Spatial Externalities and Growth in a Mankiw-Romer-Weil World: Theory and Evidence

This paper presents a theoretical growth model that accounts for technological interdependence among regions in a Mankiw-Romer-Weil world. The reasoning behind the theoretical work is that technological ideas cannot be fully appropriated by investors and these ideas may diffuse and increase the productivity of other firms. We link the diffusion of ideas to spatial proximity and allow for ideas to flow to nearby regional economies. Through the magic of solving for the reduced form of the theoretical model and the magic of spatial autoregressive processes, the simple dependence on a small number of neighbouring regions leads to a reduced form theoretical model and an associated empirical model where changes in a single region can potentially impact all other regions. This implies that conventional regression interpretations of the parameter estimates would be wrong. The proper way to interpret the model has to rely on matrices of partial derivatives of the dependent variable with respect to changes in the Mankiw-Romer-Weil variables, using scalar summary measures for reporting the estimates of the marginal impacts from the model. The summary impact measure estimates indicate that technological interdependence among European regions works through physical rather than human capital externalities. (author's abstract)Series: Working Papers in Regional Scienc

Комплексная оценка методов увеличения нефтеотдачи при добыче высоковязкой нефти

Целью данной работы является оценка применяемых методов, направленных на увеличения нефтеотдачи в различных геолого–физических условиях. В процессе исследования был проведен анализ применяемых методов увеличения нефтеотдачи при разработке пластов с высоковязкой нефтью. Рассмотрены критерии эффективного применения каждого из методов, их особенности, возможные направления развития методов. Результатом исследования является оценка эффективности применения методов на примере трех месторождений.The purpose of this work is to assess the methods used to increase oil recovery in various geological and physical conditions. In the process of research, an analysis was carried out of the enhanced oil recovery methods used in the development of reservoirs with high-viscosity oil. The criteria for the effective application of each of the methods, their features, the possible directions of development of the methods are considered. The result of the research is an assessment of the effectiveness of the application of methods using the example of three oilfields

Проектирование и разработка коррекционно-развивающего приложения для умственно-отсталых детей младшего школьного возраста (7-12 лет)

Работа направлена на создание коррекционно-развивающего приложения для умственно-отсталых детей возраста 7-12 лет. Приложение позволит детям с умственной отсталостью закрепить знания, полученные в школе, в игровой форме, обучиться элементарным действиям с компьютером, получить навыки самоконтроля, развить символическую и планирующую функции мышления и речи. Приложение будет включать в себя пять блоков: развитие внимания, развитие логического мышления, изучение окружающего мира, изучение русской речи, изучение математики. Каждый блок отвечает за выполнение определенной функции и содержит в себе ряд заданий, представленных в игровой форме.The work is aimed at creating a correctional developmental application for mentally retarded children aged 7-12 years. The application will allow children with mental retardation to consolidate the knowledge gained in school in a playful way, learn basic actions with a computer, gain self-control skills, develop symbolic and planning functions of thinking and speaking. The application will include five blocks: the development of attention, the development of logical thinking, the study of the surrounding world, the study of Russian language, the study of mathematics. Each unit is responsible for performing a specific function and contains a number of tasks presented in a game form

Reduced Drying Time of Anodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries through Simultaneous Multilayer Coating

The extended process chain starting from slurry mixing up to the operative lithium-ion battery requires a deep understanding of each individual process step and knowledge of the interaction of the different process steps with each other. In particular, the intertwining of slurry mixing and drying determines the microstructure of the electrode, which in turn affects the performance of the cell. Herein, a scalable multilayer approach is used to tailor electrodes with improved mechanical and electrochemical properties, which disclose their advantages especially at high drying rates. Cryogenic broad ion beam scanning electron microscopy (Cryo-BIB-SEM) micrographs are used to reveal the influences of different process parameters, like slurry formulation, mixing device, and properties of the active material on the intrinsic network between active particles and binders in graphite-based anode slurries. By a chosen combination of these slurries in a multilayer electrode, a tenfold acceleration of the drying time with favorable mechanical and electrochemical properties for full cells derived from these anodes is demonstrated

