Poverty and Wellbeing Impacts of Microfinance : What Do We Know?

Over the last 35 years, microfinance has been generally regarded as an effective policy tool in the fight against poverty. Yet, the question of whether access to credit leads to poverty reduction and improved wellbeing remains open. To address this question, we conduct a systematic review of the quantitative literature of microfinance’s impacts in the developing world, and develop a theory of change that links inputs to impacts on several welfare outcomes. Overall, we find that the limited comparability of outcomes and the heterogeneity of microfinance-lending technologies, together with a considerable variation in socio-economic conditions and contexts in which impact studies have been conducted, render the interpretation and generalization of findings intricate. Our results indicate that, at best, microfinance induces short-term dynamism in the financial life of the poor; however, we do not find compelling evidence that this dynamism leads to increases in income, consumption, human capital and assets, and, ultimately, a reduction in poverty

Towards a sustainable Agri-Food supply chain

The agri-food industry is one of the largest manufacturing sectors in many developed and developing countries. This industry requires large volumes of natural resources. This resource requirement has been a key barrier to increasing production proportionately to cater to the increasing global population

Constrained Path Tracking at Varying Angles in a Mouse Tracking Task

Objective: This study was aimed to determine the effects of direction and path length on movement time when traversing a constrained path of width, W, in a mouse tracking task. Background: Tracking within constrained paths has been demonstrated to hold in many applications. Movement time and velocity of movement have shown very similar relationships, possibly because of the lack of extreme testing conditions. Most previous research evaluated conditions with only constant path length (A) of movement. Method: A total of 15 participants performed a mouse steering task within a constrained path at various angles. The independent variables were track width (W), path length, and path angle. Movement time was the dependent variable. Results: Analyses showed a significant effect of movement direction on movement time, and the relationship was approximately sinusoidal and symmetrical about the horizontal axis. Path length had a significant effect on speed of movement, which was not that apparent on movement time. At low A/W values, movements appeared to be ballistic. Conclusion: Tracking within constrained paths can be modeled to account for the effect of path angle. Application: Vertical hand movements, especially within constrained paths, may not be ideal from a performance and biomechanical standpoint. The performance curve gradients are a good way to evaluate and standardize the testing of input devices and to define acceptable speeds for various tolerances in computer and industrial tasks that involve angular motions. The results of this experiment will help designers to optimize products and training programs. © 2012 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

The investigation of fluid flow in cartilage contact gap

Synovial fluid flow in articular joint capsule plays an important role during mixed mode lubrication. However, the actual fluid flow behaviour during cartilage contact has not been fully understood so far. This is due to the difficulties in measuring the gap permeability using conventional experimental techniques. The problem becomes further complicated with consideration of the cartilage surface roughness. Here a validated numerical study was developed to quantify the gap permeability of lateral synovial fluid flow. Both macro- and micro-scale gap flow models were created based on Darcy's law at the macro-scale and the Navier-stokes equation at the micro-scale. To generate model inputs, the cartilage topography was numerically synthesised based on the experimental measurements of bovine medial tibia cartilage surface roughness using Dektak Stylus Profilers. The experimental results show that the average roughness height Ra is 1.97 μm and root-mean-square roughness height Rq is 2.44 μm, while the correlation lengths of the secondary and tertiary undulations are round 100 μm and 20 μm, respectively. The numerical results indicate that the contact gap height and fluid pressure gradient are two critical parameters which significantly affect the gap permeability. As the contact gap closes, there is a decrease in gap permeability, and most importantly, the gap permeability is also very sensitive to the fluid pressure gradient. Furthermore, with gap closure, the permeability of the contact gap gradually approaches that of the cartilage tissue, at which point the contact gap is functional closed. This occurs at a contact gap height around 1 μm and fluid pressure gradient below 5 × 105 Pa/m in this study

The investigation of fluid flow in cartilage contact gap

Synovial fluid flow in articular joint capsule plays an important role during mixed mode lubrication. However, the actual fluid flow behaviour during cartilage contact has not been fully understood so far. This is due to the difficulties in measuring the gap permeability using conventional experimental techniques. The problem becomes further complicated with consideration of the cartilage surface roughness. Here a validated numerical study was developed to quantify the gap permeability of lateral synovial fluid flow. Both macro- and micro-scale gap flow models were created based on Darcy's law at the macro-scale and the Navier-stokes equation at the micro-scale. To generate model inputs, the cartilage topography was numerically synthesised based on the experimental measurements of bovine medial tibia cartilage surface roughness using Dektak Stylus Profilers. The experimental results show that the average roughness height Ra is 1.97 μm and root-mean-square roughness height Rq is 2.44 μm, while the correlation lengths of the secondary and tertiary undulations are round 100 μm and 20 μm, respectively. The numerical results indicate that the contact gap height and fluid pressure gradient are two critical parameters which significantly affect the gap permeability. As the contact gap closes, there is a decrease in gap permeability, and most importantly, the gap permeability is also very sensitive to the fluid pressure gradient. Furthermore, with gap closure, the permeability of the contact gap gradually approaches that of the cartilage tissue, at which point the contact gap is functional closed. This occurs at a contact gap height around 1 μm and fluid pressure gradient below 5 × 105 Pa/m in this study

UAV mission planning subject to weather forecast constraints

A multi-trip UAV delivery problem is considered in which trajectories are planned for UAVs operating in a hostile environment. UAV battery capacity and payload weight as well as vehicle reuse are taken into account. A fleet of homogeneous UAVs fly in a 2D plane matching a distribution network to service customers in a collision-free manner. The goal is to obtain a sequence of sub-missions that will ensure delivery of requested amounts of goods to customers, satisfying their demands within a given time horizon under the given weather forecast constraints. In this context, our objective is to establish the relationships linking decision variables such as wind speed and direction, battery capacity and payload weight. Computational experiments which allow to assess alternative strategies of UAV sub-mission planning are presented.</p