Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: What\u27s Next?

The purpose of this research was to explore the mortgage market in the United States and determine an effective plan of action moving forward. The US experienced a major housing crisis in 2007-2008. As a result, the market has been under significant scrutiny. At the heart of this debate are the two major lending institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The crisis has caused many politicians to call for an overhaul of the US mortgage market, a phasing out of the two agencies, and a shift in the market toward the private sector. A bipartisan proposal in March 2014 addressed those issues and will most likely be voted on in the Senate and the House this year. Several questions arose during exploration of this topic. How can we help the secondary mortgage market run as effectively and efficiently as possible? Why are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac often blamed for the housing crisis? What problems does the new bipartisan proposal address, and what problems does it fail to touch upon? After extensive research, it was determined that while the debate over moving forward with a public or private mortgage market is important, the problems in the mortgage market lie much deeper than that. Home buyers, the government, lending institutions, loan originators, real estate agents, investors, credit agencies, and many others have a stake in the market. It is increased accountability, responsibility, and education on behalf of each of those parties that will lead to higher effectiveness and efficiency in the mortgage market

An Extensive Evaluation of the Internet's Open Proxies

Open proxies forward traffic on behalf of any Internet user. Listed on open proxy aggregator sites, they are often used to bypass geographic region restrictions or circumvent censorship. Open proxies sometimes also provide a weak form of anonymity by concealing the requestor's IP address. To better understand their behavior and performance, we conducted a comprehensive study of open proxies, encompassing more than 107,000 listed open proxies and 13M proxy requests over a 50 day period. While previous studies have focused on malicious open proxies' manipulation of HTML content to insert/modify ads, we provide a more broad study that examines the availability, success rates, diversity, and also (mis)behavior of proxies. Our results show that listed open proxies suffer poor availability--more than 92% of open proxies that appear on aggregator sites are unresponsive to proxy requests. Much more troubling, we find numerous examples of malicious open proxies in which HTML content is manipulated to mine cryptocurrency (that is, cryptojacking). We additionally detect TLS man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks, and discover numerous instances in which binaries fetched through proxies were modified to include remote access trojans and other forms of malware. As a point of comparison, we conduct and discuss a similar measurement study of the behavior of Tor exit relays. We find no instances in which Tor relays performed TLS MitM or manipulated content, suggesting that Tor offers a far more reliable and safe form of proxied communication

Thickness dependence of exchange coupling in (111)-oriented perovskite oxide superlattices

Epitaxial La0.7Sr0.3MnO3(LSMO)/La0.7Sr0.3FeO3 (LSFO) superlattices on (111)-oriented SrTiO3 substrates with sublayer thicknesses ranging from 3 to 60 unit cells (u.c.) were synthesized and characterized. Detailed analysis of their structural, electronic, and magnetic properties were performed to explore the effect of sublayer thickness on the magnetic structure and exchange coupling at (111)-oriented perovskite oxide interfaces. In the ultrathin limit (3-6 u.c.), we find that the antiferromagnetic (AF) properties of the LSFO sublayers are preserved with an out-of-plane canting of the AF spin axis, while the ferromagnetic (FM) properties of the LSMO sublayers are significantly depressed. For thicker LSFO layers (>9 u.c.), the out-of-plane canting of the AF spin axis is only present in superlattices with thick LSMO sublayers. As a result, exchange coupling in the form of spin-flop coupling exists only in superlattices which display both robust ferromagnetism and out-of-plane canting of the AF spin axis

Standard care vs. TRIVEntricular pacing in Heart Failure (STRIVE HF): a prospective multicentre randomized controlled trial of triventricular pacing vs. conventional biventricular pacing in patients with heart failure and intermediate QRS left bundle branch block

AIMS: To determine whether triventricular (TriV) pacing is feasible and improves CRT response compared to conventional biventricular (BiV) pacing in patients with left bundle branch block (LBBB) and intermediate QRS prolongation (120-150 ms). METHODS AND RESULTS: Between October 2015 and November 2019, 99 patients were recruited from 11 UK centres. Ninety-five patients were randomized 1:1 to receive TriV or BiV pacing systems. The primary endpoint was feasibility of TriV pacing. Secondary endpoints assessed symptomatic and remodelling response to CRT. Baseline characteristics were balanced between groups. In the TriV group, 43/46 (93.5%) patients underwent successful implantation vs. 47/49 (95.9%) in the BiV group. Feasibility of maintaining CRT at 6 months was similar in the TriV vs. BiV group (90.0% vs. 97.7%, P = 0.191). All-cause mortality was similar between TriV vs. BiV groups (4.3% vs. 8.2%, P = 0.678). There were no significant differences in echocardiographic LV volumes or clinical composite scores from baseline to 6-month follow-up between groups. CONCLUSION: Implantation of two LV leads to deliver and maintain TriV pacing at 6 months is feasible without significant complications in the majority of patients. There was no evidence that TriV pacing improves CRT response or provides additional clinical benefit to patients with LBBB and intermediate QRS prolongation and cannot be recommended in this patient group. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT02529410

