when they represent small geographic units, such as cities, municipalities, regions or other administrative partitions of a country.

Poverty and inequality maps - spatial descriptions of the distribution of poverty - are most useful to policymakers and researchers when they are finely disaggregated, i.e. In this paper we aim at detecting poverty hotspots and preparing the corresponding maps. Routine diagnostic thyroid lobectomy solely owing to TN size of 3.0 cm or greater need not be performed. Our results suggest that smaller TNs (smaller than about 2.0 cm) are associated with increased probabilities of malignant disease irrespective of Bethesda class. 05) within our logistic regression models indicating that higher Bethesda class and TN size smaller than about 2.0 cm were associated with increased probabilities of malignant disease. Both Bethesda class and TN size were significant variables (P <. Of the TNs smaller than 3.0 cm, 48.4% were malignant compared with 33.3% of TNs 3.0 cm or greater (P =. The false-negative rate of benign cytologic results was 6.0% (95% CI, 1.7%-14.6%) only 1 false-negative result occurred in TNs 3.0 cm or greater. Overall sensitivity and specificity (excluding class 1 TNs) were 97.2% and 36.8%, respectively. Of the 326 TNs, 143 were malignant on surgical histopathologic analysis (43.7%). The secondary outcome was to develop logistic regression models to estimate the probability of malignant disease on final pathologic diagnosis as predicted by TN size as well as TN size in conjunction with Bethesda class. The primary outcome was to determine the rate of malignant disease of TNs smaller than 3.0 cm or 3.0 cm or larger and of each Bethesda class. A total of 297 patients with 326 TNs were identified as part of a consecutive series. Retrospective electronic medical record review of patients undergoing FNAB followed by thyroidectomy from March 2010 through December 2013 at an academic, tertiary referral center. To determine whether TN size affects the reliability of FNAB results, and to determine the rates of malignant disease of each Bethesda class at Penn State. The reliability of fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) in large TNs has been questioned in recent literature. The ability to accurately stratify patients with thyroid nodules (TNs) preoperatively is imperative because most TNs are benign. The paper also includes a discussion of the Depression-era municipal bond environment and its relevance (or lack thereof) to the current situation. Econometric analysis is performed on the data set with the goal of building a logistic regression model that can be used to estimate default probabilities for current municipal bond issuers. This data set provides a collection of exogenous financial variables that may be predictive of default.

This list is used in conjunction with a database of municipal fiscal data compiled from historical censuses of local governments. It also reviews techniques used to gauge default risk for municipal bonds and analogous asset classes, with an eye toward determining which methods are most effective.Statistical analysis relies upon a list of Depression-era city defaults collected by the author from contemporary bond manuals, trade publications and other historical sources. This paper assesses the likelihood of such a credit event by analyzing the Depression experience. Although municipal bond defaults have been quite rare over the last 70 years, some commentators have suggested that another large wave of municipal bond defaults will occur in the near future. Approximately 4800 municipal bond issuers defaulted on interest or principal payments during the Great Depression.

Municiple bond defaults