Borrower Experiences with Subprime Mortgage Loans in Gwinnett County, Georgia

When purchasing a home, buyer considerations include price of the home, credit rating, mortgage type, and lending agency. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the loan options successful business leaders consider when shifting loan lending from prime mortgage loans to subprime mortgage loans. Systems theory formed the conceptual framework for the study. A purposive sample of 20 participants from Gwinnett County, Georgia completed semistructured interviews and described their personal experiences. Data analysis incorporated van Kaam\u27s technique to code and cluster information into topics. The following themes emerged from the analysis indicating what these business leaders considered when they established subprime mortgage loans: (a) creditable subprime mortgage lending, (b) preferred subprime mortgage type, (c) length of the approval process, (d) pressures and limited options, and (e) the benefits of a subprime mortgage. The findings indicated these creditworthy subprime borrowers received better loans options. Findings also showed that subprime mortgage borrowers preferred fixed rate mortgages, creditworthiness determined the extent of their subprime process, the number of first time homebuyers increased, and mortgage borrowers with credit problems preferred subprime mortgage loans. The information from this study could assist mortgage borrowers looking for loan options and mortgage lenders looking to build stronger relationships with the borrowers and communities they serve. Implications for positive social change include the possibility to lower foreclosures in Gwinnett County, Georgia and increase the mortgage knowledge of future borrowers

Die Monte-Carlo-Simulation in der Unternehmensbewertung : eine financial-modeling-basierte Fallstudie

Die Automobilindustrie befindet sich in einem fundamentalen Wandel. Gesetzgeber drängen den Herstellern von Fahrzeugen aufgrund des Klimawandels vermehrt Vorlagen auf. Diese zwingen die Hersteller wiederum, Fahrzeuge mit weniger oder gar keinen CO2- Emissionen zu produzieren. Ausserdem ist eine vermehrte Ökosensibilität der Konsumierenden zu beobachten. Diese führt zu einem anderen Konsumverhalten und einer Verlagerung der Märkte von Fahrzeugen, die mit fossilen Brennstoffen betrieben werden, zu Fahrzeugen, welche kein CO2 emittieren. Auch die globale Wirtschaftslage und die Inflation tragen zu der künftigen Unsicherheit bei. Dies wirft die Frage auf, wie ein Unternehmen in der Automobilindustrie bewertet werden kann. Eine deterministische Unternehmensbewertung wird diesem Umfeld nicht gerecht. Durch die Erweiterung des deterministischen Modells mit einer MCS kann die Unsicherheit in das Modell miteinbezogen werden. Für die Bewertung wurde der Volkswagen-Konzern gewählt, da dieser einer der weltweit grössten Hersteller von Automobilen ist. Um den Volkswagen-Konzern zu bewerten, wurde in einem ersten Schritt anhand einer PESTEL-Analyse («Political», «Environmental», «Economic», «Social», «Technological» und «Legal») und einer SWOT-Analyse («Strengths», «Weaknesses», «Opportunities» und «Threats») das Umfeld des Volkswagen-Konzerns sowie der Konzern selbst analysiert. In einem zweiten Schritt wurden die Daten für die Annahmen aufbereitet. Diese wurden dann durch die Kombination der Auswertungen der historischen Daten sowie Prognosen anderer Quellen und der PESTEL- sowie der SOWT-Analyse hergeleitet. Im Anschluss wurde mit einer Discounted-Cashflow- Berechnung eine deterministische Bewertung des Volkswagen-Konzerns gemacht. Dieses Modell wurde um die Monte-Carlo-Simulation erweitert, um die Unsicherheit miteinzubeziehen. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf eine starke Unterbewertung des Volkswagen-Konzerns hin. Die in der deterministischen Bewertung ermittelte Marktkapitalisierung von € 162'745 Mio. ist höher als diejenige zum 31.12.2021 mit € 112'848 Mio. und die Marktkapitalisierung von € 98'274 Mio. zum 31.03.2022. Die durch die Monte-Carlo- Simulation ermittelten Werte deuten darauf hin, dass der Wert des Volkswagen-Konzerns die Marktkapitalisierung am 31.12.2021 mit einer Wahrscheinlichkeit von 93.8% übersteigt und diejenige am 31.03.2022 mit einer Wahrscheinlichkeit von 95.3%. Die Monte-Carlo-Simulation kann eine deterministische Bewertung mit mehr Informationen bereichern und bezieht die Unsicherheit mit in die Bewertung ein. Sie ist jedoch kein Allheilmittel, welche die Zukunft zu prognostizieren vermag. Die Subjektivität ist ein zentraler Bestandteil der Bewertung. Auch wenn die Annahmen auf soliden statistischen Analysen und Logik basieren, sind Annahmen ultimativ eine Entscheidung, welche zu einem Zeitpunkt von einer Person aufgrund eines persönlichen Glaubens gefasst wurde. Ausserdem macht die Gewichtung des TV einen Grossteil des Wertes aus und die Ressourcen sollten entsprechend alloziert werden. Aus den Ergebnissen kann auch geschlossen werden, dass Märkte möglicherweise nicht effizient sind und von Emotion sowie Momentum getrieben sein können

