The unification bonus (malus) in postwall Eastern Germany

This paper presents estimates of the unification bonus for East Germans over the period 1991 to 1998. The unification bonus is defined as the discounted value of the difference between a person?s actual income and his or her counterfactual real income stream forecast for a hypothetical continuation of economic life in a static GDR. The two main issues tackled in this study are the construction of valid deflators for a comparison of real incomes during the transition from a centralized to a market economy and the estimation of plausible counterfactual income streams. Our central result is that 19 percent of East Germans received a present value malus and so can be regarded as unification losers but that the aggregate bonus is ten times the size of the aggregate malus of the sample. --Real income comparison,income distribution and mobility,economies in transition

The unification bonus (malus) in postwall Eastern Germany

This paper presents estimates of the unification bonus for East Germans over the period 1991 to 1998. The unification bonus is defined as the discounted value of the difference between a person's actual income and his or her counterfactual real income stream forecast for a hypothetical continuation of economic life in a static GDR. The two main issues tackled in this study are the construction of valid deflators for a comparison of real incomes during the transition from a centralized to a market economy and the estimation of plausible counterfactual income streams. Our central result is that 19 percent of East Germans received a present value malus and so can be regarded as unification losers but that the aggregate bonus is ten times the size of the aggregate malus of the sample

Risk Management Decision Making for Security and Trust in Hardware Supply Chains

Modern cyber-physical systems are enabled by electronic hardware and embedded systems. The security of these sub-components is a concern during the design and operational phases of cyber-physical system life cycles. Compromised electronics can result in mission-critical failures, unauthorized access, and other severe consequences. As systems become more complex and feature greater connectivity, system owners must make decisions regarding how to mitigate risks and ensure resilience and trust. This paper provides an overview of research efforts related to assessing and managing risks, resilience, and trust with an emphasis on electronic hardware and embedded systems. The research takes a decision-oriented perspective, drawing from the perspectives of scenario planning and portfolio analysis, and describes examples related to the risk-based prioritization of cyber assets in large-scale systems

A Student Response System for Increasing Engagement, Motivation, and Learning in High Enrollment Lectures

Student response systems (SRS) are devices that allow students to provide categorical and numerical responses to questions embedded within a lecture, and the responses can be tallied and scored in various ways to provide immediate feedback to the students and/or professors. In the fall of 2004 at the University of Missouri – Rolla, questions were systematically integrated into large general chemistry lecture sections, and students used the response system to answer. In order to evaluate the system, students’ test scores were compared with previous years, and a survey was administered with the aim of evaluating the system at the end of the course when SRS was used. Test scores indicated substantial improvement from previous years. In addition, survey results indicated that a significant majority of the students found that the SRS made the course more engaging, motivational, and increased learning. Qualitative analyses of students’ open-ended responses provided support and additional insights for the quantitative analyses

Senior Recital:Danielle L. Dauw, Trumpet Karen Collier, Piano with guest Thomas D. Svec, Trumpet

Kemp Recital Hall Thursday Evening April 24, 1997 8:30 p.m

Epigenetic activation and silencing of the gene that encodes IFN-γ

Transcriptional activation and repression of genes that are developmentally regulated or exhibit cell-type specific expression patterns is largely achieved by modifying the chromatin template at a gene locus. Complex formation of stable epigenetic histone marks, loss or gain of DNA methylation, alterations in chromosome conformation, and specific utilization of both proximal and distal transcriptional enhancers and repressors all contribute to this process. In addition, long noncoding RNAs are a new species of regulatory RNAs that either positively or negatively regulate transcription of target gene loci. IFN-γ is a pro-inflammatory cytokine with critical functions in both innate and adaptive arms of the immune. This review focuses on our current understanding of how the chromatin template is modified at the IFNG locus during developmental processes leading to its transcriptional activation and silencing

Comparative efficacies of decision strategies and the effects of learning in dynamic environments: a computer simulation approach

Models of aggregation in management science and economics are not consistent with micro-empirical knowledge of individual decision making. This has occurred as a result of using heuristics that are derived from behavioral studies which focused on discrete incidents. This approach fails to recognize decision making as a continuous process and overlooks the importance of feedback. This study examines the performance of various decision strategies (heuristics) in dynamic environments through computer simulation. Within dynamic task environments, three classes of strategies are examined: (a) feedback oriented strategies, (b) non-feedback oriented strategies and; (c) a strategy that incorporates learning. The relative efficacies of these strategies are compared. The results show that feedback oriented strategies achieved a higher level of performance than non-feedback oriented strategies. And the strategy that incorporated learning outperformed all other strategies. A few anomalies exist and may require additional sampling. The implications of these findings for command decision making indicate that, feedback from prior military actions can play an important role in adapting existing systems to meets new military roles in changing environments.http://archive.org/details/comparativeeffic1094539992Captain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Lightning Effects in the Payload Changeout Room

Analytical and empirical studies have been performed to provide better understanding of the electromagnetic environment inside the Payload Changeout Room and Orbiter payload bay resulting from lightning strikes to the launch pad lightning protection system. The analytical studies consisted of physical and mathematical modeling of the pad structure and the Payload Changeout Room. Empirical testing was performed using a lightning simulator to simulate controlled (8 kA) lightning strikes to the catenary wire lightning protection system. In addition to the analyses and testing listed above, an analysis of the configuration with the vehicle present was conducted, in lieu of testing, by the Finite Difference, Time Domain method

On lunar exospheric column densities and solar wind access beyond the terminator from ROSAT soft X-ray observations of solar wind charge exchange

We analyze the Röntgen satellite (ROSAT) position sensitive proportional counter soft X-ray image of the Moon taken on 29 June 1990 by examining the radial profile of the surface brightness in three wedges: two 19° wedges (one north and one south) 13–32° off the terminator toward the dark side and one wedge 38° wide centered on the antisolar direction. The radial profiles of both the north and the south wedges show significant limb brightening that is absent in the 38° wide antisolar wedge. An analysis of the soft X-ray intensity increase associated with the limb brightening shows that its magnitude is consistent with that expected due to solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) with the tenuous lunar atmosphere based on lunar exospheric models and hybrid simulation results of solar wind access beyond the terminator. Soft X-ray imaging thus can independently infer the total lunar limb column density including all species, a property that before now has not been measured, and provide a large-scale picture of the solar wind-lunar interaction. Because the SWCX signal appears to be dominated by exospheric species arising from solar wind implantation, this technique can also determine how the exosphere varies with solar wind conditions. Now, along with Mars, Venus, and Earth, the Moon represents another solar system body at which SWCX has been observed