Reconciling Consumer Confidence and Permanent Income Consumption

The forecasting power of consumer confidence indexes for consumption spending runs counter to the predictions of the permanent income hypothesis (PIH). This paper resolves this discrepancy by developing a “confidence augmented” permanent income hypothesis (CAPIH). While it does not radically alter the estimated extent of permanent income consumption, the CAPIH model predicts a significantly smaller intertemporal elasticity of substitution than a standard PIH model. In addition, the results are largely invariant to the measure of consumer confidence used and the choice of instrumental variables.

The Senior Mentoring Program at VCU’s School of Medicine

Educational Objectives 1. To demonstrate the value of senior mentoring in geriatrics education for medical students. 2. To provide a framework for positively influencing student attitudes toward older adults. 3. To describe the underlying human relationships that contribute to patient-centered care. 4. To describe effective verbal and non-verbal skills to establish and build relationships

Fluorine gas as a cleaning agent for Apollo bulk-sample containers

A technique has been developed for cleaning Apollo bulk sample containers using fluorine gas as the cleaning agent

Applying psychology to forensic facial identification: perception and identification of facial composite images and facial image comparison

Eyewitness recognition is acknowledged to be prone to error but there is less understanding of difficulty in discriminating unfamiliar faces. This thesis examined the effects of face perception on identification of facial composites, and on unfamiliar face image comparison. Facial composites depict face memories by reconstructing features and configurations to form a likeness. They are generally reconstructed from an unfamiliar face memory, and will be unavoidably flawed. Identification will require perception of any accurate features, by someone who is familiar with the suspect and performance is typically poor. In typical face perception, face images are processed efficiently as complete units of information. Chapter 2 explored the possibility that holistic processing of inaccurate composite configurations will impair identification of individual features. Composites were split below the eyes and misaligned to impair holistic analysis (cf. Young, Hellawell, & Jay, 1987); identification was significantly enhanced, indicating that perceptual expertise with inaccurate configurations exerts powerful effects that can be reduced by enabling featural analysis. Facial composite recognition is difficult, which means that perception and judgement will be influence by an affective recognition bias: smiles enhance perceived familiarity, while negative expressions produce the opposite effect. In applied use, facial composites are generally produced from unpleasant memories and will convey negative expression; affective bias will, therefore, be important for facial composite recognition. Chapter 3 explored the effect of positive expression on composite identification: composite expressions were enhanced, and positive affect significantly increased identification. Affective quality rather than expression strength mediated the effect, with subtle manipulations being very effective. Facial image comparison (FIC) involves discrimination of two or more face images. Accuracy in unfamiliar face matching is typically in the region of 70%, and as discrimination is difficult, may be influenced by affective bias. Chapter 4 explored the smiling face effect in unfamiliar face matching. When multiple items were compared, positive affect did not enhance performance and false positive identification increased. With a delayed matching procedure, identification was not enhanced but in contrast to face recognition and simultaneous matching, positive affect improved rejection of foil images. Distinctive faces are easier to discriminate. Chapter 5 evaluated a systematic caricature transformation as a means to increase distinctiveness and enhance discrimination of unfamiliar faces. Identification of matching face images did not improve, but successful rejection of non-matching items was significantly enhanced. Chapter 6 used face matching to explore the basis of own race bias in face perception. Other race faces were manipulated to show own race facial variation, and own race faces to show African American facial variation. When multiple face images were matched simultaneously, the transformation impaired performance for all of the images; but when images were individually matched, the transformation improved perception of other race faces and discrimination of own race faces declined. Transformation of Japanese faces to show own race dimensions produced the same pattern of effects but failed to reach significance. The results provide support for both perceptual expertise and featural processing theories of own race bias. Results are interpreted with reference to face perception theories; implications for application and future study are discussed

Letter to Sonora Dodd from Marvin H. McIntyre, June 11, 1935

Letter to Sonora Dodd from Marvin H. McIntyre, with envelope. Marvin H. McIntyre served as Assistant Secretary to Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States.https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/fathers-day-correspondence/1043/thumbnail.jp

Golf courses in Omaha: A recreational geography and land use study

The study inspected the provision of golf courses in Omaha along with surrounding patterns of land use development adjacent to each of the courses. National Recreation and Parks Association (NRPA) provided guidelines to assess the provision of golf to the city, which determined that Omaha was extensively overserved and overdeveloped. The NRPA does not indicate course type to assess the quantity of courses to adequately serve a community and therefore it was proposed that perhaps Omaha has not been overbuilt in the provison of golf to the community. It was also proposed that the golf course does not stand alone in urban space, but more appropriately has been infused as part of a total environment. It was concluded, that by golf course typology, Omaha has not been extensively overserved in the development of golfing recreation to the city. More importantly, certain course types provided to the community a sense of place, as well as contributing to the development of the city. The private regulation courses (eighteen holes), acting as a centrifugal force to the development of Omaha, promoted and guided the growth of the city to the north and the west. To a slightly lesser degree, the public regulation (18-hole) courses provided the same service in contributing to the morphogenesis of the city. The shorter courses of nine-hole length neatly infilled within the city. They not only enhanced the area by the provison of open space, but also quite often they were connected with other forms of outdoor recreation to serve the surrounding residential neighborhoods. Some of the pitch and putt course types were found to be extremely short in length, very compact in there design, and therefore detrimental to the safety of players. Among future considerations, it was suggested that these courses be converted to a different course type of the Cayman version to better provide for the safety of the community

