Cobb-Douglas Utility - Eventually!

Consider the following two opinions, both of which can be found in the literature of consumer demand systems: (a) As the real income of a consumer becomes indefinitely large, re-mixing the consumption bundle becomes irrelevant: having chosen the ultimately satisfying budget shares at any given set of relative prices, the superlatively wealthy continue to allocate additional income in the same proportions. With very large and increasing per capita income, ultimately the utility function becomes indistinguishable from Cobb-Douglas. (b) Consumer demand systems in which the income elasticities monotonically approach one (from above, in the case of luxuries; from below, in the case of necessities) are unsatisfactory both theoretically and empirically. For instance, a necessity with a low (consumer demand system; applied general equilibrium; separability; implicitly directly additive preferences; effectively global regularity; Cobb-Douglas, calibration; AIDADS.

Kinetics of Surfactant Adsorption at Fluid-Fluid Interfaces: Surfactant Mixtures

The adsorption at the interface between an aqueous solution of several surface-active agents and another fluid (air or oil) phase is addressed theoretically. We derive the kinetic equations from a variation of the interfacial free energy, solve them numerically and provide an analytic solution for the simple case of a linear adsorption isotherm. Calculating asymptotic solutions analytically, we find the characteristic time scales of the adsorption process and observe the behavior of the system at various temporal stages. In particular, we relate the kinetic behavior of the mixture to the properties of its individual constituents and find good agreement with experiments. In the case of kinetically limited adsorption, the mixture kinetics is found to be considerably different from that of the single-surfactant solutions because of strong coupling between the species.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, to be published in Langmui

School sport and political change

Magister Educationis - MEdThis dissertation will attempt to explain the changes that have and are taking place within south African sport and especially school sport. This will be viewed in the context of changing political developments. The central question that will be addressed is whether progressive school sports bodies can effect meaningful political change. Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions will be used as the theoretical framework for understanding social and political change. He developed the concept of paradigms (frame of .reference) in which an established paradigm prevails, challenged by an emerging rival paradigm. This theory has been applied to the present day south African political context in which the apartheid structure is the prevailing paradigm and the democratic movement, the emerging rival paradigm

A standardised nutritional drink as a test meal for the 13 C mixed triglyceride breath test for pancreatic exocrine insufficiency:A randomised, two-arm crossover comparative study

BACKGROUND: The 13 C mixed triglyceride breath test (13 C MTGT) is a diagnostic test for pancreatic exocrine insufficiency (PEI). It is poorly standardised with much heterogeneity of the test meal, the commonest being toast and butter. A standardised oral nutritional supplement that could be easily transported, stored and made up would be valuable for making this test accessible outside of specialist centres.METHODS: A prospective, randomised, two-arm crossover study of different test meals was carried out in 14 healthy controls. The 13 C MTGT was performed in identical conditions on two separate days. Two test meals were given in random order, either standard (toast and butter) or novel (oral nutritional supplement), with 250 mg of 13 C-labelled mixed triglyceride incorporated. Breath samples were taken postprandially to calculate cumulative percentage dose recovery (cPDR) of 13 C at 6 h.RESULTS: All 14 participants completed both arms of the study with no protocol deviations. The mean cPDR was 39.39% (standard deviation [SD] 5.19) for the standard test meal and 39.93% (SD 5.20) for the novel test meal. A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) found no significant difference in cPDR between the two meals, F(1, 13) = 0.18, p = 0.68 (minimum detectable difference of 0.81 at 80% power).CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that a standardised oral nutritional supplement can be used without compromising 13 C recovery. Using this test meal provides a standardised dietary stimulus to the pancreas, avoiding possible variation in quantity of dietary components with other test meals. Further, the ease of use of this method would help establish the 13 C MTGT test more widely.</p

Inter-American War Game

The 2013 Inter-American War Game (IAWG) was hosted by the U.S. Naval War College. The IAWG is intended to provide an opportunity for professional exchange of views among maritime war colleges in the Western Hemisphere, ultimately to enhance multinational cooperation among our maritime forces. The 2013 IAWG was organized into an on-line planning phase in Feb 2013, an on- line execution phase in May 2013, and Closing Conference analysis phase in Aug 2013. IAWG countries include: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Invitations were to participate were provided to each IAWG country. Twelve countries participated in the 2013 IAWG

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Economic and Social Research Council (Grant number ES/R01163X/1)Non peer reviewedPublisher PDFPublisher PD