Is Latin America saying adios to market-friendly reforms?

This issue of the Economic Letter finds that Latin America hasn't lost faith in open markets, despite recent left-leaning election results. ; In analyzing several economic policy measures for 12 nations that make up the bulk of the Latin American population, authors William C. Gruben and Richard Alm find no wholesale erosion of market-based policies outside of Argentina, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, and most countries are running in place.

Improvement in the efficiency of hydrolysis of anaerobic digestion in sewage sludge by the use of enzymes

The effects of enzymatic pre-treatment on a mixture of sludge (primary, secondary, digested) collected from different municipal wastewater-treatment plants was investigated by Batch experiments in the laboratory to enhance the hydrolysis of sludge. The experiments were carried out at mesophilic (37 degrees C) temperature. Six commercially available enzymes, supplied by Novo Industries, were used which ware Alcalase, Caresyme, Celluclast, Lipolase, Termamyl and Viscosyme. The experiment showed that with 50% digested sludge and 0.1% enzyme dosage of Carezyme and the mixed enzymes there was 11.5% and 10.6% decrease in volatile solids (VS), whereas with 25% digested sludge and 0.1% Viscosyme enzyme was very much effective for VS reduction compared with the blank (it shows 16.3% higher than blank). In another set of experiments, which differed in sludge characteristics with 25% digested sludge and 0.5% enzyme dosage the culture containing the mixed enzymes presents the highest percentage of VS reduction among all the samples (13.6% higher than blank), where with 25% digested sludge and 0.5% enzyme dosage of Termamyl and mixed enzymes show 13.5% and 12.8% greater VS reduction respectively compared with the blank. The experimental work showed that enzymatic pre-treatment can be successfully used as a pre-treatment step for treating sludge mixture produced from municipal wastewater treatment plant and the performance of individual enzymes largely depends on the characteristics of sludge

The Nucleon Spectral Function at Finite Temperature and the Onset of Superfluidity in Nuclear Matter

Nucleon selfenergies and spectral functions are calculated at the saturation density of symmetric nuclear matter at finite temperatures. In particular, the behaviour of these quantities at temperatures above and close to the critical temperature for the superfluid phase transition in nuclear matter is discussed. It is shown how the singularity in the thermodynamic T-matrix at the critical temperature for superfluidity (Thouless criterion) reflects in the selfenergy and correspondingly in the spectral function. The real part of the on-shell selfenergy (optical potential) shows an anomalous behaviour for momenta near the Fermi momentum and temperatures close to the critical temperature related to the pairing singularity in the imaginary part. For comparison the selfenergy derived from the K-matrix of Brueckner theory is also calculated. It is found, that there is no pairing singularity in the imaginary part of the selfenergy in this case, which is due to the neglect of hole-hole scattering in the K-matrix. From the selfenergy the spectral function and the occupation numbers for finite temperatures are calculated.Comment: LaTex, 23 pages, 21 PostScript figures included (uuencoded), uses prc.sty, aps.sty, revtex.sty, psfig.sty (last included

Critical Enhancement of the In-medium Nucleon-Nucleon Cross Section at low Temperatures

The in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross section is calculated starting from the thermodynamic T-matrix at finite temperatures. The corresponding Bethe-Salpeter-equation is solved using a separable representation of the Paris nucleon-nucleon-potential. The energy-dependent in-medium N-N cross section at a given density shows a strong temperature dependence. Especially at low temperatures and low total momenta, the in-medium cross section is strongly modified by in-medium effects. In particular, with decreasing temperature an enhancement near the Fermi energy is observed. This enhancement can be discussed as a precursor of the superfluid phase transition in nuclear matter.Comment: 10 pages with 4 figures (available on request from the authors), MPG-VT-UR 34/94 accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Pendidikan dan Pelatihan Kepemimpinan sebagai Strategi Pengembangan Sumberdaya Aparatur untuk Meningkatkan Kinerja (suatu Kajian di Pemerintahan Daerah Kabupaten Ketapang)

