Who benefits from an adult worker model? Gender inequality in couples’ daily time use in Germany across time and social classes

This article investigates how mothers’ and fathers’ daily time use changed across social classes from 1990 to 2013 in Germany. In the 2000s, Germany’s adherence to the male breadwinner model was eroded by labor and family policy reforms typical of the adult worker model, which assumes individual self-sufficiency. The implications for gender and class inequality have been heatedly discussed. Drawing on the German Time Use Survey, I find that gender equality in the division of labor is greatest among full-time dual-earner couples with standard schedules. The prevalence of this pattern increased among the middle- and upper-class in historically conservative western Germany, but declined across classes in formerly socialist eastern Germany. In parallel, nonstandard work patterns and dual-joblessness gained in importance among lower-class couples, particularly in eastern Germany. I conclude that the adult worker model benefited mothers with access to standard full-time jobs but at the cost of greater class polarization.Peer Reviewe

A Comparison of Related Concepts in Computational Chemistry and Mathematics

This article studies the relation of the two scientific languages Chemistry and Mathematics via three selected comparisons: (a) QSSA versus dynamic ILDM in reaction kinetics, (b) lumping versus discrete Galerkin methods in polymer chemistry, and (c) geometrical conformations versus metastable conformations in drug design. The common clear message from these comparisons is that chemical intuition may pave the way for mathematical concepts just as chemical concepts may gain from mathematical precising. Along this line, significant improvements in chemical research and engineering have already been possible -and can be further expected in the future from the dialogue between the two scientific languages

Some energy conservative schemes for vibro-impacts of a beam on rigid obstacles

Caused by the problem of unilateral contact during vibrations of satellite solar arrays, the aim of this paper is to better understand such a phenomenon. Therefore, it is studied here a simplified model composed by a beam moving between rigid obstacles. Our purpose is to describe and compare some families of fully discretized approximations and their properties, in the case of non-penetration Signorini’s conditions. For this, starting from the works of Dumont and Paoli, we adapt to our beam model the singular dynamic method introduced by Renard. A particular emphasis is given in the use of a restitution coefficient in the impact law. Finally, various numerical results are presented and energy conservation capabilities of the schemes are investigated

Maximum Margin Clustering for State Decomposition of Metastable Systems

When studying a metastable dynamical system, a prime concern is how to decompose the phase space into a set of metastable states. Unfortunately, the metastable state decomposition based on simulation or experimental data is still a challenge. The most popular and simplest approach is geometric clustering which is developed based on the classical clustering technique. However, the prerequisites of this approach are: (1) data are obtained from simulations or experiments which are in global equilibrium and (2) the coordinate system is appropriately selected. Recently, the kinetic clustering approach based on phase space discretization and transition probability estimation has drawn much attention due to its applicability to more general cases, but the choice of discretization policy is a difficult task. In this paper, a new decomposition method designated as maximum margin metastable clustering is proposed, which converts the problem of metastable state decomposition to a semi-supervised learning problem so that the large margin technique can be utilized to search for the optimal decomposition without phase space discretization. Moreover, several simulation examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method

Parameter Identification in a Tuberculosis Model for Cameroon

A deterministic model of tuberculosis in Cameroon is designed and analyzed with respect to its transmission dynamics. The model includes lack of access to treatment and weak diagnosis capacity as well as both frequency-and density-dependent transmissions. It is shown that the model is mathematically well-posed and epidemiologically reasonable. Solutions are non-negative and bounded whenever the initial values are non-negative. A sensitivity analysis of model parameters is performed and the most sensitive ones are identified by means of a state-of-the-art Gauss-Newton method. In particular, parameters representing the proportion of individuals having access to medical facilities are seen to have a large impact on the dynamics of the disease. The model predicts that a gradual increase of these parameters could significantly reduce the disease burden on the population within the next 15 years.IMU Berlin Einstein Foundation Progra

Adaptive Pseudo-Transient-Continuation-Galerkin Methods for Semilinear Elliptic Partial Differential Equations

In this paper we investigate the application of pseudo-transient-continuation (PTC) schemes for the numerical solution of semilinear elliptic partial differential equations, with possible singular perturbations. We will outline a residual reduction analysis within the framework of general Hilbert spaces, and, subsequently, employ the PTC-methodology in the context of finite element discretizations of semilinear boundary value problems. Our approach combines both a prediction-type PTC-method (for infinite dimensional problems) and an adaptive finite element discretization (based on a robust a posteriori residual analysis), thereby leading to a fully adaptive PTC-Galerkin scheme. Numerical experiments underline the robustness and reliability of the proposed approach for different examples.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1408.522

Towards an efficient numerical simulation of complex 3D knee joint motion

We present a time-dependent finite element model of the human knee joint of full 3D geometric complexity together with advanced numerical algorithms needed for its simulation. The model comprises bones, cartilage and the major ligaments, while patella and menisci are still missing. Bones are modeled by linear elastic materials, cartilage by linear viscoelastic materials, and ligaments by one-dimensional nonlinear Cosserat rods. In order to capture the dynamical contact problems correctly, we solve the full PDEs of elasticity with strict contact inequalities. The spatio-temporal discretization follows a time layers approach (first time, then space discretization). For the time discretization of the elastic and viscoelastic parts we use a new contact-stabilized Newmark method, while for the Cosserat rods we choose an energy-momentum method. For the space discretization, we use linear finite elements for the elastic and viscoelastic parts and novel geodesic finite elements for the Cosserat rods. The coupled system is solved by a Dirichlet–Neumann method. The large algebraic systems of the bone–cartilage contact problems are solved efficiently by the truncated non-smooth Newton multigrid method