Examining Recent Trends in Poverty, Inequality, and Vulnerability

Despite the many propoor policies, programs, and projects instituted, the country's gains in the fight against poverty have still been modest. This Note explains why and recommends that a comprehensive roadmap for economic development and poverty reduction based on analysis of historical trends and on a specific identification of goals and targets has to be drawn up.vulnerability, poverty, inequality, poverty reduction, Philippines

Crack Propagation in Additive Manufactured Materials and Structures

AbstractAdditive manufacturing processes gain more and more interest, among others, due to the feasibility for production of lightweight metallic components directly from design data. Selective laser melting (SLM) is a very promising direct manufacturing (DM) technique for fabrication of near net shape components. The reasons for this are the relative high surface quality and bulk density of SLM processed parts. Still, process induced imperfections, i.e. residual stresses upon processing, need to be considered for future applications, in particular in the aerospace and biomedical sectors. Moreover, fatigue loading is a critical scenario for such components and needs to be investigated thoroughly.In this paper, results from fatigue crack propagation tests on biocompatible SLM-materials (titanium alloy Ti-6-4 and stainless steel AISI 316L) will be presented. For that purpose, fracture mechanical analyses were carried out on these materials. For Ti-6-4 various treatments were taken into account. It could be shown, which optimization steps are required in order to achieve fracture mechanical properties that are comparable to the reference material. In case of 316L, crack growth data for different process parameter sets (different build-up rates) were examined and compared to make conclusions about the influence of increased build-up rate on resultant crack growth behavior. Finally, based on the insights deduced from foregoing tests on Ti-6-4 crack growth propagation and the lifetime were simulated numerically by the use of the software ADAPCRACK3D

Why Are some Filipino Children not in School?

What are the factors that contribute to the nonparticipation of children in school? Who are the ones accountable to this complicating issue? This Note identifies some factors and looks deeper into each of them.poverty, education, Philippines, carbon tax, carbon dioxide emission, school participation, out-of-school children

Some Issues on Low Participation Rates in Basic Education

Despite the various efforts to improve the Philippines` education system, why does this country still have low participation rates in education? What are the reasons behind the growing numbers of out-of-school children? What are the reasons for their nonattendance? This Note delves deeper into the issue.Philippines, basic education, school participation, out-of-school children

Risk factors for deterioration of renal function after coronary artery bypass grafting

Abstract Objective: Various definitions of impairment of renal function after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) are used in the literature. Depending on the definition, several risk factors are identified. We analysed our data to determine the risk factors for postoperative deterioration of the creatinine clearance of 10% or more. Methods: All patients undergoing isolated coronary surgery in a single centre between January 1998 and December 2007 are included. Clinical data, including demographics and renal risk factors, were prospectively collected in our database. The most recent preoperative serum creatinine level and the maximum serum creatinine level within the first week postoperatively were used to calculate the creatinine clearance. A deterioration of 10% or more was considered to be an endpoint for this study. Results: In 10 098 out of a total of 10 626 patients, the preoperative as well as the postoperative creatinine clearance could be calculated. In 1053 patients, the deterioration of the creatinine clearance was 10% or more. We could identify the following risk factors: advanced age, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, peripheral vascular disease, emergency operation, previous cardiac surgery, low preoperative haemoglobin level, high preoperative C-reactive protein level, perioperative myocardial infarction, re-exploration and the number of blood transfusions. Conclusions: Risk factors for the deterioration of renal function after revascularisation have been confirmed in this study. In addition, we found peripheral vascular disease, previous cardiac surgery, low preoperative haemoglobin, increased preoperative C-reactive protein level, perioperative myocardial infarction and the number of blood transfusions to be risk factors that have not been described earlier

Trends in Household Vulnerability

This paper presents a few of the latest statistics on income poverty, growth, and inequality, and makes a case about the need not only to monitor current poverty, but also to reduce future poverty. An assessment of the trends in household vulnerability to income poverty is made for the years 2000, 2003, and 2006. Measurement of household vulnerability is based on the use of a modified probit model, income data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, as well as the official poverty lines. Policy implications about the vulnerability assessment are also discussed

Occlusion-related lateral connections stabilize kinetic depth stimuli through perceptual coupling

Local sensory information is often ambiguous forcing the brain to integrate spatiotemporally separated information for stable conscious perception. Lateral connections between clusters of similarly tuned neurons in the visual cortex are a potential neural substrate for the coupling of spatially separated visual information. Ecological optics suggests that perceptual coupling of visual information is particularly beneficial in occlusion situations. Here we present a novel neural network model and a series of human psychophysical experiments that can together explain the perceptual coupling of kinetic depth stimuli with activity-driven lateral information sharing in the far depth plane. Our most striking finding is the perceptual coupling of an ambiguous kinetic depth cylinder with a coaxially presented and disparity defined cylinder backside, while a similar frontside fails to evoke coupling. Altogether, our findings are consistent with the idea that clusters of similarly tuned far depth neurons share spatially separated motion information in order to resolve local perceptual ambiguities. The classification of far depth in the facilitation mechanism results from a combination of absolute and relative depth that suggests a functional role of these lateral connections in the perception of partially occluded objects