Just the Financial Facts Please! A Secret Survey of Financial Services in San Francisco's Mission District

Examines the costs and dynamics of borrowing $1,000 from various financial service providers in a historic immigrant community. Proposes Financial Facts labels and a Responsible Lending and Borrowing Checklist to increase residents' financial capability

The Evolution of the Baryon Distribution in the Universe from Cosmological Simulations

The evolution of the baryon distribution in different phases, derived from cosmological simulations, are here reported. These computations indicate that presently most of baryons are in a warm-hot intergalactic (WHIM) medium (about 43%) while at z = 2.5 most of baryons constitute the diffuse medium (about 74%). Stars and the cold gas in galaxies represent only 14% of the baryons at z = 0. For z < 4 about a half of the metals are locked into stars while the fraction present in the WHIM and in the diffuse medium increases with a decreasing redshift. In the redshift range 0 < z < 2.5, the amount of metals in the WHIM increases from 4% to 22% while in the diffuse medium it increases from 0.6% to 4%. This enrichment process is due essentially to a turbulent diffusion mechanism associated to mass motions driven by supernova explosions. At z = 0, simulated blue (late type) galaxies show a correlation of the oxygen abundance present in the cold gas with the luminosity of the considered galaxy that agrees quite well with data derived from HII regions.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, to be published in IJMP

Vital Sensory Kit For Use With Telemedicine In Developing Countries

In many developing countries, a large percentage of the population lacks access to adequate healthcare. This is especially true in India where close to 70% of the population lives in rural areas and has little to no access to hospitals or clinics. People living in rural India often times cannot afford to pay to see a doctor should they need to make the journey to a hospital. Telemedicine, a breakthrough in the past couple decades, has broken down the barrier between the patient and the physician. It has slowly been implemented in India to make doctors more available to patients through the use of video conferences and other forms of communication. A compact and affordable kit has been developed that will be used to take a patient’s blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose concentration and oxygen saturation. Our most novel contribution is the non-invasive glucose sensor that will use a near-infrared LED and photodiode in the patient’s earlobe. Currently millions of diabetics do this by pricking their finger. By wirelessly sending data results from the vital sign kit, the first essential part of a treatment can be carried out via wireless communication, saving the doctor and patient time and money

New nanoparticle water-based drilling fluid formulation with enhanced thermal stability and inhibition capabilities in the Woodford shale

Drilling fluid design for unconventional reservoirs aims at preventing formation instability problems associated with fluid invasion, shale swelling, and cuttings dispersion. Although oil-based mud (OBM) can be used to achieve these goals, environmental and economic concerns limit its application. This experimental study evaluated the potential use of nanoparticles (NP) to improve water-based mud (WBM) inhibition capabilities and its ability to enhance the overall drilling fluid thermal stability while providing a cleaner technology to the industry. Characterization of Woodford shale was completed with X-ray diffraction, cation exchange capacity, and scanning electron microscopy, silica, and graphene NP were characterized with aqueous stability tests and zeta-potential. Selected NP were added at a low concentration (0.1 - 1 % wt.), and standard filtration (LTLP & HTHP), rheology, dispersion and swelling tests were conducted to investigate the inhibition improvements of the new NP-WBM. In addition, optimum formulation of the new NP-WBM was aged at different conditions (150⁰F, 200⁰F, 250⁰F) for thermal and rheological stability. Conventional KCL/PHPA fluid was used for comparison purposes. The NP showed a reduction of the chemical interactions between the WBM and Woodford shale samples, reducing the swelling and dispersion effects. Also, a synergistic effect was observed between NP and conventional additives indicating that NP had the capability to improve the WBM temperature resistance. Thus, offering an eco-friendly alternative with enhanced thermal and rheological stability of the overall WBM formulation and providing more efficient drilling and wellbore stability --Abstract, page iii

Nuclear Techniques and Computer Simulation in Surface Analysis of Materials

This article is about computer simulation for surface analysis by nuclear techniques, which are non-destructive. The energy method of analysis is used for nuclear reactions and elastic scattering, as a particular and important case. Energy spectra are computer simulated and compared with experimental data, giving target composition and concentration profile information. The simulations use, mainly, target parameterization and available nuclear data. The method is applied to determination of an 18O concentration profile in a thick target using the 18O(p,α0)15N reaction. Elastic scattering of (4He)+ ions is applied to depth profiling of Al and Ag, Au thin films.University of Beira Interior.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

