Bruno Dallago & John McGowan, Crises in Europe in the Transatlantic Context: Economic and Political Appraisals

Book Revie

Interprovincial disparities in China since the reforms: convergence or divergence?

This paper investigates the extent of disparities amongst the provinces of China since the economic reform in 1978 up to the most recent year for which data is available. After a brief review of theoretical and in particular recent empirical literature on regional inequality in China it investigates whether or not the dynamic economic growth in China has been coupled with increasing disparities amongst the Chinese provinces. The paper utilises a few models of convergence along the lines of those hypothesised by neoclassical economists. It employs per capita income and per capita consumption to identify the possible absolute and conditional convergence since the economic reforms. The coverage and impact of the disparities in terms of the relative size of population affected are then taken into account in the analysis of inequality in income and consumption.China, Regional disparities, inequality, convergence

Computation and visualization of invariant manifolds

In this thesis, we start with the basic concepts of dynamical systems. Then we introduce the general types of problems that the well-known software package AUTO solves. AUTO uses a boundary value algorithm with Gauss collocation and pseudo-arclength continuation. These two features distinguish AUTO from other general ODE solvers for dynamical systems. In order to compute 2D solution manifolds, AUTO uses orbit continuation. With these tools, we study two famous problems, the Lorenz system and the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP). We briefly discuss the basic bifurcation and stability analysis of general ODE systems. The numerical analysis of the two problems leads to the newest algorithm to compute the 2D stable manifold of the origin of the Lorenz system and the 2D unstable manifold of appropriate periodic orbits of the CR3BP. We utilize Python for the flow control of AUTO. We also implement two visualization packages, QTPlaut and MATPlaut. They make possible the processing of large quantities of AUTO solution data with the OpenGL graphical library, dynamic memory allocation and interpolation methods. We conclude with prospect for future research

Fault Tolerant Free Gait and Footstep Planning for Hexapod Robot Based on Monte-Carlo Tree

Legged robots can pass through complex field environments by selecting gaits and discrete footholds carefully. Traditional methods plan gait and foothold separately and treat them as the single-step optimal process. However, such processing causes its poor passability in a sparse foothold environment. This paper novelly proposes a coordinative planning method for hexapod robots that regards the planning of gait and foothold as a sequence optimization problem with the consideration of dealing with the harshness of the environment as leg fault. The Monte Carlo tree search algorithm(MCTS) is used to optimize the entire sequence. Two methods, FastMCTS, and SlidingMCTS are proposed to solve some defeats of the standard MCTS applicating in the field of legged robot planning. The proposed planning algorithm combines the fault-tolerant gait method to improve the passability of the algorithm. Finally, compared with other planning methods, experiments on terrains with different densities of footholds and artificially-designed challenging terrain are carried out to verify our methods. All results show that the proposed method dramatically improves the hexapod robot's ability to pass through sparse footholds environment

Semibrittle seismic deformation in high-temperature mantle mylonite shear zone along the Romanche transform fault

Oceanic transform faults, a key element of plate tectonics, represent the first-order discontinuities along mid-ocean ridges, host large earthquakes, and induce extreme thermal gradients in lithosphere. However, the thermal structure along transform faults and its effects on earthquake generation are poorly understood. Here we report the presence of a 10- to 15-kilometer-thick in-depth band of microseismicity in 10 to 34 kilometer depth range associated with a high-temperature (700\ub0 to 900\ub0C) mantle below the brittle lithosphere along the Romanche mega transform fault in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. The occurrence of the shallow 2016 moment magnitude 7.1 supershear rupture earthquake and these deep microearthquakes indicate that although large earthquakes occur in the upper brittle lithosphere, a substantial amount of deformation is accommodated in the semibrittle mylonitic mantle that resides at depths below the 600\ub0C isotherm. We also observe a rapid westward deepening of this band of seismicity indicating a strong lateral heterogeneity

Mucinous intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: a distinct variant

Mucinous variant of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCC) is rare, and its clinicopathological features and prognosis are far less clear. Six patients who had iCCs with more than 50% of mucinous component and 79 conventional iCCs were included in the study. The mean size of mucinous and conventional iCCs was 6.2 cm and 6.0 cm, respectively. The majority of patients (83%) with mucinous iCC presented at T3 stage or above, compared to 28% of the conventional group (p < 0.01). Three patients with mucinous iCC (50%) died within 1 year. The average survival time of patients with mucinous iCCs was significantly reduced compared to that of conventional group (9 months vs 2 years; P < .001). Immunohistochemistry was performed on 6 mucinous and 12 conventional iCCs with matched age, sex and stage, which revealed positive immunoreactivity in MUC1 (83% vs 58%), MUC2 (33% vs 17%), MUC5AC (100% vs 42%), MUC6 (50% vs 0), CK7 (83% vs 83%), CK20 (0 vs 17%), and CDX2 (17% vs 0) in mucinous and conventional iCCs, respectively. Molecular studies showed one mucinous iCC with KRAS G12C mutation and no BRAF or IDH1/2 mutations. Mucinous iCC is a unique variant that constitutes 7.2% of iCCs. It is more immunoreactive for MUC1, MUC2, MUC5AC and MUC6. Unlike adenocarcinomas of colorectal primary, mucinous iCCs are often CK7+/CK20-/CDX2- and microsatellite stable. Patients with mucinous iCC likely present at advanced stage upon diagnosis with shorter survival time compared to the conventional counterparts