Given Credit Management Behavior, what effect does educational debt have on mortgage approval timetables?

Educational debt in the United States is a major concern as many young people enroll in undergraduate institutions beyond their financial means and the gap between the cost of an education and family income widens. Research suggests that an individual’s level of educational debt will have an effect on their financial future, but measuring the extent of damage incurred is much more difficult and needs further examination. This paper analyzes the relationship between the level of educational debt at graduation and time between graduation and home mortgage approval. This paper also examines the relationship between credit management behavior and mortgage approval. This study finds that educational debt does not have a significant effect on mortgage approval timetables. This paper also reports that credit management behavior has a significant effect on a person’s approval timetable and that bad credit management behavior increases the period between graduation and mortgage approval

On the origins of consorting laws

AbstractConsorting laws have piqued the attention of Australian legislatures. In the last year alone, two states have re-enacted these offences, which criminalise repeated association with criminals. Such measures, though, have a pedigree stretching over seven centuries. This article offers an historical analysis of consorting offences, placing them in the context of a long line of statutes that criminalised the act of associating with undesirable classes of people. It traces their emergence from the beginnings of English vagrancy legislation in the late-mediaeval period, to early attempts in the Australasian colonies to suppress inchoate criminality, and then to 20th century efforts to tackle organised criminal activities. What emerges is that consorting offences are neither a modern phenomenon nor one restricted to the antipodes

Cluster Algebras and the Subalgebra Constructibility of the Seven-Particle Remainder Function

We review various aspects of cluster algebras and the ways in which they appear in the study of loop-level amplitudes in planar ${\cal N} = 4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. In particular, we highlight the different forms of cluster-algebraic structure that appear in this theory's two-loop MHV amplitudes---considered as functions, symbols, and at the level of their Lie cobracket---and recount how the `nonclassical' part of these amplitudes can be decomposed into specific functions evaluated on the $A_2$ or $A_3$ subalgebras of Gr$(4,n)$. We then extend this line of inquiry by searching for other subalgebras over which these amplitudes can be decomposed. We focus on the case of seven-particle kinematics, where we show that the nonclassical part of the two-loop MHV amplitude is also constructible out of functions evaluated on the $D_5$ and $A_5$ subalgebras of Gr$(4,7)$, and that these decompositions are themselves decomposable in terms of the same $A_4$ function. These nested decompositions take an especially canonical form, which is dictated in each case by constraints arising from the automorphism group of the parent algebra.Comment: 68 pages, 7 figures, 6 table

Global regularity of three-dimensional Ricci limit spaces

In their recent work [ST17], Miles Simon and the second author established a local bi-Hölder correspondence between weakly noncollapsed Ricci limit spaces in three dimensions and smooth manifolds. In particular, any open ball of finite radius in such a limit space must be bi-Hölder homeomorphic to some open subset of a complete smooth Riemannian three-manifold. In this work we build on the technology from [ST16, ST17] to improve this local correspondence to a global-local correspondence. That is, we construct a smooth three-manifold M, and prove that the entire (weakly) noncollapsed three-dimensional Ricci limit space is homeomorphic to M via a globally-defined homeomorphism that is bi-Hölder once restricted to any compact subset. Here the bi-Hölder regularity is with respect to the distance dg on M, where g is any smooth complete metric on M. A key step in our proof is the construction of local pyramid Ricci flows, existing on uniform regions of spacetime, that are inspired by Hochard’s partial Ricci flows [Hoc16]. Suppose (M, g0, x0) is a complete smooth pointed Riemannian three-manifold that is (weakly) noncollapsed and satisfies a lower Ricci bound. Then, given any k ∈ N, we construct a smooth Ricci flow g(t) living on a subset of spacetime that contains, for each j ∈ {1, . . . , k}, a cylinder Bg0 (x0, j) × [0, Tj ], where Tj is dependent only on the Ricci lower bound, the (weakly) noncollapsed volume lower bound and the radius j (in particular independent of k) and with the property that g(0) = g0 throughout Bg0 (x0, k).</p

How soccer players head the ball: a test of optic acceleration cancellation theory with virtual reality

We measured the movements of soccer players heading a football in a fully immersive virtual reality environment. In mid-flight the ball’s trajectory was altered from its normal quasi-parabolic path to a linear one, producing a jump in the rate of change of the angle of elevation of gaze (α) from player to ball. One reaction time later the players adjusted their speed so that the rate of change of α increased when it had been reduced and reduced it when it had been increased. Since the result of the player’s movement was to regain a value of the rate of change close to that before the disturbance, the data suggest that the players have an expectation of, and memory for, the pattern that the rate of change of α will follow during the flight. The results support the general claim that players intercepting balls use servo control strategies and are consistent with the particular claim of Optic Acceleration Cancellation theory that the servo strategy is to allow α to increase at a steadily decreasing rate

