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Automated Valuation Models (AVMs) based on Machine Learning (ML) algorithms are widely used for predicting house prices. While there is consensus in the literature that cross-validation (CV) should...

Morphine and other mu-opioid receptor (MOR) agonists remain the mainstay treatment of acute and prolonged pain states worldwide. The major limiting factor for continued use of these current opioids is the high incidence of side effects that result in loss of life and loss of quality of life. The development of novel opioids bereft, or much less potent, at inducing these side effects remains an intensive area of research, with multiple pharmacological strategies being explored. However, as with many G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), translation of promising candidates from in vitro characterisation to successful clinical candidates still represents a major challenge and attrition point. This review summarises the preclinical animal models used to evaluate the key opioid-induced behaviours of antinociception, respiratory depression, constipation and opioid-induced hyperalgesia and tolerance. We highlight the influence of distinct variables in the experimental protocols, as well as the potential implications for differences in receptor reserve in each system. Finally, we discuss how methods to assess opioid action in vivo and in vitro relate to each other in the context of bridging the translational gap in opioid drug discovery.

This paper outlines and applies a methodology for estimating and examining the variation in risk and return for individual homes. This is important because most households own individual properties and the risk and return profile of each of these may differ. We use large data sets of home prices and rents for Sydney, Australia, from 2002-16, and estimate flexible smoothing spline hedonic models. These models are used to construct total returns—the sum of capital gains and the rental yield net of costs—for the homes in our data. We find that Sydney homes had, on average, both higher returns than shares and much lower risk. This gave them a far superior Sharpe ratio. Moreover, while we find that shares benefit to a greater extent from diversification than homes, the Sharpe ratio of a large portfolio of shares was still well below that of the average single home. Interestingly, we find that much of the variation in risk and return across properties can be explained by observable home characteristics. In particular houses had stronger returns than did apartments.

PurposeThis study aims to show how hedonic methods can be used to compare the performance of the public and private sector housing markets in Costa Rica.Design/methodology/approachHedonic price indexes are computed using the adjacent-period method. Average housing quality is measured by comparing hedonic and median price indexes. The relative performance of the public and private sector residential construction is compared by estimating separate hedonic models for each sector. A private sector price is then imputed for each house built in the public sector, and a public sector price is imputed for each house built in the private sector.FindingsThe real quality-adjusted price of private housing rose by 12 per cent between 2000 and 2013, whereas the price of private housing rose by 9 per cent. The average quality of private housing rose by 45 per cent, whereas that of public housing fell by 18 per cent. Nevertheless, the hedonic imputation analysis reveals that public housing could not be produced more cheaply in the private sector.Social implicationsThe quality of public housing has declined over time. The hedonic analysis shows that the decline is not because of a lack of competition between construction firms in the public sector. An alternative demand side explanation is provided.Originality/valueThis study applies hedonic methods in novel ways to compare the relative performance of the public and private housing sectors in Costa Rica. The results shed new light on the effectiveness of public sector housing programs.

In laser spectroscopy, high photon flux can perturb the sample away from thermal equilibrium, altering its spectroscopic properties. Here, we describe an optical beam scanning apparatus that minimizes repetitive sample excitation while providing shot-to-shot sample exchange for samples such as cryostats, films, and air-tight cuvettes. In this apparatus, the beam crossing point is moved within the focal plane inside the sample by scanning both tilt angles of a flat mirror. A space-filling spiral scan pattern was designed that efficiently utilizes the sample area and mirror scanning bandwidth. Scanning beams along a spiral path is shown to increase the average number of laser shots that can be sampled before a spot on the sample cell is resampled by the laser to ∼1700 (out of the maximum possible 2500 for the sample area and laser spot size) while ensuring minimal shot-to-shot spatial overlap. Both an all-refractive version and an all-reflective version of the apparatus are demonstrated. The beam scanning apparatus does not measurably alter the time delay (less than the 0.4 fs measurement uncertainty), the laser focal spot size (less than the 2 μm measurement uncertainty), or the beam overlap (less than the 3.3% measurement uncertainty), leading to pump-probe and autocorrelation signal transients that accurately characterize the equilibrium sample.

