10,872 research outputs found
Growth of Large-Scale Credit Unions in Iowa: Implications for Public Policy
Over the past two decades, the financial services industry has experienced a significant increase in competition and internal rivalry. Driven by deregulation and advances in information technologies, many historical institutional distinctions among financial intermediaries have disappeared or blurred considerably. The fundamental assumption that has guided many of the policy changes is that consumers are best served when businesses offering the same services are allowed to compete within a similar regulatory or institutional environment. Despite this general leveling of the playing field, credit unions continue to operate under tax and regulatory rules that differ, in important ways, from most of the firms in the financial services industry. Many of the tax and regulatory distinctions arose in the early 20th century during a time when credit unions were being established to meet the needs of individuals or communities that could not or were not being adequately served by commercial banks. However, as the financial services industry has evolved, the justification for continuing or maintaining credit unions
The Mutual Orbit, Mass, and Density of Transneptunian Binary Gknhmdm (229762 2007 UK126)
We present high spatial resolution images of the binary transneptunian object Gkn'hmdm (229762 2007 UK126) obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope and with the Keck observatory on Mauna Kea to determine the orbit of G' hG' h, the much smaller and redder satellite. G' h orbits in a prograde sense, on a circular or near-circular orbit with a period of 11.3 days and a semimajor axis of 6000 km. Tidal evolution is expected to be slow, so it is likely that the system formed already in a low-eccentricity configuration, and possibly also with the orbit plane of the satellite in or close to the plane of Gkn'hmdm's equator. From the orbital parameters we can compute the system mass to be 1.4 10(exp 20) kg. Combined with estimates of the size of Gkn'hmdm from thermal observations and stellar occultations, we can estimate the bulk density as about 1 g cm(exp 3). This low density is indicative of an ice-rich composition, unless there is substantial internal porosity. We consider the hypothesis that the composition is not unusually ice-rich compared with larger TNOs and comet nuclei, and instead the porosity is high, suggesting that mid-sized objects in the 400 to 1000 km diameter range mark the transition between small, porous objects and larger objects that have collapsed their internal void space as a result of their much higher internal pressures and temperatures
Lifshitz points in blends of AB and BC diblock copolymers
We consider micro- and macro-phase separation in blends of AB and BC flexible diblock copolymers. We show that, depending on architecture, a number of phase diagram topologies are possible. Microphase separation or macrophase separation can occur, and there are a variety of possible Lifshitz points. Because of the rich parameter space, Lifshitz points of multiple order are possible. We demonstrate Lifshitz points of first and second order, and argue that, in principle, up to 5th-order Lifshitz points are possible
Growth of large-scale credit unions in Iowa: implications for public policy
Over the past two decades, the financial services industry has experienced a significant increase in competition and internal rivalry. Driven by deregulation and advances in information technologies, many historical institutional distinctions among financial intermediaries have disappeared or blurred considerably. The fundamental assumption that has guided many of the policy changes is that consumers are best served when businesses offering the same services are allowed to compete within a similar regulatory or institutional environment. Despite this general leveling of the playing field, credit unions continue to operate under tax and regulatory rules that differ, in important ways, from most of the firms in the financial services industry. Many of the tax and regulatory distinctions arose in the early 20th century during a time when credit unions were being established to meet the needs of individuals or communities that could not or were not being adequately served by commercial banks. However, as the financial services industry has evolved, the justification for continuing or maintaining credit union
The influence of regional feedbacks on circulation sensitivity
Weakening of the tropical overturning circulation in a warmer world is a robust feature in climate models. Here an idealized representation of ocean heat flux drives a Walker cell in an aquaplanet simulation. A goal of the study is to assess the influence of the Walker circulation on the magnitude and structure of climate feedbacks, as well as to global sensitivity. We compare two CO_2 perturbation experiments, one with and one without a Walker circulation, to isolate the differences attributable to tropical circulation and associated zonal asymmetries. For an imposed Walker circulation, the subtropical shortwave cloud feedback is reduced, which manifests as a weaker tropical-subtropical anomalous energy gradient and consequently a weaker slow down of the Hadley circulation, relative to the case without a Walker circulation. By focusing on the coupled feedback circulation system, these results offer insights into understanding changes in atmospheric circulation and hence the hydrological cycle under global warming
Including Systematic Uncertainties in Confidence Interval Construction for Poisson Statistics
One way to incorporate systematic uncertainties into the calculation of
confidence intervals is by integrating over probability density functions
parametrizing the uncertainties. In this note we present a development of this
method which takes into account uncertainties in the prediction of background
processes, uncertainties in the signal detection efficiency and background
efficiency and allows for a correlation between the signal and background
detection efficiencies. We implement this method with the Feldman & Cousins
unified approach with and without conditioning. We present studies of coverage
for the Feldman & Cousins and Neyman ordering schemes. In particular, we
present two different types of coverage tests for the case where systematic
uncertainties are included. To illustrate the method we show the relative
effect of including systematic uncertainties the case of dark matter search as
performed by modern neutrino tel escopes.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, replaced to match published versio
Response of Photoluminescence of H-Terminated and Hydrosilylated Porous Si Powders to Rinsing and Temperature
The photoluminescence (PL) response of porous Si has potential applications in a number of sensor and bioimaging techniques. However, many questions still remain regarding how to stabilize and enhance the PL signal, as well as how PL responds to environmental factors. Regenerative electroless etching (ReEtching) was used to produce photoluminescent porous Si directly from Si powder. As etched, the material was H-terminated. The intensity and peak wavelength were greatly aected by the rinsing protocol employed. The highest intensity and bluest PL were obtained when dilute HCl(aq) rinsing was followed by pentane wetting and vacuum oven drying. Roughly half of the hydrogen coverage was replaced with βRCOOH groups by thermal hydrosilylation. Hydrosilylated porous Si exhibited greater stability in aqueous solutions than H-terminated porous Si. Pickling of hydrosilylated porous Si in phosphate buer was used to increase the PL intensity without significantly shifting the PL wavelength. PL intensity, wavelength and peak shape responded linearly with temperature change in a manner that was specific to the surface termination, which could facilitate the use of these parameters in a dierential sensor scheme that exploits the inherent inhomogeneities of porous Si PL response
Paramaterizations of inclusive cross sections for pion production in proton-proton collisions. II. Comparison to new data
A set of new, precise data have recently been made available by the NA49
collaboration for charged pion production in proton-proton and proton-Carbon
reactions at 158 GeV. The current paper compares this new data to five
currently available arithmetic parameterizations. Although a precise fit is not
expected, two of the parameterizations do not work very well but the other
three are able to provide a moderately good, but not precise fit to the
proton-proton data. The best two of these three parameterizations are scaled to
the proton-Carbon data and again provide a moderately good, but not precise
fit.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Review
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