Ion microprobe mass spectrometer for analyzing fluid materials Patent

Ion microprobe mass spectrometer with cooled electrode target for analyzing traces of fluid

Device for measuring light scattering wherein the measuring beam is successively reflected between a pair of parallel reflectors Patent

Coherent light beam device and method for measuring gas density in vacuum chamber

Leak detector wherein a probe is monitored with ultraviolet radiation Patent

Gas leak detection in evacuated systems using ultraviolet radiation prob

A critique of the econometrics of happiness: Are we underestimating the returns to education and income?

A large "happiness", or life satisfaction, literature in economics makes use of Likert-like scales in assessing survey respondents' cognitive evaluations of their lives. These measures are being used to estimate economic benefits in every empirical field of economics. Typically, analysis of these data have shown remarkably low direct returns of education for improving subjective well-being. In addition, arguably, the inferred impact of material wealth and income using this method is also unexpectedly low as compared with other, social factors, and as compared with economists' prior expectations which underlie, in some sense, support for using GDP as a proxy for more general quality of life goals. Discrete response scales used ubiquitously for the reporting of life satisfaction pose cognitive challenges to survey respondents, so differing cognitive abilities result in different uses of the scale, and thus potential bias in statistical inference. This problem has so far gone unnoticed. An overlooked feature of the distribution of responses to life satisfaction questions is that they exhibit certain enhancements at focal values, in particular at 0, 5, and 10 on the eleven-point scale. In this paper, I investigate the reasons for, and implications of, these response patterns. I use a model to account for the focal-value behavior using a latent variable approach to capture the "internal" cognitive evaluation before it is translated to the discrete scale of a survey question. This approach, supported by other more heuristic ones, finds a significant upward correction for the effects of both education and income on life satisfaction

Measurement of upper atmosphere helium profile Final report

Mass spectrometer for measuring helium and hydrogen profiles in upper atmosphere, to be used with Javelin sounding rocke

Instantaneous monitoring of multicomponent expired gases

Expired air analyzers with time-of-flight and magnetic deflection mass spectrometers for spacecraft us

Veblen goods and neighbourhoods: endogenising consumption reference groups

One of the significant developments in the last four decades of economics is the growing empirical evidence that individual consumption preferences, as mea- sured by self-reported life satisfaction, are neither fixed nor self-centred but are instead overwhelmingly dominated by externalities, partly in the form of reference levels set by others and by one’s own experience. Welfare analysis recognising this fact is likely to indicate enormous revisions for macroeconomic policy and social objectives as well as for what is taught in economics at all levels. Yet the task of constructing general equilibrium models based on this microeconomic re- ality is still in its infancy. In this work I take the conventional stance that decision makers understand their own utility function. Therefore, they can choose the mi- lieu in which they immerse themselves with the sophisticated understanding that it will affect their own consumption reference levels and therefore the degree of satisfaction they derive from their private consumption. At the same time, their private consumption will help to set the reference level for others in their chosen group. I treat theoretically the problem of such endogenous formation of consump- tion reference groups in the context of a simultaneous choice of neighbourhoods and home consumption amongst a heterogenous population. For both discrete and continuous distributions of types, I find general equilibrium outcomes in which differentiation of neighbourhoods occurs endogenously and I compare the welfare implications of growth in such economies.reference income; veblen goods; consumption reference groups; club goods

Sorption vacuum trap

Modified sorption trap for use in high vacuum systems contains provisions for online regeneration of sorbent material. Trap is so constructed that it has a number of encapsulated resistance heaters and a valving and pumping device for removing gases from heated sorbing material. Excessive downtime is eliminated with this trap