Determining What's Really Important to Lenders: Factors Affecting the Agricultural Loan Decision-Making Process

Agricultural lenders in today’s environment face many challenges when evaluating the creditworthiness of farm borrowers. To address these challenges, a survey was conducted with financial institutions in Kansas and Indiana where agricultural lenders were asked for their response to hypothetical agricultural loan requests. Each loan request differed by the borrower’s character, financial record keeping, productive standing, Fair Isaac credit bureau score, and credit risk. Lenders provided information about themselves and their financial institutions. The survey data obtained determine the relative importance of financial and non-financial information when analyzing agricultural loan applications. Tobit models are estimated to identify the borrower and lender characteristics that are important in determining loan approval while OLS models are used to investigate the factors that affect interest rates offered to farm borrowers. The results provide a comparison of agricultural lending between two important agricultural states. The results from this analysis also provide lenders with insight on the factors that influence the decision making process of other agricultural lenders.Agricultural loans, Credit bureau score, Credit evaluation, Interest rates

The Gosport War Memorial Hospital Panel report and its implications for nursing

Where do we even begin? How do mere words encapsulate the full horror of the Gosport War Memorial Hospital (GWMH) report (Gosport Independent Panel, 2018) and its profound implications for nursing? Many of us thought that in our careers we would never again read anything as damning of health care and health services as the Francis Report; Darbyshire & McKenna, 2013; Hayter, 2013; Nolan, 2013). We were wrong. Politicians, hospitals, health services, educators and regulators at that time were falling over each other to reassure us that ‘lessons had been learned’, ‘things had changed’, ‘new systems were in place’ and that such disasters and failures ‘must never happen again’

When Thinking Leads to Doing: the Relationship Between Fantasy and Reality in Sexual Offending.

This chapter is taken from the following text: Jones, T. & Wilson, D. (2008). Thinking & Doing; Fantasy & Reality: An Analysis of Convicted Paedophiles. In Birch, P., Ireland, C., & Ireland, J. (Eds.) The Assessment, Treatment and Management of Violent and Sexual Offenders, London: Willa

Similarity renormalization of the electron--phonon coupling

We study the problem of the phonon-induced electron-electron interaction in a solid. Starting with a Hamiltonian that contains an electron-phonon interaction, we perform a similarity renormalization transformation to calculate an effective Hamiltonian. Using this transformation singularities due to degeneracies are avoided explicitely. The effective interactions are calculated to second order in the electron-phonon coupling. It is shown that the effective interaction between two electrons forming a Cooper pair is attractive in the whole parameter space. For a simple Einstein model we calculate the renormalization of the electronic energies and the critical temperature of superconductivity.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX2e, uses AMS-fonts, 5 ps-figures included. Replaced by a completely revised version that contains several new results on the renormalization of single particle energies, on the superconducting gap, and on the critical temperatur

Detection of Vacuum Birefringence with Intense Laser Pulses

We propose a novel technique that promises hope of being the first to directly detect a polarization in the quantum electrodynamic (QED) vacuum. The technique is based upon the use of ultra-short pulses of light circulating in low dispersion optical resonators. We show that the technique circumvents the need for large scale liquid helium cooled magnets, and more importantly avoids the experimental pitfalls that plague existing experiments that make use of these magnets. Likely improvements in the performance of optics and lasers would result in the ability to observe vacuum polarization in an experiment of only a few hours duration.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Measuring the electrical impedance of mouse brain tissue

We report on an experimental method to measure conductivity of cortical tissue. We use a pair of 5mm diameter Ag/AgCl electrodes in a Perspex sandwich device that can be brought to a distance of 400 microns apart. The apparatus is brought to uniform temperature before use. Electrical impedance of a sample is measured across the frequency range 20 Hz-2.0 MHz with an Agilent 4980A four-point impedance monitor in a shielded room. The equipment has been used to measure the conductivity of mature mouse brain cortex in vitro. Slices 400 microns in thickness are prepared on a vibratome. Slices are bathed in artificial cerebrospinal fluid (ACSF) to keep them alive. Slices are removed from the ACSF and sections of cortical tissue approximately 2 mm times 2 mm are cut with a razor blade. The sections are photographed through a calibrated microscope to allow identification of their cross-sectional areas. Excess ACSF is removed from the sample and the sections places between the electrodes. The impedance is measured across the frequency range and electrical conductivity calculated. Results show two regions of dispersion. A low frequency region is evident below approximately 10 kHz, and a high frequency dispersion above this. Results at the higher frequencies show a good fit to the Cole-Cole model of impedance of biological tissue; this model consists of resistive and non-linear capacitive elements. Physically, these elements are likely to arise due to membrane polarization and migration of ions both intra- and extra-cellularly.http://www.iupab2014.org/assets/IUPAB/NewFolder/iupab-abstracts.pd

Refinement and preliminary evaluation of two tablet-based tests of real-world visual function

PURPOSE: To describe, refine, evaluate, and provide normative control data for two freely available tablet-based tests of real-world visual function, using a cohort of young, normally-sighted adults. METHODS: Fifty young (18-40 years), normally-sighted adults completed tablet-based assessments of (1) face discrimination and (2) visual search. Each test was performed twice, to assess test-retest repeatability. Post-hoc analyses were performed to determine the number of trials required to obtain stable estimates of performance. Distributions were fitted to the normative data to determine the 99% population-boundary for normally sighted observers. Participants were also asked to rate their comprehension of each test. RESULTS: Both tests provided stable estimates in around 20 trials (~1-4 min), with only a further reduction of 14%-17% in the 95% Coefficient of Repeatability (CoR95 ) when an additional 40 trials were included. When using only ~20 trials: median durations for the first run of each test were 191 s (Faces) and 51 s (Search); test-retest CoR95 were 0.27 d (Faces) and 0.84 s (Search); and normative 99% population-limits were 3.50 d (Faces) and 3.1 s (Search). No participants exhibited any difficulties completing either test (100% completion rate), and ratings of task-understanding were high (Faces: 9.6 out of 10; Search: 9.7 out of 10). CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary assessment indicated that both tablet-based tests are able to provide simple, quick, and easy-to-administer measures of real-world visual function in normally-sighted young adults. Further work is required to assess their accuracy and utility in older people and individuals with visual impairment. Potential applications are discussed, including their use in clinic waiting rooms, and as an objective complement to Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs)

Light-front Hamiltonians for heavy quarks and gluons

A boost-invariant light-front Hamiltonian formulation of canonical quantum chromodynamics provides a heuristic picture of the binding mechanism for effective heavy quarks and gluons.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, Invited talk at the Workshop on Light-Cone QCD and Nonperturbative Hadron Physics (LC2005), Cairns, Australia, 7-15 Jul 200