In experiments with high photon flux, it is necessary to rapidly remove the sample from the beam and to delay re-excitation until the sample has returned to equilibrium. Rapid and complete sample exchange has been a challenge for air-sensitive samples and for vibration-sensitive experiments. Here, a compact spinning sample cell for air and moisture sensitive liquid and thin film samples is described. The principal parts of the cell are a copper gasket sealed enclosure, a 2.5 in. hard disk drive motor, and a reusable, chemically inert glass sandwich cell. The enclosure provides an oxygen and water free environment at the 1 ppm level, as demonstrated by multi-day tests with sodium benzophenone ketyl radical. Inside the enclosure, the glass sandwich cell spins at ≈70 Hz to generate tangential speeds of 7-12 m/s that enable complete sample exchange at 100 kHz repetition rates. The spinning cell is acoustically silent and compatible with a ±1 nm rms displacement stability interferometer. In order to enable the use of the spinning cell, we discuss centrifugation and how to prevent it, introduce the cycle-averaged resampling rate to characterize repetitive excitation, and develop a figure of merit for a long-lived photoproduct buildup.

We describe the "overlight" test that was done for JWST's Teledyne H2RG HgCdTe near-infrared detector arrays. We projected many very bright λ = 632.8 nm spots onto one flight representative, substrate-removed, HgCdTe 5 μm cutoff detector array. We allowed individual spots to "burn in" for as long as ≈1000 s before turning off the laser. We did not detect any permanent change in detector performance for extreme over illuminations as bright as 320 μW pixel-1 (≤ 1 μW μm-2) after the array had been returned to ambient laboratory temperature and pressure. The brightest individual spot contained roughly 4 mW of power spread over a 100 μm diameter circular area. This is brighter than the brightest lasers that are planned for use during JWST integration and testing. It is also ≈103× brighter than any 632.8 nm astronomical source in the night sky.

The absolute femtosecond pump-probe signal strength of deprotonated fluorescein in basic methanol is measured. Calculations of the absolute pump-probe signal based on the steady-state absorption and emission spectrum that use only independently measured experimental parameters are carried out. The calculation of the pump-probe signal strength assumes the pump and probe fields are both weak and includes the following factors: the transverse spatial profile of the laser beams; the pulse spectra; attenuation of the propagating pulses with depth in the sample; the anisotropic transition probability for polarized light; and time-dependent electronic population relaxation. After vibrational and solvent relaxation are complete, the calculation matches the measurement to within 10% error without any adjustable parameters. This demonstrates quantitative measurement of absolute excited state population.

The body of literature on adult learning and education for and about the environment has grown over the decades since 1970, the year of the first Earth Day. However, more than 40 years later, the question must be posed: "Are we really making the momentous progress that is essential for an eco-sustainable future?" Getting Green(er): Adult Education and Green Progress? At least a partial answer may lie in an announcement on January 10, 2012, by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, that the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic timepiece whose sweep toward midnight signals global environmental disaster, is moving closer to the bewitching hour; it is now 11:55 p.m. (Doomsday Clock, 2012). Significant causes of the Doomsday scenario, not mentioned in this announcement, are economic, that is, global nations' fiscal reforms, expenditure cuts, deregulation including elimination of rules that hinder the market, neoliberal market freedoms, and loan restructuring and debit owed to the Global North. These are often a result of fiscal policies in the major industrial countries. If environmental adult education and the greening of global economies are some of the solutions, critically examining the role of economics and critiquing the current state of economic discourse must be part of adult educators' agendas. Solutions to pressing environmental issues require an informed and active citizenry and a strong civil society that can help shape government, market, and personal environmental behaviors. Finger and Asun (2000) point out the current ecological crises are due to turbo-capitalism, predatory financing, and corporate cannibalism that are widening the gap between the few haves and the rising number of have nots. Unless adult education in the Green Jobs Movement recognizes and confronts this, it will offer little aid in redressing environmental problems or in lifting national economies. Doing so will require adult education to become not just green but Deep Green--reflecting Deep Ecology principles. The deep movement centers on concentrated questioning, critical analysis, and exploring fundamental root causes of problems (Foundation for Deep Ecology, 2012). It interrogates basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. Adult education for a Deep Green Jobs Movement must be built on more than reform in these three areas--rather, it must fundamentally transform them! Not Just Green--But Deep Green The Green Jobs Movement is premised on the notion that conservation and environmental enhancement can occur simultaneously with economic development. It is about creating jobs through energy efficiency and investments in behaviors that improve the environment while concurrently generating revenue. It is built on a number of national and international policies and some industry standards. The National Council for Workforce Education and the Academy for Educational Development's report, Going Green (Feldbaum & States, n.d.), demonstrates the role of workforce education in building a green labor force. The United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Green Economy (n.d.) initiative works at the global level. It is premised on the notion that a green economy is one that improves human well-being and social equity, while reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. These and other initiatives naively look to build a green economy where public and private investments are the engines that drive jobs and wealth while reducing the carbon footprint, diminishing pollution, and protecting ecosystems. Although these are admirable, the question is whether they will be linked to actions and the willingness necessary to accomplish them. Behind these are the hope that there will be adequate public and private expenditures, innovative and thoughtful policies, and protective regulations. It is a mystery how these will happen when greed-inspired capitalism drives the economy, we are in the worst global recession since the Great Depression, the grade level of congressional discourse is that of a sophomore in high school, and state and federal regulators are beholden to industry. …