Detection of bearing damage by statistic vibration analysis

The condition of bearings, which are essential components in mechanisms, is crucial to safety. The analysis of the bearing vibration signal, which is always contaminated by certain types of noise, is a very important standard for mechanical condition diagnosis of the bearing and mechanical failure phenomenon. In this paper the method of rolling bearing fault detection by statistical analysis of vibration is proposed to filter out Gaussian noise contained in a raw vibration signal. The results of experiments show that the vibration signal can be significantly enhanced by application of the proposed method. Besides, the proposed method is used to analyse real acoustic signals of a bearing with inner race and outer race faults, respectively. The values of attributes are determined according to the degree of the fault. The results confirm that the periods between the transients, which represent bearing fault characteristics, can be successfully detected

Women with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa : Individual and family characteristics, with particular emphasis on perfectionism

This study investigated socio-cultural, family and individual factors associated with anorexia and bulimia nervosa, with particular emphasis on dysfunctional perfectionism, and adopting a general social learning perspective. Theories of the development of eating disorders were interwoven with theories of the development of perfectionism. A model was proposed for the development of anorexia and bulimia nervosa via a dysfunctional perfectionism pathway. The 135 participants, aged 18 to 40 years, were women with anorexia nervosa (N=25), bulimia nervosa (N=32), Type 1 diabetes (N= 53, a North Canterbury population-based sample), and healthy women students (N=25). The women with eating disorders were recruited from various treatment centres throughout New Zealand. Participants completed a battery of seven self-report psychometric tests, namely, the Eating Disorder Inventory-2 (EDI-2), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), Setting Conditions for Anorexia Nervosa Scale (SCANS), Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ), Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), and Family Environment Scale (FES). Analysis of Covariance, using the BDI as a covariate, revealed that, in addition to measures concerned with weight, shape and dieting, both anorexia and bulimia nervosa group means were significantly higher than both healthy and diabetes group means for EDI-2 Interpersonal Distrust and Social Insecurity; MPS Concern over Mistakes, Personal Standards, and Parental Criticism; and TPQ Harm A voidance, and significantly different from the healthy group mean for MPS Parental Expectations; SCANS Perfectionism; and PBI Maternal Protection, Maternal Care, and Paternal Care. Correlational analyses confirmed hypothesized moderate or strong associations between some perfectionism measures and other characteristics of women with eating disorders, such as a harm-avoidant temperament, and perceptions of maternal overprotection. Discriminant function analysis revealed seven variables, in combination, that maximally discriminated between eating disordered and non-eating disordered groups: three EDI-2 variables of Drive for Thinness, Ineffectiveness, and Social Insecurity, three MPS subscales of Concern over Mistakes, Personal Standards, and Doubts about Actions, and the BDI. Of the three instruments measuring perfectionism, in this study, only the MPS effectively discriminated between eating disordered and non-eating disordered groups. Findings indicated the importance of controlling for depression when comparing eating disordered groups with other groups, and that dysfunctional perfectionism is largely independent of the mood of the respondent. Findings suggest that the PBI may be limited by cultural sensitivity. Findings led to questioning of the applicability of the EDI-SC to diabetes groups and of the validity of the Novelty Seeking and Reward Dependence Dimensions of the TPQ. In concluding that dysfunctional perfectionism is a key personality characteristic of women with anorexia and bulimia nervosa, it is argued that multidimensional measures of perfectionism provide more insight than unidimensional measures into the dysfunctional facets of perfectionism, and that perfectionism per se is not necessarily problematic. Dysfunctional perfectionism may distinguish psychopathology associated with anorexia and bulimia nervosa from numerous other forms of psychopathology, including depression. Although aetiological factors were not assessed in this study, the MPS and PBI, considered in conjunction with the theoretical literature, may provide insight into the development of dysfunctional perfectionism. This has implications for the treatment and prevention of eating disorders

Customized Woven Carbon Fiber Electrodes for Bioelectrochemical Systems—A Study of Structural Parameters

