Il concetto di «capitalismo di Stato» in Lenin

This essay is focused on uses and evolution of the concept of “State capitalism” in Lenin’s thought, from his pre-revolutionary works to the writings that led the birth of Soviet power and the first years of its consolidation. It is argued that “State capitalism”, initially built on some characters of German war economy, changes its meaning in Lenin’s late works: here it’s used to describe the specific economic pattern through which Russia should be funneled in order to promote a quick transition from little production to socialism, following the seizure of State power and the control over the main means of production by the working class party. Therefore “State capitalism” can be seen as a constitutive part of the broader concept of “transitional society”.  Keywords: State capitalism; Lenin; Capitalism; Socialism; Soviet power

Simulation-based analysis of micro-robots swimming at the center and near the wall of circular mini-channels

Swimming micro robots have great potential in biomedical applications such as targeted drug delivery, medical diagnosis, and destroying blood clots in arteries. Inspired by swimming micro organisms, micro robots can move in biofluids with helical tails attached to their bodies. In order to design and navigate micro robots, hydrodynamic characteristics of the flow field must be understood well. This work presents computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and analysis of the flow due to the motion of micro robots that consist of magnetic heads and helical tails inside fluid-filled channels akin to bodily conduits; special emphasis is on the effects of the radial position of the robot. Time-averaged velocities, forces, torques, and efficiency of the micro robots placed in the channels are analyzed as functions of rotation frequency, helical pitch (wavelength) and helical radius (amplitude) of the tail. Results indicate that robots move faster and more efficiently near the wall than at the center of the channel. Forces acting on micro robots are asymmetrical due to the chirality of the robot’s tail and its motion. Moreover, robots placed near the wall have a different flow pattern around the head when compared to in-center and unbounded swimmers. According to simulation results, time-averaged for-ward velocity of the robot agrees well with the experimental values measured previously for a robot with almost the same dimensions

Why East Germany Did Not Become a New Mezzogiorno

Economic integration is generally thought to favour convergence in the economic performance of previously separated regions; but this is far from universally true, as the experience of the members of the Eurozone testifies. The paper considers the two sharply contrasting cases of East and West German convergence following reunification and the enduring poverty of the Italian Mezzogiorno since Italian unification a century and a half ago. In both countries, political integration delivers much higher consumption in the lagging relative to the leading region than of per capita GDP. Consumption convergence can be supported by transfers but ‘production’ convergence ultimately requires catch-up in the production of tradeables. The paper demonstrates the radically different performance of the tradeable sector in the two cases, and suggests that this may be the result of differences in labour market flexibility, in investment performance and in the social norms required for the production of complex manufacturing

Hydrodynamic interaction of two unsteady model microorganisms.

The study of pair-wise interactions between swimming microorganisms is fundamental to the understanding of the rheological and transport properties of semi-dilute suspensions. In this paper, the hydrodynamic interaction of two ciliated microorganisms is investigated numerically using a boundary-element method, and the microorganisms are modeled as spherical squirmers that swim by time-dependent surface deformations. The results show that the inclusion of the unsteady terms in the ciliary propulsion model has a large impact on the trajectories of the interacting cells, and causes a significant change in scattering angles with potential important consequences on the diffusion properties of semi-dilute suspensions. Furthermore, the analysis of the shear stress acting on the surface of the microorganisms revealed that the duration and the intensity of the near-field interaction are significantly modified by the presence of unsteadiness. This observation may account for the hydrodynamic nature of randomness in some biological reactions, and supersedes the distinction between intrinsic randomness and hydrodynamic interactions, adding a further element to the understanding and modeling of interacting microorganisms

Optimization of bypass outlet guide vane for low interaction noise

An optimization approach has been developed and applied to a fan stage representative of a modern turbofan enginetoachieve novel, realistic, low-interaction-tone noise bypass outlet guide vanes with acceptable mechanical and aerodynamic properties. The incorporation of axial sweep in the design of the bypass stators is used as a passive method to achieve sizeable reductions in the discrete frequency tones generated by the impingement of the fan wakes. The acoustic benefits, mechanical properties, and aerodynamic performance of an unconventional sweep profile of the stator leading edge have been investigated numerically in an optimization framework using a combination of computational fluid dynamics and finite-element methods to solve each part of the problem. The results obtained in two separate optimizations to reduce interaction noise at the noise-critical sideline operating condition are presented and analyzed. Copyright © 2013 by Rolls-Royce plc