Sweatshops in Chicago: A Survey of Working Conditions in Low-income and Immigrant Communities

This report is the first research documenting the extent and severity of sweatshop conditions in the Midwest and the first systematic effort in the nation to document sweatshops across industries. The research is a product of the Sweatshop Working Group, a coalition of 32 community organizations brought together by the Center for Impact Research (formerly Taylor Institute). Data was collected from approximately 800 respondents across 12 immigrant and low-income communities in the Chicago metropolitan area in the spring and summer of 1999

An optimal internet location strategy for markets with different tax rates

The traditional view that a high sales tax rate reduces trade by driving a wedge between the purchase and sale price may not apply to internet commerce for two reasons. The first reason is that the sales tax paid by buyers purchasing via the internet is determined by the tax rate in the region of the buyer. The second reason is that a high sales tax may lower the before-tax price if sellers absorb part of the tax. Taken together, this implies that internet distributors may profitably target customers in regions with low tax rates by locating their selling addresses in high tax regions. Consequently the optimal marketing strategy for a global internet distributor may include siting selling locations in regions with high tax rates in order to target customers in regions with low tax rates. An empirical analysis of the European car market suggests that this is more than a remote theoretical possibility by demonstrating that the before-tax prices recommended by manufacturers for new cars are lower in high tax countries

Calibration of the visible and near-infrared channels of the NOAA-9 AVHRR using high-altitude aircraft measurements from August 1985 and October 1986

Visible and near infrared wavelength sensors mounted on operational satellites now in use do not have onboard absolute calibration devices. One means of establishing an in-orbit calibration for a satellite sensor is to make simultaneous measurement of a bright, relatively uniform scene along the satellite view vector from a calibrated instrument on board a high altitude aircraft. Herein, aircraft data were recorded over White Sands, New Mexico at satellite overpass time. Comparison of the coincident aircraft and orbiting satellite data for the visible and near infrared wavelength channels of the NOAA-9 Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer shows that the calibration of the visible channel was unchanged from prelaunch values, but that the near infrared channel has degraded 6 percent by Aug. 1985. By Oct. 1986 the visible channel had degraded 13 percent and the near infrared channel had degraded 19 percent

Visible and near-infrared channel calibration of the GOES-6 VISSR using high-altitude aircraft measurements

Present and future visible and near-infrared wavelength sensors mounted on operational satellites do not have on-board absolute calibration devices. One means of establishing an in-orbit calibration for a satellite sensor is to make simultaneous measurements of a bright, relatively uniform scene along the satellite view vector from a calibrated instrument on board a high altitude aircraft. Aircraft data were recorded over White Sands, New Mexico, and the coincident aircraft and orbiting satellite data is compared for the visible and near-infrared wavelength channel of the GOES-6 Visible Infrared Spin-Scan Radiometer

The Evolution of a Spatial Stochastic Network

The asymptotic behavior of a stochastic network represented by a birth and death processes of particles on a compact state space is analyzed. Births: Particles are created at rate $\lambda_+$ and their location is independent of the current configuration. Deaths are due to negative particles arriving at rate $\lambda_-$. The death of a particle occurs when a negative particle arrives in its neighborhood and kills it. Several killing schemes are considered. The arriving locations of positive and negative particles are assumed to have the same distribution. By using a combination of monotonicity properties and invariance relations it is shown that the configurations of particles converge in distribution for several models. The problems of uniqueness of invariant measures and of the existence of accumulation points for the limiting configurations are also investigated. It is shown for several natural models that if $\lambda_+<\lambda_-$ then the asymptotic configuration has a finite number of points with probability 1. Examples with $\lambda_+<\lambda_-$ and an infinite number of particles in the limit are also presented