Archive for November, 2007

Yian; thus imply

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Yian is a fictional city created by Robert W. Chambers and also referred to by H. P. Lovecraft. In the city, a great river flows under a thousand bridges, it is always summer and the sound of silver bells fills the air. In a portion of The Maker of Moons it is said to lie “across seven oceans and the river which is longer than from the Earth to the Moon.” This could possibly imply that it lies in some unknown dimension, the gateway to which lies in the heart of China.It is the place where the Kuen-Yuin reside,along with their leader , Yue-Laou .In its surrounding areas lie “the dead plains of Black Cathay” and “the mountains of Death, whose summits are above the atmosphere” and “Abbadon”.The god in Yian is Xangi.

Expenditure function; utility

Friday, November 30th, 2007

In microeconomics, the expenditure function describes the minimum amount of money an individual needs to achieve some level of utility, given a utility function and prices.

Formally, if there is a utility function <math>u</math> that describes preferences over L commodities, the expenditure function

<math>e(p, u^*) : \textbf R^L_+ \times \textbf R
\rightarrow \textbf R</math>

says what amount of money is needed to achieve a utility <math>u^*</math> if prices are set by <math>p</math>.
This function is defined by

<math>e(p, u^*) = \min_{x \in \geq(u^*)} p \cdot x</math>

where

<math>\geq(u^*) = \{x \in \textbf R^L_+ : u(x) \geq u^*\}</math>

is the set of all packages that give utility at least as good as <math>u^*</math>.


See also

  • Expenditure minimization problem
  • Hicksian demand function
  • Utility maximization problem

Fred Herd; open

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Fred Herd (November 26, 1874 – March 14, 1954) was a Scottish professional golfer from St Andrews. In 1898 he won the fourth U.S. Open at Myopia Hunt Club, in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. This was the first U.S. Open to be played over 72 holes, requiring the competitors to play eight rounds of Myopia’s nine hole course. Herd was a professional at the Washington Park course in Chicago at this time. He won $150, but such was his reputation as a drinker that he was not allowed to take the U.S. Open trophy away until he had paid a deposit, as the USGA was worried that he might pawn it to buy drink.

Herd played in the U.S. Open on three other occasions, but did not have any other top ten finishes. His brother Alexander or Sandy Herd, won the British Open in 1902.

Utility infielder; utility

Friday, November 30th, 2007

A utility infielder is a baseball player, usually someone who does not have a regular starting role on the team, who is capable of playing more than one of the four defensive infield positions: second base, third base, shortstop, and less typically first base. Utility infielders are generally considered excellent defensive players who do not hit well enough to remain in the starting lineup, but can fill in at multiple defensive positions to give the various starters a rest, or replace a starter late in a game to provide improved defense when the team is winning.

Utility infielders include Miguel Cairo of the New York Yankees and Chris Gomez of the Cleveland Indians.

BUV; utility function

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Possible meanings:

  • Basic Utility Vehicle
  • The IATA code for an airport in Bella Unión, Uruguay
  • Bold Utility Vehicle
  • Baited Underwater Video - A form of remote sampling of underwater life

Life cycle hypothesis; consume

Friday, November 30th, 2007

The Life Cycle Hypothesis (LCH) is an economic concept analysing individual consumption patterns. It was developed by the economists Irving Fisher, Roy Harrod, Alberto Ando and Franco Modigliani.

Unlike the Keynesian consumption function, which assumes consumption is entirely based on current income, LCH assumes that individuals consume a constant percentage of the present value of their life income.


Literature

  • Robert E. Hall, 1979. Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence, NBER


See also

Permanent income hypothesis

DTE Energy; reduce utility bills

Friday, November 30th, 2007

DTE Energy Co. () is a Detroit, Michigan-based utility incorporated in 1995 involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services nationwide.

DTE Energy’s largest operating subsidiaries are Detroit Edison, an investor-owned electric utility serving 2.1 million customers in Southeastern Michigan, and Michigan Consolidated Gas Co. (MichCon), a natural gas utility serving 1.2 million customers in Michigan.