Raytheon Vision Systems (RVS) has been developing high performance low background VisSWIR focal plane arrays suitable for the NASA WFIRST mission. These near infrared sensor chip assemblies (SCAs) are manufactured using HgCdTe on CdZnTe substrates with a 10 micron pixel pitch. WFIRST requirements are for a 4k x 4K format 4-side buttable package to populate a large scale 6 x 3 mosaic focal plane array of 18 SCAs. RVS devices will be compatible with the NASA developed FPA 4-side buttable package, and flight interface electronics. Initial development efforts at RVS have focused on a 2k x 2k format 10 micron pixel design based on an existing readout integrated circuit (ROIC) to demonstrate desired detector material performance at a relevant scale. This paper will provide performance results on the RVS efforts. RVS has successfully developed multiple 4k x 4k 10 micron pixel ROICs and we plan to demonstrate readiness to scale our design efforts to the desired 4k x 4k format for WFIRST in 2016.

We draw a distinction between the concepts of purchase affordability (whether a household is able to borrow enough funds to purchase a house) and repayment affordability (the burden imposed on a household of repaying the mortgage). We operationalize this distinction in the context of a new methodology for constructing affordability measures that draws on the value-at-risk concept and takes account of the whole distribution of household income and house prices rather than just the median. Empirically we find that the distinction between purchase and repayment affordability can be pronounced. In the Sydney prime mortgage market over the period 1996–2006, repayment affordability deteriorated very significantly while purchase affordability remained quite stable. This difference can be attributed to the loosening of credit constraints in the mortgage market which it seems has carried through primarily into higher house prices rather than an improvement in purchase affordability. We also show how median house-price-to-income ratio measures of affordability can be extended to take account of the whole distribution of income and house prices, and how as a result of differential skewness in the house price and income distributions the housing affordability problem may be significantly worse for lower income households than suggested by standard median measures.

The problem and the solution. The Academy of Human Resource Development's Standards on Ethics and Integrity states that,“HRD professionals accord appropriate respect to the fundamental rights, dignity, and worth of all people.” This article offers insights into the resistance encountered when organizations acknowledge the worth of sexual minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and self-identified Queer (LGBTQ) individuals occupy complex and contradictory worlds in organizations, including the workplace. Causes of backlash, also known as blowback, to diversity change in the context of LGBTQ rights and dignity are presented. It lays out evidence-based practices that may help human resource development professionals to avoid resistance that can result from their attempts to transform organizations into fully inclusive places.

This chapter highlights the major themes presented in this volume. It also offers a glimpse into LGBTQ issues in organizational settings that remain underrepresented in adult, continuing, and higher education.

A Hubble space telescope wide field camera 3 e2v CCD was irradiated while operating at -84/spl deg/C and the dark current studied as a function of temperature while the charge coupled device was warmed to a sequence of temperatures up to a maximum of +30/spl deg/C. The device was then cooled back down to -84/spl deg/ and remeasured. Hot pixel populations were tracked during the warm up and cool down. Hot pixel annealing began below -40/spl deg/C and the anneal process was largely completed by the time the detector reached +20/spl deg/C. There was no apparent sharp annealing temperature. Although a large fraction of the hot pixels fell below the threshold to be counted as a hot pixel, they nevertheless sustained a higher leakage rate than the remaining population. The mechanism for hot pixel annealing is not presently understood. Room temperature irradiations do not adequately characterize the hot pixel distributions for cooled applications.

