48670 research outputs found
Sort by
Penn Library\u27s Library\u27s LJS 493 - Manuscript leaf from Physics. (Video Orientation)
No full texthttps://repository.upenn.edu/sims_video/1230/thumbnail.jp
Time Discounting and Economic Decision-making among the Elderly
Full text linkThis research project evaluates the extent of heterogeneity in time discounting among elderly Americans, as well as its role in explaining older peoples’ key behaviors. We first show how older Americans evaluate simple (hypothetical) intertemporal choices in which payments now are compared with payments in the future. This adds to the literature on time horizon experiments by focusing on a nationally representative sample of persons age 70+. Using the indicators derived from this experiment, we show how differences in discounting patterns are associated with characteristics of particular importance in elderly populations, such as serious health and mental conditions. We then relate our discounting measure to key outcome variables including wealth, the timing of retirement, investments in health, and decisions about end of life care
To Whom Does Philadelphia Belong? Exploring and Defining Institutional Investment in Single Family Rentals in Philadelphia
Full text linkSince the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, single-family rentals have dramatically risen to prominence as a uniquely profitable asset class for institutional investors, especially in the United States. Made possible by a combination of three primary factors – the post-crisis inexpensive Real Estate Owned (REO) homes surplus, the decline in working-class wealth and ability to purchase homes, and the emergence of new property management technology – institutional investors are, for the first time, rapidly acquiring hundreds of thousands of single-family homes. The resulting single-family rental portfolios have also inspired novel investment profiteering strategies, which researchers increasingly argue profit at the direct expense of tenants and prospective owner-occupants. However, at the heart of these arguments, there exist critical unanswered questions around how “institutional investment” is defined and understood. As a result, public interpretations of important research frequently misunderstand its gravity. Journalists and policymakers tend to mitigate researchers’ claims, either arguing that “all home buyers are investors” or reducing all institutional investment to a handful of prominent players. This thesis seeks to empower existing and forthcoming research by clarifying how and why institutional investment should be understood, distinctly, in the modern day. The thesis first traces the historical development of institutional investors, then explores new methods for analyzing under-studied, smaller-scale institutional investment strategies. Most existing research has focused heavily on specific, large-scale investors and the cities where they generally operate. Instead, this research pilots methods to examine under-studied investor behavior in Philadelphia, the largest US city that has thus far received almost no research attention. The thesis then forwards the argument that, without a developed understanding of institutional investment, Philadelphia forfeits power over to whom its homes belong and who profits from those homes
Penn Library\u27s LJS 474 - Sharḥ Jighmīnī fī fann al-hayʼah. (Video Orientation)
No full texthttps://repository.upenn.edu/sims_video/1214/thumbnail.jp
Penn Library\u27s LJS 482 - [Commentaries on De generatione et corruptione...]. (Video Orientation)
No full texthttps://repository.upenn.edu/sims_video/1221/thumbnail.jp
Design and Control of a Tunable-Stiffness Coiled-Spring Actuator
Full text linkWe propose a novel design for a lightweight and compact tunable stiffness actuator capable of stiffness changes up to 20x. The design is based on the concept of a coiled spring, where changes in the number of layers in the spring change the bulk stiffness in a near-linear fashion. We present an elastica nested rings model for the deformation of the proposed actuator and empirically verify that the designed stiffness-changing spring abides by this model. Using the resulting model, we design a physical prototype of the tunable-stiffness coiled-spring actuator and discuss the effect of design choices on the resulting achievable stiffness range and resolution. In the future, this actuator design could be useful in a wide variety of soft robotics applications, where fast, controllable, and local stiffness change is required over a large range of stiffnesses
Penn Library\u27s Library\u27s LJS 485 - [Yiddish translation of De humani corporis]. (Video Orientation)
No full texthttps://repository.upenn.edu/sims_video/1223/thumbnail.jp
Multiple Hands in the Marginal Annotations of the Hebrew Bible Codex Madrid M1 (Biblioteca Histórica Marqués de Valdecilla, BH MSS1)
Full text linkThis article presents a paleographical analysis of the marginal annotations that appear next to the biblical text in the Hebrew Bible codex known as Madrid M1. In order to do so, a new methodology has been developed. The ensuing analysis has identified a great number of annotations, largely located in the outer and intercolumnar margins, written by multiple hands. These later interventions have different aims and produce diverse results. The systematic additions associated with different Masoretic textual phenomena reveal an interest in organizing the information differently and offering the information on each phenomenon consistently by adding cases that are lacking. The non-systematic additions seem to be more the result or reflection of later revisions, readings, and uses of the manuscript. The annotations of both types show a clear intention to complete and expand the already abundant information found in the margins of Madrid M1, rather than an effort to correct it
Penna volans Discovered: Analysis of a New Exemplar of Calligraphic Virtuosity by Baldericus van Horicke (Brussels, ca. 1616)
Full text linkThis article analyses an unpublished manuscript (here referred to as the Cuaderno Español) discovered in a private collection in Madrid, which contains eight folios of calligraphy by the hand of Baldericus van Horicke (†1643), a noted writing master active primarily at the court of the Archdukes of Austria in Brussels. A detailed paleographical study of the new manuscript enhances our knowledge of this exceptional virtuoso of the pen, who practiced at the height of the golden age of the writing arts in Europe. Additionally, such an analysis demonstrates how these calligraphic materials were used to teach the art of writing from the seventeenth century onwards