Economic Globalisation: The Process and its Potential, Social, Economic and Environmental Impacts

After economic globalisation is defined, the factors that have favoured it in recent times are outlined and the process is placed in a historical context. Measures of the recent expansion in economic globalisation are given, such as trends in the proportion of global GDP traded internationally, and the relative size of global FDI. China’s comparative economic openness compared to the rest of the world is discussed. Potential positive and negative economic and social impacts of globalisation are explored, taking into account important economic theories. Particular attention is given to globalisation and the evolutionary dynamics of economic growth by considering the economic ‘catching up’ phase of countries, such as China, and by placing this in a general evolutionary context. The question is also posed of whether economic growth will eventually cease, and whether industrial and social structures could become defective once economic globalisation is well established and enters its mature phase. Economic growth fostered by growing globalisation also raises globally important environmental and natural resource issues of relevance to the sustainability of economic growth and to the fulfilment of human goals. Some of these issues are investigated, taking into account theories that provide an optimistic prognosis, as well as those which warn of dangers and difficulties ahead.globalisation, GDP, FDI, China, social impacts of globalisation, economic growth, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development,

Quasiparticle Berry curvature and Chern numbers in spin-orbit coupled bosonic Mott insulators

We study the ground-state topology and quasiparticle properties in bosonic Mott insulators with two- dimensional spin-orbit couplings in cold atomic optical lattices. We show that the many-body Chern and spin-Chern number can be expressed as an integral of the quasihole Berry curvatures over the Brillouin zone. Using a strong-coupling perturbation theory, for an experimentally feasible spin-orbit coupling, we compute the Berry curvature and the spin Chern number and find that these quantities can be generated purely by interactions. We also compute the quasiparticle dispersions, spectral weights, and the quasimomentum space distribution of particle and spin density, which can be accessed in cold-atom experiments and used to deduce the Berry curvature and Chern numbers

‘Do larger molars and robust jaws in early hominins represent dietary adaptation?’ A New Study in Tooth Wear

Diet imposes significant constraints on the biology and behaviour of animals. The fossil record suggests that key changes in diet have taken place throughout the course of human evolution. Defining these changes enables us to understand the behaviour of our extinct fossil ancestors. Several lines of evidence are available for studying the diet of early hominins, including craniodental morphology, palaeoecology, dental microwear and stable isotopes. They do, however, often provide conflicting results. Using dental macrowear analysis, this new UCL Institute of Archaeology project will provide an alternative source of information on early hominin diet. Dental macrowear has often been used to analyse diet in archaeological populations, but this will be the first time that this type of detailed study has been applied to the early hominin fossil record

Family Size, Economics and Child Gender Preference: A Case Study in the Nyeri District of Kenya

Kenyan women have more children, especially in rural areas, than in most developing nations. This is widely believed to be an impediment to Kenya’s economic development. Thus, factors influencing family size in the Kenyan context are important for its future. A brief review of economic theories of fertility leads to the conclusion that both economics and social/cultural factors must be considered simultaneously when examining factors that determine the number of children in a family. The need to do this is borne out in Kenya’s situation by utilising responses from a random sample of rural households in the Nyeri district of Kenya. Economic and social/cultural factors intertwine to influence family sizes in this district. After providing a summary of the main statistical results from the survey, we use multiple regression analysis to explore the influences of a woman’s age, level of education, whether she has outside employment, whether the family keeps livestock, whether she expresses a preference for more boys than girls, whether the family uses only family labour (including child labour) and the size of the farm, which is used as a proxy for family income. It was found that preference for male children has an important positive influence on family size in this district. Women were found to have greater preference for male children than their male counterparts possibly because of their fear of being disinherited if they do not produce an heir for their husbands. Preference for sons was also found in allocation of human capital resources at the household level in that the female respondents were found to have lower levels of education than their male counterparts. Various long-term policies are outlined that may help to reduce the number of offspring of women in Kenya.family size, fertility, child gender preference, human capital formation, costs, benefits, free child labour, marital status, and age., Labor and Human Capital,