Local autonomous give larger opportunity for progress of local and also challenge to local performance of aparatus of local governance which still relative lower. Development of aparatus resources, which its core is education and training for aparatus, is absolutely needed in improving performance. This research was aimed to describe and analyze aparatus resources development program of the Ketapang Regency Governance, through leadership education and training and also its impact on the performance of local govern aparatus. This research using qualitative research approach. Process analysis of data follow model of analysis proposed by Miles and Huberman (1992) with interactive model, covering three path of activities that are reduce data, presentation of data and verification. Results of this research are the followings (1). Leadership education and training level IV at the Ketapang Regency still really be felt by a lot of insuffiency and constraint. Very insuffiency felt from facet of management of leadership education and training level IV is materials of its felt too wide, lack of ability of coach in creating atmosphere of class capable to make audiences interested to follow activity in class, and also medium which less be adequate (2). Target of leadership education and training level IV at the Ketapang Regency Govern not reached full yet. A lot of collegiate of leadership education and training level IV year 2003 at the Ketapang Regency Govern answered that in fact leadership education and training level the IV did not too felt can improve their ability in working. There is no reality affect of leadership education and training to improve of performance also felt by direct supervision which in this case represent direct consumer of collegiate of leadeship education and training level IV. Suggestions which can be given from this research are (1). Presumably require to be learned by about possibility of special separate institute forming handle training and education activity in govern agency of the Ketapang Regency (2). To know how far the target of leadership education and training level IV attainment which have been executed by the Ketapang Regency Government presumably require to be performed by evaluation to grad leadership education and training performance level IV. Result of evaluation to the competitor of leadership education and training also later serve the purpose of the substance for the management of leadership education and training repair in a period of coming

Phi-values in protein folding kinetics have energetic and structural components

Phi-values are experimental measures of how the kinetics of protein folding is changed by single-site mutations. Phi-values measure energetic quantities, but are often interpreted in terms of the structures of the transition state ensemble. Here we describe a simple analytical model of the folding kinetics in terms of the formation of protein substructures. The model shows that Phi-values have both structural and energetic components. In addition, it provides a natural and general interpretation of "nonclassical" Phi-values (i.e., less than zero, or greater than one). The model reproduces the Phi-values for 20 single-residue mutations in the alpha-helix of the protein CI2, including several nonclassical Phi-values, in good agreement with experiments.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

The alpha-particle in nuclear matter

Among the light nuclear clusters the alpha-particle is by far the strongest bound system and therefore expected to play a significant role in the dynamics of nuclei and the phases of nuclear matter. To systematically study the properties of the alpha-particle we have derived an effective four-body equation of the Alt-Grassberger-Sandhas (AGS) type that includes the dominant medium effects, i.e. self energy corrections and Pauli-blocking in a consistent way. The equation is solved utilizing the energy dependent pole expansion for the sub system amplitudes. We find that the Mott transition of an alpha-particle at rest differs from that expected from perturbation theory and occurs at approximately 1/10 of nuclear matter densities.Comment: 9 pages RevTex file, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Lett.

How native state topology affects the folding of Dihydrofolate Reductase and Interleukin-1beta

The overall structure of the transition state and intermediate ensembles experimentally observed for Dihydrofolate Reductase and Interleukin-1beta can be obtained utilizing simplified models which have almost no energetic frustration. The predictive power of these models suggest that, even for these very large proteins with completely different folding mechanisms and functions, real protein sequences are sufficiently well designed and much of the structural heterogeneity observed in the intermediates and the transition state ensembles is determined by topological effects.Comment: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, in press (11 pages, 4 color PS figures) Higher resolution PS files can be found at http://www-physics.ucsd.edu/~cecilia/pub_list.htm

Thermodynamics of nn-pp condensate in asymmetric nuclear matter

We study the neutron-proton pairing in nuclear matter as a function of isospin asymmetry at finite temperatures and the saturation density using realistic nuclear forces and Brueckner-renormalized single particle spectra. Our computation of the thermodynamic quantities shows that while the difference of the entropies of the superconducting and normal phases anomalously changes its sign as a function of temperature for arbitrary asymmetry, the grand canonical potential does not; the superconducting state is found to be stable in the whole temperature-asymmetry plane. The pairing gap completely disappears for density-asymmetries exceeding $\alpha_c= (n_n-n_p)/n \simeq 0.11$.Comment: 7 pages, including 3 figures, uses revte