Predatory Profiling: The Role of Race and Ethnicity in the Location of Payday Lenders in California

In California and elsewhere, African Americans and Latinos make up a disproportionate share of payday loan borrowers. CRL's analysis reveals that the racial and ethnic composition of a neighborhood is the primary predictor of payday lending locations, while playing a very minimal role in explaining the variation in the location of bank branches. As a result, payday lending storefronts are most heavily concentrated in African American and Latino communities. By contrast, the location of mainstream financial service providers such as banks can be largely explained by supply and demand factors such as the presenceof retail space

Reforming 529 College Savings Plans to Better Reach Low-Income Families

Reforming 529 College Savings Plans to Better Reach Low-Income Familie

Section 529 Savings Plans, Access to Post-Secondary Education, and Universal Asset Building

Section 529 Savings Plans, Access to Post-Secondary Education, and Universal Asset Buildin

State Policy Options for Building Assets

State Policy Options for Building Asset

Love and Low Serotonin

The following is a novella that depicts a young man and woman in search of differing goals, but the essence of their goals does have something in common: each of their pursuits, if obtained, allows for self-control and recovered lifestyle. However, their lives are far from average throughout the story. Themes such as bulimia, drug use, loveless sex, voyeurism, lucid dreaming and emergency room healthcare are explored in the form of fiction. Both of the main characters in this story explore their world with a measure of obsession, and like any worthy character, their obsessions transform into decisions and actions that highlight aspects of society and psychology; in this case it is American college culture and youthful minds. It is up to the reader to become an explorer also. S/he may turn the pages with an objective mind, or with a sympathetic one. Either will be presented with the same questions: questions concerning self-image, companionship, healthcare socioeconomics, and deviant behavior

Planet Hunters VII. Discovery of a New Low-Mass, Low-Density Planet (PH3 c) Orbiting Kepler-289 with Mass Measurements of Two Additional Planets (PH3 b and d)

We report the discovery of one newly confirmed planet ($P=66.06$ days, $R_{\rm{P}}=2.68\pm0.17R_\oplus$) and mass determinations of two previously validated Kepler planets, Kepler-289 b ($P=34.55$ days, $R_{\rm{P}}=2.15\pm0.10R_\oplus$) and Kepler-289-c ($P=125.85$ days, $R_{\rm{P}}=11.59\pm0.10R_\oplus$), through their transit timing variations (TTVs). We also exclude the possibility that these three planets reside in a $1:2:4$ Laplace resonance. The outer planet has very deep ($\sim1.3$), high signal-to-noise transits, which puts extremely tight constraints on its host star's stellar properties via Kepler's Third Law. The star PH3 is a young ($\sim1$ Gyr as determined by isochrones and gyrochronology), Sun-like star with $M_*=1.08\pm0.02M_\odot$, $R_*=1.00\pm0.02R_\odot$, and $T_{\rm{eff}}=5990\pm38$ K. The middle planet's large TTV amplitude ($\sim5$ hours) resulted either in non-detections or inaccurate detections in previous searches. A strong chopping signal, a shorter period sinusoid in the TTVs, allows us to break the mass-eccentricity degeneracy and uniquely determine the masses of the inner, middle, and outer planets to be $M=7.3\pm6.8M_\oplus$, $4.0\pm0.9M_\oplus$, and $M=132\pm17M_\oplus$, which we designate PH3 b, c, and d, respectively. Furthermore, the middle planet, PH3 c, has a relatively low density, $\rho=1.2\pm0.3$ g/cm$^3$ for a planet of its mass, requiring a substantial H/He atmosphere of $2.1^{+0.8}_{-0.3}$ by mass, and joins a growing population of low-mass, low-density planets.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, 5 tables, accepted into Ap

Too close for comfort: spatial patterns in acorn barnacle populations

Spatial patterns in aggregations form as a result of the interplay between costs and benefits experienced by individuals. Such self-organisation of aggregations can be explained using a zonal model in which a short-range zone of repulsion and longer-range zone of attraction surrounding individuals leads to emergent pattern properties. The signal of these processes can be detected using spatial pattern analyses. Furthermore, in sessile organisms, post-settlement mortality reveals the relative costs and benefits of positions within the aggregation. Acorn barnacles are known to require contact with conspecifics for reproduction and are therefore believed to aggregate for this purpose; isolated individuals may also be more susceptible to abiotic stress and predation. At short distances, however, competition for space and resources is likely to occur. In this study spatial patterns of barnacles (Semibalanus balanoides L.) were analysed using pair-correlation functions. Individuals were dispersed at distances below 0.30 cm, but peak relative density occurred at a distance of 0.36 cm from conspecifics. This is much closer than required for reproductive access, implying a strong aggregative drive, up to the point of physical contact with neighbours. Nevertheless, analysis of dead barnacles illustrated that such proximity carries a cost as barnacles with many neighbours were more likely to have died. The inferences obtained from these patterns are that barnacles aggregate as closely as they can, and that local neighbourhood competition is a powerful determinant of mortality. These processes give rise to the observed pattern properties

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure