On the road to prosperity ? The economic geography of China's national expressway network

Over the past two decades, China has embarked on an ambitious program of expressway network expansion. By facilitating market integration, this program aims both to promote efficiency at the national level and to contribute to the catch-up of lagging inland regions with prosperous Eastern ones. This paper evaluates the aggregate and spatial economic impacts of China's newly constructed National Expressway Network, focussing, in particular, on its short-run impacts. To achieve this aim, the authors adopt a counterfactual approach based on the estimation and simulation of a structural"new economic geography"model. Overall, they find that aggregate Chinese real income was approximately 6 percent higher than it would have been in 2007 had the expressway network not been built. Although there is considerable heterogeneity in the results, the authors do not find evidence of a significant reduction in disparities across prefectural level regions or of a reduction in urban-rural disparities. If anything, the expressway network appears to have reinforced existing patterns of spatial inequality, although, over time, these will likely be reduced by enhanced migration.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Economic Theory&Research,Labor Policies,Roads&Highways,Regional Economic Development

The effects of algebra blocks on student achievement in algebra

This study examined the effects of Algebra Blocks on student understanding for the concepts of binomial expansion and trinomial factorisation. The purpose of the study was to illuminate the use and effectiveness of Algebra\u27 Blocks in the teaching-learning process. Two year nine classes with similar mathematics levels were taught binomial expansions and trinomial factorisations. The experimental class was taught using Algebra Blocks whilst the untreated class acted as the control group. After eight lessons of instruction, both classes were tested on their understanding of both concepts. To provide qualitative data, three randomly chosen students from each class were interviewed on their understanding of both concepts. The experimental results were statistically significant (

Negotiated disclosure : an examination of strategic information management by the police at custodial interrogation

This thesis considers the impact of substantially attenuating a suspect's right to silence on the relative positions of the police and defence in custodial interviews. The main hypothesis argues that these provisions have had a significant, unforeseen impact on the working dynamic between police officers and legal advisers. Interview strategies have developed, which seek to reinforce advantages to the police associated with control of pre-interview evidential disclosure. A second hypothesis postulates that introduction of the inference provisions has influenced suspect behaviour during custodial interrogation, leading to a reduced reliance upon the exercise of silence. The study drew upon data collected from in-depth, tape-recorded interviews with police officers involved at various stages of the investigative process, representing a wide variety of roles and experience. Full transcripts of the interviews were prepared and then subjected to a close-grained, qualitative analysis in which various themes were identified. The findings reveal, inter alia, that pre-interview disclosure has assumed increased significance, and can be instrumental to the interrogation outcome. Police officers are accorded considerable discretion in the management of police-suspect relations, which is evident in the emergence of control strategies for case-related information. Greater openness has flowed from the development of better-trained lawyers, and was manifest in the increased emphasis by police officers on truth-seeking during interview. Evidence emerged of controlled disclosure being used as a mechanism for securing or negotiating the co-operation of an interviewee. The extent of disclosure varied according to a number of factors, although, in serious or complex cases, non-disclosure formed the basis for the strategy. The incremental release of information has been shown to have an unsettling effect on interviewees and can undermine the legal adviser's presence. The police claim fewer no-comment interviews and improved content from the use of these tactics - findings that are echoed in recent studies by the Home Office and in Northern Ireland. The research therefore indicates that there is evidence to support both hypotheses

Effects of thermal conduction and compressive viscosity on the period ratio of the slow mode

C.K.M. acknowledges financial support from the CarnegieTrust. Discussions with Dr. I. De Moortel and Prof. A. W. Hood are gratefully acknowledgedAims: Increasing observational evidence of wave modes brings us to a closer understanding of the solar corona. Coronal seismology allows us to combine wave observations and theory to determine otherwise unknown parameters. The period ratio, P1/2P2, between the period P1 of the fundamental mode and the period P2 of its first overtone, is one such tool of coronal seismology and its departure from unity provides information about the structure of the corona. Methods: We consider analytically the effects of thermal conduction and compressive viscosity on the period ratio for a longitudinally propagating sound wave. Results: For coronal values of thermal conduction the effect on the period ratio is negligible. For compressive viscosity the effect on the period ratio may become important for some short hot loops. Conclusions: Damping typically has a small effect on the period ratio, suggesting that longitudinal structuring remains the most significant effect.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

