Finite-element-analysis model and preliminary ground testing of controls-structures interaction evolutionary model reflector

Results of two different nonlinear finite element analyses and preliminary test results for the final design of the Controls-Structures Interaction Evolutionary Model are presented. Load-deflection data bases are generalized from analysis and testing of the 16-foot diameter, dish shaped reflector. Natural frequencies and mode shapes are obtained from vibrational analysis. Experimental and analytical results show similar trends; however, future test hardware modifications and finite element model refinement would be necessary to obtain better correlation. The two nonlinear analysis procedures are both adequate techniques for the analysis of prestressed structures with complex geometries

The Budgeting and Economic Consequences of Ageing in The Netherlands

The costs of population ageing are primarily reflected in larger expenditures on pensions and health care. This paper explores the consequences of ageing for the Netherlands in a baseline scenario simulated with a dynamic general equilibrium model. We discuss the sensitivity of the results under alternative projections for population ageing. We explore also the effects of three types of social security reform: a reduction in benefits, an increase in the retirement age and smoothing of the public pension premium over time. We find that the welfare effects of ageing and the reforms are substantial.

Towards sustainable lignite consumption in Turkey and a welfare analysis

Sustainable consumption is at the center of sustainable development that every country seems to want. One of the great challenges of this century must be to understand what drives the consumption and how we can reduce consumption through increased efficiency. However consumption is not simply determined by population growth, which is commonly assumed to be a key cause of unsustainable consumption, but also by economic activity, technology choices, social values, institutions and policies. In this paper, we focus our analysis on lignite consumption in Turkey as an exhaustible natural resource and we assume that the consumption is only the ultimate end of the economic activity. Some improvments of the Weitzman model (1976) are proposed by introducing an environmental preference parameter into the model to complement his interpretation of welfare. Our aim is to pass from theory to practical applications by presenting some modest empirical results. Our model is constructed under GAMS for the period 1980-2080 using Turkish data and leads to the interesting result that an environmental taxation policy can lead to a social welfare increase in Turkey.Dynamic welfare, exhaustible resource, sustainable consumption.

Russia's Fiscal Gap

Every country faces what economists call an intertemporal (across time) budget constraint, which requires that its government’s future expenditures, including the servicing of its outstanding official debt, be covered by its government’s future receipts when measured in present value. The difference between the present value of a country’s future expenditures and its future receipts is called its fiscal gap. This study estimates Russia’s 2013 fiscal gap at 890 trillion rubles or $28 trillion. This longterm budget shortfall is 8.4 percent of the present value of projected GDP. Consequently, eliminating Russia’s fiscal gap on a smooth basis requires fiscal tightening by 8.4 percent of each future year’s projected GDP. One means of doing this is to immediately and permanently raise all Russian taxes by 29 percent. Another is to immediately and permanently cut all spending, apart from servicing outstanding debt, by 22.4 percent. How can a country with vast energy resources and foreign reserves and other financial assets that exceed its official debt still have very major fiscal problems? The answer is that the Russia’s energy resources are finite, whereas its expenditure needs are not. Moreover, Russia is aging and facing massive obligations from its pension system and other age related expenditures

Volatility of Exchange Rates in Selected New EU Members: Evidence from Daily Data

We examine the daily exchange rate dynamics in selected new EU member states (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia) using GARCH and TARCH models between 1999 and 2006. Despite these countries adopted inflation targeting regime, they occasionally tried to manage their exchange rate. We find that the low credibility of exchange rate management implied higher volatility of exchange rates when it substantially deviated from the implicit target rates for all countries. Finally, we find significant asymmetric effects of the volatility of exchange rates in all analyzed countries.exchange rates, target zones, ERM II, inflation targeting, GARCH

Sourcing Scarcity

Water is an essential element to human development and urban vitality. As a response to future oil depletion in cities, a new appearance of water emerges in cities: Hydro-urbanism. Through rethinking the potential of water infrastructure in cities, HydroUrbanism situates itself as a spectacular functional event that aims to collect, purify, store, and generate energy within a city. The project reconsiders the production process of water on the periphery of the city and hypothesizes for an integrated process of the production of water to work within the city at an urban scale. Exposing the water infrastructure, fantasizing water, and re-connecting the people back to the element of water. This project will not try to solve an energy problem; instead it is an attempt at looking at the latent potential of a combinatory system of water and the city to create a public and an industrial infrastructural archetype. It is an attempt at exploring methods of imprinting a hybrid of spaces that facilitates the engagement of the society, the urban infrastructure (water infrastructure) and the natural elements that could benefit the city in terms of energy, water access, and public space

Test of sodium boiling in a single tube-in- shell heat exchanger over the range 1720 deg to 1980 deg F /1211 to 1355 K/

Bimetallic heat exchanger tube performance in sodium boiling facilit