Basic Income by Default: Lessons from Iran's 'Cash Subsidy' Programme

Karshenas and Tabatabai consider Iran’s nationwide, universal cash transfer programme, which was launched in December 2010 as compensation for massive cuts in subsidies that led to increased prices for energy and other basic products. The authors describe the unusual manner in which the programme emerged, and its potential lessons. Of particular interest is the impact on incomes and expenditures, labour supply, inflation, income distribution, and poverty, in the immediate aftermath of the launch of the programme, as well as its implications for similar schemes such as financing a UBI by carbon taxes. Given an extremely adverse broader environment however, the programme, while still continuing after eight years, has lost much of its lustre as the purchasing power of the transfers has been largely wiped out through inflation

Long term performance of gravel base course layers in asphalt

This research investigated the performance of base layer aggregates in HMA pavements using laboratory tests (standard compaction, particle size analysis, Atterberg Limits, sodium sulfate soundness, Micro-Deval abrasion, absorption, specific gravity, and soaked CBR) on existing base layer materials as well as pavement surface visual and automated distress surveys. The purpose of this research was to investigate potential degradation of aggregate bases, strength variations over time, and the likely causes for both. Analysis of laboratory and field test results indicated significant variability in the properties and characteristics of base layer aggregate materials in various pavement test sections. Based on the results of the laboratory and field tests, the research team believes that the long-term performance of the base layer aggregates impacted the overall pavement performance of the corresponding test sections. While base aggregate materials in general did not exhibit severe degradation or disintegration – as demonstrated by laboratory tests – nor significant contamination from subgrade, the performance of such materials was lower compared with typical crushed stone materials

Linearization techniques to suppress optical nonlinearity

This thesis is shown the implementation of the linearization techniques such as feedforward and pre-distortion feedback linearization to suppress the optical components nonlinearities caused by the fibre and semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The simulation verified these two linearization techniques for single tone direct modulation, two tone indirect modulation and ultra wideband input to the optical fibre. These techniques uses the amplified spontaneously emission (ASE) noise reduction in two loops of SOA by a feed-forward and predistortion linearizer and is shown more than 6dB improvement. Also it investigates linearization for the SOA amplifier to cancel out the third order harmonics or inter-modulation distortion (IMD) or four waves mixing. In this project, more than 20 dB reductions is seen in the spectral re-growth caused by the SOA. Amplifier non-linearity becomes more severe with two strong input channels leading to inter-channel distortion which can completely mask a third adjacent channel. The simulations detailed above were performed utilizing optimum settings for the variable gain, phase and delay components in the error correction loop of the feed forward and Predistortion systems and hence represent the ideal situation of a perfect feed-forward and Predistortion system. Therefore it should be consider that complexity of circuit will increase due to amplitude, phase and delay mismatches in practical design. Also it has describe the compatibility of Software Defined Radio with Hybrid Fibre Radio with simulation model of wired optical networks to be used for future research investigation, based on the star and ring topologies for different modulation schemes, and providing the performance for these configurations.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Experiment on interaction of abutment, steel H-Pile and soil in integral abutment jointless bridges (IAJBs) under Low-cycle Pseudo-static displacement loads

Soil-abutment or soil-pile interactions under cyclic static loads have been widely studied in integral abutment jointless bridges (IAJBs). However, the IAJB has the combinational interaction of soil-abutment and soil-pile, and the soil-abutment-pile interaction is lack of comprehensively study. Therefore, a reciprocating low-cycle pseudo-static test was carried out under an cyclic horizontal displacement load (DL) to gain insight into the mechanical behavior of the soil-abutment-pile system. Test results indicate that the earth pressure of backfill behind abutment has the ratcheting effect, which induced a large earth pressure. The soil-abutment-pile system has a favorable energy dissipation capacity and seismic behavior with relatively large equivalent viscous damping. The accumulative horizontal deformation in pile will be occurred by the effect of abutment and unbalance soil pressure of backfill. The test shows that the maximum horizontal deformation of pile occurs in the pile depth of 1.0b~3.0b of pile body rather than at the pile head due to the accumulative deformation of pile, which is significantly different from those of previous test results of soil-pile interaction. The time-history curve for abutment is relatively symmetrical and its accumulative deformation is small. However, the time-history curve of pile is asymmetrical and its accumulative deformation is dramatically large. The traditional theory of deformation applies only to the calculation of noncumulative deformation of pile, and the influence of accumulative deformation should be considered in practical engineering. A significant difference of inclinations in the positive and negative directions increases when the displacement load is relatively large. The rotation of abutment when bridge expands is larger than that when bridge contracts due to earth pressure of backfill

Enhanced Removal of Cr(VI) from Aqueous Solutions Using Poly(Pyrrole)-g-Poly(Acrylic Acid-co- Acrylamide)/Fe3O4 Magnetic Hydrogel Nanocomposite Adsorbent