MOUNTING SCREW BASED SYSTEM IDENTIFICATION

A mounting screw identification system can be used to determine a software configuration for an electronic device based on a type of electronic device chassis. A Printed Circuit Board (PCB), having screw holes with an open electrical circuit formed upon them, is placed in an electronic device chassis with mounting screw receiving threads. Conductive mounting screws are then inserted through the aligned PCB screw holes into the mounting screw receiving threads of the chassis to hold the PCB in place with the device chassis and also fill the electrical gap in the PCB screw holes to close the electrical circuit. A processor in the electronic device reads values on general purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, which can be either high or low, that are connected to the PCB screw holes to determine which screw holes have inserted screws that complete the electrical connection. Subsequently, the processor decodes the GPIO pin values to identify a binary code for the device chassis and determines the corresponding software configuration for the electronic device

Tuberculosis: a biosocial study of admissions to a children’s sanatorium (1936-1954) in Stannington, Northumberland, England

This study considers the biosocial profile of children admitted to the Philipson Children's Sanatorium at Stannington, Morpeth, Northumberland, England (1936–1954). The objective was to understand the differential impact of TB on male and female admissions at Stannington, according to a number of variables. A total of 1987 medical files were analysed. More females than males were admitted, peaks of admission at age six and 13 were documented, and the majority of children derived from poor urban areas. Over 60% (1199, 63.5%) of children had pulmonary TB, and 12% (230) had bone or joint involvement. The implementation of chemotherapy (streptomycin) at Stannington (1946), the end of the 2nd World War (1945), and the founding of the National Health Service (1948) did not have any great effect on the biosocial profile of children admitted to the sanatorium and treated (age, sex, origin, type of TB suffered, and socioeconomic status). Reasons for these finding are discussed

CHARGE DIRECTION INDICATING USBC CABLE

A hardware based solution is proposed for indicating charging direction in a USB-C cable. The solution comprises of bi-color red/green LEDs attached to the connector of the USB-C cable. The LEDs are electrically connected and will glow when the USB-C supportive device is connected to the USB-C supportive system either for receiving or providing power. The device which is providing power or receiving power is identified by the color of the glowing LED at the specific end of the connector of USB-C cable, for example green could indicate providing end and red the receiving end. The LEDs are always connected in the opposite orientation on each end of the cable such that they always have opposing color

The mixed quark-gluon condensate from an effective quark-quark interaction

We exhibit the method for obtaining non perturbative quark and gluonic vacuum condensates from a model truncation of QCD. The truncation allows for a phenomenological description of the quark-quark interaction in a framework which maintains all global symmetries of QCD and allows an 1/N_c expansion. Within this approach the functional integration over the gluon fields can be performed and therefore any gluonic vacuum observable can be expressed in terms of a quark operator and the gluon propagator. As a special case we calculate the mixed quark gluon condensate. We investigate how the value depends on the form of the model quark-quark interaction. A comparison with the results of quenched lattice QCD, the instanton liquid model and QCD sum rules is drawn.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, LATEX using elsart.sty, minor corrections in some formulas, some references added, to be published in PL

Leptonic and Semileptonic Decays of Pseudoscalar Mesons

We employ the relativistic constituent quark model to give a unified description of the leptonic and semileptonic decays of pseudoscalar mesons (\pi, K, D, D_s, B, B_s). The calculated leptonic decay constants and form factors are found to be in good agreement with available experimental data and other approaches. We reproduce the results of spin-flavor symmetry in the heavy quark limit.Comment: 12 pages LaTeX (elsart.sty) + 4 figures; added references, to appear in Phys. Lett.

Cinema as mnemotechnics

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