5,907 research outputs found
Contentious Politics in China: Authoritarian Resilience
Throughout the history, contentious politics have led to regime downfall or democratization of many countries. Today, China is faced with increasing numbers of contentions politics. However, Contentious politics in China does not result in regime change because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) manages protests by keeping it fragmented and small in scale. It achieves this primarily through structural and institutional means, but is willing, to resort to violent repression if a protest movement becomes too widespread. This paper is divided into four parts. First part is a backgrounder, giving stats to show that protests are frequent but small in scale. Second, I will argue that China’s weak institutions – labour union, media, and internet – preclude small-scale protests from becoming large, cohesive movements. Third, I will argue that the government in China is structured in such a way that grievances are pursued at the local level; therefore, regional protests are unlikely to become national movements. Finally, even if protest become large and target the central government, the CCP is capable of suppressing protests using military, and police, as a last resort
A time-accurate high-resolution TVD scheme for solving the Navier-Stokes equations
A total variation diminishing (TVD) scheme has been developed and incorporated into an existing time-accurate high-resolution Navier-Stokes code. The accuracy and the robustness of the resulting solution procedure have been assessed by performing many calculations in four different areas: shock tube flows, regular shock reflection, supersonic boundary layer, and shock boundary layer interactions. These numerical results compare well with corresponding exact solutions or experimental data
The Great Leap Famine and Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, a Nobel Laureate argues, “in the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press.”[1] According to Sen, severe famine does not happen if a country is autonomous (independent), fair and accountable (democratic), and encourages free exchange of ideas (free press). Autonomous government has the power to allocate resources according to domestic concerns, and democratic government has duty to accommodate societal concerns guided by the rule of law. Relatively free press allows citizens to express their concerns freely and notifies government with challenges in society.
The Great Leap Famine in China could also have been prevented if China at the time was independent, democratic, with a relatively free press, as Sen suggested. The Great Leap Famine was led by three key factors: Mao ignoring precautionary alarm suggested by the political elites; Mao silencing intellectuals from suggesting alternative agricultural-scientific theories; and top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was not informed about the villagers dying of famine. These could have been easily prevented under the Sen’s conditions because democratic institutionalization allows political elites to freely discuss policies, freedom of expression encourages intellectuals to freely criticize scientific theories, and democratic election and mass media coverage motivates citizens to freely address their concerns. In addition to Sen’s argument, authoritarian government can also prevent substantial famine if the government is autonomous, fair, accountable, and encourages free exchange of ideas such as China today.
[1] Sen 3-17
The Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was caused by the consequences of World War I: economic crises, and demotivated soldiers. In both cases, governments – the Romanov Dynasty and the Provisional Government that first seized power from the Tsar – were unable to resolve these problems. But these factors alone were not sufficient enough to cause the Russian Revolution, rather they should be understood as preconditions. What was also needed was a strong party – the Bolshevik Party – willing and able to capitalize on such preconditions. First, this paper will argue that economic crises such as food shortages, inflation, and poor working conditions triggered mass discontent with the Tsar and the Provisional Government. Second, soldiers who were demotivated by war weariness, were disinclined to protect the political order during the February Revolution and the October Revolution. Finally, in the midst of crises, the Bolshevik Party positioned itself to build on these preconditions and turn them into revolution
Through-silicon-via-aware prediction and physical design for multi-granularity 3D integrated circuits
The main objective of this research is to predict the wirelength, area, delay, and power of multi-granularity three-dimensional integrated circuits (3D ICs), to develop physical design methodologies and algorithms for the design of multi-granularity 3D ICs, and to investigate the impact of through-silicon vias (TSVs) on the quality of 3D ICs. This dissertation supports these objectives by addressing six research topics. The first pertains to analytical models that predict the interconnects of multi-granularity 3D ICs, and the second focuses on the development of analytical models of the capacitive coupling of TSVs. The third and the fourth topics present design methodologies and algorithms for the design of gate- and block-level 3D ICs, and the fifth topic pertains to the impact of TSVs on the quality of 3D ICs. The final topic addresses topography variation in 3D ICs.
