Adam Smith's stages of history

The purpose of this paper is to examine Smith's four stages theory of history as an account of economic and social development, with an emphasis on the arguments and evidence he used to support it. In his biographical account of Smith's life, his friend Dugald Stewart described Smith’s method as 'conjectural history', initiating a debate which has continued ever since. Stewart meant that Smith used (informed) conjecture to fill the unavoidable gaps in the historical evidence, though hostile commentators have interpreted it as saying that Smith simply ignored the facts. This paper sets Smith's account alongside the evidence available to him to try to establish how much of it is pure speculation, unconstrained by historical evidence, and how much is rather a matter of interpreting evidence which can never be complete, as any historian is bound to do. It emerges that Smith did not (usually) neglect or ride roughshod over the evidence as it was available to him, but rather that evidence about some aspects and periods of history simply did not then exist, leaving much in his account that is indeed pure conjecture. The focus of the paper is on Smith, not on contemporaries or predecessors who argued a similar case. It deals with the substance of Smith's case, not with priority.Adam Smith, history, four stages, conjectural history

The Concept of an Agricultural Surplus, from Petty to Smith

Everyone has to eat, so those who produce food must produce enough to feed themselves and to feed all those who do not produce their own food. Once stated. this is trivially obvious but, I will argue, making that simple relation between agriculture and the rest of the economy explicit and, at least in principle, quantifiable played a significant role in the development of economic thinking in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This paper will focus on a very specific way of posing the question. Many of the most important economic writers of the period (Petty, Cantillon, Hutcheson, Hume, Steuart, Mirabeau, Smith and others) used arguments of the form: x men can feed y, where y > x. A series of questions naturally follow. Will the surplus be produced at all? How is it transferred to those who consume it? What are the 'superfluous hands' (in Hume’s terms) to do? It is impossible to pose these questions without thinking about the economy as a whole, and the way different sectors hang together. The common thread that runs through eighteenth-century discussions of surplus is a concern with the relation between industry and agriculture, and the potential for development arising from their interplay. There is, however, a clear discontinuity between the eighteenth-century view of agricultural surplus discussed here and the later tradition which links a concept of surplus to income distribution and pricing. Writers before Smith did not generally conceptualize income distribution in terms of the division of a defined total income between different functional shares, nor was there any consistent tradition linking income shares to the concept of an agricultural surplus as discussed here.surplus, agriculture, William Petty, Richard Cantillon, David Hume, Adam Smith

Cantillon, Quesnay, and the Tableau Economique.

Schumpeter argued, long ago, that Quesnay's tableau economique was based on Cantillon, but this claim has never been spelled out in detail and seems not to have been generally accepted, since many writers still write of the tableau economique as though it were Quesnay's alone. This paper examines the relation between Cantillon and Quesnay in more detail than before and argues (a) that the relation between Cantillon's analysis of circulation and Quesnay's tableau is too close to be a coincidence, but (b) that the use Quesnay put it to is quite different from its role in Cantillon's system.Cantillon, Quesnay, Tableau Economique

Controlled crack growth specimen for brittle systems

A pure Mode 1 fracture specimen and test procedure has been developed which provides extended, stable, through-thickness crack growth in ceramics and other brittle, nonmetallic materials. Fixed displacement loading, applied at the crack mouth, promotes stable crack extension by reducing the stored elastic strain energy. Extremely fine control of applied displacements is achieved by utilizing the Poisson's expansion of a compressively loaded cylindrical pin. Stable cracks were successfully grown in soda-lime glass and monolithic Al2O3 for lengths in excess of 20 mm without uncontrollable catastrophic failure

Sir Bartle Frere: Colonial administrator of the Victorian period

The following thesis aims at discerning the attitudes of Sir Bartle Frere as a guide to British colonial and administrative though during the Victorian Period. By doing this, it becomes possible to ascertain the impact of the administrator on British colonial and foreign policy

Numerical calibration of the stable poisson loaded specimen

An analytical calibration of the Stable Poisson Loaded (SPL) specimen is presented. The specimen configuration is similar to the ASTM E-561 compact-tension specimen with displacement controlled wedge loading used for R-Curve determination. The crack mouth opening displacements (CMOD's) are produced by the diametral expansion of an axially compressed cylindrical pin located in the wake of a machined notch. Due to the unusual loading configuration, a three-dimensional finite element analysis was performed with gap elements simulating the contact between the pin and specimen. In this report, stress intensity factors, CMOD's, and crack displacement profiles are reported for different crack lengths and different contacting conditions. It was concluded that the computed stress intensity factor decreases sharply with increasing crack length, thus making the SPL specimen configuration attractive for fracture testing of brittle, high modulus materials

Panama City Pit

Our project is located in the village of Coclecito, Panama. Here we have proposed to relocate a village into a 1850’ x 1500’ by 400 deep mining pit that has been left behind by the mining company. Our thought is that with the terries left in the mine we can use them to create terries farming in which it can provide sustainable life to the people. With this the building would be set on stable volcanic rock, taking advantage of regional geology. We tend to use a concrete mixture with volcanic rock to create most of the structure

Emerging technologies of polymeric nanoparticles in cancer drug delivery

Polymeric nanomaterials have the potential to improve upon present chemotherapy delivery methods. They successfully reduce side effects while increasing dosage, increase residence time in the body, offer a sustained and tunable release, and have the ability to deliver multiple drugs in one carrier. However, traditional nanomaterial formulations have not produced highly therapeutic formulations to date due to their passive delivery methods and lack of rapid drug release at their intended site. In this paper, we have focused on a few “smart” technologies that further enhance the benefits of typical nanomaterials. Temperature and pHresponsive drug delivery devices were reviewed as methods for triggering release of encapsulating drugs, while aptamer and ligand conjugation were discussed as methods for targeted and intracellular delivery, with emphases on in vitro and in vivo works for each method

Ceramic Matrix Composite Vane Subelement Burst Testing

Burst tests were performed on Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC) vane specimens, manufactured by two vendors, under the Ultra Efficient Engine Technology (UEET) project. Burst specimens were machined from the ends of 76mm long vane sub-elements blanks and from High Pressure Burner Rig (HPBR) tested specimens. The results of burst tests will be used to compare virgin specimens with specimens that have had an Environmental Barrier Coating (EBC) applied, both HPBR tested and untested, as well as a comparison between vendors

Fracture Behavior of Ceramics Under Displacement Controlled Loading

A Mode I fracture specimen and loading method has been developed which permits the observation of stable crack extension in monolithic and in situ toughened ceramics. The developed technique was used to conduct room temperature tests on commercial grade alumina (Coors' AD-995) and silicon nitride (Norton NC-132). The results of these tests are reported. Crack growth for the alumina remained subcritical throughout testing revealing possible effects of environmental stress corrosion. The crack growth resistance curve for the alumina is presented. The silicon nitride tests displayed a series of stable (slow) crack growth segments interrupted by dynamic (rapid) crack extension. Crack initiation and arrest stress intensity factors, K(sub Ic) and K(sub Ia), for silicon nitride are reported. The evolution of the specimen design through testing is briefly discussed