6,836 research outputs found
Environmental Implications of Peri-urban Sprawl and the Urbanization of Secondary Cities in Latin America
This paper examines the environmental and social implications of peri-urban growth in small to medium sized cities in Latin America and the Caribbean and proposes approaches to address this challenge. Key recommendations include cities should stimulate strategies for compact growth and efforts to regularize existing irregular settlements should be strongly supported, among other recommendations.Environment & Natural Resources, Urban Development, IDB-TN-237
Pair Approximation Models for Disease Spread
We consider a Susceptible-Infective-Recovered (SIR) model, where the
mechanism for the renewal of susceptibles is demographic, on a ring with next
nearest neighbour interactions, and a family of correlated pair approximations
(CPA), parametrized by a measure of the relative contributions of loops and
open triplets of the sites involved in the infection process. We have found
that the phase diagram of the CPA, at fixed coordination number, changes
qualitatively as the relative weight of the loops increases, from the phase
diagram of the uncorrelated pair approximation to phase diagrams typical of
one-dimensional systems. In addition, we have performed computer simulations of
the same model and shown that while the CPA with a constant correlation
parameter cannot describe the global behaviour of the model, a reasonable
description of the endemic equilibria as well as of the phase diagram may be
obtained by allowing the parameter to depend on the demographic rate.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX2e+SVJour+AmSLaTeX, NEXTSigmaPhi 2005;
metadata title corrected wrt paper titl
Sudden Trust Collapse in Networked Societies
Trust is a collective, self-fulfilling phenomenon that suggests analogies
with phase transitions. We introduce a stylized model for the build-up and
collapse of trust in networks, which generically displays a first order
transition. The basic assumption of our model is that whereas trust begets
trust, panic also begets panic, in the sense that a small decrease in trust may
be amplified and ultimately lead to a sudden and catastrophic drop of trust. We
show, using both numerical simulations and mean-field analytic arguments, that
there are extended regions of the parameter space where two equilibrium states
coexist: a well-connected network where confidence is high, and a poorly
connected network where confidence is low. In these coexistence regions,
spontaneous jumps from the well-connected state to the poorly connected state
can occur, corresponding to a sudden collapse of trust that is not caused by
any major external catastrophe. In large systems, spontaneous crises are
replaced by history dependence: whether the system is found in one state or in
the other essentially depends on initial conditions. Finally, we document a new
phase, in which agents are connected yet distrustful.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure
A two-stage stochastic transportation problem with fixed handling costs and a priori selection of the distribution channels
In this paper, a transportation problem comprising stochastic demands, fixed handling costs at the origins, and fixed costs associated with the links is addressed. It is assumed that uncertainty is adequately captured via a finite set of scenarios. The problem is formulated as a two-stage stochastic program. The goal is to minimize the total cost associated with the selected links plus the expected transportation and fixed handling costs. A prototype problem is initially presented which is then progressively extended to accommodate capacities at the origins and multiple commodities. The results of an extensive set of computational tests are reported and discussed
Liquid crystals boojum-colloids
Colloidal particles dispersed in a liquid crystal lead to distortions of the
director field. The distortions are responsible for long-range effective
colloidal interactions whose asymptotic behaviour is well understood. The short
distance behaviour of the interaction, however, is sensitive to the structure
and dynamics of the topological defects nucleated near the colloidal particles
in the strong anchoring regime. The full non-linear theory is required in order
to determine the interaction at short separations. Spherical colloidal
particles with sufficiently strong planar degenerate anchoring nucleate a pair
of antipodal surface topological defects, known as boojums. We use the
Landau-de Gennes formalism in order to resolve the mesoscopic structure of the
boojum cores and to determine the pairwise colloidal interaction. We compare
the results in three (3D) and two (2D) spatial dimensions. The corresponding
free energy functionals are minimized numerically using finite elements with
adaptive meshes. Boojums are always point-like in 2D, but acquire a rather
complex structure in 3D which depends on the combination of the anchoring
potential, the radius of the colloid, the temperature and the LC elastic
anisotropy. We identify three types of defect cores in 3D which we call single,
double and split core boojums, and investigate the associated structural
transitions. In the presence of two colloidal particles there are substantial
re-arrangements of the defects at short distances, both in 3D and 2D. These
re-arrangements lead to qualitative changes in the force-distance profile when
compared to the asymptotic quadrupole-quadrupole interaction. In line with the
experimental results, the presence of the defects prevents coalescence of the
colloidal particles in 2D, but not in 3D systems.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figure
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