Customer Discrimination and Employment Outcomes for Minority Workers

In this paper we investigate the effects of consumer discrimination on the employment and earnings of minorities, particularly blacks. We do so using data from a new survey of employers in four large metropolitan areas in the United States. Our results show that the racial composition of an establishment’s customers has sizable effects on the race of who gets hired, particularly in jobs that involve direct contact with customers. Although we find evidence of customer discrimination in both predominantly white and black establishments, the net effect of such discrimination appears to be some reduction in overall labor demand and wages for blacks. Evidence is also presented which suggests that the role of customer discrimination may be growing more important over time.

Spatial factors and the employment of blacks at the firm level

In this paper we use data from a new survey of over 3,000 employers in four major metropolitan areas to investigate the determinants of black employment and wages at the firm level. We focus specifically on two factors that are likely to influence the spatial distribution of black employment: the proximity of firms to the residential locations of various racial groups and to public transit. We also consider the effects on black employment of other factors, such as employers' skill needs and some likely determinants of their preferences across groups. Our main finding is that employers' proximity to black residences and to public transit increases the likelihood that they will hire black employees. This is true even when we include detailed controls for the skills needed by employers and also for the race of customers and of those responsible for hiring, which independently affect the levels of black employment at firms. Proximity to public transit and especially to black residences accounts for major portions of the higher black employment rates at central-city than suburban firms. The residential effects are relatively strong for employers who recruit through informal methods and weak for those who use newspapers, thus suggesting that information may play a role in the distance effects. We also find some evidence that employers' proximity to black residential populations results in lower wages for workers.

Gibbs free energy difference between the undercooled liquid and the beta-phase of a Ti-Cr alloy

The heat of fusion and the specific heats of the solid and liquid have been experimentally determined for a Ti60Cr40 alloy. The data are used to evaluate the Gibbs free energy difference, DELTA-G, between the liquid and the beta-phase as a function of temperature to verify a reported spontaneous vitrification (SV) of the beta-phase in Ti-Cr alloys. The results show that SV of an undistorted beta-phase in the Ti60Cr40 alloy at 873 K is not feasible because DELTA-G is positive at the temperature. However, DELTA-G may become negative with additional excess free energy to the beta-phase in the form of defects

Gibbs free-energy difference between the glass and crystalline phases of a Ni-Zr alloy

The heats of eutectic melting and devitrification, and the specific heats of the crystalline, glass, and liquid phases have been measured for a Ni24Zr76 alloy. The data are used to calculate the Gibbs free-energy difference, DeltaGAC, between the real glass and the crystal on an assumption that the liquid-glass transition is second order. The result shows that DeltaGAC continuously increases as the temperature decreases in contrast to the ideal glass case where DeltaGAC is assumed to be independent of temperature

Within Cities and Suburbs: Racial Residential Concentration and the Spatial Distribution of Employment Opportunities across Submetropolitan Areas

In this paper, we examine and compare the spatial distributions of jobs and people across submetropolitan areas using data on firms from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality and data on people from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The results indicate that less-educated people and those on public assistance mostly reside in areas with high minority populations. Low-skill jobs are quite scarce in these areas, while the availability of such jobs relative to less-educated people in heavily white suburban areas is high. Large fractions of the low-skill jobs in these metropolitan areas are not accessible by public transit. Furthermore, there is significant variation within both central cities and suburbs in the ethnic composition of residents and in the availability of low-skill jobs. The ability of various minority groups to gain employment in each area depends heavily on the ethnic composition of the particular area.

Interleukin-1ß enhances capsaicin-induced neurogenic vasodilatation in the rat skin

No abstract available

The Magic Number Problem for Subregular Language Families

We investigate the magic number problem, that is, the question whether there exists a minimal n-state nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) whose equivalent minimal deterministic finite automaton (DFA) has alpha states, for all n and alpha satisfying n less or equal to alpha less or equal to exp(2,n). A number alpha not satisfying this condition is called a magic number (for n). It was shown in [11] that no magic numbers exist for general regular languages, while in [5] trivial and non-trivial magic numbers for unary regular languages were identified. We obtain similar results for automata accepting subregular languages like, for example, combinational languages, star-free, prefix-, suffix-, and infix-closed languages, and prefix-, suffix-, and infix-free languages, showing that there are only trivial magic numbers, when they exist. For finite languages we obtain some partial results showing that certain numbers are non-magic.Comment: In Proceedings DCFS 2010, arXiv:1008.127

Multi-Head Finite Automata: Characterizations, Concepts and Open Problems

Multi-head finite automata were introduced in (Rabin, 1964) and (Rosenberg, 1966). Since that time, a vast literature on computational and descriptional complexity issues on multi-head finite automata documenting the importance of these devices has been developed. Although multi-head finite automata are a simple concept, their computational behavior can be already very complex and leads to undecidable or even non-semi-decidable problems on these devices such as, for example, emptiness, finiteness, universality, equivalence, etc. These strong negative results trigger the study of subclasses and alternative characterizations of multi-head finite automata for a better understanding of the nature of non-recursive trade-offs and, thus, the borderline between decidable and undecidable problems. In the present paper, we tour a fragment of this literature

Particles held by springs in a linear shear flow exhibit oscillatory motion

The dynamics of small spheres, which are held by linear springs in a low Reynolds number shear flow at neighboring locations is investigated. The flow elongates the beads and the interplay of the shear gradient with the nonlinear behavior of the hydrodynamic interaction among the spheres causes in a large range of parameters a bifurcation to a surprising oscillatory bead motion. The parameter ranges, wherein this bifurcation is either super- or subcritical, are determined.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Direct measurement of shear-induced cross-correlations of Brownian motion

Shear-induced cross-correlations of particle fluctuations perpendicular and along stream-lines are investigated experimentally and theoretically. Direct measurements of the Brownian motion of micron-sized beads, held by optical tweezers in a shear-flow cell, show a strong time-asymmetry in the cross-correlation, which is caused by the non-normal amplification of fluctuations. Complementary measurements on the single particle probability distribution substantiate this behavior and both results are consistent with a Langevin model. In addition, a shear-induced anti-correlation between orthogonal random-displacements of two trapped and hydrodynamically interacting particles is detected, having one or two extrema in time, depending on the positions of the particles.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure