe the methodological challenges in recruiting a follow-up sample of children referred to an interdisciplinary hospital child protection team (CPT) and to compare participating versus non-participating groups on several demographic variables and maltreatment characteristics. METHODS: Of the 319 in- and outpatients referred to the CPT at University Children's Hospital Zurich from 2005-2006 a sample of 180 children was drawn to contact for a follow-up. The children and their parents were asked to participate in a face-to-face interview at the hospital; in 42 cases the children and parents consented to do so. Alternatively, the parents could take part in a telephone interview (n = 39). Non-participation resulted because no contact or adequate communication in German, French, or English could be established (n = 49) or because the parents or children refused to participate (n = 50). RESULTS: Participants and non-participants did not differ significantly in mean child age at follow-up, gender, family status, place of residence, certainty and type of maltreatment, and type of perpetrator. However, the child's nationality had a significant impact: Percentages of foreign nationals were higher in the fully participating group (45%; n = 19) and the non-contactable group (53%; n = 26) and significantly lower in the refusal (26%; n = 10) and the telephone interview group (18%; n = 9). Although a high percentage of families had moved in the few years since the CPT intervention (32%; n = 57), the percentage of moves was not significantly higher in non-participants compared to participants. CONCLUSIONS: Further research is needed to support these results in different national backgrounds and to test for biases in variables not included - especially socioeconomic status. This includes gathering more detailed information on non-participants, while respecting ethical boundaries. Overall, the fact that only child's nationality was unevenly distributed between participants and non-participants is encouraging

Full-field structured-illumination super-resolution X-ray transmission microscopy

Modern transmission X-ray microscopy techniques provide very high resolution at low and medium X-ray energies, but suffer from a limited field-of-view. If sub-micrometre resolution is desired, their field-of-view is typically limited to less than one millimetre. Although the field-of-view increases through combining multiple images from adjacent regions of the specimen, so does the required data acquisition time. Here, we present a method for fast full-field super-resolution transmission microscopy by structured illumination of the specimen. This technique is well-suited even for hard X-ray energies above 30 keV, where efficient optics are hard to obtain. Accordingly, investigation of optically thick specimen becomes possible with our method combining a wide field-of-view spanning multiple millimetres, or even centimetres, with sub-micron resolution and hard X-ray energies

Provision of ecosystem services by human-made structures in a highly impacted estuary

Water filtration is one of the most important ecosystem services provided by sessile organisms in coastal ecosystems. As a consequence of increased coastal development, human-made shoreline structures (e.g., docks and bulkheads) are now common, providing extensive surface area for colonization by filter feeders. We estimate that in a highly urbanized sub-tropical estuary, water filtration capacity supported by filter feeding assemblages on dock pilings accounts for 11.7 million liters of water h−1, or ~30% of the filtration provided by all natural oyster reef throughout the estuary. Assemblage composition, and thus filtration capacity, varied as a function of piling type, suggesting that the choice of building material has critical implications for ecosystem function. A more thorough depiction of the function of coastal ecosystems necessitates quantification of the extensive ecosystem services associated with human-made structures

Conversion of hydroperoxides to carbonyls in field and laboratory instrumentation: Observational bias in diagnosing pristine versus anthropogenically controlled atmospheric chemistry

Atmospheric volatile organic compound (VOC) oxidation mechanisms under pristine (rural/remote) and urban (anthropogenically-influenced) conditions follow distinct pathways due to large differences in nitrogen oxide (NO_x) concentrations. These two pathways lead to products that have different chemical and physical properties and reactivity. Under pristine conditions, isoprene hydroxy hydroperoxides (ISOPOOHs) are the dominant first-generation isoprene oxidation products. Utilizing authentic ISOPOOH standards, we demonstrate that two of the most commonly used methods of measuring VOC oxidation products (i.e., gas chromatography and proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry) observe these hydroperoxides as their equivalent high-NO isoprene oxidation products – methyl vinyl ketone (MVK) and methacrolein (MACR). This interference has led to an observational bias affecting our understanding of global atmospheric processes. Considering these artifacts will help close the gap on discrepancies regarding the identity and fate of reactive organic carbon, revise our understanding of surface-atmosphere exchange of reactive carbon and SOA formation, and improve our understanding of atmospheric oxidative capacity