The purpose of this qualitative research was to determine the ways that knowledge is constructed and used by emergent citizen's groups (ECGs are grassroots, action‐oriented, problem‐solving groups) engaged in environmental conflicts, and by a state government environmental regulatory agency that interfaced with them. Four historical‐organizational/observational case studies of conflict dynamics involving ECGs and the government were undertaken. Case studies in a qualitative research paradigm were used since they particularize information in a complex, process oriented manner that reports life experiences. All of the grassroots groups in the study cited ‘education’ as a goal of their organizations. The research documented the struggle for who controls the meaning of hazardous scenarios. ECGs were cultural producers at the local level, developing the intellectual and moral faculties of the community, especially through collective education and collaborative and social learning. The state agency, on the othe...

I. INTRODUCTION This article argues that the distinction between expected and unexpected capital gains (losses) is fundamental to the measurement of income. The way capital gains are treated can have a significant impact on major macroeconomic statistics, such as national income and saving, the balance of payments, government income and saving, and depreciation (see Gale and Sabelhaus, 1999; Joisce and Wright, 2001). The recent sale of spectrum licenses is a case in point. The spectrum, a natural asset over which governments enforce property rights, became unexpectedly valuable as a result of the development of mobile telephones. In 2000 and 2001 some governments realized gains of $30 billion or more in a day by auctioning licenses to use sections of the spectrum (see UN Statistics Division, 2000). The concept of income, although widely used, remains vague. It is necessary to inquire why the concept of income is needed and what use it serves. The main purpose of income is to provide guidance to households or other economic units, including government, on the rate at which they can afford to consume when there is uncertainty about future resources. The more successfully measured income meets this requirement, the greater its power as an explanatory variable for the analysis of consumer behavior. The treatment of expected and unexpected capital gains in income measurement is a continuing source of controversy. (1) Even in a perfect foresight setting, the concept of income is not straightforward. Hicks (1946) considered a number of definitions. Two in particular command support in the literature. Hicksian income no. 1 is the maximum amount that can be consumed while maintaining wealth intact. (2) Hicksian income no. 2 is the maximum sustainable level of consumption. The general consensus that emerges from the literature is that, with perfect foresight, all capital gains are included in Hicksian income no. 1. However, Asheim (1996) shows that some capital gains are excluded from Hicksian income no. 2 when the interest rate varies over time. Both income concepts coincide when the interest rate is fixed. When the perfect foresight assumption is relaxed, a distinction must be drawn between expected and unexpected capital gains. It is important that we move beyond a perfect foresight setting because the concept of income has been developed primarily to assist decision taking under uncertainty. If income is meant to act as a budget constraint indicating the resources available for consumption each period, the important question is how should a rational consumer react to unexpected capital gains. This article develops a general theoretical framework for the measurement of Hicksian income no. 1 under uncertainty that is capable of handling all kinds of capital gains on all kinds of assets ranging from money market assets to mineral deposits. (3) First, the concept of income with perfect foresight is developed and analyzed. In the following section, uncertainty is introduced. Income depends on expectations of future receipts that are liable to be revised with the passage of time. The time at which income in a particular period is measured is therefore crucial. Income can be measured at any time, but attention has tended to focus on the beginning and end of the period. Hicks (1946, 178-79) described income as measured at these times as ex ante and ex post income. Ex ante income, as noted by Eisner (1990, p. 1180), is essentially the same as Friedman's (1957) concept of permanent income. Ex post income as defined by Hicks--now usually described as Haig-Simons income after two earlier proponents of the concept--is a widely used objective measure familiar to most economists. However, it is conceptually flawed because it utilizes two different and generally inconsistent set of expectations, those held at the beginning and end of the period. We define a family of conceptually consistent income measures, each based only on the expectations held at the time of measurement, that we describe as generalized-Hicksian income. …

Environmental adult education contributes to environmental justice learning by mobilizing citizen participation, popular activism, and direct action which are essential for democracy and for healthy people and ecosystems.

In the United States many non-government organisations (NGOs) champion progressive political agendas, yet some popular movements are highly conservative. The political right has mobilised effectively in the past two decades on a variety of domestic issues, including the construction of an environmental discourse in reaction to modest environmental gains. Such endeavours, branded as "anti-environmental", have been neglected in serious discussions on popular social movement learning. Few studies explore the educational and activist moments in this "Other environmentalism". This paper, using historical/textual analysis and drawing on experiences of the author, enquires into rightwing natural resource initiatives. It describes and analyses the methods they employ to alter gains made in the progressive environmental movement. Conservatives were found to have both grassroots as well as elite sponsorship and are effective sites of adult learning, resistance, and meaning making. Many elements of this Other enviro...

