The Best Value in the Subprime Market: State Predatory Lending Reforms

To find a model for national legislation, many lawmakers need look no further than their own backyards. People who live in states with strong laws against predatory lending are more likely to get responsible mortgages at a lower cost.Our findings show that state laws enacted to prevent predatory mortgage lending work as intended to reduce abusive loan terms without impeding credit. Strong state laws have been good for consumers while supporting a thriving subprime lending market. They provide credit-strapped families with plenty of access to responsible home loans at typical -- or even lower -- costs. At least 24 states have passed specific anti-predatory lending laws to supplement federal protections aimed at ending abusive mortgage lending practices

Magnetic field switching in parallel quantum dots

We show that the Coulomb blockade in parallel dots pierced by magnetic flux $\Phi$ completely blocks the resonant current for any value of $\Phi$ except for integer multiples of the flux quantum $\Phi_0$. This non-analytic (switching) dependence of the current on $\Phi$ arises only when the dot states that carry the current are of the same energy. The time needed to reach the steady state, however, diverges when $\Phi\to n\Phi_0$.Comment: additional explanations added, Europhysics Letters, in pres

Effect of atmospheric turbulence on propagation properties of optical vortices formed by using coherent laser beam arrays

In this paper, we consider the effect of the atmospheric turbulence on the propagation of optical vertex formed from the radial coherent laser beam array, with the initially well-defined phase distribution. The propagation formula of the radial coherent laser array passing through the turbulent atmosphere is analytically derived by using the extended Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral. Based on the derived formula, the effect of the atmospheric turbulence on the propagation properties of such laser arrays has been studied in great detail. Our main results show that the atmospheric turbulence may result in the prohibition of the formation of the optical vortex or the disappearance of the formed optical vortex, which are very different from that in the free space. The formed optical vortex with the higher topological charge may propagate over a much longer distance in the moderate or weak turbulent atmosphere. After the sufficient long-distance atmospheric propagation, all the output beams (even with initially different phase distributions) finally lose the vortex property and gradually become the Gaussian-shaped beams, and in this case the output beams actually become incoherent light fields due to the decoherence effect of the turbulent atmosphere.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure