Housing policy and the social benefits of home ownership.

In the second article, "Housing Policy and the Social Benefits of Homeownership," Ed Coulson states that the major subsidies to homeownership arise from the U.S. tax code, and the costs of these subsidies are high. Coulson asks whether the social benefits from homeownership are sufficient to warrant such subsidies. To answer the question, he reviews the research on the social benefits of ownership and some related issues. The evidence indicates that homeownership does carry substantial social benefits, but their dollar value remains uncertain.Housing

Optimal Drug Policy in Low-Income Neighborhoods

Part of the debate over the control of drug activity in cities is concerned with the effectiveness of implementing demand- versus supply-side drug policies. This paper is motivated by the relative lack of research providing formal economic underpinning for the implementation of either policy. We construct a simple model of drug activity, in which the drug price and the distribution of population in a community are determined according to a career choice rule and a predetermined drug demand. Three potential government objectives are considered. We find that both demand- and supply-side policies have theoretical support under different community conditions. While the demand-side policy discourages active drug sellers, the supply-side policy has an additional drug-dealing replacement effect on inducing potential entry of drug dealers. In low-income neighborhoods, demand-side policy is more effective if the drug problem is more sever or if the government objective is to deter dealer entry or to promote community's aggregate income rather than minimizing active drug selling.

Characterization, cloning and immunogenicity of antigens released by transforming cercariae of Schistosoma mansoni

A schistosome infection is initiated when the parasite penetrates the skin of a susceptible host. Relatively large quantities of protein are released by transforming cercariae compared to later larval stages. This represents the first parasite material to which the host's immune system is exposed, yet little is known about the proteins which are released during the first few hours post-transformation. We have shown that antiserum raised against such molecules was capable of imparting protection against a schistosome challenge infection upon passive transfer to naïve mice. By screening a cercarial cDNA library with this serum, 38 positive clones were identified. Sequence analysis showed these to represent 8 different molecules which included Schistosoma mansoni 21·7 kDa antigen, calcium-binding-protein and the vaccine candidate glutathione S-transferase (Sm28GST). In addition, 5 clones were isolated, 1 of which had significant homology to many cytochrome C proteins, another with leukocyte elastase inhibitors and 3 which represented novel molecules. Four clones were expressed in a prokaryotic high-level expression vector, sera produced against each purified recombinant protein and used subsequently to probe Western blots and parasite sections. The leukocyte elastase inhibitor homologue and 2 unknowns induced significant proliferation by lymph node cells recovered from mice vaccinated with irradiated cercariae. More strikingly, the 2 novel proteins stimulated very high levels of interferon [gamma] (IFN[gamma]) secretion both by lymph node cells and those recovered by broncho-alveolar lavage from the lungs of vaccinated mice. Such results will be discussed in the context of vaccine development

Non-Cointegration and Econometric Evaluation of Models of Regional Shift and Share

This paper tests for cointegration between regional output of an industry and national output of the same industry. An equilibrium economic theory is presented to argue for the plausibility of cointegration, however, regional economic forecasting using the shift and share framework often acts as if cointegration does not exist. Data analysis on broad industrial sectors for 20 states finds very little evidence for cointegration. Forecasting models with and without imposing cointegration are than constructed and used to forecast out of sample. The simplest, non-cointegrating models are the best.

Interface familiarity restores active advantage in a virtual exploration and reconstruction task in children.

