Residential Real Estate Prices: A Room with a View

This article is the winner of the Real Estate Broker / Agency manuscript prize (sponsored by the Center for the Study of Real Estate Brokerage/ Agency at Cleveland State University) presented at the 2001 American Real Estate Society Annual Meeting. This study examines the effect that a view of Lake Erie has on the value of a home. Unlike previous studies, the current investigation is able to successfully control for view. That is, because of the unique building codes of lakefront homes in this sample, homes analyzed either do or do not have a view. Moreover, transaction-based home prices are used which is an improvement over previous studies that rely on appraisal-based data. The results indicate that square footage and lot size also significantly affect a home’s value. More importantly, having this very desirable view adds $256,544.72 (an 89.9% premium) to the value of the home.

Real Estate Returns and Inflation: An Added Variable Approach

This study analyses the inflation hedging effectiveness of residential real estate over the 1969-94 period. The results indicate that residential real estate is a significant hedge against both expected and unexpected inflation. These results indicate that since financial assets are not good inflation hedges in periods of high unexpected inflation, including real estate in a portfolio should decrease the variance of the portfolio returns. These results were made possible by the use of the Added Variable Regression Method (AVRM), a measure which has yet to be employed in this context. There are nine variables included in the AVRM framework which are also found to have significant explanatory power relative to residential real estate returns.

Comment on `Hawking radiation from fluctuating black holes'

Takahashi & Soda (2010 Class. Quantum Grav. v27 p175008, arXiv:1005.0286) have recently considered the effect (at lowest non-trivial order) of dynamical, quantized gravitational fluctuations on the spectrum of scalar Hawking radiation from a collapsing Schwarzschild black hole. However, due to an unfortunate choice of gauge, the dominant (even divergent) contribution to the coefficient of the spectrum correction that they identify is a pure gauge artifact. I summarize the logic of their calculation, comment on the divergences encountered in its course and comment on how they could be eliminated, and thus the calculation be completed.Comment: 12 pages, 1 fig; feynmp, amsref

On the Structure of the Observable Algebra of QCD on the Lattice

The structure of the observable algebra ${\mathfrak O}_{\Lambda}$ of lattice QCD in the Hamiltonian approach is investigated. As was shown earlier, ${\mathfrak O}_{\Lambda}$ is isomorphic to the tensor product of a gluonic $C^{*}$-subalgebra, built from gauge fields and a hadronic subalgebra constructed from gauge invariant combinations of quark fields. The gluonic component is isomorphic to a standard CCR algebra over the group manifold SU(3). The structure of the hadronic part, as presented in terms of a number of generators and relations, is studied in detail. It is shown that its irreducible representations are classified by triality. Using this, it is proved that the hadronic algebra is isomorphic to the commutant of the triality operator in the enveloping algebra of the Lie super algebra ${\rm sl(1/n)}$ (factorized by a certain ideal).Comment: 33 page

Anomalous Fermion Number Non-Conservation on the Lattice

The anomaly for the fermion number current is calculated on the lattice in a simple prototype model with an even number of fermion doublets.Comment: 6 pages, CERN-TH.6717/92. Contribution to the Amsterdam Lattice '92 Conferenc

Detailed Visual Cortical Responses Generated by Retinal Sheet Transplants in Rats with Severe Retinal Degeneration.

To combat retinal degeneration, healthy fetal retinal sheets have been successfully transplanted into both rodent models and humans, with synaptic connectivity between transplant and degenerated host retina having been confirmed. In rodent studies, transplants have been shown to restore responses to flashes of light in a region of the superior colliculus corresponding to the location of the transplant in the host retina. To determine the quality and detail of visual information provided by the transplant, visual responsivity was studied here at the level of visual cortex where higher visual perception is processed. For our model, we used the transgenic Rho-S334ter line-3 rat (both sexes), which loses photoreceptors at an early age and is effectively blind at postnatal day 30. These rats received fetal retinal sheet transplants in one eye between 24 and 40 d of age. Three to 10 months following surgery, visually responsive neurons were found in regions of primary visual cortex matching the transplanted region of the retina that were as highly selective as normal rat to stimulus orientation, size, contrast, and spatial and temporal frequencies. Conversely, we found that selective response properties were largely absent in nontransplanted line-3 rats. Our data show that fetal retinal sheet transplants can result in remarkably normal visual function in visual cortex of rats with a degenerated host retina and represents a critical step toward developing an effective remedy for the visually impaired human population.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa lead to profound vision loss in millions of people worldwide. Many patients lose both retinal pigment epithelium and photoreceptors. Hence, there is a great demand for the development of efficient techniques that allow for long-term vision restoration. In this study, we transplanted dissected fetal retinal sheets, which can differentiate into photoreceptors and integrate with the host retina of rats with severe retinal degeneration. Remarkably, we show that transplants generated visual responses in cortex similar in quality to normal rats. Furthermore, transplants preserved connectivity within visual cortex and the retinal relay from the lateral geniculate nucleus to visual cortex, supporting their potential application in curing vision loss associated with retinal degeneration

