11,380 research outputs found
Automation of the Continuous Coagulation Monitor
The development of automation in the past 50 years has paralleled the accelerating growth of todayâs vast technological society. Automatic control systems are indispensable extensions of man\u27s brain that enable him to monitor and regulate his complex environment. The principles of automatic control have a wide range of applications and interests in virtually every scientific field. The need for automatic control systems in vital applications of environmental engineering is both real and urgent. Extensive pollution has resulted in unavoidable water re-use and in the inevitable establishment of stringent effluent standards. Both water and wastewater treatment processes have necessarily become more advanced and complicated. Automation can reliably provide the critical, sophisticated control required to maintain adequate treatment. In his pollution abatement or water quality program, the environmental engineer can employ automatic control systems to continuously and accurately monitor contaminant levels or the removal efficiencies of treatment processes and to effect rapid responses when treatment adjustment becomes necessary by automatically adjusting processes
FORECAST OF INCOME AND WEALTH FOR THE FARM SECTOR, HOUSEHOLDS, AND THE FARMS THEY OPERATE
Consumer/Household Economics,
FARM INCOME AND THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR'S CONTRIBUTION TO NATIONAL ECONOMIC OUTPUT
Agribusiness,
MICRO DYNAMICS OF INCOME, DEBT MANAGEMENT AND FARM FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
Agricultural Finance,
Efficient Aggregation of Panel Qualitative Survey Data
Qualitative business survey data are used widely to provide indicators of economic activity ahead of the publication of official data. Traditional indicators exploit only aggregate survey information, namely the proportions of respondents who report âupâ and âdownâ. This paper examines disaggregate or firm-level survey responses. It considers how the responses of the individual firms should be quantified and combined if the aim is to produce an early indication of official output data. Having linked firmsâ categorical responses to official data using ordered discrete choice models, the paper proposes a statistically efficient means of combining the disparate estimates of aggregate output growth which can be constructed from the responses of individual firms. An application to firm-level survey data from the Confederation of British Industry shows that the proposed indicator can provide early estimates of output growth more accurately than traditional indicators.Survey Data; Indicators; Quantification; Forecasting; Forecast Combination
Taxing Retirement Income: Nonqualified Annuities and Distributions from Qualified Accounts
This paper explores the current tax treatment of non-qualified immediate annuities and distributions from tax-qualified retirement plans in the United States. First, we describe how immediate annuities held outside retirement accounts are taxed. We conclude that the current income tax treatment of annuities does not substantially alter the incentive to purchase an annuity rather than a taxable bond. We nevertheless find differences across different individuals in the effective tax burden on annuity contracts. Second, we examine an alternative method of taxing annuities that would avoid changing the fraction of the annuity payment that is included in taxable income as the annuitant ages, but would still raise the same expected present discounted value of revenues as the current income tax rule. We find that a shift to a constant inclusion ratio increases the utility of annuitants, and that this increase is greater for more risk averse individuals. Third, we examine how payouts from qualified accounts are taxed, focusing on both annuity payouts and minimum distribution requirements that constrain the feasible time path of nonannuitized payouts. We describe briefly the origins and workings of the minimum distribution rules and we also provide evidence on the fraction of retirement assets potentially affected by these rules.
TDRSS momentum unload planning
A knowledge-based system is described which monitors TDRSS telemetry for problems in the momentum unload procedure. The system displays TDRSS telemetry and commands in real time via X-windows. The system constructs a momentum unload plan which agrees with the preferences of the attitude control specialists and the momentum growth characteristics of the individual spacecraft. During the execution of the plan, the system monitors the progress of the procedure and watches for unexpected problems
Rotation of Coulomb crystals in a magnetized inductively coupled complex plasma
Under suitable conditions, micron-sized dust particles introduced into inductively coupled argon plasma form a stable microscopic crystal lattice, known as a Coulomb (or plasma) crystal. In the experiment described, an external axial magnetic field was applied to various configurations of Coulomb crystal, including small crystal lattices consisting of one to several particles, and large crystal lattices with many hundreds of particles. The crystals were observed to rotate collectively under the influence of the magnetic field. This paper describes the experimental procedures and the preliminary results of this investigation
Distributional Impact of U.S. Farm Commodity Programs: Accounting for Alternative Farm Household Typologies
Agricultural households adjust to policy changes through market mechanisms by altering: their production mix, labor input, and on- and off-farm investments. Because of the significant heterogeneity among farms in the US agricultural sector, various types of farm households respond to the same policy change in significantly different ways. The parameters used to classify farm households into different typologies may also play a significant role in the interpretation of observed effects of policy changes. This paper, using a highly disaggregated U.S. Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, analyzes the distributional impacts of policy changes involving price-contingent government payments on alternative U.S. farm household typologies. We find that farm households do vary their responses to an elimination of price-contingent support based on location, production specialty, and farm categorization.Agricultural and Food Policy,
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