An intrinsically phase-stable Sagnac interferometer is introduced for optimized interferometric detection in partially collinear two-dimensional (2D) spectroscopy. With a pump–pulse pair from an actively stabilized Mach–Zehnder interferometer, the Sagnac scheme is demonstrated in broadband, short-wave IR (1–2 μm), 2D electronic spectroscopy of IR-26 dye.

We examine proton-damaged charge-coupled devices (CCDs) and compare the charge transfer efficiency (CTE) degradation using extended pixel edge response, first pixel response, and /sup 55/Fe X-ray measurements. CTEs measured on Marconi and Fairchild imaging sensors CCDs degrade similarly at all signal levels, though some of the Fairchild CCDs had a supplementary buried channel.

Installed in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in May 2009, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) is performing extremely well on-orbit. Designed to complement the other instruments on-board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and enhance the overall science performance of the observatory, WFC3 is effectively two instruments in one. The UVIS channel, with its pair of e2v 4Kx2K CCD chips provides coverage from 200 to 1000 nm while the IR channel, with a Teledyne HgCdTe focal plane array (FPA) on a Hawaii-1R multiplexer, covers the 800-1700 nm range. This report summarizes the performance of the WFC3 detectors, including primary characteristics such as quantum efficiency, read noise, dark current levels, and cosmetics, as well as hysteresis prevention and the impact of radiation damage in the CCDs. In addition, we discuss effects in the IR detector such as persistence, count rate non-linearity, 'snowballs', and 'negative' cosmic rays.

We now know that the flux of a source measured with HgCdTe arrays is not a simple, linear function, but depends on the count-rate as well as the total number of counts. In addition to the count-rate non-linearity (and probably related to the same physical mechanism), HgCdTe detectors are also susceptible to image persistence. Most of the persistence image fades in a few minutes, but there is a longer-term component that can result in faint afterimages in the next orbit, approximately 45 minutes later. For sources saturated at ~100 times full-well, the afterimages can persist for hours afterwards. This report describes results from ground and on-orbit tests to characterize the persistence and the count-rate non-linearity in the WFC3 IR detector during its first year of operation.

The Detector Characterization Laboratory at NASA/GSFC has investigated the reciprocity failure characteristics of 1.7μm cut-off HgCdTe devices provided by Teledyne Imaging Sensors to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) project. The reciprocity failure follows a power law behavior over the range of fluxes tested (0.1-104 photons/second). The slope of the power law varies among detectors, ranging from ~0.3-1%/dex at 1.0μm, which is much smaller than the ~6%/dex effect observed with the HST NICMOS 2.5μm cut-off detectors. In addition, the reciprocity failure exhibits no wavelength dependence, although only a restricted range of wavelengths (0.85-1.0μm) has been explored to date. Despite its relatively small magnitude, reciprocity failure is nevertheless an important effect in the calibration of WFC3 data, as well as in other applications in which there is a large difference in flux between the photometric standards and the scientific sources of interest.

ACCESS, Absolute Color Calibration Experiment for Standard Stars, is a series of rocket-borne sub-orbital missions and ground-based experiments designed to enable improvements in the precision of the astrophysical flux scale through the transfer of absolute laboratory detector standards from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to a network of stellar standards with a calibration accuracy of 1% and a spectral resolving power of 500 across the 0.35.1.7μm bandpass. Establishing improved spectrophotometric standards is important for a broad range of missions and is relevant to many astrophysical problems. Systematic errors associated with problems such as dark energy now compete with the statistical errors and thus limit our ability to answer fundamental questions in astrophysics. The ACCESS design, calibration strategy, and an updated preliminary performance estimate are discussed.

In ground testing of the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (HST/WFC3), the CCDs of its UV/visible channel exhibited an unanticipated quantum efficiency hysteresis (QEH) behavior. The QEH first manifested itself as an occasionally observed contrast in response across the format of the CCDs, with an amplitude of typically 0.1-0.2% or less at the nominal -83°C operating temperature, but with contrasts of up to 3-5% observed at warmer temperatures. The behavior has been replicated in the laboratory using flight spare detectors and has been found to be related to an initial response deficiency of ~5% amplitude when the CCDs are cooled with no illumination. A visible light flat-field (540nm) with a several times full-well signal level is found to pin the detector response at both optical (600nm) and near-UV (230nm) wavelengths, suppressing the QEH behavior. We have characterized the timescale for the detectors to become unpinned (days for significant response loss at -83°C and have developed a protocol to stabilize the response in flight by flashing the WFC3 CCDs with the instrument's internal calibration system.

