2,782 research outputs found
Assessment of Real Estate Brokerage Service Quality with a Practicing Professional's Instrument
This study explores factors that affect service quality for a large residential real estate brokerage in a diverse midwestern city. It examines the extent to which overall service quality influences homebuyers to recommend the brokerage firm and to use the firm for future transactions. A Linear Structural Relations model is fit to data using the firm's service quality instrument. Results indicate statistically significant relationships between both agent characteristics and the tangible aspects of the firm, and three measures of overall service quality. Implications for the real estate industry are discussed and suggestions for improvement and future research are provided.
On the Fredholm property of bisingular pseudodifferential operators
For operators belonging either to a class of global bisingular
pseudodifferential operators on or to a class of bisingular
pseudodifferential operators on a product of two closed smooth
manifolds, we show the equivalence of their ellipticity (defined by the
invertibility of certain associated homogeneous principal symbols) and their
Fredholm mapping property in associated scales of Sobolev spaces. We also prove
the spectral invariance of these operator classes and then extend these results
to the even larger classes of Toeplitz type operators.Comment: 21 pages. Expanded sections 3 and 4. Corrected typos. Added
reference
Correlating the nanostructure of Al-oxide with deposition conditions and dielectric contributions of two-level systems in perspective of superconducting quantum circuits
This work is concerned with Al/Al-oxide(AlO)/Al-layer systems which are
important for Josephson-junction-based superconducting devices such as quantum
bits. The device performance is limited by noise, which has been to a large
degree assigned to the presence and properties of two-level tunneling systems
in the amorphous AlO tunnel barrier. The study is focused on the
correlation of the fabrication conditions, nanostructural and nanochemical
properties and the occurrence of two-level tunneling systems with particular
emphasis on the AlO-layer. Electron-beam evaporation with two different
processes and sputter deposition were used for structure fabrication, and the
effect of illumination by ultraviolet light during Al-oxide formation is
elucidated. Characterization was performed by analytical transmission electron
microscopy and low-temperature dielectric measurements. We show that the
fabrication conditions have a strong impact on the nanostructural and
nanochemical properties of the layer systems and the properties of two-level
tunneling systems. Based on the understanding of the observed structural
characteristics, routes are derived towards the fabrication of
Al/AlO/Al-layers systems with improved properties.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figure
Orion Entry Flight Control Stability and Performance
The Orion Spacecraft will be required to perform entry and landing functions for both Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Lunar return missions, utilizing only the Command Module (CM) with its unique systems and GN&C design. This paper presents the current CM Flight Control System (FCS) design to support entry and landing, with a focus on analyses that have supported its development to date. The CM FCS will have to provide for spacecraft stability and control while following guidance or manual commands during exo-atmospheric flight, after Service Module separation, translational powered flight required of the CM, atmospheric flight supporting both direct entry and skip trajectories down to drogue chute deploy, and during roll attitude reorientation just prior to touchdown. Various studies and analyses have been performed or are on-going supporting an overall FCS design with reasonably sized Reaction Control System (RCS) jets, that minimizes fuel usage, that provides appropriate command following but with reasonable stability and control margin. Results from these efforts to date are included, with particular attention on design issues that have emerged, such as the struggle to accommodate sub-sonic pitch and yaw control without using excessively large jets that could have a detrimental impact on vehicle weight. Apollo, with a similar shape, struggled with this issue as well. Outstanding CM FCS related design and analysis issues, planned for future effort, are also briefly be discussed
Trees on K-12 School Campuses in Virginia
Trees and saplings growing on K-12 school campuses were investigated in 105 school districts across Virginia. There were 2812 trees (\u3e12.5 cm stem diameter at 1.4 m above ground level) inventoried across all campuses. The mean and median campus tree population was 27 and 18, respectively. Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) was the most abundant species, accounting for 11% of all inventoried trees. Red maple (Acer rubrum L.) was the most frequently inventoried species, present on 44% of the campuses. Sapling (trees with 2.5-12.5 cm stem diameter at 1.4 m above ground level) populations were similar to tree populations. The mean and median campus sapling population was 23 and 13, respectively. Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida L.) and red maple were the most abundant sapling species, each accounting for about 10% of all inventoried saplings. Flowering dogwood, red maple, Bradford pear (Pyrus calleryana Decne. ‘Bradford’), willow oak (Quercus phellos L. ), and ornamental cherry (Prunus spp. ) were the most frequently inventoried sapling species, each present on more than 25% of the campuses. Across all campuses, species diversity was relatively low: less than 10 species accounted for over 50% of the inventoried trees and saplings. Prominent Virginia natives, in particular Carya and Quercus species, were under represented in the inventory
Droplets on Soft Surfaces Exhibit a Reluctance to Coalesce due to an Intervening Wetting Ridge
Microscale interactions with deformable substrates are of fundamental interest for studying self-assembly processes and the mobility of cells on soft surfaces, with applications in traction force microscopy. The behavior of microscale water droplets on a soft polymer substrate is investigated. Droplets formed by condensation on the soft substrate are reluctant to coalesce, which leads to coverage of the surface with clusters of droplets assembled in a honeycomb-like pattern. Cryogenically fixed in this state, scanning electron microscopy of these droplets reveals the presence of an intervening wetting ridge of the polymer that acts as a barrier between neighboring droplets and prevents coalescence. A linear elastic deformation model is developed to predict this surface profile and corroborate the observed behavior
Direct Evidence of the Discontinuous Character of the Kosterlitz-Thouless Jump
It is numerically shown that the discontinuous character of the helicity
modulus of the two-dimensional XY model at the Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT)
transition can be directly related to a higher order derivative of the free
energy without presuming any {\it a priori} knowledge of the nature of the
transition. It is also suggested that this higher order derivative is of
intrinsic interest in that it gives an additional characteristics of the KT
transition which might be associated with a universal number akin to the
universal value of the helicity modulus at the critical temperature.Comment: 4 pages, to appear in PR
Rectal Bleeding Associated With Chronic Pancreatitis
Pseudocyst formation, with its attendant complications of compression, rupture, bleeding and fistula formation, is a well known complication of chronic pancreatitis. In 1966 Berne and Edmondson drew attention to the often fatal outcome of pancreatico-colonic fistula complicated by hemorrhage. We present two cases of this rare complication of chronic pancreatitis as defined by the Marseille classification
Involution and Constrained Dynamics I: The Dirac Approach
We study the theory of systems with constraints from the point of view of the
formal theory of partial differential equations. For finite-dimensional systems
we show that the Dirac algorithm completes the equations of motion to an
involutive system. We discuss the implications of this identification for field
theories and argue that the involution analysis is more general and flexible
than the Dirac approach. We also derive intrinsic expressions for the number of
degrees of freedom.Comment: 28 pages, latex, no figure
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