A road map for interoperable language resource metadata

LRs remain expensive to create and thus rare relative to demand across languages and technology types. The accidental re-creation of an LR that already exists is a nearly unforgiveable waste of scarce resources that is unfortunately not so easy to avoid. The number of catalogs the HLT researcher must search, with their different formats, make it possible to overlook an existing resource. This paper sketches the sources of this problem and outlines a proposal to rectify along with a new vision of LR cataloging that will to facilitates the documentation and exploitation of a much wider range of LRs than previously considered

Summary of a Crew-Centered Flight Deck Design Philosophy for High-Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) Aircraft

Past flight deck design practices used within the U.S. commercial transport aircraft industry have been highly successful in producing safe and efficient aircraft. However, recent advances in automation have changed the way pilots operate aircraft, and these changes make it necessary to reconsider overall flight deck design. Automated systems have become more complex and numerous, and often their inner functioning is partially or fully opaque to the flight crew. Recent accidents and incidents involving autoflight system mode awareness Dornheim, 1995) are an example. This increase in complexity raises pilot concerns about the trustworthiness of automation, and makes it difficult for the crew to be aware of all the intricacies of operation that may impact safe flight. While pilots remain ultimately responsible for mission success, performance of flight deck tasks has been more widely distributed across human and automated resources. Advances in sensor and data integration technologies now make far more information available than may be prudent to present to the flight crew

A Comparative Study of Interval Management Control Law Capabilities

This paper presents a new tool designed to allow for rapid development and testing of different control algorithms for airborne spacing. This tool, Interval Management Modeling and Spacing Tool (IM MAST), is a fast-time, low-fidelity tool created to model the approach of aircraft to a runway, with a focus on their interactions with each other. Errors can be induced between pairs of aircraft by varying initial positions, winds, speed profiles, and altitude profiles. Results to-date show that only a few of the algorithms tested had poor behavior in the arrival and approach environment. The majority of the algorithms showed only minimal variation in performance under the test conditions. Trajectory-based algorithms showed high susceptibility to wind forecast errors, while performing marginally better than the other algorithms under other conditions. Trajectory-based algorithms have a sizable advantage, however, of being able to perform relative spacing operations between aircraft on different arrival routes and flight profiles without employing ghosting. methods. This comes at the higher cost of substantially increased complexity, however. Additionally, it was shown that earlier initiation of relative spacing operations provided more time for corrections to be made without any significant problems in the spacing operation itself. Initiating spacing farther out, however, would require more of the aircraft to begin spacing before they merge onto a common route