Testing probability distributions using conditional samples

We study a new framework for property testing of probability distributions, by considering distribution testing algorithms that have access to a conditional sampling oracle.* This is an oracle that takes as input a subset $S \subseteq [N]$ of the domain $[N]$ of the unknown probability distribution $D$ and returns a draw from the conditional probability distribution $D$ restricted to $S$. This new model allows considerable flexibility in the design of distribution testing algorithms; in particular, testing algorithms in this model can be adaptive. We study a wide range of natural distribution testing problems in this new framework and some of its variants, giving both upper and lower bounds on query complexity. These problems include testing whether $D$ is the uniform distribution $\mathcal{U}$; testing whether $D = D^\ast$ for an explicitly provided $D^\ast$; testing whether two unknown distributions $D_1$ and $D_2$ are equivalent; and estimating the variation distance between $D$ and the uniform distribution. At a high level our main finding is that the new "conditional sampling" framework we consider is a powerful one: while all the problems mentioned above have $\Omega(\sqrt{N})$ sample complexity in the standard model (and in some cases the complexity must be almost linear in $N$), we give $\mathrm{poly}(\log N, 1/\varepsilon)$-query algorithms (and in some cases $\mathrm{poly}(1/\varepsilon)$-query algorithms independent of $N$) for all these problems in our conditional sampling setting. *Independently from our work, Chakraborty et al. also considered this framework. We discuss their work in Subsection [1.4].Comment: Significant changes on Section 9 (detailing and expanding the proof of Theorem 16). Several clarifications and typos fixed in various place

Safety and Socio-Economic Issues Raised by Modern Biotechnology

Modern new biotechnology has the potential to provide major economic and other benefits, but at the same time it poses potential hazards for human health, the environment, the ‘natural’ biological order and can have adverse socio-economic consequences. The application of such technology frequently violates traditional ethical, moral and religious values. This paper after outlining possible benefits of modern new biotechnologies, discusses the type of biosafety risks which they pose, their possible adverse consequences for the sustainability of biodiversity and agriculture and their potential impacts on socioeconomic welfare and traditional cultures. Particular concern is expressed about the possible consequences of such technologies for developing countries and the practice in some developed countries of issuing patents conferring very broad rights over the use of genetically engineered material. Because these rights are so broad in some cases they have the potential to establish powerful multinational monopolies in the hands of private companies. Global debate about these issues suggest that more emphasis should be given globally to the socio-economic consequences of such technology than in the past. The need for this is highlighted by the North-South divide. Developing countries lag considerably in this new technological field, are placed in a dependant position and have weak institutional structures to control the application of such technologybiotechnology, socio-economic policy, genetic engineering, biodiversity, biosafety, patents, Environmental Economics and Policy, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Comparative evaluation of solar, fission, fusion, and fossil energy resources, part 3

The role of nuclear fission reactors in becoming an important power source in the world is discussed. The supply of fissile nuclear fuel will be severely depleted by the year 2000. With breeder reactors the world supply of uranium could last thousands of years. However, breeder reactors have problems of a large radioactive inventory and an accident potential which could present an unacceptable hazard. Although breeder reactors afford a possible solution to the energy shortage, their ultimate role will depend on demonstrated safety and acceptable risks and environmental effects. Fusion power would also be a long range, essentially permanent, solution to the world's energy problem. Fusion appears to compare favorably with breeders in safety and environmental effects. Research comparing a controlled fusion reactor with the breeder reactor in solving our long range energy needs is discussed

3D modelling of Ti–6Al–4V linear friction welds

Linear friction welding (LFW) is a solid-state joining process that significantly reduces manufacturing costs when fabricating Ti–6Al–4V aircraft components. This article describes the development of a novel 3D LFW process model for joining Ti–6Al–4V. Displacement histories were taken from experiments and used as modelling inputs; herein is the novelty of the approach, which resulted in decreased computational time and memory storage requirements. In general, the models captured the experimental weld phenomena and showed that the thermo-mechanically affected zone and interface temperature are reduced when the workpieces are oscillated along the shorter of the two interface contact dimensions. Moreover, the models showed that unbonded regions occur at the corners of the weld interface, which are eliminated by increasing the burn-off