ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION IN RURAL VS. URBAN AREAS

Average Winter electricity consumption for rural residents in Utah is significantly greater than for those living in urban areas. Based on data from a 1980 survey of Utah residents, this rural-urban consumption differential was investigated using multiple regression analysis. It was determined that the stock of electricity-using devices, climate, and demographic characteristics were the most important determinants of variations in household electricity consumption. The hypothesis that rural residents use electricity-consuming devices more intensively than their urban counterparts was rejected.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Decimalization and market liquidity

This study examines the stocks of 1, 339 companies that began decimal trading on the NYSE on January 29, 2001. Using the price impact of a trade as a measure of liquidity, the author finds that decimalization typically led to an improvement in liquidity.Liquidity (Economics) ; Stock market ; Stocks

Earnings announcements, private information, and liquidity

In this article, the author examines how the price impact of a trade varies throughout the days surrounding public earnings announcements. The results indicate that public news releases correlate with a reduction in the price impact of a trade on the day of the announcementLiquidity (Economics) ; Securities ; Trade

Reduction of nitric oxide emissions from a combustor

A turbojet combustor and method for controlling nitric oxide emissions by employing successive combustion zones is described. After combustion of an initial portion of the fuel in a primary combustion zone, the combustion products of the primary zone are combined with the remaining portion of fuel and additional plenum air and burned in a secondary combustion zone under conditions that result in low nitric oxide emissions. Low nitric oxide emissions are achieved by a novel turbojet combustor arrangement which provides flame stability by allowing stable combustion to be accompanied by low nitric oxide emissions resulting from controlled fuel-lean combustion (ignited by the emission products from the primary zone) in a secondary combustion zone at a lower combustion temperature resulting in low emission of nitric oxide

Characterizing bean pod rot in Arkansas and Missouri

Green beans are an important crop grown for processing in both Arkansas and Missouri. Green beans are harvested mechanically using non-selective picking fingers. Harvested beans are then transported in bulk to processing plants that are located at various locations throughout the midSouth. Thus, the crop is managed for high quality, avoiding pod blemishes caused by insects and diseases. One of the consistent quality problems that affect Arkansas and Missouri green bean crops is pod rot. Two of the causal agents of pod rot that have been reported by researchers and vegetable companies alike are Pythium aphanidermatum and an unidentified Phytophthora sp. In this study, 15 growers’ fields were selected and soil samples (at planting), pod samples (at harvest), and environmental data were taken from each field. Disease incidence for field sites ranged from 0 to 7.3%. Pathogens associated with pod rot were Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Rhizoctonia solani, a Phytophthora sp., and Pythium spp. The two suspected causal agents for pod rot, Pythium and Phytophthora spp., were found in all but one of the 12 field sites assessed for pod rot. Pythium inoculum potential, as determined by a baiting technique, was not a good indicator of pod rot incidence. In addition, soil temperature and water were not associated with pod rot. Pods collected at harvest having symptoms of pod rot were either in direct contact with the soil, senescing leaf tissue, or other diseased pods

Online and offline heuristics for inferring hierarchies of repetitions in sequences

Hierarchical dictionary-based compression schemes form a grammar for a text by replacing each repeated string with a production rule. While such schemes usually operate online, making a replacement as soon as repetition is detected, offline operation permits greater freedom in choosing the order of replacement. In this paper, we compare the online method with three offline heuristics for selecting the next substring to replace: longest string first, most common string first, and the string that minimized the size of the grammar locally. Surprisingly, two of the offline techniques, like the online method, run in time linear in the size of the input. We evaluate each technique on artificial and natural sequences. In general, the locally-most-compressive heuristic performs best, followed by most frequent, the online technique, and, lagging by some distance, the longest-first technique

Detecting sequential structure

Programming by demonstration requires detection and analysis of sequential patterns in a user’s input, and the synthesis of an appropriate structural model that can be used for prediction. This paper describes SEQUITUR, a scheme for inducing a structural description of a sequence from a single example. SEQUITUR integrates several different inference techniques: identification of lexical subsequences or vocabulary elements, hierarchical structuring of such subsequences, identification of elements that have equivalent usage patterns, inference of programming constructs such as looping and branching, generalisation by unifying grammar rules, and the detection of procedural substructure., Although SEQUITUR operates with abstract sequences, a number of concrete illustrations are provided