Monopoly Provision of Product Quality with Uninformed Buyers

This essay is concerned with a monopolist’s incentives to provide a high quality goods when some of its customers cannot observe quality prior to purchase. We show that if all buyers have the same tastes for quality, the monopolist will not try to take advantage of the poorly informed. When tastes differ, however, some quality randomization may become profitable as a means to loosen binding self-selection constraints. The profitability of randomization is shown to depend upon the relative degrees of risk aversion of the buyers and on the convexity of the firm’s cost of quality function. We view our results as pointing to some potential benefits from imperfect quality control

Wet active chevron nozzle for controllable jet noise reduction

Disposed at or toward the trailing edge of one or more nozzles associated with a jet engine are injection ports which can selectively be made to discharge a water stream into a nozzle flow stream for the purpose of increasing turbulence in somewhat of a similar fashion as mechanically disposed chevrons have done in the known art. Unlike mechanically disposed chevrons of the known art, the fluid flow may be secured thereby increasing the engine efficiency. Various flow patterns, water pressures, orifice designs or other factors can be made operative to provide desired performance characteristics

Glacial cycles promote greater dispersal, which can help explain larger clutch sizes, in north temperate birds

Earth’s glacial history and patterns in the life history traits of the planet’s avifauna suggest the following interpretations of how recent geological history has affected these key characteristics of the biota: 1) Increased colonizing ability has been an important advantage of increased dispersal, and life history strategies are better categorized by dispersive colonizing ability than by their intrinsic growth rates; 2) Birds of the North Temperate Zone show a greater tendency to disperse, and they disperse farther, than tropical or south temperate birds; 3) Habitat changes associated with glacial advance and retreat selected for high dispersal ability, particularly in the North; and 4) Selection for greater dispersal throughout the unstable Pleistocene has also resulted in other well-recognized life history contrasts, especially larger clutch sizes in birds of North Temperate areas

Holographic data storage crystals for the LDEF

Crystals of lithium niobate were passively exposed to the space environment of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF). Three of the four crystals contained volume holograms. Although the crystals suffered the surface damage characteristic of that suffered by other components on the Georgia Tech tray, the crystals remained suitable for the formation of volume holograms

Assigning community criticality weights to Marine Corps readiness reportable equipment

The Marine Corps' purpose of reporting equipment readiness ratings is to reflect both the portion of equipment possessed by an organization and the ability to perform its wartime mission. Supply ratings generated by the current methodology do an adequate job of reflecting the portion of equipment available for use, but the readiness ratings fall short of representing the unit's true war-fighting ability. The current method used to compute readiness ratings reflects the readiness reportable items rated that are on-hand and in an operational condition. Under this method, any reportable item that is declared as being in a deadlined maintenance condition will impact the readiness rating with an equal weight, regardless of the critical nature of the item. This thesis proposes a better way of computing the readiness rating in order to ensure it represents the true war-fighting capability of the unit instead of a mere perce.http://archive.org/details/assigningcommuni1094532036NAU.S. Marine Corps (U.S.M.C.) authorApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Terrestrial vertebrate survey of Motukawanui

Acknowledgements The authors thank the kaumātua roopu of Ngāti Kura for permission to visit the island, Rod Hitchmough for information on reptile species, Maud Quinzin for help in rat trapping, Rod Brown for information on restoration planting, and Graeme Taylor for providing a copy of the unpublished DOC report on the Cavalli Islands. Z.T.C. personally thanks Dean Wright (of Dean Wright Photography; https://www.deanwright.co.nz/) and Stephen Western (of Stephen Western Photography; https://stephenwestern.smugmug.com/) for help in providing photo comparisons. TriOceans provided transport to and from the island. Funding The fieldwork of this study was independently funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 747120 awarded to T. W. B. Research was performed under the University of Auckland animal ethics R2095 and wildlife authority 67914-DOA and research and collection authority 67915-RES. Funding was awarded to Z. T. C. by the New Zealand Government through a New Zealand International Doctoral Research Scholarship.Peer reviewedPostprin

Welding of gamma titanium aluminide alloys

An article made of a gamma titanium aluminide alloy is welded, as for example in the weld repair of surface cracks, by removing foreign matter from the area to be welded, first stress relieving the article, cooling the entire article to a welding temperature of from about 1000.degree. F. to about 1400.degree. F., welding a preselected region in an inert atmosphere at the welding temperature, and second stress relieving the article. Welding is preferably accomplished by striking an arc in the preselected region so as to locally melt the alloy in the preselected region, providing a filler metal having the same composition as the gamma titanium aluminide alloy of the article, and feeding the filler metal into the arc so that the filler metal is melted and fused with the article to form a weldment upon solidification