Global Income Inequality and Savings: A Data Science Perspective

A society or country with income equally distributed among its people is truly a fiction! The phenomena of socioeconomic inequalities have been plaguing mankind from times immemorial. We are interested in gaining an insight about the co-evolution of the countries in the inequality space, from a data science perspective. For this purpose, we use the time series data for Gini indices of different countries, and construct the equal-time cross-correlation matrix. We then use this to construct a similarity matrix and generate a map with the countries as different points generated through a multi-dimensional scaling technique. We also produce a similar map of different countries using the time series data for Gross Domestic Savings (% of GDP). We also pose a different, yet significant, question: Can higher savings moderate the income inequality? In this paper, we have tried to address this question through another data science technique - linear regression, to seek an empirical linkage between the income inequality and savings, mainly for relatively small or closed economies. This question was inspired from an existing theoretical model proposed by Chakraborti-Chakrabarti (2000), based on the principle of kinetic theory of gases. We tested our model empirically using Gini index and Gross Domestic Savings, and observed that the model holds reasonably true for many economies of the world.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. IEEE format. Accepted for publication in 5th IEEE DSAA 2018 conference at Torino, Ital

Removal of VOCs from superfactant-flushed wastewater by membrane based modified pervaporation process

An aqueous solution of a volatile organic compound (VOC) e.g. trichloroethylene (TCE) is passed through the bores of hydrophobic microporous polypropylene hollow fibers having a plasma polymerized silicone coating on the fiber outside diameter; a vacuum is maintained on the shell side of the fiber to remove the VOC and recover it by condensation. Process performance has been obtained over a range of feed flow rates, concentrations of VOC and the surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)). In solutions without surfactant or low surfactant concentrations, the pores are not wetted and remain gas-filled. The VOC is stripped from the solution into the gas-filled pores, diffuse through the gas-filled pore and then permeate through the silicone coating to the shell side where vacuum removes it. This process is termed stripmeation . The observed VOC permeation and removal behavior in stripmeation has been modeled using resistances-in-series approach; the model-estimated values compare well with the experimental values for surfactant-free feed solutions. For surfactant-containing feed solutions, with an increase in surfactant concentration the VOC flux decreases. Experiments conducted to identify and estimate the resistances show that as the surfactant solution wets the pores, the water-filled pores offer additional resistance. Other resistances may be due to unavailability of VOC in the aqueous phase and an adsorbed surfactant layer on the polypropylene substrate. Comparison between tube-side feed and shell-side feed was made for aqueous and surfactant feed. The tube-side feed-based operation performs much better