The James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared-optimized space telescope being developed by NASA for launch in 2013, will utilize cutting-edge detector technology in its investigation of fundamental questions in astrophysics. JWST's near infrared spectrograph, NIRSpec utilizes two 2048 x 2048 HdCdTe arrays with Sidecar ASIC readout electronics developed by Teledyne to provide spectral coverage from 0.6 microns to 5 microns. We present recent test and calibration results for the NIRSpec flight arrays as well as data processing routines for noise reduction and cosmic ray rejection.

A technique involving ^{55}Fe X-rays provides a straightforward method to measure the response of a detector. The detector's response can lead directly to a calculation of the conversion gain (e^- ADU^{-1}), as well as aid detector design and performance studies. We calibrate the ^{55}Fe X-ray energy response and pair production energy of HgCdTe using 8 HST WFC3 1.7 \micron flight grade detectors. The results show that each K$\alpha$ X-ray generates 2273 \pm 137 electrons, which corresponds to a pair-production energy of 2.61 \pm 0.16 eV. The uncertainties are dominated by our knowledge of the conversion gain. In future studies, we plan to eliminate this uncertainty by directly measuring conversion gain at very low light levels., Comment: 17 pages, 7 Figures, 2 Table. Accepted for publication on PASP

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) incorporates two 5 μm cutoff (λco =5 μm) 2048×2048 pixel Teledyne HgCdTe HAWAII-2RG sensor chip assemblies. These detector arrays, and the two Teledyne SIDECAR application specific integrated circuits that control them, are operated in space at Τ ~ 37 K. This article focuses on the measured performance of the first flight-candidate, and near-flight candidate, detector arrays. These are the first flight-packaged detector arrays that meet NIRSpec's challenging 6 e- rms total noise requirement. The current version of this paper has had a correction made to it at the request of the author. Please see the linked Errata for further details.

The Wide-field Camera 3 (WFC3) is a fourth-generation instrument planned for installation in Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Designed as a panchromatic camera, WFC3's UVIS and IR channels will complement the other instruments onboard HST and enhance the observatory's scientific performance. UVIS images are obtained via two 4096x2051 pixel e2v CCDs while the IR images are taken with a 1024x1024 pixel HgCdTe focal plane array from Teledyne Imaging Sensors. Based upon characterization tests performed at NASA/GSFC, the final flight detectors have been chosen and installed in the instrument. This paper summarizes the performance characteristics of the WFC3 flight detectors based upon component and instrument-level testing in ambient and thermal vacuum environments.

We show that a strong linear relationship exists between income and house price quantiles in Sydney (Australia), Houston, and the state of Texas. This suggests that the house price distribution is closely approximated by the income distribution after a location-scale transformation. The slope of the line changes over time in response to changes in the mortgage market. We argue that this finding is consistent with a simple variant on the permanent income hypothesis. We then explore some of the implications with regard to the evolution of house prices, price-to-income ratios, the efficiency of the housing market, the construction and interpretation of hedonic price indexes for housing, and for public policy.

The academic literature on pension governance is sparse and this book will fill some important gaps by bringing together original contributions from around the world on subjects related to the area. The book initially lays out the main frameworks for pension fund governance and then goes on to examine global governance practice and experience and country studies on pension funds in the United States and Australia. The final section of this in-depth study discusses the role of government guarantees.

We propose a new class of investable momentum and contrarian stock-market indices that partition a benchmark index, such as the Russell 1000. Our momentum indices overweight stocks that have recently outperformed, while our contrarian indices underweight these same stocks. Our index construction methodology is extremely flexible, and allows the index provider to trade-off the distinctiveness of the momentum/contrarian strategies with portfolio turnover. Momentum investment styles in particular typically entail a high level of turnover, and hence high associated transaction costs. The creation of momentum and contrarian indices and exchange traded funds (ETFs) based on our methodology would allow investors to access these styles at lower cost than is currently possible. Our indices also provide performance benchmarks for momentum/contrarian investment managers, and good proxies for a momentum factor. Over the period 1995- 2007 we find that short term momentum and long term contrarian indices outperform the reference Russell 1000 index. We also document the changing interaction between the momentum/contrarian and value/growth styles.