The name “DTE” is taken from the stock symbol for Detroit Edison, DTE. [1]


Credit Reporting Program

In August 2006, DTE began reporting payment information to the major credit beaureaus on all of its 2.5 million customers without offering the ability to opt-out, making it one of the few utilities in the US to do so. Previously, only seriously delinquent accounts were reported. Groups, such as the NAACP, protested this change, on the basis that such a policy would benefit those who have no problems paying their bills, but would hurt those who are the most vulnerable economically and most likely to miss a payment, such as the poor, elderly, and disabled. This, in effect, would hurt their credit rating, and further hamper their ability to advance in society.

In January 2007, DTE changed the policy to state that only payments 60 days or more overdue would be reported to the credit beaureaus. The policy of credit reporting of all other information, without the ability for customers to opt-out, continues.


See also

  • DTE Energy Music Theatre
  • American Light and Traction


External links

  • DTE Energy Co.
  • Credit Reporting Article

Emulex; utility

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Emulex is a California based manufacturer of storage networking infrastructure solutions. Products include host bus adapters (HBAs), embedded storage switches, storage I/O controller and SAN storage switch products.


Software products

  • HBAnyware, centralized HBA management utility
  • AutoPilot Manager, HBA management utility for SMBs
  • LighPulse Utility NT (LPUtilNT)
  • AutoPilot Installer
  • VMPilot, Virtual machine and NPIV management utility for use with Microsoft Virtual Server


See also

  • List of Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters
  • Emulex hoax


External links

  • Emulex website

Dola (mythology); preferences

Friday, November 30th, 2007

See Dola for disambiguation

In Polish mythology, Dola are the protective spirits which embody human fate. They can appear in the guises of a god, a cat, a man, a mouse, or a woman. They have their own preferences and provinces; and they would hound you if you made choices that were not planned by Fate.

Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped; income

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) is an income support and health benefits program of the Government of Alberta. The program serves over 31,000 (as of 2004) “adult Albertans with a permanent disability that severely impairs their ability to earn a living.”

In the 2004 provincial election, AISH was the subject of some controversy following supposedly derogatory remarks made by Premier Ralph Klein, stating, of a group of AISH recipients, “they didn’t look handicapped to me.”

After the 2004 election, responsibility for the AISH program was moved from the Human Resources and Employment ministry to the then newly formed Alberta Seniors and Community Supports ministry.


Benefits

  • Monthly Income:

    • Every AISH recipient receives a monthly payment of $1000 In addition to which, a recipient can earn up to $400 without his AISH income being affected. For any income between $400 and $700, 50% of what is earned is deducted from the AISH income, and any income above $700 will be taken off, dollar for dollar, from the AISH income. In effect, a recipient can earn $550 of extra income monthly without AISH income being directly affected.
  • Prescription Medications:

    • Most prescription medications are paid for by AISH benefits. The majority of what a doctor will prescribe, from common antibiotics, to such medications as Ritalin and Zyprexa, is covered by AISH. However, there are medications, generally though not always newer medications, which are not covered by the benefits. Medication covergae is decided upon by a government committee. (ed. Often the function of such government committees is to develop reasons not to extend insurance coverage to a particular medication, given the frequent niggardliness of governments)
  • Dental Coverage:

    • AISH allows for one yearly dental checkup and cleaning. In addition to this, AISH benefits also cover necessary fillings
  • Ambulance Service:

    • AISH benefits will cover fees for ground ambulance service to the nearest hospital which can provide the medical treatment required


External links

  • Alberta Government information on AISH
  • Government of Canada Social Assistance Statistical Report: 2004

Price signal; for consumers

Friday, November 30th, 2007

A price signal is message sent to consumers and producers in the form of a price charged for a commodity; this is seen as indicating a signal for producers to increase supplies and/or consumers to reduce demand.

For example, in a free price system, rising prices may indicate a shortage of supply, increase in demand, or a rise in input costs. Regardless of the underlying reason—and without the consumer needing to know the cause—the price increase communicates the notion that consumer demand (at this new, higher price) should recede or that supplies should increase. Consumers that do continue to purchase the product at the higher price ostensibly give the product a higher marginal utility. This results in a natural market correction.

In a fixed price system where prices are set by government, price signals may not be as reliable as indicators of shortages, surpluses, or consumer preferences according to opponents of planned economies. These artificial prices may create shortages and surpluses that would not occur under a free price system.


See also

Free price system

Public Utilities Commission; of utility for

Friday, November 30th, 2007

A Utilities commission, Utility Regulatory Commission (URC), or Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is a governing body that regulates the rates and services of a utility.

