On the Road to Nowhere: Stalled Politics and Urban Infrastructure in Kathmandu

During the period leading up to the passage of the 2015 constitution in Nepal, the roads of Kathmandu were often interpreted by the city’s residents as symbols of the stalled constitutional process and of the faltering and corrupt nature of national politics in general. By detailing specific moments in which the inadequacy of roads and the inadequacy of the state were directly juxtaposed in everyday conversations, this article calls for sustained attention to the interrelationship between urban infrastructure and national- and local-level politics

Numerical study of mode conversion between lower hybrid and whistler waves on short-scale density striations

We present a theoretical and numerical study of linear mode conversion of lower hybrid waves interacting with short-scale density striations in the Earth's ionosphere. The efficiency of the conversion process is investigated for different sets of parameters such as the angle of incidence, the wavelength of the lower hybrid wave, and the size of the striation. It is found that the most efficient whistler generation occurs at a critical angle of incidence where the whistler waves are driven resonantly along the density striations, and when the product of the striation width and the wave number of the lower hybrid wave is of the order unity. It is suggested that whistlers generated as a byproduct of upper hybrid F-region ionospheric heating can be observed on the ground and by satellites. The generated whistlers could be important for the precipitation of energetic electrons in the radiation belts

CO Oxidation Catalysed by Pd-based Bimetallic Nanoalloys

Density functional theory based global geometry optimization has been used to demonstrate the crucial influence of the geometry of the catalytic cluster on the energy barriers for the CO oxidation reaction over Pd-based bimetallic nanoalloys. We show that dramatic geometry change between the reaction intermediates can lead to very high energy barriers and thus be prohibitive for the whole process. This introduces challenges for both the design of new catalysts, and theoretical methods employed. On the theory side, a careful choice of geometric configurations of all reaction intermediates is crucial for an adequate description of a possible reaction path. From the point of view of the catalyst design, the cluster geometry can be controlled by adjusting the level of interaction between the cluster and the dopant metal, as well as between the adsorbate molecules and the catalyst cluster by mixing different metals in a single nanoalloy particle. We show that substitution of a Pd atom in the Pd$_{5}$ cluster with a single Ag atom to form Pd$_{4}$Ag$_{1}$ leads to a potential improvement of the catalytic properties of the cluster for the CO oxidation reaction. On the other hand, a single Au atom does not enhance the properties of the catalyst, which is attributed to a weaker hybridization between the cluster's constituent metals and the adsorbate molecules. Such flexibility of properties of bimetallic nanoalloy clusters illustrates the possibility of fine-tuning, which might be used for design of novel efficient catalytic materials.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure

Anatomy of a Governance Transformation: The Case of Daimler-Benz

Logue and Seward examine the evolutionary transformation in the corporate governance structure of Daimler-Benz AG, the largest German industrial company. Over the last several years, Daimler-Benz has taken numerous steps toward prioritizing shareholder value more intensely than ever before

A REVIEW AND AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF STUDIES REGARDING IRRIGATION INSTITUTIONS, MANAGEMENT AND INVESTMENT IN ASIA

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,