RELEASE: A High-level Paradigm for Reliable Large-scale Server Software

Erlang is a functional language with a much-emulated model for building reliable distributed systems. This paper outlines the RELEASE project, and describes the progress in the first six months. The project aim is to scale the Erlang’s radical concurrency-oriented programming paradigm to build reliable general-purpose software, such as server-based systems, on massively parallel machines. Currently Erlang has inherently scalable computation and reliability models, but in practice scalability is constrained by aspects of the language and virtual machine. We are working at three levels to address these challenges: evolving the Erlang virtual machine so that it can work effectively on large scale multicore systems; evolving the language to Scalable Distributed (SD) Erlang; developing a scalable Erlang infrastructure to integrate multiple, heterogeneous clusters. We are also developing state of the art tools that allow programmers to understand the behaviour of massively parallel SD Erlang programs. We will demonstrate the effectiveness of the RELEASE approach using demonstrators and two large case studies on a Blue Gene

Manifestation of a sellar hemangioblastoma due to pituitary apoplexy: a case report

Introduction Hemangioblastomas are rare, benign tumors occurring in any part of the nervous system. Most are found as sporadic tumors in the cerebellum or spinal cord. However, these neoplasms are also associated with von Hippel-Lindau disease. We report a rare case of a sporadic sellar hemangioblastoma that became symptomatic due to pituitary apoplexy. Case presentation An 80-year-old, otherwise healthy Caucasian woman presented to our facility with severe headache attacks, hypocortisolism and blurred vision. A magnetic resonance imaging scan showed an acute hemorrhage of a known, stable and asymptomatic sellar mass lesion with chiasmatic compression accounting for our patient's acute visual impairment. The tumor was resected by a transnasal, transsphenoidal approach and histological examination revealed a capillary hemangioblastoma (World Health Organization grade I). Our patient recovered well and substitutional therapy was started for panhypopituitarism. A follow-up magnetic resonance imaging scan performed 16 months postoperatively showed good chiasmatic decompression with no tumor recurrence. Conclusions A review of the literature confirmed supratentorial locations of hemangioblastomas to be very unusual, especially within the sellar region. However, intrasellar hemangioblastoma must be considered in the differential diagnosis of pituitary apoplexy

Nuclear structure of 30S and its implications for nucleosynthesis in classical novae

The uncertainty in the 29P(p,gamma)30S reaction rate over the temperature range of 0.1 - 1.3 GK was previously determined to span ~4 orders of magnitude due to the uncertain location of two previously unobserved 3+ and 2+ resonances in the 4.7 - 4.8 MeV excitation region in 30S. Therefore, the abundances of silicon isotopes synthesized in novae, which are relevant for the identification of presolar grains of putative nova origin, were uncertain by a factor of 3. To investigate the level structure of 30S above the proton threshold (4394.9(7) keV), a charged-particle spectroscopy and an in-beam gamma-ray spectroscopy experiments were performed. Differential cross sections of the 32S(p,t)30S reaction were measured at 34.5 MeV. Distorted wave Born approximation calculations were performed to constrain the spin-parity assignments of the observed levels. An energy level scheme was deduced from gamma-gamma coincidence measurements using the 28Si(3He,n-gamma)30S reaction. Spin-parity assignments based on measurements of gamma-ray angular distributions and gamma-gamma directional correlation from oriented nuclei were made for most of the observed levels of 30S. As a result, the resonance energies corresponding to the excited states in 4.5 MeV - 6 MeV region, including the two astrophysically important states predicted previously, are measured with significantly better precision than before. The uncertainty in the rate of the 29P(p,gamma)30S reaction is substantially reduced over the temperature range of interest. Finally, the influence of this rate on the abundance ratios of silicon isotopes synthesized in novae are obtained via 1D hydrodynamic nova simulations.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figure

Lattice Regularization of the Chiral Schwinger Model

We analyze the chiral Schwinger model on an infinite lattice using the continuum definition of the fermion determinant and a linear interpolation of the lattice gauge fields. For non-compact and Wilson formulation of the gauge field action it is proven that the effective lattice model is Osterwalder-Schrader positive, which is a sufficient condition for the reconstruction of a physical Hilbert space from the model defined on a Euclidean lattice. For the non-compact model we furthermore establish the existence of critical points where the corresponding continuum theory can be reconstructed. We show that the continuum limit for the two-point functions of field strength and chiral densities can be controlled analytically. The article ends with some remarks on fermionic observables.Comment: 18 page