Redistributional Preferences and Imposed Institutions

To what extent do imposed institutions shape preferences? We consider this issue by comparing the market-versus-state attitudes of respondents from a capitalist country, Finland, and an ex-communist group of Baltic countries, and by arguing that the period of communist rule can be viewed as an 'experiment' in institutional imposition. We find that, consistent with some earlier related work, citizens from ex-communist countries tend to be more supportive of state ownership than respondents from capitalist economies. However, they also favor increasing inequality and competition as the means to enhance incentives. We conclude that, in some important relevant dimensions, institutional imposition (which lasted for about 50 years) had a limited effect on preferences. The lessons for Latin America are straightforward

Measuring the thickness of the peritoneal membrane in mice with optical coherence tomography

The detection and diagnosis of diseases have improved in recent years. Developments in diagnostic techniques have helped to improve treatment in the early stages and to avoid many risks to patients. One such technique is optical coherence tomography (OCT), which is used in many medical applications to perform internal microstructural imaging of the human body at high resolution (typically 10 μm), at high speed and in real time. OCT is non-invasive and can be used as a contact or non-contact technique to obtain an image. In medicine, there are many applications that involve OCT, such as in ophthalmology, gastroenterology, cardiology and oncology. This work demonstrates the use of an OCT system incorporating a swept laser source with a high sweep rate of 16 kHz over a wide range of wavelengths (1260 nm to 1390 nm) to measure the thickness of the peritoneal membrane in mice of different sizes and weights. The real axial line speed is limited by the source that is used in the OCT system. The optical source has a bandwidth of ▵λ =110 nm, centred at λ0 =1325 nm. The aim of this study is to investigate the thickening of the peritoneal membrane which can occur during prolonged peritoneal dialysis in mice. As part of this preliminary study, healthy mice of different weights were euthanized and the thickness of the peritoneal membrane was measured using OCT. The aim was to gather data on the expected range of thicknesses present in healthy animals for future studies. For this work, two locations on the peritoneal membrane of each of 20 mice were imaged

Series production of thixoformed steel parts

peer reviewedIn recent years several attempts were made to transfer the thixoforming technology of steel parts into industrial applicable processes. This paper gives an overview about the progress of a European consortium that established a fully automated thixoforming process for the series production of automotive steel parts. Due to the multi-faceted nature of this technology, problems concerning the development of suitable steel grades and tool materials as well as the development and application of an inductive heating system, a handling unit and of a complex forming tool had to be solved. Besides the development of adapted steel grades and the inductive heating, the handling of the semi solid billets plays a special role because during the manipulation of the parts from the heating station into the tool a loss of heat is unavoidable. Furthermore, scaling of the parts must be prevented. By means of a fully automated process line existing constraints were reduced and the forming process is kept reproducible. Improved silicon nitride composites have been developed as a tool material, which show good mechanical properties in combination with an acceptable chemical stability at the occurring process temperatures as well as in contact with semi solid steel. Basing on the practical experience a comparison of the thixoforming technology to existing processes and an outlook for the ftiture are, given