Innovations in small dollar payments

On September 25, 2001, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia sponsored a workshop on innovations in small dollar payments. The moderated discussion was led by Richard Corl, an entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in the electronic payments industry.2 From his perspective as a director of Ecount, a small dollar payments innovator, Corl described a range of challenges and opportunities for innovators in their quest to convert small dollar cash and check payments into electronic transactions. In addition to broad market issues, he described a number of specific emerging applications. This paper is a summary of Corl's presentation.

Managing consumer credit risk

On July 31, 2001, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a workshop that examined current credit risk management practices in the consumer credit industry. The session was led by Jeffrey Bower, senior manager in KPMG Consulting’s financial services practice. Bower discussed "best practices" in the credit risk management field, including credit scoring, loss forecasting, and portfolio management. ; In addition, he provided an overview of developing new methodologies used by today's risk management professionals in underwriting consumer risk. This paper summarizes key elements of Bower's presentation.Consumer credit ; Credit cards

A panel discussion on dynamics in the consumer credit counseling service industry

On July 20, 2001 the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia sponsored a workshop on the consumer credit counseling service industry. Leading the moderated discussion were four senior executives from regional credit counseling firms associated with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). Jerome Johnson, president and CEO and Ghyll Theurer, program manager represented the Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) of South Jersey, a program of Family Service Association. James Godfrey, executive vice president, Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) of Maryland and Delaware, Inc. and Patricia Hasson, president of Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) of Delaware Valley, Inc. rounded out the panel. The discussions were enriched by the breadth of experiences represented by the panelists who come from a variety of industry and nonprofit backgrounds. The panel discussed the role of credit counseling firms mediating between financially troubled consumers and their unsecured credit card lenders. This paper is a summary of those discussions.Consumer credit

‘Picturing the Social’: Questions of method, ethics and transparency in the analysis of social media photography.

Anne Burns has been researching current norms of social media sharing, particularly in relation to photo sharing practices, and reflects here on the implications this research might have for social media research in years to come. Whilst there are many opportunities for researchers, more reflection is needed on the potential for harm that can be caused by the unauthorized reproduction of data

How organisational arrangements affect service provision

This research shows the importance of good organisational support for care giving. Organisational arrangements can shape what individual staff members do in the highly skilled work of meeting resident needs. This may challenge traditional views about care quality that focus attention only on care workers

Hillslope Dissolved Organic Matter Transport and Transformation in a Semi-Arid Headwater Catchment

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a ubiquitous mixture of compounds formed from the degradation of both terrestrial and microbial materials. It is a key link across the terrestrial-aquatic interface in headwater catchments, and therefore is intimately linked with the hydrologic connectivity of the catchment to the stream. This study uses fluorescence spectroscopy and parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) to evaluate the mobility of specific chemical constituents of DOM during snowmelt. Monitoring occurred on a daily basis within the shallow soil (10 - 25 cm depth) and the stream during snowmelt and was compared to approximately bi-monthly groundwater samples (~18 m depth). Results suggest that a transition occurred in the stream during snowmelt from DOM dominated by protein-like material to more humic-like material. This transition is indicative of an engagement of DOM originating from shallow soils during snowmelt. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) normalization of these loadings suggest that the peak in DOC concentration seen in the stream is mainly controlled by the non-fluorescent fraction of DOM. This study identifies a humic-like component fluorophore in the soil and the stream that is traditionally seen only in soil DOM. We propose that the presence of this component in our stream samples during high flow in a small headwater catchment but not in larger systems during variable flow, suggests that this humic-like component is preferentially processed within the stream. These results indicate that shifts in hydrologic connectivity of different watershed units to the stream are a major control on DOM export from the watershed and that DOM mobility is unique to its chemical composition

Micro-slotting technique for measurement of local residual stress in metallic materials

Micro-slotting, a micro-scale relaxation residual stress measurement technique, has been shown in recent years to be a reliable method for measuring local residual stresses in metallic materials. This technique employs an SEM-focused ion beam system for milling and imaging, digital image correlation software to track displacements due to residual stress relaxation, and finite element analysis for interpolation of the original local stress state. In this research, a micro-slotting procedure was established using finite element models and was used to obtain sub-surface residual stress measurements on machined and shot peened planar Ti-6Al-4V samples. These measurements were compared to macro-scale XRD residual stress measurements, and discrepancies between the results of the two techniques were discussed. The measurement procedure was then applied to as-drilled and cold-expanded holes for near-edge measurement of residual hoop stresses. Comparison of the measured residual stress distributions with plastic strain data obtained using EBSD allowed for interpretation of fatigue life differences and crack growth behavior. Next, a grid of measurements was performed in a sub-surface region of the shot peened sample, and EBSD was used to acquire microstructure information in the measurement regions. Comparison of the measured displacements and interpolated residual stress values with the local microstructure allowed for novel qualitative observations regarding residual stress orientation and microstructure effects on the measured residual stress relaxation. Last, the use of the micro-slotting technique was demonstrated for measurement of local residual stress in additive manufactured components. Series of measurements were performed across two interfaces in a complex Ti-6Al-4V build, and post-measurement optical microscopy allowed for analysis of the residual stress data at the microstructural level --Abstract, page iv