In the present work, the structural characterization and chromium adsorption behavior of a novel poly(pyrrole)-based magnetic hydrogel nanocomposite (MHN) is reported. This product was prepared using free-radical copolymerization of pyrrole (Py), acrylic acid (AA) and acrylamide (AM) monomers, and subsequent in situ synthesis of magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles. The structure of MHNs was then characterized by FTIR, SEM, TEM, XRD, UV-Vis and VSM techniques, and a mechanism for the preparation of MHNs is also proposed. The maximum Cr(VI) adsorption capacity (208 mg g–1) was achieved under the optimum conditions that were found to be: AA = 0.25 mol L–1, AM = 1.2 mol L–1, agitation time = 90 min, solution pH = 1.0, ion concentration = 100 mg L–1, adsorbent dose = 50 mg, and temperature = 65 °C. Further, the calculated values of the thermodynamic parameters (ΔH° = 31.33kJ mol–1, ΔS° = 105.67 J K–1 mol–1, ΔG° = –61.33 kJ mol–1) revealed that ion adsorption is a spontaneous and endothermic process. In general, the results indicated that the synthesized MHNs with specific properties can be used in wastewater treatment applications

Quantum Dynamics without the Wave Function

When suitably generalized and interpreted, the path-integral offers an alternative to the more familiar quantal formalism based on state-vectors, selfadjoint operators, and external observers. Mathematically one generalizes the path-integral-as-propagator to a {\it quantal measure} $\mu$ on the space $\Omega$ of all ``conceivable worlds'', and this generalized measure expresses the dynamics or law of motion of the theory, much as Wiener measure expresses the dynamics of Brownian motion. Within such ``histories-based'' schemes new, and more ``realistic'' possibilities open up for resolving the philosophical problems of the state-vector formalism. In particular, one can dispense with the need for external agents by locating the predictive content of $\mu$ in its sets of measure zero: such sets are to be ``precluded''. But unrestricted application of this rule engenders contradictions. One possible response would remove the contradictions by circumscribing the application of the preclusion concept. Another response, more in the tradition of ``quantum logic'', would accommodate the contradictions by dualizing $\Omega$ to a space of ``co-events'' and effectively identifying reality with an element of this dual space.Comment: plainTeX, 24 pages, no figures. To appear in a special volume of {\it Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General} entitled ``The Quantum Universe'' and dedicated to Giancarlo Ghirardi on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Most current version is available at http://www.physics.syr.edu/~sorkin/some.papers/ (or wherever my home-page may be

Indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for detection of Brucella melitensis-specific antibodies in goat milk

Brucella melitensis is the cause of brucellosis in sheep and goats, which often results in abortion. Few cases of B. melitensis infection in goats have occurred in the United States over the last 25 years. However, vigilance must be maintained, as it is for the bovine milk industry, to ensure that brucellosis is not introduced into the U.S. goat population. The objective of this study was to develop a sensitive and specific indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (iELISA) for the detection of B. melitensis-specific antibodies in goat milk. Brucella salt-extractable protein extract was employed as an antigen, and a horseradish peroxidase-labeled polyclonal anti-goat antibody was used as an anti-species conjugate. Thirteen of 13 (100%) individual infected goat milk samples tested positive and 134 of 134 (100%) uninfected bulk milk samples tested negative by the developed iELISA. Three positive milk samples with high, medium, and low absorbance values were used to simulate one positive animal in an otherwise negative herd. By this estimation, one high-titer animal could be detected in a herd of \u3e 1,600 animals. Detection estimates for medium- and low-titer animals were one positive animal per herd of animals, respectively. Based on this estimation, it is recommended that herds be sampled in groups of 50 animals or less for bulk milk testing. The iELISA developed for this study was found to be sensitive and specific and shows potential for use as a bulk milk test for the detection of B. melitensis-specific antibodies in goat milk

Pessimistic Software Lock-Elision

Read-write locks are one of the most prevalent lock forms in concurrent applications because they allow read accesses to locked code to proceed in parallel. However, they do not offer any parallelism between reads and writes. This paper introduces pessimistic lock-elision (PLE), a new approach for non-speculatively replacing read-write locks with pessimistic (i.e. non-aborting) software transactional code that allows read-write concurrency even for contended code and even if the code includes system calls. On systems with hardware transactional support, PLE will allow failed transactions, or ones that contain system calls, to preserve read-write concurrency. Our PLE algorithm is based on a novel encounter-order design of a fully pessimistic STM system that in a variety of benchmarks spanning from counters to trees, even when up to 40% of calls are mutating the locked structure, provides up to 5 times the performance of a state-of-the-art read-write lock.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant 1217921

Dynamics & Predictions in the Co-Event Interpretation

Sorkin has introduced a new, observer independent, interpretation of quantum mechanics that can give a successful realist account of the 'quantum microworld' as well as explaining how classicality emerges at the level of observable events for a range of systems including single time 'Copenhagen measurements'. This 'co-event interpretation' presents us with a new ontology, in which a single 'co-event' is real. A new ontology necessitates a review of the dynamical & predictive mechanism of a theory, and in this paper we begin the process by exploring means of expressing the dynamical and predictive content of histories theories in terms of co-events.Comment: 35 pages. Revised after refereein