The first section of this dissertation presents TSV-aware interconnect prediction models for multi-granularity 3D ICs. As previous interconnect prediction models for 3D ICs did not take TSV area into account, they were not capable of predicting many important characteristics of 3D ICs related to TSVs. This section will present several previous interconnect prediction models that have been improved so that the area occupied by TSVs is taken into account. The new models show numerous important predictions such as the existence of the number of TSVs minimizing wirelength.
The second section presents fast estimation of capacitive coupling of TSVs and wires. Since TSV-to-TSV and TSV-to-wire coupling capacitance is dependent on their relative locations, fast estimation of the coupling capacitance of a TSV is essential for the timing optimization of 3D ICs. Simulation results show that the analytical models presented in this section are sufficiently accurate for use at various design steps that require the computation of TSV capacitance.
The third and fourth sections present design methodologies and algorithms for gate- and block-level 3D ICs. One of the biggest differences in the design of 2D and 3D ICs is that the latter requires TSV insertion. Since no widely-accepted design methodology designates when, where, and how TSVs are inserted, this work develops and presents several design methodologies for gate- and block-level 3D ICs and physical design algorithms supporting them. Simulation results based on GDSII-level layouts validate the design methodologies and present evidence of their effectiveness.
The fifth section explores the impact of TSVs on the quality of 3D ICs. As TSVs become smaller, devices are shrinking, too. Since the relative size of TSVs and devices is more critical to the quality of 3D ICs than the absolute size of TSVs and devices, TSVs and devices should be taken into account in the study of the impact of TSVs on the quality of 3D ICs. In this section, current and future TSVs and devices are combined to produce 3D IC layouts and the impact of TSVs on the quality of 3D ICs is investigated.
The final section investigates topography variation in 3D ICs. Since landing pads fabricated in the bottommost metal layer are attached to TSVs, they are larger than TSVs, so they could result in serious topography variation. Therefore, topography variation, especially in the bottommost metal layer, is investigated and two layout optimization techniques are applied to a global placement algorithm that minimizes the topography variation of the bottommost metal layer of 3D ICs.PhDCommittee Chair: Lim, Sung Kyu; Committee Member: Bakir, Muhannad; Committee Member: Kim, Hyesoon; Committee Member: Lee, Hsien-Hsin Sean; Committee Member: Mukhopadhyay, Saiba
Distributed Propulsion Vehicles
Since the introduction of large jet-powered transport aircraft, the majority of these vehicles have been designed by placing thrust-generating engines either under the wings or on the fuselage to minimize aerodynamic interactions on the vehicle operation. However, advances in computational and experimental tools along with new technologies in materials, structures, and aircraft controls, etc. are enabling a high degree of integration of the airframe and propulsion system in aircraft design. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been investigating a number of revolutionary distributed propulsion vehicle concepts to increase aircraft performance. The concept of distributed propulsion is to fully integrate a propulsion system within an airframe such that the aircraft takes full synergistic benefits of coupling of airframe aerodynamics and the propulsion thrust stream by distributing thrust using many propulsors on the airframe. Some of the concepts are based on the use of distributed jet flaps, distributed small multiple engines, gas-driven multi-fans, mechanically driven multifans, cross-flow fans, and electric fans driven by turboelectric generators. This paper describes some early concepts of the distributed propulsion vehicles and the current turboelectric distributed propulsion (TeDP) vehicle concepts being studied under the NASA s Subsonic Fixed Wing (SFW) Project to drastically reduce aircraft-related fuel burn, emissions, and noise by the year 2030 to 2035
Stock Option Grants And Cost Behavior
This study examines the relation between cost asymmetry and stock option grants. I posit that managers’ incentives to decrease the strike price of subsequent option awards may affect manager’s resource adjustment decisions. Using U.S. firm data, I find that the degree of SG&A (selling, general, and administrative) cost asymmetry is positively related to the value of subsequent option grants awarded to the CEOs, suggesting that managers who expect large stock-option grants deliberately delay reduction of committed costs to decrease the share price prior to the option award date. Manipulating the timing of stock option grants do not fully explain the results because the positive relation that this paper documents still holds with only fixed-date option awards sample
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