New York City\u27s J-51 Program: Controversy and Revision

New York City administers a real estate tax incentive program, called the J-51 program, for eligible building owners who rehabilitate existing structures. Despite the need for such a program, various problems and abuses arose, emphasizing the need for major reform. Economic conditions changed the housing market and the tax incentives demonstrated several deleterious effects which contravene the original legislative intent of the program. After long negotiations surrounding several competing arguments, reforms were made. The current revisions were necessary to correct the abuses and to return the program to its original purpose of providing adequate housing for moderate and lower income families. This goal may be realized by eliminating the award of financial incentives for rehabilitation work performed in specified geographic areas and for the benefit of economic groups for which this type of assistance cannot be justified by considerations of social policy

Approximating Subadditive Hadamard Functions on Implicit Matrices

An important challenge in the streaming model is to maintain small-space approximations of entrywise functions performed on a matrix that is generated by the outer product of two vectors given as a stream. In other works, streams typically define matrices in a standard way via a sequence of updates, as in the work of Woodruff (2014) and others. We describe the matrix formed by the outer product, and other matrices that do not fall into this category, as implicit matrices. As such, we consider the general problem of computing over such implicit matrices with Hadamard functions, which are functions applied entrywise on a matrix. In this paper, we apply this generalization to provide new techniques for identifying independence between two vectors in the streaming model. The previous state of the art algorithm of Braverman and Ostrovsky (2010) gave a $(1 \pm \epsilon)$-approximation for the $L_1$ distance between the product and joint distributions, using space $O(\log^{1024}(nm) \epsilon^{-1024})$, where $m$ is the length of the stream and $n$ denotes the size of the universe from which stream elements are drawn. Our general techniques include the $L_1$ distance as a special case, and we give an improved space bound of $O(\log^{12}(n) \log^{2}({nm \over \epsilon})\epsilon^{-7})$

Determining the Subsidence Rate of the Cascade Seamount using Strontium Isotope Stratigraphy

The Cascade Seamount is a wave-planated feature located on the microcontinent of the East Tasman Plateau (ETP). The minimum subsidence rate of the Seamount and the ETP can be estimated by dividing the present-day depth of the wave-cut surface (640 m) by the age of Cascade Seamount basalts as determined by potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating (33.4 and 36 Ma). This approach yields a subsidence rate of 18 m/Myr. However, a significantly more rapid subsidence rate of the ETP since the Eocene-Oligocene transition has been proposed based on sedimentological and biostratigraphic techniques. The late Eocene paleodepths determined by Stickley et al. (2004) using sedimentological and biostratigraphic techniques, indicate a subsidence rate of 85 m/Myr for the ETP. These two results present a paradox, which implies that the ETP subsided at a rate greater than the seamount itself over the same time interval. It also implies that the seamount formed above sea level. We posit that the subsidence ambiguity may be attributed to the presence of a turbidity current deposit in the sediment core, or uncertainty in the age of the wave-planated surface of the Cascade Seamount. Sr isotope stratigraphy (SIS) was used to measure the 87Sr/86Sr ratios in order to find the ages of the marine carbonate samples recovered from the Cascade Seamount during the August 2016 RV Investigator Voyage (IN2016_E01). The youngest geologically reliable age was reported to be 20.39 Ma, while the oldest age was 27.74 Ma. This gives the ETP a subsidence rate of 23.1 - 31.4 m/Myr. Results from statistical analyses of the published grain size measurements indicated the presence of a turbidity current deposit in ODP Site 1172. Therefore, the calculations put forth by Stickley et al. (2004) are misinterpretations of the events surrounding the Cascade Seamount

Attorney and Client - Scope of Attorney\u27s Authority - Client Bound by Wrongful Settlement of Claim

Plaintiff hired an attorney to prosecute a claim for damages resulting from the alleged negligence of defendant, a chiropodist, in the treatment of plaintiff\u27s wife. Three years after the institution of the suit plaintiff discovered that his attorney had agreed with defendant to settle the suit and had forged plaintiff\u27s name to a release and to a bank draft given by defendant in settlement of the claim. Plaintiff immediately instituted action to have the settlement stipulation deleted from the record and to have the case reinstated for hearing. On appeal from the trial court\u27s decision for plaintiff, held, reversed. While the mere engagement of an attorney does not imply authority to compromise the claim, in the instant case defendant was justified in assuming that the attorney was authorized to effect a compromise. Of two innocent parties before the court the one more responsible for the wrong should bear the loss. Cohen v. Goldman, (R.I. 1957) 132 A. (2d) 414

An Optimal Algorithm for Large Frequency Moments Using O(n^(1-2/k)) Bits

In this paper, we provide the first optimal algorithm for the remaining open question from the seminal paper of Alon, Matias, and Szegedy: approximating large frequency moments. We give an upper bound on the space required to find a k-th frequency moment of O(n^(1-2/k)) bits that matches, up to a constant factor, the lower bound of Woodruff et. al for constant epsilon and constant k. Our algorithm makes a single pass over the stream and works for any constant k > 3. It is based upon two major technical accomplishments: first, we provide an optimal algorithm for finding the heavy elements in a stream; and second, we provide a technique using Martingale Sketches which gives an optimal reduction of the large frequency moment problem to the all heavy elements problem. We also provide a polylogarithmic improvement for frequency moments, frequency based functions, spatial data streams, and measuring independence of data sets

Corporations - Dissolution - Equity Power to Dissolve Going Concern for Dissension

The stock in a hotel management corporation was divided equally between two families, each of which had for some years been unable to agree or cooperate with the other in the management of the business. As a result of this dissension, no meeting of stockholders or directors was held for some years, no withdrawals of profits had been possible for six years, and the corporation had been operated at a loss for the year prior to suit. While the concern was not insolvent, such a financial state was allegedly imminent, the business of the corporation was admittedly poorly managed and its property was in need of repair. In view of these facts the owners of one half the stock brought an action for dissolution of the corporation in equity. From an order granting dissolution and dismissing a cross-bill for specific performance of an option to buy plaintiff\u27s stock, defendants appealed. Held, affirmed. Neither a showing of insolvency nor statutory authorization is necessary for equity to act when dissension is accompanied by financial loss, corporate paralysis, mismanagement and deterioration of property. Levant v. Kowal, 350 Mich. 232, 86 N.W. (2d) 336 (1957)

Streaming Algorithms for High Throughput Massive Datasets

The field of streaming algorithms has enjoyed a deal of focus from the theoretical computer science community over the last 20 years. Many great algorithms and mathematical results have been developed in this time, allowing for a broad class of functions to be computed and problems to be solved in the streaming model. In the same amount of time, the amount of data being generated by practical computer systems is simply staggering. In this thesis, we focus on solving problems in the streaming model that have a unified goal of being relevant to practical problems outside of the theory community. In terms of a common technical thread throughout this work, the theme here is an attention to runtime and the ability to handle large datasets that not only challenge in terms of memory available, but also in the throughput of the data and the speed at which the data must be processed. We provide these solutions in the form of both theoretical algorithm and practical systems, and demonstrate that using practice to drive theory, and vice versa, can generate powerful new approaches for difficult problems in the streaming model