5,275 research outputs found
Inequality, Transfers and Growth: New Evidence from the Economic Transition in Poland
This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that inequality in Poland increased markedly during the economic transition that began in 1989-90. Using micro data from the Household Budget Surveys, we find that, after a brief spike in 1989, income and consumption inequality actually declined to below pre-transition levels during 1990-92 and then increased gradually, rising only moderately above pre-transition levels by 1997. In sharp contrast, inequality in labor earnings increased markedly and consistently throughout the 1990-97 period. We find that social transfer mechanisms, including pensions, played an important role in mitigating increases in both overall inequality and poverty. We argue that, from a political economy perspective, transfer mechanisms were well-designed to reduce political resistance to market-oriented reforms in the early years of transition, paving the way for rapid growth. Finally, we provide cross-country evidence from the transition economies that is consistent with our interpretation of the Polish experience and is also consistent with recent work in growth theory which suggests that redistribution that reduces inequality can enhance growth.
Radio-frequency reflectometry on an undoped AlGaAs/GaAs single electron transistor
Radio frequency reflectometry is demonstrated in a sub-micron undoped
AlGaAs/GaAs device. Undoped single electron transistors (SETs) are attractive
candidates to study single electron phenomena due to their charge stability and
robust electronic properties after thermal cycling. However these devices
require a large top-gate which is unsuitable for the fast and sensitive radio
frequency reflectometry technique. Here we demonstrate rf reflectometry is
possible in an undoped SET.Comment: Four pages, three figures, one supplementary fil
A Linear Approach to Absolute Pose Estimation for Light Fields
This paper presents the first absolute pose estimation approach tailored to Light Field cameras. It builds on the observation that the ratio between the disparity arising in different sub-aperture images and their corresponding baseline is constant. Hence, we augment the 2D pixel coordinates with the corresponding normalised disparity to obtain the Light Field feature. This new representation reduces the effect of noise by aggregating multiple projections and allows for linear estimation of the absolute pose of a Light Field camera using the well-known Direct Linear Transformation algorithm. We evaluate the resulting absolute pose estimates with extensive simulations and experiments involving real Light Field datasets, demonstrating the competitive performance of our linear approach. Furthermore, we integrate our approach in a state-of-the-art Light Field Structure from Motion pipeline and demonstrate accurate multi-view 3D reconstruction
Enumerating Abelian Returns to Prefixes of Sturmian Words
We follow the works of Puzynina and Zamboni, and Rigo et al. on abelian
returns in Sturmian words. We determine the cardinality of the set
of abelian returns of all prefixes of a Sturmian word in
terms of the coefficients of the continued fraction of the slope, dependingly
on the intercept. We provide a simple algorithm for finding the set
and we determine it for the characteristic Sturmian words.Comment: 19page
Herschel evidence for disk flattening or gas depletion in transitional disks
Transitional disks are protoplanetary disks characterized by reduced near-
and mid-infrared emission with respect to full disks. This characteristic
spectral energy distribution indicates the presence of an optically thin inner
cavity within the dust disk believed to mark the disappearance of the
primordial massive disk. We present new Herschel Space Observatory PACS spectra
of [OI] 63 micron for 21 transitional disks. Our survey complements the larger
Herschel GASPS program "Gas in Protoplanetary Systems" (Dent et al. 2013) by
quadrupling the number of transitional disks observed with PACS at this
wavelength. [OI] 63 micron traces material in the outer regions of the disk,
beyond the inner cavity of most transitional disks. We find that transitional
disks have [OI] 63 micron line luminosities two times fainter than their full
disk counterparts. We self consistently determine various stellar properties
(e.g. bolometric luminosity, FUV excess, etc.) and disk properties (e.g. disk
dust mass, etc.) that could influence the [OI] 63 micron line luminosity and we
find no correlations that can explain the lower [OI] 63 micron line
luminosities in transitional disks. Using a grid of thermo-chemical
protoplanetary disk models, we conclude that either transitional disks are less
flared than full disks or they possess lower gas-to-dust ratios due to a
depletion of gas mass. This result suggests that transitional disks are more
evolved than their full disk counterparts, possibly even at large radii.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; 52 pages, 16 figures, 8 table
Schools and civil society : corporate or community governance
School improvement depends upon mediating the cultural conditions of learning as young people journey between their parochial worlds and the public world of cosmopolitan society. Governing bodies have a crucial role in including or diminishing the representation of different cultural traditions and in enabling or frustrating the expression of voice and deliberation of differences whose resolution is central to the mediation of and responsiveness to learning needs. A recent study of governing bodies in England and Wales argues that the trend to corporatising school governance will diminish the capacity of schools to learn how they can understand cultural traditions and accommodate them in their curricula and teaching strategies. A democratic, stakeholder model remains crucial to the effective practice of governing schools. By deliberating and reconciling social and cultural differences, governance constitutes the practices for mediating particular and cosmopolitan worlds and thus the conditions for engaging young people in their learning, as well as in the preparation for citizenship in civil society
Killing tensors in pp-wave spacetimes
The formal solution of the second order Killing tensor equations for the
general pp-wave spacetime is given. The Killing tensor equations are integrated
fully for some specific pp-wave spacetimes. In particular, the complete
solution is given for the conformally flat plane wave spacetimes and we find
that irreducible Killing tensors arise for specific classes. The maximum number
of independent irreducible Killing tensors admitted by a conformally flat plane
wave spacetime is shown to be six. It is shown that every pp-wave spacetime
that admits an homothety will admit a Killing tensor of Koutras type and, with
the exception of the singular scale-invariant plane wave spacetimes, this
Killing tensor is irreducible.Comment: 18 page
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