Evolution and comparative analysis of the MHC Class III inflammatory region

BACKGROUND: The Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) is essential for immune function. Historically, it has been subdivided into three regions (Class I, II, and III), but a cluster of functionally related genes within the Class III region has also been referred to as the Class IV region or "inflammatory region". This group of genes is involved in the inflammatory response, and includes members of the tumour necrosis family. Here we report the sequencing, annotation and comparative analysis of a tammar wallaby BAC containing the inflammatory region. We also discuss the extent of sequence conservation across the entire region and identify elements conserved in evolution. RESULTS: Fourteen Class III genes from the tammar wallaby inflammatory region were characterised and compared to their orthologues in other vertebrates. The organisation and sequence of genes in the inflammatory region of both the wallaby and South American opossum are highly conserved compared to known genes from eutherian ("placental") mammals. Some minor differences separate the two marsupial species. Eight genes within the inflammatory region have remained tightly clustered for at least 360 million years, predating the divergence of the amphibian lineage. Analysis of sequence conservation identified 354 elements that are conserved. These range in size from 7 to 431 bases and cover 15.6% of the inflammatory region, representing approximately a 4-fold increase compared to the average for vertebrate genomes. About 5.5% of this conserved sequence is marsupial-specific, including three cases of marsupial-specific repeats. Highly Conserved Elements were also characterised. CONCLUSION: Using comparative analysis, we show that a cluster of MHC genes involved in inflammation, including TNF, LTA (or its putative teleost homolog TNF-N), APOM, and BAT3 have remained together for over 450 million years, predating the divergence of mammals from fish. The observed enrichment in conserved sequences within the inflammatory region suggests conservation at the transcriptional regulatory level, in addition to the functional level

Temporal and spatial patterns of anthropogenic disturbance at McMurdo Station, Antarctica

Human visitations to Antarctica have increased in recent decades, raising concerns about preserving the continent's environmental quality. To understand the spatial and temporal patterns of anthropogenic disturbances at the largest scientific station in Antarctica, McMurdo Station, a long-term monitoring program has been implemented. Results from the first nine years (1999–2007) of monitoring are reported. Most physical disturbance of land surfaces occurred prior to 1970 during initial establishment of the station. Hydrocarbons from fuel and anthropogenic metals occur in patches of tens to hundreds of square meters in areas of fuel usage and storage. Most soil contaminant concentrations are not expected to elicit biological responses. Past disposal practices have contaminated marine sediments with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), petroleum hydrocarbons, and metals in close proximity to the station that often exceed concentrations expected to elicit biological responses. Chemical contamination and organic enrichment reduced marine benthic ecological integrity within a few hundred meters offshore of the station. Contaminants were detected in marine benthic organisms confirming bioavailability and uptake. PCBs in sediments are similar to suspected source materials, indicating minimal microbial degradation decades after release. Anthropogenic disturbance of the marine environment is likely to persist for decades. A number of monitoring design elements, indicators and methodologies used in temperate climates were effective and provide guidance for monitoring programs elsewhere in Antarctica.Publishe

An investigation of the effects of procalcitonin testing on antimicrobial prescribing in respiratory tract infections in an Irish university hospital setting: a feasibility study

Background: Diagnostic uncertainty and a high prevalence of viral infections present unique challenges for antimicrobial prescribing for respiratory tract infections (RTIs). Procalcitonin (PCT) has been shown to support prescribing decisions and reduce antimicrobial use safely in patients with RTIs, but recent study results have been variable. Methods: We conducted a feasibility study of the introduction of PCT testing in patients admitted to hospital with a lower RTI to determine if PCT testing is an effective and worthwhile intervention to introduce to support the existing antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programme and safely decrease antimicrobial prescribing in patients admitted with RTIs. Results: A total of 79 patients were randomized to the intervention PCT-guided treatment group and 40 patients to the standard care respiratory control group. The addition of PCT testing led to a significant decrease in duration of antimicrobial prescriptions (mean 6.8 versus 8.9 days, P"0.012) and decreased length of hospital stay (median 7 versus 8 days, P"0.009) between the PCT and respiratory control group. PCT did not demonstrate a significant reduction in antimicrobial consumption when measured as DDDs and days of therapy. Conclusions: PCT testing had a positive effect on antimicrobial prescribing during this feasibility study. The successful implementation of PCT testing in a randomized controlled trial requires an ongoing comprehensive education programme, greater integration into the AMS programme and delivery of PCT results in a timely manner. This feasibility study has shown that a larger randomized controlled trial would be beneficial to further explore the positive aspects of these findings