The Capitalization of Seller Paid Consessions

Using a hedonic pricing model, we analyze the capitalization of total seller paid discount points and closing costs into the price of a house. We hypothesize that sellers are concerned about the sales price net of total seller paid concessions (SPNC), rather than the exact terms of the transaction. Since the SPNC is easily ascertained in the negotiation process, we further hypothesize that total seller paid concessions (TSPC) are fully capitalized into the sales price. To test this hypothesis, sales price is regressed on a set of control variables including TSPC. In this framework, TSPC will be positive and not significantly different from one if concessions are fully capitalized. The empirical results provide support for the capitalization hypothesis. Negotiation strategies and study limitations follow from the empirical results.

TriG - A GNSS Precise Orbit and Radio Occultation Space Receiver

The GPS radio occultation (RO) technique [1] produces measurements in the ionosphere and neutral atmosphere [2] that contribute to monitoring space weather and climate change; and improving operational weather prediction. The high accuracy of RO soundings, traceable to SI standards, makes them ideal climate benchmark observations. For weather applications, RO observations improve the accuracy of weather forecasts by providing temperature and moisture profiles of sub-km vertical resolution, over land and ocean and in the presence of clouds. JPL is currently flying a handful of RO instruments [3] on various satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Although these receivers have served to pioneer occultation measurements, various advances in technology and understanding of the RO technique along with availability of new signals from GPS and other GNSS satellites allow us to design an improved next generation space-based Precise Orbit Determination (POD) and RO receiver, the TriG receiver. The paper describes the architecture and implementation of the JPL TriG receiver as well as results obtained with a prototype receiver demonstrating key technologies necessary for a next-generation space science receiver

Twelve tips for rapidly migrating to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a massive adaptation in health professions education, with a shift from in-person learning activities to a sudden heavy reliance on internet-mediated education. Some health professions schools will have already had considerable educational technology and cultural infrastructure in place, making such a shift more of a different emphasis in provision. For others, this shift will have been a considerable dislocation for both educators and learners in the provision of education. To aid educators make this shift effectively, this 12 Tips article presents a compendium of key principles and practical recommendations that apply to the modalities that make up online learning. The emphasis is on design features that can be rapidly implemented and optimised for the current pandemic. Where applicable, we have pointed out how these short-term shifts can also be beneficial for the long-term integration of educational technology into the organisations' infrastructure. The need for adaptability on the part of educators and learners is an important over-arching theme. By demonstrating these core values of the health professions school in a time of crisis, the manner in which the shift to online learning is carried out sends its own important message to novice health professionals who are in the process of developing their professional identities as learners and as clinicians

Developmental expression of claudins in the mammary gland

Claudins are a large family of membrane proteins whose classic function is to regulate the permeability of tight junctions in epithelia. They are tetraspanins, with four alpha-helices crossing the membrane, two extracellular loops, a short cytoplasmic N-terminus and a longer and more variable C-terminus. The extracellular ends of the helices are known to undergo side-to-side (cis) interactions that allow the formation of claudin polymers in the plane of the membrane. The extracellular loops also engage in head-to-head (trans) interactions thought to mediate the formation of tight junctions. However, claudins are also present in intracellular structures, thought to be vesicles, with less well-characterized functions. Here, we briefly review our current understanding of claudin structure and function followed by an examination of changes in claudin mRNA and protein expression and localization through mammary gland development. Claudins-1, 3, 4, 7, and 8 are the five most prominent members of the claudin family in the mouse mammary gland, with varied abundance and intracellular localization during the different stages of post-pubertal development. Claudin-1 is clearly localized to tight junctions in mammary ducts in non-pregnant non-lactating animals. Cytoplasmic puncta that stain for claudin-7 are present throughout development. During pregnancy claudin-3 is localized both to the tight junction and basolaterally while claudin-4 is found only in sparse puncta. In the lactating mouse both claudin-3 and claudin-8 are localized at the tight junction where they may be important in forming the paracellular barrier. At involution and under challenge by lipopolysaccharide claudins -1, -3, and -4 are significantly upregulated. Claudin-3 is still colocalized with tight junction molecules but is also distributed through the cytoplasm as is claudin-4. These largely descriptive data provide the essential framework for future mechanistic studies of the function and regulation of mammary epithelial cell claudins

Information Terrorism in the New Security Environment

Over the years there have been many interpretations of what constitutes Information Terrorism. This paper examines the correlation/relationship between Information Warfare and Terrorism, and describes what is considered to be Information Terrorism now. It achieves this by outlining the threat’s impact, advantage and capability. It then examines the positives that can be derived from such and, based on the literature available on the subject, provides a deduced interpretation of what Information Terrorism is. The paper concludes with remarks supporting the assertion that Information Terrorism is a major dynamic and asymmetric threat contributing to a new national security environment