The utility that is being regulated may be owned by the consumers that it serves, a mutual utility like a Public Utility District, a state or government owned utility, or it may be a stockholder owned utility either publicly traded on a stock exchange or closely held among just a few investors.

See also: Public Service Commission

Countries:

  • Anguilla Public Utilities Commission
  • Bahamas Public Utilities Commission [1]
  • Belize Public Utilities Commission [2]

United States:

  • Regulatory Commission of Alaska [3]
  • Arizona Corporations Commission [4]
  • California Public Utilities Commission [5]
  • Colorado Public Utilities Commission [6]
  • Hawaii Public Utilities Commission [7]
  • Idaho Public Utilities Commission [8]
  • Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission [9]
  • Maine Public Utilities Commission [10]
  • Minnesota Public Utilities Commission
  • Michigan Public Service Commission [11]
  • Nevada Public Utilities Commission [12]
  • New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission [13]
  • New Mexico Public Regulation Commission [14]
  • North Carolina Utilities Commission [15]
  • Public Utilities Commission of Ohio [16]
  • Oregon Public Utility Commission [17]
  • Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission [18]
  • Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission [19]
  • San Francisco Public Utilities Commission [20]
  • South Dakota Public Utilities Commission [21]
  • Texas Public Utility Commission [22]
  • Public Service Commission of Utah [23]
  • Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission [24]

Karelides; consume

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Karelides is the ancient mountain chain, which located between Eastern Finland and Lapland. It formed current hill zone of Eastern Finland and Lapland’s arctic hills splitting the Centre Finland. Karelidit formed about 2000 million years ago, when thick sandstone sediments rocked and then folded when continental plates smashed. This made a ridge made of quartzite, which has stood there not caring of ice ages consume and weathering. Mountains in the very north-west Finnish Lapland belong to the newer Scandinavian Mountains, and because of that they are higher than other Finnish mountains. The third mountain group is Svecofennides, which stood there from Southern Finland to Sweden.

Rural Utilities Service; utilities

Friday, November 30th, 2007

The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was an agency of the United States federal government created on 11 May 1935 through efforts of the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The REA’s task was to promote electrification in rural areas, which in the 1930s rarely were provided with electricity due to the unwillingness of power companies to serve farmsteads. America lagged significantly behind European countries in rural electrification. Private electric utilities argued that the government had no right to compete with or regulate private enterprise, despite many of these utilities having refused to extend their lines to rural areas, claiming lack of profitability. Since private power companies set rural rates four times as high as city rates made this a self-fulfilling prophecy.[1]
Under the REA program there was no direct government competition to private enterprise. Instead, REA made loans available to local electrification cooperatives, which operated lines and distributed electricity. By 1939 the REA served 288,000 households, prompting private business to extend service into the countryside and to lower rates. By the end of the decade, forty percent of rural homes had power, up from around 10% in 1930.

As the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) it is still a federal government agency of the U.S. government, charged with providing public utilities (electricity, telephone, water, sewer) to rural areas through public-private partnerships. It is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Coincidently, rus is Latin for “countryside”.

Contents


Mission

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture plays a key role in improving the quality of life in rural America. It does this by administering electrification, telecommunications, and water and waste programs in a manner that is forward looking, financially responsible, and oriented toward customer needs.


Structure

The RUS is one of three agencies (the other two are Rural Business-Cooperative Service and the Rural Housing Service) within the Rural Development Bureau of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The administrators of these three agencies report to the undersecretary for rural development. The RUS administrator, who makes the primary policy and program decisions for the agency, is assisted by a borrower and program support staff that includes a financial services staff, an administrative liaison staff, and a program accounting services division. Because of the financial nature of the agency’s work, the administrator and associated staff work closely with two other agencies that are not part of the USDA, the Federal Financing Bank (FFB) and the Rural Telephone Bank (RTB). These banks provide the funds for many of the loan programs administered by the RUS.

The program functions of the RUS are divided among three operating units: water and waste, electric, and telecommunications, each led by an assistant administrator. The administrator and staff concentrate on the financial details of individual RUS projects, and these three operating units provide the engineering and technical personnel to plan and execute projects.


