Food aid: Pros and cons

Extreme poverty, drought and famine continue to afflict people in many parts of the world. Food aid has occupied a central role in the response to these problems, and there have been notable successes, yet there is doubt and criticism about the appropriateness of food aid. Is food aid doing more harm than good

Transfer of technology in LDCs

The author discusses the controversial problems connected with the transfer of highly sophisticated technologies to LDCs. In his opinion this transfer and adaptation of technologies is necessary and advantageous, but depends on the development of a national technological capacity of a developing country as a prerequisite

The British Government and the Brandt Report

Summary The British Government's unimaginative response to the Brandt Report reflects the official view that no new ideas are needed in the field of overseas development. But the FCO Memorandum correctly points out the central weaknesses of the Report: it is much too timid in addressing the OPEC countries and mistaken in using a simplistic North?South categorisation. The apparent agreement with the Report on the importance of ‘mutual interests’ conceals a different interpretation of the concept. There are inconsistencies in the Government's policy as it affects access to Northern markets for poor countries' exports; and the Government cannot argue that the North is presently the motor of growth for the world economy. It fails to take the point that the real cost of resource transfers is relatively low in recession. Resume Le gouvernement britannique et le rapport Brandt La réaction dénuée d'imagination du gouvernement britannique au rapport Brandt correspond aux vues officielles selon lesquelles il n'est pas besoin d'idées nouvelles en matière de développement. Le Mémorandum du FCO souligne à juste titre le point faible du rapport: son appel aux pays de l'OPEP n'est pas suffisamment pressant et il opère une distinction trop simpliste entre Nord et Sud. L'approbation apparente de la notion des “intérêts communs” dissimule en fait une interprétation très différente de cette idée. On observe une certaine incohérence dans la politique des pouvoirs publics en matière d'accès aux marchés du Nord pour les exportations des pays pauvres. Le gouvernement ne peut par ailleurs soutenir à l'heure actuelle que le Nord est un moteur de l'économie mondiale. Il néglige l'argument selon lequel le coût réel des transferts de ressources est relativement faible en temps de récession. Resumen El Gobierno británico y el Informe Brandt La respuesta sin imaginación del Gobierno británico al Informe Brandt refleja la opinión oficial de que no se necesitan nuevas ideas en la esfera del desarrollo exterior, pero la Memoria de la Oficina de Asuntos Exteriores y del Commonwealth pone justamente de relieve las debilidades centrales del Informe: es demasiado tímido cuando se dirige a los países de la OPEP y está equivocado al utilizar unas categorías demasiado simples en cuanto a norte y sur. El acuerdo aparente con el Informe sobre la importancia de los ‘intereses mutuos’ esconde una interpretación distinta del concepto. Hay inconsistencias en la política del Gobierno en lo que se refiere al acceso para las exportaciones de los países pobres a los mercados nórdicos, y el Gobierno apenas puede insistir en que el norte sea actualmente el motor de desarrollo de la economía mundial. Fracasa en su intento de poner de relieve que el costo real de la transferencia de recursos es relativamente bajo en una época de recesión

Beyond Terms of Trade: Convergence/Divergence and Creative/Uncreative Destruction

The paper describes the various ways in which the Prebisch-Singer thesis of tendency to deteriorating terms of trade of poorer countries went against a prevailing trend of optimistic expectations of convergence in per capita income levels among countries. The actual evidence in the context of a globalising world economy is one of divergence rather than convergence although a number of exceptions to this general tendency are also noted. The paper then discusses debt pressures as a new factor strengthening the original Prebisch thesis. The ‘fallacy of composition’ involved in countries simultaneously trying to be more outward-oriented is discussed. It can only be avoided by the creation of new technological capacity creating new dynamic comparative advantages. The discussion concludes by relating the argument to Schumpeter’s concept of ‘creative destruction’ and notes some neglected welfare aspects of innovation and increasing the variety of available goods

Towards Solving QCD - The Transverse Zero Modes in Light-Cone Quantization

We formulate QCD in (d+1) dimensions using Dirac's front form with periodic boundary conditions, that is, within Discretized Light-Cone Quantization. The formalism is worked out in detail for SU(2) pure glue theory in (2+1) dimensions which is approximated by restriction to the lowest {\it transverse} momentum gluons. The dimensionally-reduced theory turns out to be SU(2) gauge theory coupled to adjoint scalar matter in (1+1) dimensions. The scalar field is the remnant of the transverse gluon. This field has modes of both non-zero and zero {\it longitudinal} momentum. We categorize the types of zero modes that occur into three classes, dynamical, topological, and constrained, each well known in separate contexts. The equation for the constrained mode is explicitly worked out. The Gauss law is rather simply resolved to extract physical, namely color singlet states. The topological gauge mode is treated according to two alternative scenarios related to the In the one, a spectrum is found consistent with pure SU(2) gluons in (1+1) dimensions. In the other, the gauge mode excitations are estimated and their role in the spectrum with genuine Fock excitations is explored. A color singlet state is given which satisfies Gauss' law. Its invariant mass is estimated and discussed in the physical limit.Comment: LaTex document, 26 pages, one figure (obtainable by contacting authors). To appear in Physical. Review

A Rydberg Quantum Simulator

Following Feynman and as elaborated on by Lloyd, a universal quantum simulator (QS) is a controlled quantum device which reproduces the dynamics of any other many particle quantum system with short range interactions. This dynamics can refer to both coherent Hamiltonian and dissipative open system evolution. We investigate how laser excited Rydberg atoms in large spacing optical or magnetic lattices can provide an efficient implementation of a universal QS for spin models involving (high order) n-body interactions. This includes the simulation of Hamiltonians of exotic spin models involving n-particle constraints such as the Kitaev toric code, color code, and lattice gauge theories with spin liquid phases. In addition, it provides the ingredients for dissipative preparation of entangled states based on engineering n-particle reservoir couplings. The key basic building blocks of our architecture are efficient and high-fidelity n-qubit entangling gates via auxiliary Rydberg atoms, including a possible dissipative time step via optical pumping. This allows to mimic the time evolution of the system by a sequence of fast, parallel and high-fidelity n-particle coherent and dissipative Rydberg gates.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Late 1920s film theory and criticism as a test-case for Benjamin’s generalizations on the experiential effects of editing

This article investigates Walter Benjamin’s influential generalization that the effects of cinema are akin to the hyper-stimulating experience of modernity. More specifically, I focus on his oft-cited 1935/36 claim that all editing elicits shock-like disruption. First, I propose a more detailed articulation of the experience of modernity understood as hyper-stimulation and call for distinguishing between at least two of its subsets: the experience of speed and dynamism, on the one hand, and the experience of shock/disruption, on the other. Then I turn to classical film theory of the late 1920s to demonstrate the existence of contemporary views on editing alternative to Benjamin’s. For instance, whereas classical Soviet and Weimar theorists relate the experience of speed and dynamism to both Soviet and classical Hollywood style editing, they reserve the experience of shock/disruption for Soviet montage. In order to resolve the conceptual disagreement between these theorists, on the one hand, and Benjamin, on the other, I turn to late 1920s Weimar film criticism. I demonstrate that, contrary to Benjamin’s generalizations about the disruptive and shock-like nature of all editing, and in line with other theorists’ accounts, different editing practices were regularly distinguished by comparison to at least two distinct hyper-stimulation subsets: speed and dynamism, and shock-like disruption. In other words, contemporaries regularly distinguished between Soviet montage and classical Hollywood editing patterns on the basis of experiential effects alone. On the basis of contemporary reviews of city symphonies, I conclude with a proposal for distinguishing a third subset – confusion. This is an original manuscript / preprint of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Early Popular Visual Culture on 02 Aug 2016 available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2016.1199322

First Measurement of Gamma(D*+) and Precision Measurement of m_D*+ - m_D0

We present the first measurement of the D*+ width using 9/fb of e+ e- data collected near the Upsilon(4S) resonance by the CLEO II.V detector. Our method uses advanced tracking techniques and a reconstruction method that takes advantage of the small vertical size of the CESR beam spot to measure the energy release distribution from the D*+ -> D0 pi+ decay. We find Gamma(D*+) = 96 +- 4 (Statistical) +- 22 (Systematic) keV. We also measure the energy release in the decay and compute Delta m = m(D*+) - m(D0) = 145.412 +- 0.002 (Statistical) +- 0.012 (Systematic) MeV/c^2Comment: 24 pages postscript, also available through http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLNS, submitted to PR

Enhancement of Polymeric Immunoglobulin Receptor Transcytosis by Biparatopic VHH

The polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (pIgR) ensures the transport of dimeric immunoglobulin A (dIgA) and pentameric immunoglobulin M (pIgM) across epithelia to the mucosal layer of for example the intestines and the lungs via transcytosis. Per day the human pIgR mediates the excretion of 2 to 5 grams of dIgA into the mucosa of luminal organs. This system could prove useful for therapies aiming at excretion of compounds into the mucosa. Here we investigated the use of the variable domain of camelid derived heavy chain only antibodies, also known as VHHs or Nanobodies®, targeting the human pIgR, as a transport system across epithelial cells. We show that VHHs directed against the human pIgR are able to bind the receptor with high affinity (∼1 nM) and that they compete with the natural ligand, dIgA. In a transcytosis assay both native and phage-bound VHH were only able to get across polarized MDCK cells that express the human pIgR gene in a basolateral to apical fashion. Indicating that the VHHs are able to translocate across epithelia and to take along large particles of cargo. Furthermore, by making multivalent VHHs we were able to enhance the transport of the compounds both in a MDCK-hpIgR and Caco-2 cell system, probably by inducing receptor clustering. These results show that VHHs can be used as a carrier system to exploit the human pIgR transcytotic system and that multivalent compounds are able to significantly enhance the transport across epithelial monolayers