We draw a distinction between the concepts of purchase affordability (whether a household is able to borrow enough funds to purchase a house) and repayment affordability (the burden imposed on a household of repaying the mortgage). We operationalize this distinction in the context of a new methodology for constructing affordability measures that draws on the value-at-risk concept and takes account of the whole distribution of household income and house prices rather than just the median. Empirically we find that the distinction between purchase and repayment affordability can be pronounced. In the Sydney prime mortgage market over the period 1996 to 2006, repayment affordability deteriorated very significantly while purchase affordability remained quite stable. This difference can be attributed to the loosening of credit constraints in the mortgage market which it seems has carried through primarily into higher house prices. We also consider how median house-price-to-income ratio measures of affordability can be extended to take account of the whole distribution of income and house prices. We propose a new quantile based measure which indicates that the housing affordability problem may be systematically worse than suggested by standard median measures.

The James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) incorporates two 5 micron cutoff (lambda(sub co) = 5 microns) 2048x2048 pixel Teledyne HgCdTe HAWAII-2RG sensor chip assemblies. These detector arrays, and the two Teledyne SIDECAR application specific integrated circuits that control them, are operated in space at T approx. 37 K. In this article, we provide a brief introduction to NIRSpec, its detector subsystem (DS), detector readout in the space radiation environment, and present a snapshot of the developmental status of the NIRSpec DS as integration and testing of the engineering test unit begins.

We describe how the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near-Infrared Spectrograph's (NIRSpec's) detectors will be read out, and present a model of how noise scales with the number of multiple non-destructive reads sampling-up-the-ramp. We believe that this noise model, which is validated using real and simulated test data, is applicable to most astronomical near-infrared instruments. We describe some non-ideal behaviors that have been observed in engineering grade NIRSpec detectors, and demonstrate that they are unlikely to affect NIRSpec sensitivity, operations, or calibration. These include a HAWAII-2RG reset anomaly and random telegraph noise (RTN). Using real test data, we show that the reset anomaly is: (1) very nearly noiseless and (2) can be easily calibrated out. Likewise, we show that large-amplitude RTN affects only a small and fixed population of pixels. It can therefore be tracked using standard pixel operability maps., 55 pages, 10 figures

The near infrared spectrograph (NIRSpec) will be the James Webb Space Telescope's (JWSTs) primary near-infrared spectrograph. NIRSpec is a multi-object spectrograph with fixed-slit and integral field modes. EADS/Astrium is building NIRSpec for the European Space Agency (ESA), with NASA providing the detector subsystem and programmable multi-aperture mask. In this presentation we present an overview of the detector subsystem (DS).

High-energy particles that induce a glow on the ZnCdTe substrate of the HgCdTe detectors of WFC3 may increase the background noise and reduce the scientific performance of the instrument. To eliminate this problem, a second generation of infrared detectors with substrate removed is under construction. Early tests indicate that the glow problem is eliminated and the quantum efficiency increases dramatically at shorter wavelengths, potentially providing a substantial improvement in the limiting sensitivity of the instrument.

The Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) will be the James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST's) primary near-infrared spectrograph. NIRSpec is a multi-object spectrograph with fixed-slit and integral field modes. EADS/Astrium is building NIRSpec for the European Space Agency (ESA), with NASA is providing the detector subsystem and programmable multi-aperture mask. In this paper, we summarize recent progress on the detector subsystem including tests demonstrating that JWST's Rockwell HAWAII-2RG sensor chip assemblies have achieved Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL-6). Achieving TRL-6 is an important milestone because TRL-6 is required for flight.

Proton induced luminescence in the HgCdTe detectors for the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument has been investigated. A radiation experiment has been conducted to localize the source of the luminescence. Conclusive evidence is shown that the luminescence originates in the CdZnTe substrate and propagates toward HgCdTe photodiodes as ~800 nm radiation. Luminescence is proportional to the proton energy deposited in the substrate. Subsequent testing of detectors with the substrate removed confirmed that substrate removal completely eliminates proton induced luminescence.

A Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) CCD detector was tested for radiation effects while operating at -83C. The goal of the experiment was to evaluate the introduction and annealing rates of hot pixels and to assess the dynamics of that process. The device was irradiated while cold and warmed to +30°C for a 4 hour soak, then cooled back down to -83°C. Hot pixel populations were tracked during warm up and cool down. The results showed that the hot pixels begin to anneal around -40°C and the anneal process was largely completed before the detector reached +30°C. It was also found that, although a large fraction of the hot pixels dropped below the threshold, they remained warmer than the remaining population.

