Foreclosure, Federal Financial Institutions, and the Fortunes of Detroit's Middle- and Working-Class Neighborhoods.

During the U.S. foreclosure crisis, millions of homes were foreclosed, with many repossessed by the banks and federal agencies owning or insuring the unpaid mortgages. Prior research has found strong associations between foreclosures and negative neighborhood outcomes, including increased crime and diminished home values. These outcomes are attributed to foreclosures being vacant and inadequately maintained, increasing neighborhood blight and leading nearby homeowners to disinvest. Each of these mechanisms is influenced by the practices of the banks and federal agencies that repossessed foreclosed homes, but these institutions and their practices have not yet been the subject of sustained research. This dissertation addresses this gap by examining how the institutions responsible for repossessed mortgage foreclosures, known as real estate owned properties (REOs), manage their inventories in Detroit, which possessed one of the largest concentrations of REOs in the nation for several years. Using real estate transaction records for the Detroit tri-county area from 2005 to 2013, along with policy analysis and interviews, I examine what happened to REOs in Detroit and its suburbs. In this study, I compare what happened with REOs owned by federal agencies with those owned by private entities, as federal agencies possess a dual mandate to both quickly reduce inventory and stabilize neighborhoods. I compare federal agencies and private entities in terms of the share of sales they make to homebuyers and investors of different sizes, the length of time properties remain in REO, and impact current and former REOs have on nearby home values. I found that federal and private entities alike sold large numbers of Detroit homes to investors, many of whom were linked to code violations and tax delinquency. I also found that properties remained in HUD's inventory for lengthy periods, increasing the likelihood of deterioration. Further, I found that REOs owned by both federal and private entities were likely to harm home values. My findings indicate potential conflicts between federal agencies' dual mandates, with pressures to sell properties coming at the expense of neighborhood stabilization objectives. My findings also suggest that HUD's rules for conveying properties after foreclosure are linked to extended REO periods.PHDUrban and Regional PlanningUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135750/1/eseymour_1.pd

Toxic structures: Speculation and lead exposure in Detroit\u27s single-family rental market

Foreclosure sales permitted investors to purchase large volumes of low-cost residential properties after the last financial crisis, reshaping patterns of property ownership in low-income housing markets across the US. This study links post-foreclosure property acquisitions by investor-landlords to subsequent lead poisoning cases among children under age six living in Detroit, Michigan. We find that the odds of exhibiting elevated blood lead levels (≥ 5 μg/dL) are higher for children living in investor-owned homes purchased through tax foreclosure sale. These findings highlight the potential for property speculation in post-foreclosure housing markets to exacerbate severe and racialized burdens of excess lead toxicity in low-income communities

Clinical Practice Guidelines on Ordering Echocardiography Before Hip Fracture Repair Perform Differently from One Another

Background: Osteoporotic hip fractures typically occur in frail elderly patients with multiple comorbidities, and repair of the fracture within 48 h is recommended. Pre-operative evaluation sometimes involves transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) to screen for heart disease that would alter peri-operative management, yet TTE can delay surgery and is resource intensive. Evidence suggests that the use of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) can improve care. It is unclear which guidelines are most useful in hip fracture patients. Questions/Purposes: We sought to evaluate the performance of the five commonly used CPGs in determining which patients with acute fragility hip fracture require TTE and to identify common features among high-performing CPGs that could be incorporated into care pathways. Patients and Methods: We performed a retrospective study of medical records taken from an institutional database of osteoporotic hip fracture patients to identify those who underwent pre-operative TTE. History and physical examination findings were recorded; listed indications for TTE were compared against those given in five commonly used CPGs: those from the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA), the British Society of Echocardiography (BSE), the European Society of Cardiology and the European Society of Anaesthesiology(ESC/ESA), the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI), and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN). We then calculated the performance (sensitivity and specificity) of the CPGs in identifying patients with TTE results that had the potential to change peri-operative management. Results: We identified 100 patients who underwent pre-operative TTE. Among those, the patients met criteria for TTE 32 to 66% of the time, depending on the CPG used. In 14% of those receiving TTE, the test revealed new information with the potential to change management. The sensitivity of the CPGs ranged from 71% (ESC/ESA and AAGBI) to 100% (ACC/AHA and SIGN). The CPGs\u27 specificity ranged from 37% (BSE) to 74% (ESC/ESA). The more sensitive guidelines focused on a change in clinical status in patients with known disease or clinical concern regarding new-onset disease. Conclusions: In patients requiring fixation of osteoporotic hip fractures, TTE can be useful for identifying pathologies that could directly change peri-operative management. Our data suggest that established CPGs can be safely used to identify which patients should undergo pre-operative TTE with low risk of missed pathology