Monitoring Volcanoes by Use of Air-Dropped Sensor Packages

Sensor packages that would be dropped from airplanes have been proposed for pre-eruption monitoring of physical conditions on the flanks of awakening volcanoes. The purpose of such monitoring is to gather data that could contribute to understanding and prediction of the evolution of volcanic systems. Each sensor package, denoted a volcano monitoring system (VMS), would include a housing with a parachute attached at its upper end and a crushable foam impact absorber at its lower end (see figure). The housing would contain survivable low-power instrumentation that would include a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, an inclinometer, a seismometer, a barometer, a thermometer, and CO2 and SO2 analyzers. The housing would also contain battery power, control, data-logging, and telecommunication subsystems. The proposal for the development of the VMS calls for the use of commercially available sensor, power, and telecommunication equipment, so that efforts could be focused on integrating all of the equipment into a system that could survive impact and operate thereafter for 30 days, transmitting data on the pre-eruptive state of a target volcano to a monitoring center. In a typical scenario, VMSs would be dropped at strategically chosen locations on the flanks of a volcano once the volcano had been identified as posing a hazard from any of a variety of observations that could include eyewitness reports, scientific observations from positions on the ground, synthetic-aperture-radar scans from aircraft, and/or remote sensing from aboard spacecraft. Once dropped, the VMSs would be operated as a network of in situ sensors that would transmit data to a local monitoring center. This network would provide observations as part of an integrated volcano-hazard assessment strategy that would involve both remote sensing and timely observations from the in situ sensors. A similar strategy that involves the use of portable sensors (but not dropping of sensors from aircraft) is already in use in the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP), which was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance to respond to volcanic crises around the world. The VMSs would add a greatly needed capability that would enable VDAP response teams to deploy their volcano-monitoring equipment in a more timely manner with less risk to personnel in the field

Assessing the role of contact tracing in a suspected H7N2 influenza A outbreak in humans in Wales.

BACKGROUND: The detailed analysis of an outbreak database has been undertaken to examine the role of contact tracing in controlling an outbreak of possible avian influenza in humans. The outbreak, initiating from the purchase of infected domestic poultry, occurred in North Wales during May and June 2007. During this outbreak, extensive contact tracing was carried out. Following contact tracing, cases and contacts believed to be at risk of infection were given treatment/prophylaxis. METHODS: We analyse the database of cases and their contacts identified for the purposes of contact tracing in relation to both the contact tracing burden and effectiveness. We investigate the distribution of numbers of contacts identified, and use network structure to explore the speed with which treatment/prophylaxis was made available and to estimate the risk of transmission in different settings. RESULTS: Fourteen cases of suspected H7N2 influenza A in humans were associated with a confirmed outbreak among poultry in May-June 2007. The contact tracing dataset consisted of 254 individuals (cases and contacts, of both poultry and humans) who were linked through a network of social contacts. Of these, 102 individuals were given treatment or prophylaxis. Considerable differences between individuals' contact patterns were observed. Home and workplace encounters were more likely to result in transmission than encounters in other settings. After an initial delay, while the outbreak proceeded undetected, contact tracing rapidly caught up with the cases and was effective in reducing the time between onset of symptoms and treatment/prophylaxis. CONCLUSIONS: Contact tracing was used to link together the individuals involved in this outbreak in a social network, allowing the identification of the most likely paths of transmission and the risks of different types of interactions to be assessed. The outbreak highlights the substantial time and cost involved in contact tracing, even for an outbreak affecting few individuals. However, when sufficient resources are available, contact tracing enables cases to be identified before they result in further transmission and thus possibly assists in preventing an outbreak of a novel virus.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Modeling the Transient Response of Saline Intrusion to Rising Sea‐Levels

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86891/1/j.1745-6584.2010.00758.x.pd

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Programming Bulk-Incremental Dataflows

Government, medical, financial, and web-based services increasingly depend on the ability to rapidly sift through huge, evolving data sets. These data-intensive applications perform complex multi-step computations over successive generations of data inflows (e.g., weekly web crawls, nightly telescope dumps, or hourly surveillance videos). Because of the data volumes involved, applications must avoid reprocessing old data when new data arrives and instead process incrementally. Unlike in stream-based systems, incoming data does not have to be processed immediately, permitting work to be amortized via bulk processing. Such bulk-incremental processing represents an emerging class of applications whose needs are not fully met by current systems. This paper presents a generalized architecture for bulk-incremental processing systems (BIPS), simplifying the creation of such programs. In contrast with incremental view maintenance in data warehousing, BIPS provides flexible low-level primitives for managing incremental data and processing, upon which both relational and non-relational operations can be implemented. The paper describes the BIPS programming model along with several example applications and examines some key implementation choices. These choices are shown to play a major role in overall system performance, via experiments on a large testbed cluster.Pre-2018 CSE ID: CS2009-094