European local authorities’ financial resilience in the face of austerity: a comparison across Austria, Italy and England

European local authorities have been particularly stricken by the current context of decline and cutback management, and represent an ideal place where to study how governments respond to shocks affecting their financial conditions and management. Along these lines, this paper adopt the perspective of financial resilience for looking at the current context of austerity, and related responses, by shedding new lights on the role of internal capacities and conditions in influencing such responses and, ultimately, performance. Through a multiple case study analysis based on 12 European local authorities in Austria, Italy and England, the paper identifies the main shocks perceived by local management, the related short-term and long-term responses, highlighting the dynamics of financial vulnerabilty, awareness, anticipatory capacity, flexibility and recovery ability (ie, financial resilience) in its interaction with the external context and shocks. From the analysis, four patterns of resilience emerge: pro-active resilience, adaptive resilience, passive/fatalist resilience, complacent resilience

Effects of aircraft design on STOL ride quality: A simulator study

To improve the ride quality in short takeoff aircraft, several means have been investigated. In general, these methods consist of placing sensors in the aircraft which sense aircraft motion, usually linear accelerations and angular rates. These signals are then used to deflect control surfaces which generate aerodynamic forces and moments which tend to minimize the motion which the passenger feels. One of the disadvantages of some of these systems is that they may tend to degrade the handling qualities or controllability of the airplane, making it more difficult or annoying for the pilot to fly. Rather than using active control systems to control ride quality, one might possibly design aircraft so that they are inherently pleasant to ride. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between characteristic aircraft motions and aircraft ride quality

Study of foldable elastic tubes for large space structure applications

Various modifications were made to the tube design. The tubes were retested and analyzed, and the results are presented. One type of modified tube, the slotted tube, deployed successfully and reliably, and became the focus of detailed tests. Optimal design criteria, taking into consideration deployment as well as strength and buckling behavior were established

Study of foldable elastic tubes for large space structure applications, phase 1

Structural members that might be suitable for strain energy deployable structures, are discussed with emphasis on a thin-walled cylindrical tube with a cross-section that is called 'bi-convex'. The design of bi-convex tube test specimens and their fabrication are described as well as the design and construction of a special purpose testing machine to determine the deployment characteristics. The results of the first series of tests were quite mixed, but clearly revealed that since most of the specimens failed to deploy completely, due to a buckling problem, this type of tube requires some modification in order to be viable

Financial resilience in local authorities: an exploration of Anglo-Italian experiences

For more than thirty years public management and accounting theories and practice have been strongly influenced by the search for efficiency, heralded by the New Public Management and similar public sector modernization movements. Public administrations have focused their attention on economy, efficiency and effectiveness, looking for cost containment, matching resources and goals, output maximization or input minimization. Even the wave of development of performance measurement and management tools have mainly emphasized the importance of short-term efficiency, often without worrying too much about their ability to ensure public administrations’ responsiveness in the face of unexpected events and crises

The effects of aircraft design on STOL ride quality

Effects of aircraft dynamic characteristics on passenger ride quality are investigated to determine ride-quality isocontours similar to aircraft handling-qualities contours. Measurements are made on a moving-base simulator while varying the aircraft short-period and Dutch Roll frequencies and dampings. Both pilot ratings and subjective ride-quality ratings are obtained during flight. Ride and handling qualities were found to be complementary for the Dutch Roll mode, but not for the short-period mode. Regions of optimal ride and handling qualities are defined for the short-period mode, and the effects of turbulence levels studied

Sex ratio influences the motivational salience of facial attractiveness

The sex ratio of the local population influences mating-related behaviours in many species. Recent experiments show that male-biased sex ratios increase the amount of financial resources men will invest in potential mates, suggesting that sex ratios influence allocation of mating effort in humans. To investigate this issue further, we tested for effects of cues to the sex ratio of the local population on the motivational salience of attractiveness in own-sex and opposite-sex faces. We did this using an effort-based key-press task, in which the motivational salience of facial attractiveness was assessed in samples of faces in which the ratio of male to female images was manipulated. The motivational salience of attractive opposite-sex, but not own-sex, faces was greater in the own-sex-biased (high competition for mates) than in the opposite-sex-biased (low competition for mates) condition. Moreover, this effect was not modulated by participant sex. These results present new evidence that sex ratio influences human mating-related behaviours. They also present the first evidence that the perceived sex ratio of the local population may modulate allocation of mating effort in women, as well as men

Implications of an r-mode in XTE J1751-305: Mass, radius and spin evolution

Recently Strohmayer and Mahmoodifar presented evidence for a coherent oscillation in the X-ray light curve of the accreting millisecond pulsar XTE J1751-305, using data taken by RXTE during the 2002 outburst of this source. They noted that a possible explanation includes the excitation of a non-radial oscillation mode of the neutron star, either in the form of a g-mode or an r-mode. The r-mode interpretation has connections with proposed spin-evolution scenarios for systems such as XTE J1751-305. Here we examine in detail this interesting possible interpretation. Using the ratio of the observed oscillation frequency to the star's spin frequency, we derive an approximate neutron star mass-radius relation which yields reasonable values for the mass over the range of expected stellar radius (as constrained by observations of radius-expansion burst sources). However, we argue that the large mode amplitude suggested by the Strohmayer and Mahmoodifar analysis would inevitably lead to a large spin-down of the star, inconsistent with its observed spin evolution, regardless of whether the r-mode itself is in a stable or unstable regime. We therefore conclude that the r-mode interpretation of the observed oscillation is not consistent with our current understanding of neutron star dynamics and must be considered unlikely. Finally we note that, subject to the availability of a sufficiently accurate timing model, a direct gravitational-wave search may be able to confirm or reject an r-mode interpretation unambiguously, should such an event, with a similar inferred mode amplitude, recur during the Advanced detector era.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; submitted to MNRA