Active exploration is reportedly better than passive observation of spatial displacements in real environments, for the acquisition of relational spatial information, especially by children. However, a previous study using a virtual environment (VE) showed that children in a passive observation condition performed better than actives when asked to reconstruct in reality the environment explored virtually. Active children were unpractised in using the input device, which may have detracted from any active advantage, since input device operation may be regarded as a concurrent task, increasing cognitive load and spatial working memory demands. To examine this possibility, 7-8-year-old children in the present study were given 5 minutes of training with the joystick input device. When compared with passive participants for spatial learning, active participants gave a better performance than passives, placing objects significantly more accurately. The importance of interface training when using VEs for assessment and training was discussed

The effects of label design characteristics on perceptions of genetically modified food

Objective. To explore the effects on perceptions of labelling food for genetically modified content. Background: there is increasing public pressure for the compulsory labelling of genetically modified food content on all food products, and yet little is known about how the design and content of such food labels will influence product perceptions. The current research draws upon warning label research - a field in which the effect of label design manipulations on perceptions of, and responses to, potential or perceived risks is well documented. Method. Two experiments are reported that investigate how label design features influence the perception of genetically modified foods. The effects of label colour (red, blue and green), wording style (definitive vs. probabilistic and explicit vs. non-explicit) and information source (government agency, consumer group and manufacturer) on hazard perceptions and purchase intentions were measured. Results. Hazard perceptions and purchase intentions were both influenced by label design characteristics in predictable ways. Any reference to genetic modification, even if the label is stating that the product is free of genetically modified ingredients, increased hazard perception, and decreased purchase intentions, relative to a no-label condition. Conclusion. Label design effects generalise from warning label research to influence the perception of genetically modified foods in predictable ways. Application. The design of genetically modified food labels. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Adaptive microservice scaling for elastic applications

Today, Internet users expect web applications to be fast, performant and always available. With the emergence of Internet of Things, data collection and the analysis of streams have become more and more challenging. Behind the scenes, application owners and cloud service providers work to meet these expectations, yet, the problem of how to most effectively and efficiently auto-scale a web application to optimise for performance whilst reducing costs and energy usage is still a challenge. In particular, this problem has new relevance due to the continued rise of Internet of Things and microservice based architectures. A key concern, that is often not addressed by current auto-scaling systems, is the decision on which microservice to scale in order to increase performance. Our aim is to design a prototype auto-scaling system for microservice based web applications which can learn from past service experience. The contributions of the work can be divided into two parts (a) developing a pipeline for microservice auto-scaling and (b) evaluating a hybrid sequence and supervised learning model for recommending scaling actions. The pipeline has proven to be an effective platform for exploring auto-scaling solutions, as we will demonstrate through the evaluation of our proposed hybrid model. The results of hybrid model show the merit of using a supervised model to identify which microservices should be scaled up more

The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker\u27s Role in the Southern Pine Ecosystem, Population Trends and Relationships with Southern Pine Beetles

This study reviews the overall ecological role of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis)in the southern pine ecosystem. It is the only North American woodpecker species to become well adapted to a landscape that was relatively devoid of the substrate typically used by woodpeckers for cavity excavation (i.e. snags and decayed, living hardwoods). Its adaptation to use living pines for cavity excavation has expanded the use of this fire-disclimax ecosystem for numerous other cavity-using species. As such, the Red-cockaded Woodpecker represents an important keystone species of fire-disclimax pine ecosystems of the South. Historically, populations of this woodpecker and other cavity dependent species decreased dramatically with the logging of the southern pine forests between 1870 and 1930. Woodpecker populations continued to decline into the 1980s as a result of inadequate old-growth pine habitat, and suppression of fire which permitted encroachment of hardwoods into the previously pine-dominated ecosystem. Management practices initiated after 1988 have resulted in woodpecker population increases on Texas national forests. Cavity-tree mortality and southern pine beetle (Dendrocconus frontalis) infestation of cavity trees on the Angelina National Forest in eastern Texas were studied from 1983 through 1996. The intensive management activities initiated to stabilize severely declining woodpecker populations in 1989 may have increased beetle infestation rates of cavity trees in loblolly (Pinus taeda) and shortleaf (Pinus echinata) pine habitat resulting in a net loss of cavity trees over the past seven years. Initial results suggest that beetle-caused mortality of cavity trees may be related in part to ambient southern pine beetle population levels in surrounding forest stands