Improved community structure detection using a modified fine tuning strategy

The community structure of a complex network can be determined by finding the partitioning of its nodes that maximizes modularity. Many of the proposed algorithms for doing this work by recursively bisecting the network. We show that this unduely constrains their results, leading to a bias in the size of the communities they find and limiting their effectivness. To solve this problem, we propose adding a step to the existing algorithms that does not increase the order of their computational complexity. We show that, if this step is combined with a commonly used method, the identified constraint and resulting bias are removed, and its ability to find the optimal partitioning is improved. The effectiveness of this combined algorithm is also demonstrated by using it on real-world example networks. For a number of these examples, it achieves the best results of any known algorithm.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Search for rare or forbidden decays of the D0 meson

We present a search for nine lepton-number-violating and three lepton-flavor-violating neutral charm decays of the type D0→h'−h−ℓ'+ℓ+ and D0→h'−h+ℓ'±ℓ∓, where h and h′ represent a K or π meson and ℓ and ℓ′ an electron or muon. The analysis is based on 468 fb−1 of e+e− annihilation data collected at or close to the Υ(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. No significant signal is observed for any of the twelve modes, and we establish 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions in the range (1.0–30.6)×10−7. The limits are between 1 and 3 orders of magnitude more stringent than previous measurements.publishedVersio

Light meson spectroscopy from Dalitz plot analyses of ηc decays to η0 K+K− , η0 π + π − , and ηπ + π − produced in two-photon interactions

We study the processes γγ→ηc→η′K+K−, η′π+π−, and ηπ+π− using a data sample of 519  fb−1 recorded with the BABAR detector operating at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e− collider at center-of-mass energies at and near the Υ(nS) (n=2, 3, 4) resonances. This is the first observation of the decay ηc→η′K+K− and we measure the branching fraction Γ(ηc→η′K+K−)/(Γ(ηc→η′π+π−)=0.644±0.039stat±0.032sys. Significant interference is observed between γγ→ηc→ηπ+π− and the nonresonant two-photon process γγ→ηπ+π−. A Dalitz plot analysis is performed of ηc decays to η′K+K−, η′π+π−, and ηπ+π−. Combined with our previous analysis of ηc→K¯Kπ, we measure the K∗0(1430) parameters and the ratio between its η′K and πK couplings. The decay ηc→η′π+π− is dominated by the f0(2100) resonance, also observed in J/ψ radiative decays. A new a0(1700)→ηπ resonance is observed in the ηc→ηπ+π− channel. We also compare ηc decays to η and η′ final states in association with scalar mesons as they relate to the identification of the scalar glueball.publishedVersio

Measurements of the absolute branching fractions of B± →k±Xc c

A study of the two-body decays B±→Xc¯cK±, where Xc¯c refers to one charmonium state, is reported by the BABAR Collaboration using a data sample of 424 fb−1. The absolute determination of branching fractions for these decays are significantly improved compared to previous BABAR measurements. Evidence is found for the decay B+→X(3872)K+ at the 3σ level. The absolute branching fraction B[B+→X(3872)K+]=[2.1±0.6(stat)±0.3(syst)]×10−4 is measured for the first time. It follows that B[X(3872)→J/ψπ+π−]=(4.1±1.3)%, supporting the hypothesis of a molecular component for this resonance.publishedVersio

Five Lenses on Team Tutor Challenges: A Multidisciplinary Approach

This chapter describes five disciplinary domains of research or lenses that contribute to the design of a team tutor. We focus on four significant challenges in developing Intelligent Team Tutoring Systems (ITTSs), and explore how the five lenses can offer guidance for these challenges. The four challenges arise in the design of team member interactions, performance metrics and skill development, feedback, and tutor authoring. The five lenses or research domains that we apply to these four challenges are Tutor Engineering, Learning Sciences, Science of Teams, Data Analyst, and Human–Computer Interaction. This matrix of applications from each perspective offers a framework to guide designers in creating ITTSs