We present the performance of the IR detectors developed for the WFC3 project. These are HgCdTe 1K × 1K devices with cutoff wavelength at 1.7µ m and 150K operating temperature. The two selected flight parts, FPA#64 (prime) and FPA#59 (spare) show quantum efficiency higher than 80% at =1.6 µ m and greater than 40% at >1.1 µ m, readout noise of ~25 e - rms with double correlated sampling, and mean dark current of ~0.04 e/s/pix at 150K. We also report the results obtained at NASA GSFC/DCL on these and ot her similar devices in what concerns the QE long-term stability, intra-pixel response, and dark current variation following illumination or reset. 1. INTRODUCTION The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) is the last imager built for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). It is intended to replace the WFPC2, extending the wide-field imaging capabilities of the HST. It is based on two optical channels covering with diffraction limited performance the entire wavelength range between 2000A and 1.72 µ m (see Kimble et al., 2004 for an updated report on the status and performance of the instrument). Following the cancellation of the next servicing mission to the HST, WFC3 is now consider ed for installation by an unmanned robotic spacecraft. The infrared channel of WFC3 spans between 0.8µ m and 1.72 µ m. The minimum of background emission at the focal plane of the HST falls within this range ( ~1.6 µ m), at the intersection between the zodiacal scattering and the thermal emission of the warm (~300K, Robberto et al. 2000) HST optical assembly. An IR detector with responsivity peaking in this spectral region, i.e. with long wavelength cutoff at ~1.7 µ m, can be operated at relatively high temperatures (~150K) while keeping the dark current at an acceptably low level, due to the relatively large band-gap. Since temperatures ~150K can be achieved and maintained indefinitely by thermoelectric coolers, unlike disposable cryogenic fluids like LN

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A Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) CCD detector was tested for radiation effects while operating at -83°C. The detector has a format of 2048 x 2048 pixels with a 15 μm square pixel size, a supplemental buried channel, an MPP implant, and is back side illuminated. Detector response was tested for total radiation fluences ranging from 1x103 to 2.5x109 of 63.3 MeV protons/cm2 and for a range of beam intensities. Radiation damage was investigated and the annealing of damage was tested by warming up to +30°C. The introduction rate of hot pixels and their statistics, hot pixel annealing as a function of temperature and time, and radiation changes to the mean value of dark current were investigated. Results are compared with the experiences of other HST instruments.

Wide Field Camera 3 is a fourth generation instrument for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), to be installed during the next HST Servicing Mission 4. For its infrared channel Rockwell Scientific Company has developed a new type of HgCdTe 1Kx1K detector, called WFC3-1R, with cutoff wavelength at 1.7μm and 150K operating temperature. The WFC3-IR detectors are based on HgCdTe MBE grown on a CdZnTe substrate and use a new type of multiplexer, the Hawaii-1R MUX. Two flight detectors, a prime and a spare, have been recently selected on the basis of the measures performed at NASA Goddard Research Center - Detector Characterization Laboratory. These parts show quantum efficiency higher than 80% at λ=1.6μm and greater than 40% at λ>1.1μm, readout noise of ~25 e- rms with double correlated sampling, and mean dark current of ~0.04 e/s/pix at 150K. We show that the IR channel of WFC3, equipped with one of these flight detectors, beats the instrument requirements in all configurations and promises to have a discovery efficiency significantly higher than NICMOS. In particular, a two-band wide-area, deep survey made with WFC3 exceeds the discovery efficiency of NICMOS before and after the installation of NCS by a factor of 15 and 10, respectively.

Detector performance has been characterized for the HST WFC3 IR channel. This will be the first TEC cooled IR instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), which is made possible because of recent progress in HgCdTe technology. The original detector requirements are compared with the performance of the delivered devices. Achievements in quantum efficiency and dark current are described, as well as difficulties in meeting requirements for noise and dark stability. A special technique developed to illuminate a single pixel, which has demonstrated the excellent spatial resolution of the detectors is described.

The Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) is a new instrument planned for deployment during Servicing Mission 4 in 2004. One of its key scientific goals is to provide panchromatic coverage from the near-UV through the near-IR. This is accomplished using two detector technologies, Marconi Applied Technologies back-thinned CCDs and Rockwell Scientific Mercury-Cadmium-Telluride (HgCdTe) IR focal planes. The Marconi CCDs have been delivered and characterized. The performance of these devices is exceptionally good, and will provide a new wide-field, near-UV capability for the observatory. Several notable advances are described.