6,191 research outputs found
Wetting and drying of a rigid substrate under variation of the microscopic details
Wetting and drying of a rigid substrate by a Lennard-Jones fluid in molecular
dynamics simulations is reported. The size of the substrate particles, being
smaller than the fluid particles in former simulations, is now taken to be
equal to, respectively larger than, that of the fluid particles. Recently, for
the latter type of system a first order drying transition has been reported.
Like before we find a continuous-like transition for all systems considered.
This also holds for substrates with incompletely-filled top layers, the
so-called molecularly rough surfaces. All systems studied behave qualitatively
alike, but inconsistencies are found in the solid-vapour surface tension on
approach of the wetting transition and for the solid-fluid surface tension in
general.Comment: 17 pages Latex, 6 figures, to appear in Physica
An exploration of embeddedness : with special reference to Japan : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Economics at Massey University
This thesis utilises the economic sociology concept of embeddedness as the theoretical underpinning to provide an alternative perspective to traditional explanations of economic growth. In general, the advantages of social embeddedness have been the main focus in the literature on the topic. The main purpose of this study is to explore, with special reference to Japan, how embedded relationships could both enable and hinder growth. The study examines the operation of embedded ties in four key areas: inter-firm interaction with an emphasis on the auto-industry; embedded relationships within the financial sector; networks in the internationalisation of firms and embeddedness between government and business, including a case study of the construction industry. It finds that while embedded ties have several advantageous facets, they also have the potential to be an impediment to growth, flexibility and adaptability to change. Network ties can expand and become so rigidly structured, especially in a Confucian society like Japan, as to become obstacles particularly in the face of changing economic circumstances. They can atrophy. This finding led to the development of the concluding notion of "atrophied embeddedness"
How Harmful are Adaptation Restrictions
The dominant assumption in economic models of climate policy remains that adaptation will be implemented in an optimal manner. There are, however, several reasons why optimal levels of adaptation may not be attainable. This paper investigates the effects of suboptimal levels of adaptation, i.e. adaptation restrictions, on the composition and level of climate change costs and on welfare. Several adaptation restrictions are identified and then simulated in a revised DICE model, extended with adaptation (AD-DICE). We find that especially substantial over-investment in adaptation can be very harmful due to sharply increasing marginal adaptation costs. Furthermore the potential of mitigation to offset suboptimal adaptation is investigated. When adaptation is not possible at extreme levels of climate change, it is cost-effective to use more stringent mitigation policies in order to keep climate change limited, thereby making adaptation possible. Furthermore not adjusting the optimal level of mitigation to these adaptation restrictions may double the costs of adaptation restrictions, and thus in general it is very harmful to ignore existing restrictions on adaptation when devising (efficient) climate policies.Integrated Assessment Modelling, Adaptation, Climate Change
AD-DICE: an implementation of adaptation in the DICE model
Integrated Assessment Models (IAMS) have helped us over the past decade to understand the interactions between the environment and the economy in the context of climate change. Although it has also long been recognized that adaptation is a powerful and necessary tool to combat the adverse effects of climate change, most IAMs have not explicitly included the option of adaptation in combating climate change. This paper adds to the IAM and climate change literature by explicitly including adaptation in an IAM, thereby making the trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation visible. Specifically, a theoretical framework is created and used to implement adaptation as a decision variable into the DICE model. We use our new AD-DICE model to derive the adaptation cost functions implicit in the DICE model. In our set-up, adaptation and mitigation decisions are separable and AD-DICE can mimic DICE when adaptation is optimal. We find that our specification of the adaptation costs is robust with respect to the mitigation policy scenarios. Our numerical results show that adaptation is a powerful option to combat climate change, as it reduces most of the potential costs of climate change in earlier periods, while mitigation does so in later periods.integrated assessment modelling, adaptation, climate change
International Cooperation on Climate Change Adaptation from an Economic Perspective
This paper investigates the economic incentives of countries to cooperate on international adaptation financing. Adaptation is generally implicitly incorporated in the climate change damage functions as used in Integrated Assessment Models. We replace the implicit decision on adaptation with explicit adaptation in a multi-regional setting by using an adjusted RICE model. We show that making adaptation explicit will not affect the optimal mitigation path when adaptation is set at its optimal level. Sub-optimal adaptation will, however, change the optimal mitigation path. Furthermore this paper studies for different forms of cooperation what effects international adaptation transfers will have on (i) domestic adaptation and (ii) the optimal mitigation path. Adaptation transfers will fully crowd out domestic adaptation in a first best setting. Transfers will decrease overall mitigation in our numerical simulations. An analytical framework is used to analyse the most important mechanisms and a numerical model is used to assess the magnitude of effects.Climate Change, Adaptation Funding, Integrated Assessment Modeling
Control of S phase duration: a replication capacity model with E2F transcription at its heart
DNA replication capacity, the maximal amount of DNA a cell can synthesize at any given time during S phase, is controlled by E2F-dependent transcription. Controlling replication capacity limits the replication rate and provides a robust mechanism to keep replication fork speed within an optimal range whilst ensuring timely completion of genome duplication
What does Paris mean for Africa? An Integrated Assessment analysis of the effects of the Paris Agreement on African economies. ESRI Working Paper 690 December 2020.
Climate change is considered the biggest environmental challenge facing the world. The expected concomitant economic impacts of climate change are substantial, where the African continent is expected to be particularly vulnerable. Research is needed to support the development of sound climate policies in Africa. This paper develops a new Integrated Assessment Model -AD-AFRICA- which allows a comprehensive analysis of climate change impacts and adaptation in Africa. The AD-AFRICA model divides Africa into ïŹve regions and includes seven speciïŹc climate change impacts. The effects of the Paris agreement Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) and the below 2 degrees target are investigated. The results show that though the INDCs reduce impacts, reaching the goal of the agreement will further reduce impacts by almost 1.6 % of GDP (588,731 US Billions to Africa
On the Lebesgue measure of Li-Yorke pairs for interval maps
We investigate the prevalence of Li-Yorke pairs for and
multimodal maps with non-flat critical points. We show that every
measurable scrambled set has zero Lebesgue measure and that all strongly
wandering sets have zero Lebesgue measure, as does the set of pairs of
asymptotic (but not asymptotically periodic) points.
If is topologically mixing and has no Cantor attractor, then typical
(w.r.t. two-dimensional Lebesgue measure) pairs are Li-Yorke; if additionally
admits an absolutely continuous invariant probability measure (acip), then
typical pairs have a dense orbit for . These results make use of
so-called nice neighborhoods of the critical set of general multimodal maps,
and hence uniformly expanding Markov induced maps, the existence of either is
proved in this paper as well.
For the setting where has a Cantor attractor, we present a trichotomy
explaining when the set of Li-Yorke pairs and distal pairs have positive
two-dimensional Lebesgue measure.Comment: 41 pages, 3 figure
- âŠ