Commercial carbon fiber (CF) fabrics are popular electrode materials for bioelectrochemical systems (BES), but are usually not optimized for the specific application. This study investigates BES-relevant material characteristics on fabric level, such as weave types and weave parameters. The two contrasting weave types plain and leno weave were characterized with respect to their envisaged application types: 1) BES with mainly advective flow regimes and 2) stirred systems, which could benefit from fluid flow through a fabric electrode. Experiments with batch and continuously fed pure cultures of Geobacter sulfurreducens PCA and Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 reveal that µm-scale electrode topologies are of limited use for the thick biofilms of G. sulfurreducens , but can boost S. oneidensis ’ current generation especially in batch and fed-batch reactors. For advective flow regimes, deeper layers of biofilm inside microporous electrodes are often mass transport limited, even with thin biofilms of S. oneidensis . Therefore, low porosity plain weave electrodes for advective flow operation as in wastewater treating BES should be thin and flat. A trade-off between maximized current density and electrode material utilization exists, which is optimized exemplarily for an advective flow operation. For stirred BES of biotechnological applications, a flow-through of electrolyte is desired. For this, leno weave fabrics with pores at cm-scale are produced from 100% CF for the first time. In a preliminary evaluation, they outperform plain weave fabrics. Mass transfer investigations in stirred BES demonstrate that the large pores enable efficient electrode utilization at lower power input in terms of stirring speed

Experimental study on clay gouge evolution in mechanically stratified sequences

Normal faults play an important role in hydrocarbon exploration. A normal fault can act as a migration path for fluids or seal fluids compartments. Sealing is enhanced when the fault zones are filled with impermeable materials like clay. “Clay smear is a loosely defined term born in hydrocarbon geology; its usage differs between publications, and the definition of processes operating is often unclear. In most general meaning, the term includes all processes, which somehow transform clay in the wall rock into clay that is part of the fault zone. Processes included are clay abrasion, shear in releasing fault links, preferred smear and lateral clay injection” (van der Zee et al., 2003). This study focuses on experimental investigations on the generation of sealed faults. The sealing quality of the fault is set in context to the rheological properties of the host rock. Structural and mechanical features such as shear strength of the materials involved, clay smear, the evolution of releasing bends and fault lenses play an important role and are investigated using analogue sandbox experiments. The experimental results are compared intensively with scientific theories and previous studies dealing with similar topics in the following chapters. The aim of this study is to find out which parameters have major effect on the final gouge geometry and composition and to investigate the kinematical evolution. Finally, the experimental results should give us information on the validity of in hydrocarbon geology frequently used fault sealing prediction theories and methods. The application of analogue models is a useful method to investigate the effect of different boundary conditions and material properties on the evolution of a fault zone. Dry sand or wet clay have been used before, but a combination of the two was not possible, and instead model materials such as silicon were used. But, the closer the model approaches to scaled analogues of natural conditions, the more informative are the experimental results. So, why not build up a model that includes real sand and clay instead of analogue model materials? For this purpose an analogue sandbox-model was built. Experiments are run under completely water-saturated conditions to simulate the behavior of ‘wet’ clay and to enable the investigation of fault development in layered sand-clay sequences. The observations focus on the behavior of the clay layers, as they have strong influence on the permeability, which is important in terms of hydrogeology and for the petroleum industry. This sandbox makes it possible to carry out experiments in the dimension of 20x40x20 cm. The rigid basement fault dips with 70° and the velocity can be varied from 2 up to 12 cm/hr with a maximum offset of 60 mm. In nine experiment series parameters such as the clay’s rigidity or the number of clay layers were varied systematically. These variations lead to the evolution of different gouge structures that strongly deviate in their structure and transport properties. The experimental results are discussed in reference to their natural effect on the fault zone structure. 2D-images of the sandbox experiments were additionally processed with PIV-software (Particle Image Velocimetry) to quantify the displacement field. The software calculates the motion at the scale of a sand grain. The results give useful information on fault zone evolution. Results are investigated in terms of fault statistics and fault geometry. To infer the mechanisms of fault zone evolution in both nature and analogue models I focus on the mechanical background and kinematics of the initial deformation phase