The relation of dust to "coal miners lung"

1. Fifty cases of Chronic Pulmonary disease in coal workers are described - twenty of them with X-Ray plates as illustrated. 2. some degree of Emphysema is almost universal in coal miners over 45 years of age. 3. Pulmonary Fibrosis is an incapacitating disease due to the inhalation of mixed dust and yet little may be found on clinical examination. 4. This condition is found chiefly in coal cutters and stoneworkers. 5. Pleurisy and Pneumonia frequently precede the onset of Pulmonary Fibrosis and predispose to it. 6. Pneumoconiosis of coal workers (dust reticulation) may be very easily missed unless a good radiological examination is carried out. 7. Pulmonary Tuberculosis is not of frequent occurrence among coal miners - rather less in fact than among the rest of the population, but in the older age groups of coal miners, one finds cases of Koniophthisis. 8. Koniophthisis is a condition in which dust reticulation and Tuberculous necrosis are found in association with a Silicotic Fibrosis. 9. Occasionally one finds an extraordinary condition in which Pulmonary Tuberculosis and Silicotic fibrosis form a 'cricket ball mass' which is necrotic in the centre and contains a tarry fluid. This may even rupture externally. 10. Miners Asthma which has been defunct for about 60 years shows signs of returning and modern methods of mechanical mining are believed to be responsible for this. 11. stone dust which is liberally scattered around the coal face before shot-firing, is not so innocuous in. the writer's opinion as was formerly believed - although it only contains 1% silica Dioxide. 12. There is no cardiac abnormality found on electroccardiographic examination in cases of chronic pulmonary disease of coal miners. 13. Frequent clinical and radiological examinations of coal miners should be carried out by industrial medical officers. Extractor fans, mist projectors etc should be used at the coal face to minimise the dust hazard and shot-firing should be done in the shift where the least number of men is working

The use of digit ratios as markers for perinatal androgen action

Since the ratio of the second-to-fourth finger length was first proposed as a marker for prenatal androgen action in 1998, over 100 studies have been published that have either further tested the association between the digit ratio and prenatal androgens, or employed digit ratios as a marker to investigate the association between prenatal androgens and a variety of outcomes, including behavior, fertility, and disease risks. Despite the clear demand for an adult marker of prenatal androgen action and increased use of digit ratios as such a marker, its validity remains controversial. This review (1) evaluates current evidence for the relationship between digit ratios and prenatal androgens (using experimentation with animal models, amniotic testosterone, and congenital adrenal hyperplasia case-control studies), (2) describes opportunities for future validation tests, and (3) compares the potential advantages and disadvantages of digit ratio measures with more established methods for studying the effects of prenatal androgens

Quenched chirality in RbNiCl3_3

The critical behaviour of stacked-triangular antiferromagnets has been intensely studied since Kawamura predicted new universality classes for triangular and helical antiferromagnets. The new universality classes are linked to an additional discrete degree of freedom, chirality, which is not present on rectangular lattices, nor in ferromagnets. However, the theoretical as well as experimental situation is discussed controversially, and generic scaling without universality has been proposed as an alternative scenario. Here we present a careful investigation of the zero-field critical behaviour of RbNiCl$_3$, a stacked-triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnet with very small Ising anisotropy. From linear birefringence experiments we determine the specific heat exponent $\alpha$ as well as the critical amplitude ratio $A^+/A^-$. Our high-resolution measurements point to a single second order phase transition with standard Heisenberg critical behaviour, contrary to all theoretical predictions. From a supplementary neutron diffraction study we can exclude a structural phase transition at T$_N$. We discuss our results in the context of other available experimental results on RbNiCl$_3$ and related compounds. We arrive at a simple intuitive explanation which may be relevant for other discrepancies observed in the critical behaviour of stacked-triangular antiferromagnets. In RbNiCl$_3$ the ordering of the chirality is suppressed by strong spin fluctuations, yielding to a different phase diagram, as compared to e.g.\@ CsNiCl$_3$, where the Ising anisotropy prevents these fluctuations

Scaling up the use of antiretrovirals in the public sector: What are the challenges?

No Abstract