Banking deregulation

Banking law ; Regulation Q: Prohibition Against Payment of Interest on Demand Deposits ; Interest rates ; Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980

The effect of Proposition 13 on California municipal debt

Municipal finance - California ; California ; Property tax ; Taxation - California

Bank capital risk in the post-1979 monetary and regulatory environment

Bank capital ; Risk

Accounting for financial futures

Futures ; Banks and banking - Accounting ; Financial Accounting Standards Board

A net export-led downturn?

Exports ; Germany ; Japan

Molecular column densities in selected model atmospheres

From an examination of predicted column densities, the following conclusions were drawn: (1) The SiO ought to be visible in carbon stars which were generated from triple alpha burning, but absent from carbon stars generated from the CNO bi-cycle. (2) Variation in the observed relative strengths of TiO and ZrO is indicative of real differences in the ratio Ti/Zr. (3) The TiO/ZrO ratio shows a small variation as C/O and effective temperature is changed. (4) Column density of silicon dicarbide (SiC2) is sensitive to abundance, temperature, and gravity; hence all relationships between the strength of SiC2 and other stellar parameters will show appreciable scatter. There is however, a substantial luminosity effect present in the SiC2 column densities. (5) Unexpectedly, SiC2 is anti-correlated with C2. (6) The presence of SiC2 in a carbon star eliminates the possibility of these stars having temperatures greater than or equal to 3000 K, or being produced through the CNO bi-cycle

Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Fields: A New Stimulus to Activate Intracellular Signaling

When new technologies are introduced into the sci-entific community, controversy is expected and both ex-citement and disappointment enrich the lives of those who initiate the new ideas. It becomes the mission of the “inventors ” to embrace the burden of proof to estab-lish their ideas and convince the skeptics and disbeliev-ers who will undoubtedly temper their enthusiasm and test their patience. While open mindedness is generally a scientific motto, those who review patents, manuscripts, and grants do not always readily practice it, even when the evidence is convincingly presented; old ideas and concepts often die hard. So it has been and still is in many instances as engineers, physicists, biologists, and physicians pursue innovative ideas and novel technolo-gies. So what is “Bioelectrics”? It is the application of ultra-short pulsed electric fields to biological cells, tissues, and organs. More specifically, it is the analysis of how these bi-ological systems respond to high electric fields (10–100 s of kV/cm) when applied with nanosecond (1–300) dura-tions. Compressing electrical energy by means of pulsed power techniques allows the generation of ultrashort (bil-lionth of a second) electrical pulses [1]. Because the pulses are so short the energy density is quite low and there-fore nonthermal. However, the power is extremely high generating billions of watts. This can be compared to a coal power plant, which generates less than billion watts, but does it continuously. For example, for a 10 ns, 40 kV, 10Ω pulse generator, the power provided by the pulse is 160MW, however, the energy is only 1.6 J. Depositing thi

1.57 μm InGaAsP/InP surface emitting lasers by angled focus ion beam etching

The characteristics of 1.57 μm InGaAsP/InP surface emitting lasers based on an in-plan ridged structure and 45° beam deflectors defined by angled focused ion beam (FIB) etching are reported. With an externally integrated beam deflector, threshold currents and emission spectra identical to conventional edge emitting lasers are achieved. These results show that FIB etching is a very promising technique for the definition of high quality mirrors and beam deflectors on semiconductor heterostructures for a variety of integrated optoelectronic devices

Ultranarrow conducting channels defined in GaAs-AlGaAs by low-energy ion damage

We have laterally patterned the narrowest conducting wires of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) material reported to date. The depletion induced by low-energy ion etching of GaAs-AlGaAs 2DEG structures was used to define narrow conducting channels. We employed high voltage electron beam lithography to create a range of channel geometries with widths as small as 75 nm. Using ion beam assisted etching by Cl2 gas and Ar ions with energies as low as 150 eV, conducting channels were defined by etching only through the thin GaAs cap layer. This slight etching is sufficient to entirely deplete the underlying material without necessitating exposure of the sidewalls that results in long lateral depletion lengths. At 4.2 K, without illumination, our narrowest wires retain a carrier density and mobility at least as high as that of the bulk 2DEG and exhibit quantized Hall effects. Aharonov–Bohm oscillations are seen in rings defined by this controlled etch-damage patterning. This patterning technique holds promise for creating one-dimensional conducting wires of even smaller sizes