The RTC and the escalating costs of the thrift insurance mess

An examination of the structure of the Resolution Trust Corporation and of its performance in resolving the savings and loan insurance crisis, defining the obstacles that may be impeding the RTC's effectiveness in closing insolvent thrifts and returning their assets to the private sector.Resolution Trust Corporation (U.S.) ; Savings and loan associations

Optimization of resource allocation can explain the temporal dynamics and honesty of sexual signals

In species in which males are free to dynamically alter their allocation to sexual signaling over the breeding season, the optimal investment in signaling should depend on both a male’s state and the level of competition he faces at any given time. We developed a dynamic optimization model within a game‐theoretical framework to explore the resulting signaling dynamics at both individual and population levels and tested two key model predictions with empirical data on three‐spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) males subjected to dietary manipulation (carotenoid availability): (1) fish in better nutritional condition should be able to maintain their signal for longer over the breeding season, resulting in an increasingly positive correlation between nutritional status and signal (i.e., increasing signal honesty), and (2) female preference for more ornamented males should thus increase over the breeding season. Both predictions were supported by the experimental data. Our model shows how such patterns can emerge from the optimization of resource allocation to signaling in a competitive situation. The key determinants of the honesty and dynamics of sexual signaling are the condition dependency of male survival, the initial frequency distribution of nutritional condition in the male population, and the cost of signaling

Rating helicopter noise

The effectiveness of the EPNL procedure in quantifying helicopter blade slap and tail rotor noise heard on approach some distance from the flyover position is addressed. Alternative methods of rating helicopter noise are reviewed including correction procedures to the EPNL concept which account for blade slap and tail rotor noise. The impact of the use of such corrections is examined

Avian egg odour encodes information on embryo sex, fertility and development.

Avian chemical communication is a rapidly emerging field, but has been hampered by a critical lack of information on volatile chemicals that communicate ecologically relevant information (semiochemicals). A possible, but as yet unexplored, function of olfaction and chemical communication in birds is in parent-embryo and embryo-embryo communication. Communication between parents and developing embryos may act to mediate parental behaviour, while communication between embryos can control the synchronicity of hatching. Embryonic vocalisations and vibrations have been implicated as a means of communication during the later stages of development but in the early stages, before embryos are capable of independent movement and vocalisation, this is not possible. Here we show that volatiles emitted from developing eggs of Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) convey information on egg fertility, along with the sex and developmental status of the embryo. Specifically, egg volatiles changed over the course of incubation, differed between fertile and infertile eggs, and were predictive of embryo sex as early as day 1 of incubation. Egg odours therefore have the potential to facilitate parent-embryo and embryo-embryo interactions by allowing the assessment of key measures of embryonic development long before this is possible through other modalities. It also opens up the intriguing possibility that parents may be able to glean further relevant information from egg volatiles, such as the health, viability and heritage of embryos. By determining information conveyed by egg-derived volatiles, we hope to stimulate further investigation into the ecological role of egg odours

Copper(I) Chloride Carbonyl Polymers

Addition of bridging diamine ligands to methanolic solutions of CuCl under a CO purge produces the polymeric complexes [(CuCl)2(CO)2(biL)] (biL = diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO), piperazine (Pip), N,N‘-dimethylpiperazine (DMP)). X-ray crystal structures of the three complexes reveal rhombic OC−Cu(μ-Cl)2Cu−CO bridged by biL. Unsaturated bridging ligands fail to produce carbonyl-bearing products

Bernard Suits on capacities: games, perfectionism, and Utopia

An essential and yet often neglected motivation of Bernard Suits’ elevation of gameplay to the ideal of human existence is his account of capacities along perfectionist lines and the function of games in eliciting them. In his work Suits treats the expression of these capacities as implicitly good and the purest expression of the human telos. Although it is a possible interpretation to take Suits’ utopian vision to mean that gameplay in his future utopia must consist of the logically inevitable replaying of activities we conduct in the present for instrumental reasons (playing games-by-default), because gameplay for Suits is identical with the expression of sets of capacities specifically elicited by game rules, it is much more likely that he intends utopian gameplay to be an endless series of carefully crafted opportunities for the elicitation of special capacities (playing games-by-design), and thus embody his ideal of existence. This article therefore provides a new lens for understanding both Suits’ definitional work on gameplay and its connection to his utopian vision in the last chapter of The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia

" the Battle of the Clubs."

n/

How does an initial expectation bias influence auditors\u27 application and performance of analytical procedures?

Prior research demonstrates that knowledge of unaudited balances biases auditors\u27 expectations during analytical procedures. What is less understood is how these biases affect auditors\u27 subsequent investigations and their conclusions about the reasonableness of a particular balance. We employ the selective accessibility model to examine the differences in analytical procedure performance when auditor expectations are formed with versus without knowledge of the client\u27s unaudited financial statement balances. In an experimental setting, we found that auditors with knowledge of unaudited balances favored hypotheses and supporting information indicating that the client\u27s balance was reasonably stated. Auditors who formed expectations without current-year figures were more willing to evaluate competing alternatives, could better identify the most pertinent information, and were significantly more likely to identify a material misstatement using an analytical procedur

Letter from T.B. Pike to the Women\u27s Educational and Industrial Union, Boston, Massachusetts, 1898 May 30

https://repository.wellesley.edu/whitney_correspondence/2823/thumbnail.jp

Elasticity of Stiff Polymer Networks

We study the elasticity of a two-dimensional random network of rigid rods (``Mikado model''). The essential features incorporated into the model are the anisotropic elasticity of the rods and the random geometry of the network. We show that there are three distinct scaling regimes, characterized by two distinct length scales on the elastic backbone. In addition to a critical rigidiy percolation region and a homogeneously elastic regime we find a novel intermediate scaling regime, where elasticity is dominated by bending deformations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure