Mass-spectrometric study of the rhenium-oxygen system

Rhenium, having the second highest melting point among the metals, is used for refractory containers. Thermodynamic values for rhenium oxide is determined by mass spectrometry and X ray diffraction

Welfare Reform and Food Stamp Caseload Dynamics

We use state-level panel data for federal fiscal years 1980–1998 to estimate the impacts of welfare reform and the business cycle on food stamp caseloads. The model we employ is a dynamic function of past caseloads, economic factors, AFDC and Food Stamp Program policies, political factors, AFDC caseload levels, and unobserved fixed and trending heterogeneity. Our results suggest that the robust economy has substantially influenced the recent decline in food stamp caseloads, but that the estimated aggregate effect of welfare reform is modest—we attribute around 45 percent of 1994–1998 decline to the macroeconomy and about 5 percent to welfare reform. We do find substantial heterogeneity in the impact of AFDC waiver policies. States with JOBS sanctions policies but not family cap or earnings disregard waivers can expect a larger long-run decline in caseloads than those states with all three policies. In addition, we do find some evidence, albeit weaker, that states with waivers for unemployed able-bodied adults without dependents can expect higher caseload levels than states without the waivers and that the Electronic Benefits Transfer program is leading to food stamp caseload declines. An important finding of this study is that modeling food stamp caseload dynamics has implications for the estimated effects of policy changes and economic factors—when dynamic models are employed, we observe substantially reduced welfare-reform effects but significantly increased effects of the macroeconomy on food stamp caseloads. These results are robust to models that permit the simultaneous determination of AFDC and food stamp caseloads.

A CONSIDERATION OF THE DEVOLUTION OF FEDERAL AGRICULTURAL POLICY

Diverse needs and preferences across the United States provide justification for the devolution, or decentralization, of many Federal Government programs to the State or local level. The move toward devolution, however, has not been evidenced in U.S. agricultural policy, despite significant differences across States in such areas as commodity production, production costs, income distribution, and opportunities for off-farm work. The existing structure of USDA funding and program delivery already reflects an appreciation of the gains from devolution, with some programs accommodating differences in State and regional preferences. This report considers the implications of devolving $22 billion in 2003 budget outlays, mostly for domestic commodity and natural resource programs and rural development and housing programs. The local knowledge of needs and references is valuable and can provide the basis for increased program efficiency.Public policy, devolution, agricultural policy, program delivery, Agricultural and Food Policy,

BLAST Autonomous Daytime Star Cameras

We have developed two redundant daytime star cameras to provide the fine pointing solution for the balloon-borne submillimeter telescope, BLAST. The cameras are capable of providing a reconstructed pointing solution with an absolute accuracy < 5 arcseconds. They are sensitive to stars down to magnitudes ~ 9 in daytime float conditions. Each camera combines a 1 megapixel CCD with a 200 mm f/2 lens to image a 2 degree x 2.5 degree field of the sky. The instruments are autonomous. An internal computer controls the temperature, adjusts the focus, and determines a real-time pointing solution at 1 Hz. The mechanical details and flight performance of these instruments are presented.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. To be published in conference proceedings for the "Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy" part of the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Symposium that will be held 24-31 May 2006 in Orlando, F

New Limits on the Polarized Anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background at Subdegree Angular Scales

We update the limit from the 90 GHz PIQUE ground-based polarimeter on the magnitude of any polarized anisotropy of the cosmic microwave radiation. With a second year of data, we have now limited both Q and U on a ring of 1 degree radius. The window functions are broad: for E-mode polarization, the effective l is = 191 +143 -132. We find that the E-mode signal can be no greater than 8.4 microK (95% CL), assuming no B-mode polarization. Limits on a possible B-mode signal are also presented.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letter

Regional similarities in the distributions of well yield from crystalline rocks in Fennoscandia

Well yields from Precambrian and Palaeozoic bedrock in Norway, Sweden and Finland exhibit very similar and approximately log-normal distributions: all three data sets exhibit a median yield of 600–700 L hr-1, despite the differences in climate and lithology. This similarity is tentatively reflected on a larger geographical scale by a meta-analysis of the international data sets on crystalline rock aquifers from other recently glaciated areas (i.e., without a thick regolith of weathered rock). An heuristic treatment of the Fennoscandian data sets suggests that this median yield is consistent with the following bulk properties of shallow (to c. 70–80 m depth) crystalline bedrock: transmissivity of 0.56 ± 0.30 m2 d-1 (6.4 ± 3.4 x 10-6 m2 s-1) and hydraulic conductivity of around 1.1 (± 0.6) x 10-7 m s-1

COMPASS: a 2.6m telescope for CMBR polarization studies

COMPASS (COsmic Microwave Polarization at Small Scale) is an experiment devoted to measuring the polarization of the CMBR. Its design and characteristics are presented

Breaking the Redshift Deadlock - I: Constraining the star formation history of galaxies with sub-millimetre photometric redshifts

Future extragalactic sub-millimetre and millimetre surveys have the potential to provide a sensitive census of the level of obscured star formation in galaxies at all redshifts. While in general there is good agreement between the source counts from existing SCUBA (850um) and MAMBO (1.25mm) surveys of different depths and areas, it remains difficult to determine the redshift distribution and bolometric luminosities of the sub-millimetre and millimetre galaxy population. This is principally due to the ambiguity in identifying an individual sub-millimetre source with its optical, IR or radio counterpart which, in turn, prevents a confident measurement of the spectroscopic redshift. Additionally, the lack of data measuring the rest-frame FIR spectral peak of the sub-millimetre galaxies gives rise to poor constraints on their rest-frame FIR luminosities and star formation rates. In this paper we describe Monte-Carlo simulations of ground-based, balloon-borne and satellite sub-millimetre surveys that demonstrate how the rest-frame FIR-sub-millimetre spectral energy distributions (250-850um) can be used to derive photometric redshifts with an r.m.s accuracy of +/- 0.4 over the range 0 < z < 6. This opportunity to break the redshift deadlock will provide an estimate of the global star formation history for luminous optically-obscured galaxies [L(FIR) > 3 x 10^12 Lsun] with an accuracy of 20 per cent.Comment: 14 pages, 22 figures, submitted to MNRAS, replaced with accepted versio

Project for the analysis of technology transfer Quarterly report, 1 Oct. - 31 Dec. 1969

Analysis of Tech Brief-Technical Support Package progra