Gender and poverty : a life cycle approach to the analysis of the differences in gender outcomes

The authors study complex interactions between gender and poverty in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina. The goal of their analysis is to uncover how a spectrum of gender differentials at different parts of the life cycle varies across income groups. Using the data from the 2001 Bosniaand Herzegovina Living Standards Measurement Study, the authors find strong gender-poverty interaction in the patterns of labor force participation, gender gap in earnings, individuals'school finances, and school attendance. The main source of gender inequality seems to come from differences in investments in girls'and boys'educations that increase with declines in income levels. Short-term income shocks could lead to long-term increases in gender inequality in households with school age children, unless there is ready access to credit markets. The authors also find that the magnitude of the impact of economic development on gender differences in Bosnia will depend on where the growth is concentrated. If the poor capture at least some benefits of economic growth, the gender differences in household investment in human capital of their children will decline. If, on the other hand, growth is concentrated among the richest, then important gender disparities could remain pervasive.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Inequality,Housing&Human Habitats,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies

Estimating the Effects of Covariates on Health Expenditures

This paper addresses estimation of an outcome characterized by mass at zero, significant skewness, and heteroscedasticity. Unlike other approaches suggested recently that require retransformations or arbitrary assumptions about error distributions, our estimation strategy uses sequences of conditional probability functions, similar to those used in discrete time hazard rate analyses, to construct a discrete approximation to the density function of the outcome of interest conditional on exogenous explanatory variables. Once the conditional density function has been constructed, we can examine expectations of arbitrary functions of the outcome of interest and evaluate how these expectations vary with observed exogenous covariates. This removes a researcher's reliance on strong and often untested maintained assumptions. We demonstrate the features and precision of the conditional density estimation method through Monte Carlo experiments and an application to health expenditures using the RAND Health Insurance Experiment data. Overall, we find that the approximate conditional density estimator that we propose provides accurate and precise estimates of derivatives of expected outcomes for a wide range of types of explanatory variables. We find that two-part smearing models often used by health economists do not perform well. Our results, both in Monte Carlo experiments and in our real application, also indicate that simple one-part OLS models of level health expenditures can provide more accurate estimates than commonly used two-part models with smearing, provided one uses enough expansion terms in the one-part model to fit the data well.

Activation volume of selected liquid crystals in the density scaling regime

In this paper, we demonstrate and thoroughly analyze the activation volumetric properties of selected liquid crystals in the nematic and crystalline E phases in comparison with those reported for glass-forming liquids. In the analysis, we have employed and evaluated two entropic models (based on either total or configurational entropies) to describe the longitudinal relaxation times of the liquid crystals in the density scaling regime. In this study, we have also exploited two equations of state: volumetric and activation volumetric ones. As a result, we have established that the activation volumetric properties of the selected liquid crystals are quite opposite to such typical properties of glass-forming materials, i.e., the activation volume decreases and the isothermal bulk modulus increases when a liquid crystal is isothermally compressed. Using the model based on the configurational entropy, we suggest that the increasing pressure dependences of the activation volume in isothermal conditions and the negative curvature of the pressure dependences of isothermal longitudinal relaxation times can be related to the formation of antiparallel doublets in the examined liquid crystals. A similar pressure effect on relaxation dynamics may be also observed for other material groups in case of systems, the molecules of which form some supramolecular structures

Riesz means of the counting function of the Laplace operator on compact manifolds of non-positive curvature

Let (M, g) be a compact, d -dimensional Riemannian manifold without boundary. Suppose further that (M, g) is either two dimensional and has no conjugate points or (M, g) has non-positive sectional curvature. The goal of this note is to show that the long time parametrix obtained for such manifolds by Bérard can be used to prove a logarithmic improvement for the remainder term of the Riesz means of the counting function of the Laplace operator

X-ray observations of the hot phase in Sgr~A*

We analyze 134 ks Chandra ACIS-I observations of the Galactic Centre (GC) performed in July 2011. The X-ray image with the field of view $17' \times 17'$ contains the hot plasma surrounding the Sgr~A*. The obtained surface brightness map allow us to fit Bondi hot accretion flow to the innermost hot plasma around the GC. We have fitted spectra from region up to $5"$ from Sgr~A* using a thermal bremsstrahlung model and four Gaussian profiles responsible for K$_{\alpha}$ emission lines of Fe, S, Ar, and Ca. The X-ray surface brightness profile up to $3"$ from Sgr~A* found in our data image, was successfully fitted with the dynamical model of Bondi spherical accretion. By modelling the surface brightness profile, we derived the temperature and number density profiles in the vicinity of the black hole. The best fitted model of spherical Bondi accretion shows that this type of flow works only up to $3"$ and implies outer plasma density and temperature to be: $n_{\rm e}^{\rm out}=18.3 \pm {0.1}$ cm$^{-3}$ and $T_{\rm e}^{\rm out}= 3.5 \pm {0.3}$ keV respectively. We show that the Bondi flow can reproduce observed surface brightness profile up to $3"$ from Sgr~A* in the Galactic Center. This result strongly suggests the position of stagnation radius in the complicated dynamics around GC. The Faraday rotation computed from our model towards the pulsar PSR J1745-2900 near the GC agrees with the observed one, recently reported.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Design and fabrication of a low-specific-weight parabolic dish solar concentrator

A segmented design and fabrication and assembly techniques were developed for a 1.8 m (6 ft) diameter parabolic concentrator for space application. This design and these techniques were adaptable to a low cost, mass-produced concentrator. Minimal machining was required. Concentrator segments of formed magnesium were used. The concentrator weighed only 1.6 kg sq m (0.32 lbm/sq ft)

An experimental investigation of the interpersonal ramifications of lateness to workplace meetings

Individuals often attend meetings at work to which at least one person arrives late. Building from attributional theories of interpersonal behaviour, we conducted an experiment to determine the cognitive, affective, and behavioural components of people\u27s reactions to meeting lateness. Participants read one of eight experimental vignettes that described someone arriving 5 or 15 min late to an important or unimportant meeting, after which the person who arrived late offered either a controllable or an uncontrollable reason for being late. Participants reported greater anger and a willingness to punish the late arrival who gave a controllable excuse, whereas sympathy and prosocial intentions followed the late arrival who gave an uncontrollable excuse. To establish generalizability, we replicated the results using a survey of workers who reported on their thoughts and experiences in their last meeting to which someone arrived late. Overall, our findings also indicated that accounting for the severity of the transgression uniquely contributed to emotional and behaviour reactions, which is an improvement on existing attributional models