Role of geometric shape in chiral optics

The distinction of chiral and mirror symmetric objects is straightforward from a geometrical point of view. Since the biological as well as the optical activity of molecules strongly depend on their handedness, chirality has recently attracted high interest in the field of nano-optics. Various aspects of associated phenomena including the influences of internal and external degrees of freedom on the optical response have been discussed. Here, we propose a constructive method to evaluate the possibility of observing any chiral response from an optical scatterer. Based on solely the T-matrix of one enantiomer, planes of minimal chiral response are located and compared to geometric mirror planes. This provides insights into the relation of geometric and optical properties and enables identifying the potential of chiral scatterers for nano-optical experiments

The Impact of Business Intelligence Systems on Profitability and Risks of Firms

202105 bcvcAccepted ManuscriptRGC155009/15BEarly releas

Operator precedence for data-dependent grammars

Constructing parsers based on declarative specification of operator precedence is a very old research topic, and there are various existing approaches. However, these approaches are either tied to a particular parsing technique, or cannot deal with all corner cases found in programming languages. In this paper we present an implementation of declarative specification of operator precedence for general parsing that (1) is independent of the underlying parsing algorithm, (2) does not require any grammar transformation that increases the size of the grammar, (3) preserves the shape of parse trees of the original, natural grammar, and (4) can deal with intricate cases of operator precedence found in functional programming languages such as OCaml. Our new approach to operator precedence is formulated using data-dependent grammars, which extend context-free grammars with arbitrary computation, variable binding and constraints. We implemented our approach using Iguana, a data-dependent parsing framework, and evaluated it by parsing Java and OCaml source files. The results show that our approach is practical for parsing programming languages with complicated operator precedence rules

18th Annual Conference on Legal Issues for Financial Institutions

Materials from the 18th Annual Conference on Legal Issues for Financial Institutions held by UK/CLE in 1998

Climate change adaptation among female-led micro, small, and medium enterprises in semiarid areas: a case study from Kenya

This chapter contributes to the literature on private sector adaptation by empirically exploring how female-led micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSMEs) in Kenya’s semiarid lands (SALs) experience and respond to climate risk. The chapter argues that strong sociocultural orientations around gender roles and resource use and access not only confine female-led MSMEs to sectors that experience higher exposure to climate risk – most notably agriculture – but also trigger more pronounced barriers to building resilience within their businesses, including reduced access to land, capital, markets, new technology, and educational opportunities. Faced by these barriers, female entrepreneurs may pursue unsustainable forms of coping, as part of which business activity is scaled back through reduced profits, loss of business, and the sale of valuable business assets. Such strategies may help enterprises to cope in the short term but may undermine longer-term MSME adaptive capacity. Social networks, such as women’s groups and table banking initiatives, appear to be crucial adaptation tools. Additionally, a strong dependency exists between household resilience and business resilience, implying that building resilience at the household level could support adaptive capacity among female-led MSMEs. Supporting the adaptive capacity of women in business should be a policy priority

Pastoral Herding Strategies and Governmental Management Objectives: Predation Compensation as a Risk Buffering Strategy in the Saami Reindeer Husbandry

Previously it has been found that an important risk buffering strategy in the Saami reindeer husbandry in Norway is the accumulation of large herds of reindeer as this increases long-term household viability. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated how official policies, such as economic compensation for livestock losses, can influence pastoral strategies. This study investigated the effect of received predation compensation on individual husbandry units’ future herd size. The main finding in this study is that predation compensation had a positive effect on husbandry units’ future herd size. The effect of predation compensation, however, was nonlinear in some years, indicating that predation compensation had a positive effect on future herd size only up to a certain threshold whereby adding additional predation compensation had little effect on future herd size. More importantly, the effect of predation compensation was positive after controlling for reindeer density, indicating that for a given reindeer density husbandry units receiving more predation compensation performed better (measured as the size of future herds) compared to husbandry units receiving less compensation

Shifting livelihood strategies in northern Nigeria - extensified production and livelihood diversification amongst Fulani pastoralists

Abstract This paper presents an in-depth investigation of the livelihood strategies of Fulani pastoralists in north central Nigeria. Results show a diversified crop-livestock system aimed at spreading risk and reducing cattle offtake, adapted to natural resource competition and insecurity by extensification, with further diversification into off-farm activities to spread risk, increase livelihood security and capture opportunities. However, significant costs were associated with extensification, and integration of crop and livestock enterprises was limited. Mean total income per capita in the study area was $554 or$1.52/person/day with 42% of households earning less than 1.25/person/day. Income levels were positively correlated with income diversity and price received per animal sold, rather than herd size. The outcomes of this livelihood strategy were favourable across the whole community, but when individual households are considered, there was evidence of moderate economic inequality in total income, cash income and herd size (Gini coefficient 0.32, 0.35 and 0.43 respectively). The poorest households were quite vulnerable, with low assets, income and income diversity. Implications for sustainability are discussed given the likelihood that the negative trends of reduced access to natural resources and insecurity will continue