UK Housing Market: Time Series Processes with Independent and Identically Distributed Residuals

The paper examines whether a univariate data generating process can be identified which explains the data by having residuals that are independent and identically distributed, as verified by the BDS test. The stationary first differenced natural log quarterly house price index is regressed, initially with a constant variance and then with a conditional variance. The only regression function that produces independent and identically distributed standardised residuals is a mean process based on a pure random walk format with Exponential GARCH in mean for the conditional variance. There is an indication of an asymmetric volatility feedback effect but higher frequency data is required to confirm this. There could be scope for forecasting the index but this is tempered by the reduction in the power of the BDS test if there is a non-linear conditional variance process

Tensile Fracture of Welded Polymer Interfaces: Miscibility, Entanglements and Crazing

Large-scale molecular simulations are performed to investigate tensile failure of polymer interfaces as a function of welding time $t$. Changes in the tensile stress, mode of failure and interfacial fracture energy $G_I$ are correlated to changes in the interfacial entanglements as determined from Primitive Path Analysis. Bulk polymers fail through craze formation, followed by craze breakdown through chain scission. At small $t$ welded interfaces are not strong enough to support craze formation and fail at small strains through chain pullout at the interface. Once chains have formed an average of about one entanglement across the interface, a stable craze is formed throughout the sample. The failure stress of the craze rises with welding time and the mode of craze breakdown changes from chain pullout to chain scission as the interface approaches bulk strength. The interfacial fracture energy $G_I$ is calculated by coupling the simulation results to a continuum fracture mechanics model. As in experiment, $G_I$ increases as $t^{1/2}$ before saturating at the average bulk fracture energy $G_b$. As in previous simulations of shear strength, saturation coincides with the recovery of the bulk entanglement density. Before saturation, $G_I$ is proportional to the areal density of interfacial entanglements. Immiscibiltiy limits interdiffusion and thus suppresses entanglements at the interface. Even small degrees of immisciblity reduce interfacial entanglements enough that failure occurs by chain pullout and $G_I \ll G_b$

The Ecology of Early Cretaceous Angiosperms: Insights from the Fossil Record

The Early Cretaceous diversification of flowering plants was not preceded by a mass extinction event. This suggests that biotic factors intrinsic to flowering plants played an important role promoting diversification, but the rarity of fossils of early flowering plants makes identifying the important features difficult. Here, I present the results of my specimen-based analysis of plant megafossil collections from Lower Cretaceous deposits of the United States. First, I describe previously unrecognized eudicot leaf fossils from a historically important Aptian (Lower Cretaceous) plant fossil site in the Potomac Group, and I provide a set of characters for recognizing the fossil leaves of these plants. Then, I present a morphotype catalog for the fossil plants from and Aptian-early Albian (Lower Cretaceous) site in the Potomac Group. This collection includes one angiosperm morphotype. Next I describe the angiosperm morphotype identified in the previous chapter. I show that it is widely distributed among coeval collections of the Potomac Group and some specimens were previously described as ferns. The preservation of attached stems leaves and root provides direct evidence of weedy, fast-growing, herbaceous angiosperms in the Aptian-early Albian. In the following chapter, I use megafossil data from the literature and museum collections to test the hypothesis that the diversification of flowering plants is associated with an increase in alpha diversity during the Early Cretaceous. Despite the evidence for a high diversification rate among early flowering plants, I found no relationship between collection age and collection richness, but I found strong evidence that angiosperms were consistently rare during the Aptan-middle Albian, and that locally abundant angiosperms became common during the late Albian, long after the initial diversification. Finally, I use new plant megafossil collections that I made from the Cloverly and Sykes Mountain Formations in Wyoming, USA, for a more high-resolution study of early angiosperm diversity, distribution, and abundance. I show that the Cloverly Formation records the appeareance of flowering plants in North America, and that by the Albian angiosperms were widely distributed among available habitats. I test the hypothesis that variation in community composition (beta diversity) increased with the appearance of angiosperms. I did not find strong support for the hypothesis that angiosperms increased beta diversity; however, rarefaction analysis shows that the rate of morphotype discovery in both the pre-angiosperm and the angiosperm interval is high, which means that additional sampling may reveal a difference in beta diversity between the two intervals. Together my findings indicate that flowering plants diversified during the Early Cretaceous not because they had features that allowed them to displace other plant groups, but because they were uniquely able to maintain high diversification rates in the face of rarity and dispersed populations