Toward gas-phase controlled mass transfer in micro-porous membrane contactors for recovery and concentration of dissolved methane in the gas phase

A micro-porous hollow fibre membrane contactor (HFMC) operated in sweep-gas mode has been studied to enable the recovery of dissolved methane from water in concentrated form. At high sweep-gas flow rates, up to 97% dissolved methane removal efficiency is achievable which is sufficient to achieve carbon neutrality (around 88%). An increase in methane composition of the recovered sweep-gas was achievable through two primary mechanisms: (i) an increase in liquid velocity which improved dissolved methane mass transfer into the gas phase; and (ii) a reduction in gas flow which lowered dilution from the receiving gas phase. It was posited that further refinement of the methane content was provided through counter-diffusion of the nitrogen sweep-gas into the liquid phase. Within the boundary conditions studied, the methane composition of the recovered gas phase exceeded the threshold for use in micro-turbines for electricity production. However, reducing the gas-to-liquid ratio to enhance gas phase methane purity introduced gas-phase controlled mass transfer which constrained removal efficiency. Whilst this reduction in removal efficiency can be compensated for by extending path length (i.e. more than one module in series), it is suggested that the gas-phase controlled conditions encountered were also a product of poor shell-side dispersion rather than an approach toward the limiting theoretical gas-to-liquid ratio. This implies that further optimisation can be ascertained through improved membrane contactor design. Importantly, this study demonstrates that micro-porous hollow fibre membrane contactors provide a compact process for recovery of dissolved methane in sufficient concentration for re-use

Biogas upgrading by chemical absorption using ammonia rich absorbents derived from wastewater

The use of ammonia (NH3) rich wastewaters as an ecological chemical absorption solvent for the selective extraction of carbon dioxide (CO2) during biogas upgrading to ‘biomethane’ has been studied. Aqueous ammonia absorbents of up to 10,000 gNH3 m−3 demonstrated CO2 absorption rates higher than recorded in the literature for packed columns using 20,000–80,000 g NH3 m−3 which can be ascribed to the process intensification provided by the hollow fibre membrane contactor used in this study to support absorption. Centrifuge return liquors (2325 g m−3 ionised ammonium, NH4+) and a regenerant (477 gNH4+ m−3) produced from a cationic ion exchanger used to harvest NH4+ from crude wastewater were also tested. Carbon dioxide fluxes measured for both wastewaters compared reasonably with analogue ammonia absorption solvents of equivalent NH3 concentration. Importantly, this demonstrates that ammonia rich wastewaters can facilitate chemically enhanced CO2 separation which eliminates the need for costly exogenic chemicals or complex chemical handling which are critical barriers to implementation of chemical absorption. When testing NH3 analogues, the potential to recover the reaction product ammonium bicarbonate (NH4HCO3) in crystalline form was also illustrated. This is significant as it suggests a new pathway for ammonia separation which avoids biological nitrification and produces ammonia stabilised into a commercially viable fertiliser (NH4HCO3). However, in real ammonia rich wastewaters, sodium bicarbonate and calcium carbonate were preferentially formed over NH4HCO3 although it is proposed that NH4HCO3 can be preferentially formed by manipulating both ion exchange and absorbent chemistry

Quantifying the loss of methane through secondary gas mass transport (or 'slip') from a micro-porous membrane contactor applied to biogas upgrading

Secondary gas transport during the separation of a binary gas with a micro-porous hollow fibre membrane contactor (HMFC) has been studied for biogas upgrading. In this application, the loss or ‘slip' of the secondary gas (methane) during separation is a known concern, specifically since methane possesses the intrinsic calorific value. Deionised (DI) water was initially used as the physical solvent. Under these conditions, carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) absorption were dependent upon liquid velocity (VL). Whilst the highest CO2 flux was recorded at high VL, selectivity towards CO2 declined due to low residence times and a diminished gas-side partial pressure, and resulted in slip of approximately 5.2% of the inlet methane. Sodium hydroxide was subsequently used as a comparative chemical absorption solvent. Under these conditions, CO2 mass transfer increased by increasing gas velocity (VG) which is attributed to the excess of reactive hydroxide ions present in the solvent, and the fast conversion of dissolved CO2 to carbonate species reinitiating the concentration gradient at the gas-liquid interface. At high gas velocities, CH4 slip was reduced to 0.1% under chemical conditions. Methane slip is therefore dependent upon whether the process is gas phase or liquid phase controlled, since methane mass transport can be adequately described by Henry's law within both physical and chemical solvents. The addition of an electrolyte was found to further retard CH4 absorption via the salting out effect. However, their applicability to physical solvents is limited since electrolytic concentration similarly impinges upon the solvents' capacity for CO2. This study illustrates the significance of secondary gas mass transport, and furthermore demonstrates that gas-phase controlled systems are recommended where greater selectivity is required