A Teaching System To Learn Programming: the Programmer's Learning Machine

International audienceThe Programmer's Learning Machine (PLM) is an interactive exerciser for learning programming and algorithms. Using an integrated and graphical environment that provides a short feedback loop, it allows students to learn in a (semi)-autonomous way. This generic platform also enables teachers to create specific programming microworlds that match their teaching goals. This paper discusses our design goals and motivations, introduces the existing material and the proposed microworlds, and details the typical use cases from the student and teacher point of views

Large-Scale Automatic Reconstruction of Neuronal Processes from Electron Microscopy Images

Automated sample preparation and electron microscopy enables acquisition of very large image data sets. These technical advances are of special importance to the field of neuroanatomy, as 3D reconstructions of neuronal processes at the nm scale can provide new insight into the fine grained structure of the brain. Segmentation of large-scale electron microscopy data is the main bottleneck in the analysis of these data sets. In this paper we present a pipeline that provides state-of-the art reconstruction performance while scaling to data sets in the GB-TB range. First, we train a random forest classifier on interactive sparse user annotations. The classifier output is combined with an anisotropic smoothing prior in a Conditional Random Field framework to generate multiple segmentation hypotheses per image. These segmentations are then combined into geometrically consistent 3D objects by segmentation fusion. We provide qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the automatic segmentation and demonstrate large-scale 3D reconstructions of neuronal processes from a $\mathbf{27,000}$ $\mathbf{\mu m^3}$ volume of brain tissue over a cube of $\mathbf{30 \; \mu m}$ in each dimension corresponding to 1000 consecutive image sections. We also introduce Mojo, a proofreading tool including semi-automated correction of merge errors based on sparse user scribbles

MIPS 24 Micron Observations of the Hubble Deep Field South: Probing the IR-Radio Correlation of Galaxies at z > 1

We present MIPS 24 micron observations of the Hubble Deep Field South taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The resulting image is 254 arcmin^2 in size and has a sensitivity ranging between ~12 to ~30 microJy rms, with a median sensitivity of ~20 microJy rms. A total of 495 sources have been cataloged with a signal-to-noise ratio greater than 5 sigma. The source catalog is presented as well as source counts which have been corrected for completeness and flux boosting. The IR sources are then combined with MUSYC optical/NIR and ATHDFS radio observations to obtain redshifts and radio flux densities of the sample. We use the IR/radio flux density ratio (q_24) to explore the IR-radio correlation for this IR sample and find q_24 = 0.71 +- 0.31 for sources detected in both IR and radio. The results are extended by stacking IR sources not detected in the radio observations and we derive an average q_24 for redshift bins between 0 1) sources have an average q_{24} ratio which is better fit by local LIRG SEDs rather than local ULIRG SEDs, indicating that high redshift ULIRGs differ in their IR/radio properties. So ULIRGs at high redshift have SEDs different from those found locally. Infrared faint radio sources are examined, and while nine radio sources do not have a MIPS detection and are therefore radio-loud AGN, only one radio source has an extreme IRAC 3.6 micron to radio flux density ratio indicating it is a radio-loud AGN at z > 1.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Ap