Magnifying image intensifier

A magnetically focused image intensifier was improved to increase the usable range of magnification without degradation of image quality. The power requirements of the focusing coils are minimal. The arrangement of the focusing coils reverses the direction of the axial magnetic field distribution between the planes of the photocathode and the phosphor screen

Case study: Selling affordable housing loans in the secondary market

Housing - Finance ; Mortgages

Institutional Racism

Much of the activity in the 1960s revolving about civil rights reflected the belief that racism was a personal flaw which could be corrected by the proper adjustment of federal laws to give substance to the promises of citizenship. George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Bull Connor all personified racism with their determined efforts to prevent blacks from achieving full citizenship rights and their excesses spurred them to action when it was believed that with the power of the federal government curbing the activities of a few die-hard racists discrimination would finally be conquered. The emphasis on personal attitudes obscured the deeply ingrained institutional views of race which had systematically discriminated against minority groups for decades. Correcting individual patterns of behavior, people believed, would also cure institutional practices since it was apparent to everyone that institutions were ultimately composed of people

Residential relocation in response to light rail transit investment: case study of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system

© 2016, The Author(s).It is widely acknowledged that the improved accessibility enabled by investment in public transport services can, under favorable market conditions, impact the local real estate market within the zone of influence of the service’s stations. The motivation for this study is to establish the nature of two such impacts, specifically the spatial and socio-economic patterns of residential relocations that are driven by the new light rail transit (LRT) service. Using empirical data (n = 1,023) from the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail system in New Jersey (US), we report findings regarding the impacts of the introduction of the new LRT service. We investigate two linked dimensions; the first is the distinctive socio-economic profile of LRT passengers who self-report having relocated to the new transit corridor due, at least in part, to the new transit service. The second is their proximity (following their residential relocation) to the new LRT line’s stations. We present a novel analysis that accounts for endogeneity between these two dimensions of residential relocation. Of light rail passengers who engaged in a residential relocation in the 5 years prior to the survey, two-thirds (69 %) indicate that proximity to the light rail service was a ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ important consideration. Via the multivariate analysis, we demonstrate that small household size, low income, youth (as opposed to older age), and low car ownership are each positively linked, ceteris paribus, with having engaged in a residential relocation motivated by the new transit service. Finally, higher household income is found to be associated with distance (after relocation) to the nearest transit station, which is consistent with bid-rent theory

Core dissolution and the dynamics of massive stars in young stellar clusters

We investigate the dynamical effects of rapid gas expulsion from the core of a young stellar cluster. The aims of this study are to determine 1) whether a mass-segregated core survives the gas expulsion and 2) the probable location of any massive stars that have escaped from the core. Feedback from massive stars is expected to remove the gas from the core of the cluster first, as that is where most massive stars are located. We find that gas expulsion has little effect on the core for a core star formation efficiency, of greater than 50%. For lower values of star formation efficiency down to 20%, a reduced core survives containing the majority of the massive stars while some of them are dispersed into the rest of the cluster. In fact we find that ejected stars migrate from radial to tangential orbits due to stellar encounters once they leave the core. Thus, the location of massive stars outside of the core does not exclude their forming in the dense cluster core. Few massive stars are expected to remain in the core for a star formation efficiency lower than 20%.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Declining Volatility in the U.S. Automobile Industry

This paper documents the dramatic changes in volatility that occurred in the U.S. auto industry in the early 1980s. Namely, output volatility declined significantly, the covariance of inventory investment and sales became much more negative, and adjustments to output, which in earlier decades stemmed primarily from plants hiring and laying off workers, were more often accomplished with changes in average hours per worker after the mid 1980s. Building on the work of Blanchard (1983), we show how all of these changes could have stemmed from one underlying factor%u2014a decline in the persistence of motor vehicle sales. We use both industry-level data as well as micro data on production schedules from 103 assembly plants in the United States and Canada to document the developments in the early 1980s. We then use the original Holt, Modigliani, Muth and Simon (1960) linear quadratic inventory model to show how a decline in the persistence of sales leads to all of the changes noted above, including the propensity to use intensive margins of adjustment over extensive labor margins, even in the absence of technological change.

Why Do Real and Nominal Inventory-Sales Ratios Have Different Trends

This note explains the diverging trends between real and nominal aggregate inventory-sales ratios. The combined effect of two features of the data explains the divergence. First, while aggregate sales include both goods and services, inventories include only goods. Second, there has been a strong secular decrease in the relative price of goods. The combination of these two factors causes the real and nominal aggregate inventory-sales ratios to have different trends.