Flowering after disaster: Early Danian buckthorn (Rhamnaceae)

Southern-Hemisphere terrestrial communities from the early Paleocene are poorly known, but recent work on Danian plant fossils from the Salamanca Formation in Chubut Province, Argentina are providing critical data on earliest Paleocene floras. The fossils described here come from a site in the Salamanca Formation dating to ca. 1 million years or less after the end-Cretaceous extinction event; they are the first fossil flowers reported from the Danian of South America, and possible the entire Southern Hemisphere. They are compressions and impressions in flat-laminated light gray shale, and they belong to the family Rhamnaceae (buckthorns). Flowers of Notiantha grandensis gen. et sp. nov. are pentamerous, with distinctly keeled calyx lobes projecting from the hypanthium, clawed and cucullate emarginate petals, antepetalous stamens, and a pentagonal floral disk that fills the hypanthium. Their phylogenetic position was evaluated using a molecular scaffold approach combined with morphological data. Results indicate that the flowers are most like those of extant ziziphoid Rhamnaceae. The associated leaves, assigned to Suessenia grandensis gen. et sp. nov. are simple and ovate, with serrate margins and three acrodromous basal veins. They conform to the distinctive leaves of some extant Rhamnaceae in the ziziphoid and ampelozizyphoid clades. These fossils provide the first unequivocal megafossil evidence of Rhamnaceae in the Southern Hemisphere, demonstrating that Rhamnaceae expanded beyond the tropics by the earliest Paleocene. Given previous reports of rhamnaceous pollen in the late Paleogene and Neogene of Antarctica and southern Australia, this new occurrence increases the possibility of high-latitude dispersal of this family between South America and Australia via Antarctica during the Cenozoic.Fil: Jud, Nathan A.. Cornell University; Estados UnidosFil: Gandolfo, Maria A.. Cornell University; Estados UnidosFil: Iglesias, Ari. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; ArgentinaFil: Wilf, Peter D.. State University of Pennsylvania; Estados Unido

Fossil flowers from the early Palaeocene of Patagonia, Argentina, with affinity to Schizomerieae (Cunoniaceae)

Background and Aims: Early Palaeocene (Danian) plant fossils from Patagonia provide information on the recovery from the end-Cretaceous extinction and Cenozoic floristic change in South America. Actinomorphic flowers with eight to ten perianth parts are described and evaluated in a phylogenetic framework. The goal of this study is to determine the identity of these fossil flowers and to discuss their evolutionary, palaeoecological and biogeographical significance. Methods: More than 100 fossilized flowers were collected from three localities in the Danian Salamanca and Peñas Coloradas Formations in southern Chubut. They were prepared, photographed and compared with similar extant and fossil flowers using published literature and herbarium specimens. Phylogenetic analysis was performed using morphological and molecular data. Key results: The fossil flowers share some but not all the synapomorphies that characterize the Schizomerieae, a tribe within Cunoniaceae. These features include the shallow floral cup, variable number of perianth parts arranged in two whorls, laciniate petals, anthers with a connective extension, and a superior ovary with free styles. The number of perianth parts is doubled and the in situ pollen is tricolporate, with a surface more like that of other Cunoniaceae outside Schizomerieae, such as Davidsonia or Weinmannia. Conclusions: An extinct genus of crown-group Cunoniaceae is recognized and placed along the stem lineage leading to Schizomerieae. Extant relatives are typical of tropical to southern-temperate rainforests, and these fossils likely indicate a similarly warm and wet temperate palaeoclimate. The oldest reliable occurrences of the family are fossil pollen and wood from the Upper Cretaceous of the Antarctica and Argentina, whereas in Australia the family first occurs in upper Palaeocene deposits. This discovery demonstrates that the family survived the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary event in Patagonia and that diversification of extant lineages in the family was under way by the earliest Cenozoic.Fil: Jud, Nathan A.. Cornell University; Estados UnidosFil: Gandolfo, Maria Alejandra. Cornell University; Estados UnidosFil: Iglesias, Ari. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; ArgentinaFil: Wilf, Peter. State University of Pennsylvania; Estados Unido