The Orbital Ephemeris and X-Ray Light Curve of Cyg X-3

The orbital dynamics of Cyg X-3 are a key to understanding this enigmatic X-ray binary. Recent observations by the RXTE ASM and the OSSE instrument on GRO enable us to extend the baseline of arrival time measurements and test earlier models of orbital period evolution. We derive new quadratic and cubic ephemerides from the soft X-ray data (including ASM). We find a significant shift between the predicted soft X-ray phase and the light curve phase measured by OSSE from ~44 to 130 keV. Some of the apparent phase shift may be caused by a difference in light curve shape.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX (aipproc); to be published in the Proceedings of the 4th Compton Symposiu

Horseless Horses: Car Dealing and the Survival of Retail Bargaining

News reports suggest that in the near future, electronic chips on every item in a store will allow consumers to be charged for purchases automatically by simply walking out through the door.1 No checkout clerks will ask the shoppers if they found everything they were looking for; no checkout robots will ask if the customers would prefer to hear their oddly inflected voices speak in English or Spanish; nothing tangible will mark the exchange of value. This invisible transaction will be the latest evolutionary step away from the complex face-to-face negotiation between buyer and seller that once marked almost every retail transaction, one that uniquely survives in the purchase of an automobile. Would-be buyers who walk into automobile dealerships in the 21st century enter a time warp. They are transported back to the early 19th century , to an era before goods were sold to all shoppers at the same posted price and before dissatisfied customers could return their purchases. They are confronted by sales personnel who are masters of the ancient arts of flattery, high pressure, misdirection, misrepresentation, and patience. They are willing to sit for hours haggling over the cost of everything from the basic car itself, to the moonroof, the floor mats, the interest rate on the car loan, and the trade-in value of the owner’s current vehicle—to name just a few of the price points open to negotiation. It makes no difference if the customer is interested in a new or a used car; the process is roughly the same. In the worst (and fairly common) case, the shopper is met at the curb by a “greeter” who tries to determine if he or she is a “looker” or a serious buyer. Buyers are then turned over to a more experienced salesman who finds a car the buyer wants and opens a period of painful and protracted price negotiation, retreating often to an office in the back to check offers and counteroffers with his manager. Eventually the sales manager himself will appear to continue the dickering over price, and, if the customer is unyielding, the sales manager is sometimes replaced by his manager. In the meantime, the buyer has had to work with the dealer’s used-car appraiser to determine the trade-in value of his or her current car. Once the price of the new and used cars are agreed to, the customer is turned over one more time to the business manager who not only negotiates finance and insurance charges, but also tries to sell dealer-installed add-ons such as fabric protection and rust proofing.2 As bad as this system may seem, historically things were even worse. Prior to 1958, the buyer often had no idea what the dealer\u27s standard asking price was, because there was no established way to represent the price of cars on the lot. The requirement that all new cars carry a sticker listing the manufacturer\u27s suggested retail price (MSRP) created a common starting point for price negotiations, but no more than that. The advent of the Internet has armed some buyers with more accurate information about dealer costs, but that has only made the negotiations fiercer, forcing dealers to give better prices to informed buyers and then trying to make up the loss of profit by keeping up the costs to others. With the isolated exception of General Motors Saturn division, dealers adjust the prices of their vehicles to the local market, charging additional markup on highly sought after cars and cutting the price of slow-selling ones. And even on a Saturn lot, where sticker prices are stuck to, negotiation can take place on ancillary products and services, and will always occur on the trade-in allowance for the customer\u27s current car

Development of a Testing Procedure for Gloss Ink Holdout

There is currently no standard acceptable method used to evaluate gloss ink holdout. Four methods are investigated to evaluate holdout. Heat seat ink is used to reduce absorption effects. The K&N ink smear test and the Vanceometer absorption tester are both discounted as inappropriate tests since they look at absorption alone and have widely varied results. The IGT printability tester is an improvement because it involves another major influence to holdout, printing pressure, but does not hold the ink film thickness constant. The Vandercook Proof Press procedure is judged the most valuable since it takes into account printing pressure and absorption, and holds the ink film thickness constant. It also is the closest approximation to the industrial setting

Statement of the Labor Policy Association Before the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations

Testimony_Darien_081094.pdf: 298 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

What is Radical Recursion?

Recursion or self-reference is a key feature of contemporary research and writing in semiotics. The paper begins by focusing on the role of recursion in poststructuralism. It is suggested that much of what passes for recursion in this field is in fact not recursive all the way down. After the paradoxical meaning of radical recursion is adumbrated, topology is employed to provide some examples. The properties of the Moebius strip prove helpful in bringing out the dialectical nature of radical recursion. The Moebius is employed to explore the recursive interplay of terms that are classically regarded as binary opposites: identity and difference, object and subject, continuity and discontinuity, etc. To realize radical recursion in an even more concrete manner, a higher-dimensional counterpart of the Moebius strip is utilized, namely, the Klein bottle. The presentation concludes by enlisting phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s concept of depth to interpret the Klein bottle’s extra dimension

Temporal and spatial distribution and abundance of flathead sole (Hippoglossoides elassodon) eggs and larvae in the western Gulf of Alaska

Data from ichthyoplankton surveys conducted in 1972 and from 1977 to 1999 (no data were collected in 1980) by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (NOAA, NMFS) in the western Gulf of Alaska were used to examine the timing of spawning, geographic distribution and abundance, and the vertical distribution of eggs and larvae of flathead sole (Hippoglossoides elassodon). In the western Gulf of Alaska, flathead sole spawning began in early April and peaked from early to mid-May on the continental shelf. It progressed in a southwesterly direction along the Alaska Peninsula where three main areas of flathead sole spawning were indentified: near the Kenai Peninsula, in Shelikof Strait, and between the Shumagin Islands and Unimak Island. Flathead sole eggs are pelagic, and their depth distribution may be a function of their developmental stage. Data from MOCNESS tows indicated that eggs sink near time of hatching and the larvae rise to the surface to feed. The geographic distribution of larvae followed a pattern similar to the distribution of eggs, only it shifted about one month later. Larval abundance peaked from early to mid-June in the southern portion of Shelikof Strait. Biological and environmental factors may help to retain flathead sole larvae on the continental shelf near their juvenile nursery areas

Do-It-Yourself: Constructing, Repairing and Maintaining Domestic Masculinity

In the 1860s when Harriet Robinson annually set aside a full month for the spring cleaning of her Malden, Massachusetts home, she had the occasional assistance of hired help, but none from her husband William. Over the years, as the Robinsons improved their house by installing weather stripping, repapering rooms, refinishing furniture, and putting in a new mantle, Harriet\u27s biographer Claudia Bushman notes that neither she nor William lifted a finger toward household maintenance. 1 Some eighty years later, immediately after World War II, when Eve and Sam Goldenberg moved into a somewhat decrepit apartment in the Bronx, Sam patched the holes in the wall himself and they both worked to scrub away the residual odor of people who don\u27t care. 2 After a few years in the Bronx, the Goldenbergs (now the Gordons) moved out to a new subdivision on Long Island where Sam built a brick patio and the surrounding fence, installed a new front door, and drew up plans to build a dormer window on the front facade. Real estate agents for the development would drive prospective buyers to the Gordons\u27 house so they could admire Sam\u27s handiwork and, in the words of the family chronicler Donald Katz, see what a homeowner could do with old-fashioned, all American know-how ... through the agency of his own hands.