Related federal legislation

  • 1944 - Rural Electrification Act Amendments PL 78-425, 78-563
  • 1949 - Rural Electrification Act Amendments PL 81-423
  • 1961 - Area Redevelopment Act PL 87-27
  • 1961 - Housing Act PL 87-90
  • 1962 - Rural Electrification Act Amendments PL 87-862
  • 1965 - Appalachian Regional Development Act PL 89-4
  • 1965 - Department of Housing and Urban Development PL 89-174
  • 1966 - Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act PL 89-754
  • 1972 - Rural Development Act PL 92-419


External links

  • Article on the REA from EH.NET’s Encyclopedia

South Central Arkansas Electric Cooperative; of utility for utility

Friday, November 30th, 2007

South Central Arkansas Electric Cooperative is a non-profit rural electric utility cooperative headquartered in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. The Cooperative was organized in 1940.

The Cooperative serves portions of eight counties in the state of Arkansas, in a territory generally west and southwest of Arkadelphia.

As of September 2005, the Cooperative had more than 1,770 miles of distribution lines, 9 substations and services 7,300 member accounts.


External links

  • South Central Arkansas Electric Cooperative

Superior good; income are

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Superior goods make up a larger proportion of consumption as income rises, and as such are a type of normal goods in consumer theory.

The income elasticity of a superior good is above one by definition, because it raises the expenditure share as income rises.

A superior good might be a luxury which isn’t purchased at all below a certain level of income, or have a wide quality distribution, such as wine, and holidays (where the number produced may stay constant with rising wealth, but the level of spending goes up, to secure a better experience.)


Confusion with normal goods

The choice of the word “Superior” to define goods of this type suggests that they are the antonym of “Inferior goods”, but this is misleading; An inferior good can never be a superior good, but many goods are neither. If the quantity of an item demanded increases with income, but not enough to increase the share of the budget spent on it, then it is a normal good.

Some texts on microeconomics use the term Superior goods as an inferior goods antonym, making “Superior goods” and “Normal goods” synonymous. Where this is done, a product making up an increasing share of spending under income increases is often called an Ultra-superior good.


External links

  • Definition of superior good from the elasticity perspective from the University of Michigan
  • Definition of “superior good” as a “normal good” synonym from California State University

Pullback bundle; bundle

Friday, November 30th, 2007

In mathematics, a pullback bundle or induced bundle is a useful construction in the theory of fiber bundles. Given a fiber bundle π : EB and a continuous map f : B′ → B one can define a “pullback” of E by f as a bundle f*E over B′. The fiber of f*E over a point x in B′ is just the fiber of E over f(x). Thus f*E is the disjoint union of all these fibers equipped with a suitable topology.

Contents


Formal definition

Let π : EB be a fiber bundle with abstract fiber F and a let f : B′ → B be a continuous map. Define the pullback bundle by

<math>f^{*}E = \{(x,e) \in B’ \times E \mid f(x) = \pi(e)\}\subset B’\times E </math>

and equip it with the subspace topology and the projection map π′ : f*EB′ given by the projection onto the first factor, i.e.,

<math>\pi’(x,e) = x.\,</math>

The projection onto the second factor gives a map <math>\tilde f \colon f^{*}E \to E</math> such that the following diagram commutes:

If (U, φ) is a local trivialization of E then (f−1U, ψ) is a local trivialization of f*E where

<math>\psi(x,e) = (x, \mbox{proj}_2(\phi(e))).\,</math>

It then follows that f*E is a fiber bundle over B′ with fiber F. The bundle f*E is called the pullback of E by f or the bundle induced by f. The map <math>\tilde f</math> is then a bundle morphism covering f.


Properties

Any section s of E over B induces a section of f*E, called the pullback section f*s, simply by defining <math>f^*s=s\circ f</math>.

If the bundle EB has structure group G with transition functions tij (with respect to a family of local trivializations {(Ui, φi)} ) then the pullback bundle f*E also has structure group G. The transition functions in f*E are given by

<math>f^{*}t_{ij} = t_{ij} \circ f.</math>

If EB is a vector bundle or principal bundle then so is the pullback f*E. In the case of a principal bundle the right action of G on f*E is given by

<math>(x,e)\cdot g = (x,e\cdot g)</math>

It then follows that the map <math>\tilde f</math> is equivariant and so defines a morphism of principal bundles.

In the language of category theory, the pullback bundle construction is an example of the more general categorical pullback. As such it satisfies the corresponding universal property.