繰り返し地震の直達波とコーダ波の解析により推定された2011年東北地方太平洋沖地震(Mw9.0)に伴う地震波速度変化

Tohoku University西村太志課

Caracterización y optimización del acceso a Internet a través de UMTS/HSDPA

El principal objetivo de este proyecto es caracterizar y optimizar el acceso a Internet a través del canal de bajada HSDPA y subida con UMTS. El estudio tendrá en cuenta el impacto de los parámetros y mecanismos extremo a extremo de los protocolos. Nuestro estudio se centra en caracterizar las tres capas superiores de la pila de protocolos TCP/IP para así poder estudiar la viabilidad de HDSPA. En nuestro estudio, primero caracterizaremos la latencia del enlace radio midiendo el RTT a nivel de red. En segundo lugar caracterizaremos el ancho de banda del enlace, en los dos sentidos de la transmisión. Finalmente veremos como reacciona el Terminal frente a un cambio de celda. Con todo ello obtendremos conclusiones a nivel de red de dicha tecnología. Para testear el nivel de transporte, calcularemos la ventana óptima y niveles de throughput para distintos tamaños de paquete y ventanas de transmisión de TCP. Para el nivel de aplicación hemos escogido uno de los protocolos de este nivel más populares: HTTP. Estudiaremos su rendimiento y la eficiencia del enlace al trabajar con un protocolo creado para red fija.La tecnología HSDPA es una evolución de la telefonía móvil de tercera generación WCDMA y consiste en un nuevo canal compartido en el enlace descendente, que mejora significativamente la capacidad máxima de transferencia de información hasta alcanzar tasas teóricas de 14 Mbps (1.8 Mbps en despliegues comerciales habituales). HSDPA es una tecnología referida también como la generación móvil 3.5. El principal objetivo del presente trabajo es caracterizar y optimizar el acceso a Internet mediante HSDPA. El enfoque se basa en estudiar el rendimiento de las capas de la pila TCP/IP sobre el citado entorno, teniendo en cuenta el impacto de los parámetros y mecanismos extremo a extremo de los protocolos considerados. En particular, en este estudio se ha considerado la navegación web como ejemplo de aplicación popular cuyo rendimiento sobre HSDPA puede ser optimizado a varios niveles, logrando mejoras significativas con respecto al uso de una configuración de parámetros y mecanismos por defecto habitual. Cabe destacar que el estudio se ha realizado en entornos reales, hecho que proporciona valor añadido a los resultados obtenidos y, por otra parte facilita de forma inherente la transferencia de tecnología

Two titans finally meet each other under nitrogen deficiencies: FERONIA-TORC1 activation promotes plant growth

Plant growth is determined by well-defined developmental processes that integrate cell-intrinsic factors and external environmental cues, and it is largely dependent on the assimilation of macro- and micro-nutrients from the environment. Between the macro-nutrients, the inorganic nitrogen (e.g., nitrate and ammonium) and amino acids are essential for plant survival and productivity. Beyond acting as macro-nutrients and structural components of macro-molecules, these nitrogen-containing molecules could also act as signaling molecules to orchestrate diverse genetic programs (Wang et al., 2018). Plant nutritional cues that rapidly change over time and space in the soils are tightly linked to signaling pathways that execute fast cellular programs to adjust to a challenging environment. Plant Rapid Alkalinization Factors (RALFs) are secreted peptides that function as extracellular signals and bind to Catharanthus roseus receptor-like kinase 1-like family members such as FERONIA (FER) (Liao et al., 2017). RALF1–FER complexes are central regulators of plant growth that allow plants to respond to environmental changes (Du et al., 2016; Zhu et al., 2020). This interaction triggers the recruitment of RPM1-induced protein kinase (RIPK) and the phosphorylation of both FER and RIPK in a mutually dependent manner (Du et al., 2016), followed by the recruitment and activation via phosphorylation of an early translation initiation factor (eIF4E1) (Zhu et al., 2020). These findings highlighted that the RALF1–FER–RIPK pathway is an important hub to control plant cell growth under specific conditions.Fil: Martinez Pacheco, Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Estevez, Jose Manuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad Andrés Bello; Chile. Millennium Nucleus for the Development of Super Adaptable Plants; Chil

Performance Evaluation of 5 GHz IEEE 802.11n WPA2 Laboratory Links

The increasing importance of wireless communications, involving electronic devices, has been widely recognized. Performance is a crucial issue, leading to more reliable and efficient communications. Security is also critically important. Laboratory measurements were performed about several performance aspects of Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11n WPA2 5 GHz links. Our study contributes to performance evaluation of this technology, using available equipments (HP V-M200 access points and Linksys WPC600N adapters). New detailed results are presented and discussed, namely at OSI level 4, from TCP and UDP experiments. TCP throughput is measured versus TCP packet length. Jitter and percentage datagram loss are measured versus UDP datagram size. Results are compared for both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint links. Comparisons are also made to corresponding results obtained for Open links. Conclusions are drawn about performance of the links.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio