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While the income per capita in the developing world since the turn of the Millennium has grown faster than that of the developed world, the question whether there is an ongoing process of catching up between countries remains. The notion of income convergence has provided many insights into the sources for long-run growth but has largely neglected the role of social capabilities in economic development. By social capabilities we mean the qualification of the ‘theory of convergence’ which asserts that productivity growth rates between countries tend to vary inversely with regard to productivity levels. The social capabilities approach holds that a country’s potential for rapid growth is strong when “it is technologically backward but socially advanced” (see Abramovitz, 1986:388). This means that the potential to catch up under globalization is strongest for countries in which social capabilities are developed to allow successful use of technologies and where institutional arrangements are conducive to economic progress. Yet there is no clear agreement in the literature on the main components of social capabilities or how to measure them. Our framework argues that the role of capabilities in catching up needs to understand them in terms of structural transformation, economic and social inclusion, state´s autonomy and accountability. Without progress in these dimensions within-country inequality may increase and might in turn lead to stagnating growth and slim prospects for global income convergence.

This article gives an overview of activists of the Africans Rising movement who participated in a pilot retreat for a month in Arusha, northern Tanzania. It gave them the opportunity to examine and share the strategies that they employ to deal with the restrictions on civil society seen across Africa. Africans Rising is a nascent, rapidly growing, self-identifying collective of social movements, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), artists, sports people, cultural activists and others. The retreat was a meeting of east, west, south and north Africa and showcased the diversity and richness of the people of Africa with activists from Benin, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Liberia, Morocco, Senegal, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stress influence on a Ti 0.85 Zr 0.15 Mn 1.33 V 0.3 alloy during hydrogenation cycles has been studied in a special design test cell for mechanical studies during hydrogenation. The alloy was synthesized in an induction melting furnace with an inert Ar atmosphere. The full basic characterization of the material is presented, from a structural and morphological point of view by X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersion X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and laser grain size analysis, and, from a thermodynamic point of view by the measure of the Pressure composition Isotherms (P-c-I) at 23 and 80 °C. Besides, in order to measure the mechanical properties of the material, volume variations measurements during hydrogenation cycles were performed. The samples were milled up to sizes beneath 1.25 mm, and afterwards placed into a cylindrical die under three different levels of axial stress, 0.0325 MPa, 0.12 MPa and 0.84 MPa, for more than 100 cycles. For higher stress levels the powder bed shrinks as cycles continue, while for lower stresses the powder bed swells. A natural tendency for the powder to decrepitate and agglomerate was observed, as the size distribution of the particles reduces and the shape become uneven, generating an increase of the porosity and volume in the case of the lower stress sample. As the stress increases, the grains rearrange easily and a polydisperse distribution of particles facilitates the accommodation of smaller grains between bigger ones, producing a reduction in the porosity and volume of the hydride bed after several cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the income per capita in the developing world since the turn of the Millennium has grown faster than that of the developed world, the question whether there is an ongoing process of catching up between countries remains. The notion of income convergence has provided many insights into the sources for long-run growth but has largely neglected the role of social capabilities in economic development. By social capabilities we mean the qualification of the 'theory of convergence' which asserts that productivity growth rates between countries tend to vary inversely with regard to productivity levels. The social capabilities approach holds that a country's potential for rapid growth is strong when "it is technologically backward but socially advanced" (see Abramovitz, 1986:388). This means that the potential to catch up under globalization is strongest for countries in which social capabilities are developed to allow successful use of technologies and where institutional arrangements are conducive to economic progress. Yet there is no clear agreement in the literature on the main components of social capabilities or how to measure them. Our framework argues that the role of capabilities in catching up needs to understand them in terms of structural transformation, economic and social inclusion, state's autonomy and accountability. Without progress in these dimensions within-country inequality may increase and might in turn lead to stagnating growth and slim prospects for global income convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of powerful new software tools and social media data that can be used to study the attitudes of people in urban places. In particular, it uses propensity scoring to develop matched pairs of mid-sized US cities in the North East and Midwest, where the most significant difference between each pair is that of population decline. This resulted in a group of fifty declining cities matched with fifty growing or stable cities. Over 300,000 Twitter posts were collected over the course of two months, each analysed for either positive or negative sentiment. After running difference-of-means tests, we found that sentiment in the declining cities does not differ in a statistically significant manner from that in stable and growing cities. These findings suggest that real opportunities exist the better to understand urban attitudes through sentiment analysis of Twitter data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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To evaluate the effect of different cooking methods on the losses of restructured beef rolls, was the objective of the work. For its execution were prepared temples of 20 kg, the meats were ground by a pre cutter disc of three orifices in the form of kidney and blade of two arms. The products were made using sodium tripolyphosphate, common salt, sodium ascorbate, the sodium alginate-calcium carbonatesodium ascorbate mixture, citric acid, soy isolated and spices, which were combined to obtain six variants. Each variant and the pattern of intact muscle (white bowls and kidney) were fried, steamed, microwaved and dry heat, making a total of six replicates. In order to evaluate the effect of the different cooking methods on the restructured meat roll, the losses by cooking and the percentage of shrinkage by frying were measured. Regardless of the binder used, the heat treatments in steam oven and frying were the best results reported. The other binders used: sodium carrageenan, isolated soy protein and potato starch, plus the addition of common salt and sodium tripolyphosphate, resulted in restructured products of losses lower than their intact muscle patterns, but always superior to the products obtained with common salt and sodium tripolyphosphate in their maximum doses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hungary's regional structure is a very sensitive topic in spatial discussions, not just because of the diverse interpretations of the concept, but also because the question centres around the idea of whether or not there are any real regions at all. In talking about regionalism in Hungary difficulties arise when discussing the shrinking in regional scale, and what this means not only in terms of demographic decline, but also with respect to the thinning economic, social, and catering functions accumulating in a few areas in the region. Our assumption is that the regional structure, due to shrinking, breaks down, and inclusions arise where the settlements included become isolated within the regional network. The concept gives rise to the idea of a "perforated region". In this paper we localize the isolated settlement groups in the South Transdanubian region, and according to this illustrate the perforation of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stagnation point flow of a nanofluid towards a permeable stretching/shrinking sheet using the Buongiorno's model is studied. Numerical results are obtained using boundary value problem solver bvp4c in MATLAB for several values of the governing parameters. The numerical results show that dual (upper and lower branch) solutions exist for the shrinking case, while for the stretching case, the solution is unique. A stability analysis is performed to determine the physical realizable in practice of the dual solutions. It is found that the skin friction decreases when the sheet is stretched, but increases when the suction effect is increased. It is also found that increasing the thermophoresis parameter reduces the heat transfer rate at the surface, while increasing the Brownian motion parameter increases the mass transfer rate at the surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While swelling and shrinking of multiple emulsions – depending on existing pressure gradients – has been well reported in the literature, little research has been carried out covering the osmotic equilibration between pressure systems caused by interfacial phenomena and phase fractions for multiple emulsions in which either one or both disperse phases exhibit a phase fraction above the maximum packing limit without any deformation of the droplets. In this paper, a model for determining the theoretical equilibrium state regarding osmotic regulation is presented, as well as a new experimental method to determine the disperse phase fraction. This method is employed to compare the measured phase fractions to the theoretical predictions. Using both experimental and theoretical approaches, a direct method is proposed to define the disperse phase fraction and the encapsulation efficiency, yielding potential for a knowledge driven improvement of the production of multiple emulsions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new type of combined energy absorber working on the principle of shrinking and expanding of the circular metal tube was proposed. First, quasi-static experiments of aluminum alloy tubes were conducted. The results show that this type of energy absorber is completely feasible. Afterward, finite element models were established to estimate the tube deformation and force–displacement response, which were in good agreement with the experimental results. A theoretical solution for the steady-state crushing force of the tube was derived. Moreover, the effects of various structural parameters were investigated using a validated finite element model. According to the results, the force increases with the increase of the wall thickness and has a monotonically decreasing relationship with the radius of the shrinking die, but it first decreases, then increases with the increase in the cone angle of the expanding die. Compared with the energy absorber that only produces shrinking deformation, the steady-state force of the combined absorber is increased by 123%, and the energy absorption under the same stroke is higher. The result can provide guidance for the optimal design of the collision energy-absorbing structure on a rail vehicle. • A novel energy absorber combines shrinking and expanding of a circular metal tube. • Deformation process and force response are analyzed by experiment and FEA methods. • A theoretical solution for the steady-state force of the tube is derived. • Effects of the geometric parameters on crashworthiness are investigated. • Combined absorber has a higher energy absorption efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to investigate numerically the dynamics of quantized vortex loops, just before the reconnection at finite temperature, when mutual friction essentially changes the evolution of lines. Modeling is performed on the base of vortex filament method using the full Biot-Savart equation. It was discovered that the initial position of vortices and the temperature strongly affect the dependence on time of the minimum distance $$\delta (t)$$ between tips of two vortex loops. In particular, in some cases, the shrinking and collapse of vortex loops due to mutual friction occur earlier than the reconnection, thereby canceling the latter. However, this relationship takes a universal square-root form $$\delta \left( t\right) =\sqrt{\left( \kappa /2\pi \right) \left( t_{*}-t\right) }$$ at distances smaller than the distances, satisfying the Schwarz reconnection criterion, when the nonlocal contribution to the Biot-Savart equation becomes about equal to the local contribution. In the 'universal' stage, the nearest parts of vortices form a pyramid-like structure with angles which neither depend on the initial configuration nor on temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vaan Island, which is one of 21 islands in Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, is chosen as study area which is formed above the coral reef by sedimentation and deposition of tidal and current activities. By using Landsat images, the area (Vann Island) was calculated from the year 1973-2015 with analyzing tools of Qgis and Saga Gis. Multispectral Landsat images were processed to extract and delineate the interface line of island surface and seawater. The area of each year polygon vector is calculated using the Qgis field calculator tool. During the 1973, the area of Vaan Island is about 265,479 m and at present the area is calculated as 40,733 m. About 84 % of the island area is reduced and inundated by the seawater due to sea level rise and anthropogenic activities such as coral sand mining, local tourism and fishing activities. At this rate of submergence, it can be predicted that by 2022 Vaan Island will completely submerge into the sea. From this study, it is concluded that geospatial techniques are one of the successful and reliable techniques to map this type of low-lying island to conserve and manage the resources that affected by the geogenic and anthropogenic processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a wide range of practical problems correlation matrices are formed in such a way that, while symmetry and a unit diagonal are ensured, they may lack semidefiniteness. We derive a variety of new upper bounds for the distance from an arbitrary symmetric matrix to the nearest correlation matrix. The bounds are of two main classes: those based on the eigensystem and those based on a modified Cholesky factorization. Bounds from both classes have a computational cost of O(n³) flops for a matrix of order n but are much less expensive to evaluate than the nearest correlation matrix itself. For unit diagonal A with |aij| ≤ 1 for all i ≠ j the eigensystem bounds are shown to overestimate the distance by a factor at most 1 + n√n. We show that for a collection of matrices from the literature and from practical applications the eigensystem-based bounds are often good order of magnitude estimates of the actual distance; indeed the best upper bound is never more than a factor 5 larger than a related lower bound. The modified Cholesky bounds are less sharp but also less expensive, and they provide an efficient way to test for definiteness of the putative correlation matrix. Both classes of bounds enable a user to identify an invalid correlation matrix relatively cheaply and to decide whether to revisit its construction or to compute a replacement, such as the nearest correlation matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indefinite approximations of positive semidefinite matrices arise in various data analysis applications involving covariance matrices and correlation matrices. We propose a method for restoring positive semidefiniteness of an indefinite matrix M0 that constructs a convex linear combination S(α) = αM1 + (1 - α)M0 of M0 and a positive semidefinite target matrix M1. In statistics, this construction for improving an estimate M0 by combining it with new information in M1 is known as shrinking. We make no statistical assumptions about M0 and define the optimal shrinking parameter as α* = min{α ϵ [0, 1] : S(α) is positive semidefinite}. We describe three algorithms for computing α* . One algorithm is based on the bisection method, with the use of Cholesky factorization to test definiteness; a second employs Newton's method; and a third finds the smallest eigenvalue of a symmetric definite generalized eigenvalue problem. We show that weights that reflect confidence in the individual entries of M0 can be used to construct a natural choice of the target matrix M1. We treat in detail a problem variant in which a positive semidefinite leading principal submatrix of M0 remains fixed, showing how the fixed block can be exploited to reduce the cost of the bisection and generalized eigenvalue methods. Numerical experiments show that when applied to indefinite approximations of correlation matrices shrinking can be at least an order of magnitude faster than computing the nearest correlation matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We performed voxel-guided morphometry (VGM) investigating the mechanisms of brain atrophy in multiple sclerosis (MS) related to focal lesions. VGM maps detect regional brain changes when comparing 2 time points on high resolution T1-weighted (T1w) magnetic resonace imaging (MRI). Two T1w MR datasets from 92 relapsing-remitting MS patients obtained 12 months apart were analysed with VGM. New lesions and volume changes of focal MS lesions as well as in the surrounding tissue were identified by visual inspection on colour coded VGM maps. Lesions were dichotomized in active and inactive lesions. Active lesions, defined by either new lesions (NL) (volume increase > 5% in VGM), chronic enlarging lesions (CEL) (pre-existent T1w lesions with volume increase > 5%), or chronic shrinking lesions (CSL) (pre-existent T1w lesions with volume reduction > 5%) in VGM, were accompanied by tissue shrinkage in surrounding and/or functionally related regions. Volume loss within the corpus callosum was highly correlated with the number of lesions in its close proximity. Volume loss in the lateral geniculate nucleus was correlated with lesions along the optic radiation. VGM analysis provides strong evidence that all active lesion types (NL, CEL, and CSL) contribute to brain volume reduction in the vicinity of lesions and/or in anatomically and functionally related areas of the brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we give a characterisation of Ricci solitons in Ricci recurrent and ϕ-recurrent Kenmotsu manifolds based on the 1-form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper summarizes results of the institutional research aimed at the determination of compressibility or values of the reduction of thickness of compressed plywood sheets. Assessing the effect of thickness and thickness tolerances of veneers to a value of compressibility in relation to production parameters was carried out on the collection of plywood whole-beech sheets of the nominal veneer thickness of 1.5 mm. The plywood sheets were manufactured as seven-ply ones and urea-formaldehyde resin DUKOL S was used for their manufacture. Following characteristics were assessed: thickness differences, size of shrinkage, compressibility of veneers. Sheets were pressed using a pressure of 1.5 and 1.7 MPa. Values of changes in the thickness of veneers in pressed veneer sheets and coefficients of compressibility of particular properties were then statistically analyzed. Basic economic evaluation was carried out of the effect of compressibility on the amount of production costs.

This article concerns the Cauchy problem for the partial differential equation $$ partial_1 u(t,x)-apartial_2^2 u(t,x) =f(t,x,partial_2^p u(mu(t)t,x),partial_2^q u(t, u(t)x)),. $$ Here $t$ and $x$ are real variables, $p$ and $q$ are positive integers greater than 1, and the shrinking factors $mu(t)$, $ u(t)$ are positive-valued functions such that their suprema are less than 1.

We consider the problem of separating maximally violated inequalities for the precedence constrained knapsack problem. Though we consider maximally violated constraints in a very general way, special emphasis is placed on induced cover inequalities and induced clique inequalities. Our contributions include a new partial characterization of maximally violated inequalities, a new safe shrinking technique, and new insights on strengthening and lifting. This work follows on the work of Boyd (1993), Park and Park (1997), van de Leensel et al. (1999) and Boland et al. (2011). Computational experiments show that our new techniques and insights can be used to significantly improve the performance of cutting plane algorithms for this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a potential host rock for deep geological disposal of radioactive waste, the Callovo-Oxfordian and Opalinus clay rocks have been extensively investigated in the laboratory with respect to deformation under various thermo-hydro-mechanical conditions: (1) stresses covering the range from the initial lithostatic state to redistributed levels after excavation, (2) humidity variations representing ventilation during operation of tunnels as well as water migration from the far-field and (3) heating from ambient temperature up to 100 °C and a subsequent cooling phase. For these highly consolidated clay rocks, a new concept is theoretically derived to explain the effective stress in the particle matrix and experimentally confirmed. The mechanical deformation of the clay rocks is determined by means of short- and long-term compression experiments on quasi water-saturated samples at ambient temperature. Reponses of the clay rocks to humidity changes are examined by drying and wetting the samples under different loading conditions. Thermal effects are studied by heating and cooling the stressed samples under drained and undrained conditions. The main findings are presented and discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three-dimensional printing (3DP) uses inkjet printheads to selectively deposit liquid binder to adjoin powder particles in a layer-by-layer fashion to create a computer-modeled 3D object. Two general approaches for 3DP have been described for biomedical applications (direct and indirect 3DP). The two approaches offer competing advantages, and both are limited by print resolution. This study describes a materials processing strategy to enhance 3DP resolution by controlled shrinking net-shape scaffolds. Briefly, porogen preforms are printed and infused with the desired monomer or polymer solution. After solidification or polymerization, the porogen is leached and the polymer is allowed to shrink by controlled drying. Heat treatment is performed to retain the dimensions against swelling forces. The main objective of this study is to determine the effects of polymer content and post-processing on dimension, microstructure, and thermomechanical properties of the scaffold. For polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEG-DA), reducing polymer content corresponded with greater shrinkage with maximum shrinkage of ∼80 vol% at 20% vol% PEG-DA. The secondary heat treatment retains the microarchitecture and new dimensions of the scaffolds, even when the heat-treated scaffolds are immersed into water. To demonstrate shrinkage predictability, 3D components with interlocking positive and negative features were printed, processed, and fitted. This material processing strategy provides an alternative method to enhance the resolution of 3D scaffolds, for a wide range of polymers, without optimizing the binder-powder interaction physics to print each material combination. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 103B: 1415-1423, 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gasification of wood pellets in downdraft gasifier is confronted with the problem of granulated fuel agglomeration. It occurs when the wood pellets are moving from the pyrolysis zone to the oxidation zone and pellets stick together in lumps, which disrupts the movement of fuel and stops further process. In order to investigate the cause and regularities of fuel agglomeration, experimental studies of wood pellets thermal deformations during pyrolysis were carried out. Experimental studies were performed in an electrically heated horizontal tubular furnace from 300 °C to 1000 °C temperature in an inert atmosphere capturing wood pellet thermal deformations by a digital camera. During investigation the center temperature of the pellet was also measured. Analyzed results showed that wood pellet final diameter decreased when the heating temperature increased. It was also established that the pellet expanded from 400 °C to 900 °C heating temperature at the beginning of pyrolysis process. The maximum swelling effect was reached at 550 °C temperature and after it swelling intensity was decreasing till 900 °C temperature. Over 900 °C heating temperature, the expansion phenomenon was no longer visible. The tendency of wood pellet size alteration (swelling and shrinking) depends on heating temperature. The obtained results explain the reason for adhesion of wood pellets in the gasifier and reveal regularity of wood pellet size changes with increasing heating temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]