The construction of the pullback bundle can be carried out in subcategories of the category of topological spaces, such as the category of smooth manifolds. The latter construction is useful in differential geometry and topology

Examples: It is illuminating to consider the pullback of the degree 2 map from the circle to itself over the degree 3 or 4 map from the circle to itself. In such examples one sometimes gets a connected and sometimes disconnected space, but always several copies of the circle.


Bundles and sheaves

Bundles may also be described by their sheaves of sections. The pullback of bundles then corresponds to the inverse image of sheaves, which is a contravariant functor. A sheaf, however, is more naturally a covariant object, since it has a pushforward, called the direct image of a sheaf. The tension and interplay between bundles and sheaves, or inverse and direct image, can be advantageous in many areas of geometry. However, the direct image of a sheaf of sections of a bundle is not in general the sheaf of sections of some direct image bundle, so that although the notion of a ‘pushforward of a bundle’ is defined in some contexts (for example, the pushforward by a diffeomorphism), in general it is better understood in the category of sheaves, because the objects it creates cannot in general be bundles.


References


External links

  • Pullback Bundle, PlanetMath

Utility vault; utility

Friday, November 30th, 2007

A utility vault is an underground room providing access to subterranean public utility equipment, such as valves for water or natural gas pipes, or switchgear for electrical or telecommunications equipment.

Utility vaults are commonly constructed out of reinforced concrete boxes, poured cement or brick. Small ones are usually entered through a manhole or grate on the topside. Such vaults are considered confined spaces and can be hazardous to enter. Large utility vaults are similar to mechanical or electrical rooms in design and content.


External link

  • National Precast Concrete Association

SEQ; utilities or rather

Friday, November 30th, 2007

SEQ or seq may refer to:

  • Sequence (disambiguation), a word commonly abbreviated as “seq.”
  • South East Queensland, a place in Australia
  • SEQ, the former callsign of a TV station in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia
  • ShowEQ, a protocol analyzer for the video game, EverQuest.
  • seq (Unix), a program in the GNU Core Utilities and Plan 9 from Bell Labs that outputs a sequence of numbers

Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame; consumer

Friday, November 30th, 2007

The Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame, founded by the Consumer Electronics Association, CEA, honors the leaders whose creativity, persistence, determination and sheer personal charisma helped to shape an industry and made the consumer electronics marketplace what it is today. The Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame inductees have made a significant contribution to the world, and without these inductees, our lives would not be the same.

The Consumer Electronics Association announced the first 50 inductees into its Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame at the 2000 International Consumer Electronics Show. In the 2000 class of inductees we find among others Ray Dolby, Thomas Alva Edison, Edwin Armstrong, Masaru Ibuka, etc. Each year another world-class group of inventors, engineers, business leaders, retailers and journalists are inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame.


External links

  • List of inductees

Marshallian surplus; consumer

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

Marshallian surplus, in economics, is the idea that economic welfare is divided into producer surplus and consumer surplus. It was named after Alfred Marshall.

Consumer surplus is the willingness to pay over and above what they have to pay. It is near impossible to meausre individual change in utility for every price change, so estimates are used. One such estimate is using the Marshallian Consumer Surplus method.


External link

  • Marshall bio

Indirect utility function; indirect utility

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

In economics, a consumer’s indirect utility function
<math>v(p, w)</math> gives the consumer’s maximal utility when faced with a price level <math>p</math> and an amount of income <math>w</math>. It represents the consumer’s preferences over market conditions.

This function is called indirect because consumers usually think about their preferences in terms of what they consume rather than prices. A consumer’s indirect utility <math>v(p, w)</math> can be computed from its utility function <math>u(x)</math> by first computing the most preferred bundle <math>x(p, w)</math> by solving the utility maximization problem; and second, computing the utility <math>u(x(p, w))</math> the consumer derives from that bundle. The indirect utility function for consumers is analogous to the profit function for firms.

Formally, the indirect utility function is:

  • Non-increasing in prices, because an increase in prices cannot open up an available bundle that would provide more utility;
  • Non-decreasing in income, because when income rises, at worst you could consume the same bundle;
  • Homogenous with degree zero in prices and income; if prices and income are all multiplied by a given constant the same bundle of consumption represents a maximum, so optimal utility does not change.

Indirect utility function; for utility being

Thursday, Nov