Globalization and Complementary Policies: Poverty Impacts in Rural Zambia

In this paper, we have two main objectives: to investigate the links between globalization and poverty observed in Zambia during the 1990s, and to explore the poverty impacts of non-traditional export growth. We look at consumption and income effects separately. On the consumption side, we study the maize marketing reforms and the elimination of maize subsidies. We find that complementary policies matter: the introduction of competition policies at the milling industry acted as a cushion that benefited consumers but the restriction on maize imports by small-scale mills hurt them. On the income side, we study agricultural export growth to estimate income gains from international trade. The gains are associated with market agriculture activities (such as growing cotton, tobacco, hybrid maize) and rural labor markets and wages. We find that by expanding trade opportunities Zambian households would earn significantly higher income. Securing these higher levels of well-being requires complementary policies, like the provision of infrastructure, credit, and extension services.

The WTO Doha Round, cotton sector dynamics, and poverty trends in Zambia

The Zambian cotton sector went through significant reforms during the 1990s. After a long period of parastatal control, a process of liberalization in cotton production and marketing began in 1994. These reforms were expected to benefit agricultural farmers. In Zambia, these are rural, often vulnerable, smallholders. The authors investigate the connection between the dynamics of the cotton sector and the dynamics of poverty and evaluate to what extent cotton can work as a vehicle for poverty alleviation. They find that cotton can indeed act as an effective mechanism for increased household welfare. They also find income gains associated with cotton production, as well as positive impacts on the long-run nutritional status of Zambian children. The impacts, however, are relatively small.Crops&Crop Management Systems,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Research,Economic Theory&Research,Livestock&Animal Husbandry

The double of the doubles of Klein surfaces

A Klein surface is a surface with a dianalytic structure. A double of a Klein surface $X$ is a Klein surface $Y$ such that there is a degree two morphism (of Klein surfaces) $Y\rightarrow X$. There are many doubles of a given Klein surface and among them the so-called natural doubles which are: the complex double, the Schottky double and the orienting double. We prove that if $X$ is a non-orientable Klein surface with non-empty boundary, the three natural doubles, although distinct Klein surfaces, share a common double: "the double of doubles" denoted by $DX$. We describe how to use the double of doubles in the study of both moduli spaces and automorphisms of Klein surfaces. Furthermore, we show that the morphism from $DX$ to $X$ is not given by the action of an isometry group on classical surfaces.Comment: 14 pages; more details in the proof of theorem

Copper and Barium Abundances in the Ursa Major Moving Group

We present Cu and Ba abundances for 7 G-K dwarf stars, members of the solar-metallicity, 0.3 Gyr old Ursa Major Moving Group. All analyzed member stars show [Ba/Fe] excesses of +0.3-plus, associated with [Cu/Fe] deficiencies of up to -0.23 dex. The present results suggest that there is an anti-correlation between the abundances of Cu and the heavy elements produced by the main component of the neutron capture s-process. Other possible anomalies are Na and C deficiencies with respect to normal solar-metallicity stars. The new data do not confirm the recent claim that the group member HR6094 is a Ba dwarf star.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted to MNRA

Functional Dependencies in OWL ABox

Functional Dependency (FD) has been extensively studied in database theory. Most recently there have been some works investigating the implications of extending Description Logics with functional dependencies. In particular the OWL ontology language offers the functional property property allowing simple functional dependency to be specified. As it turns out, more complex FD specified as concept constructors has been proved to lead to undecidability in the general case, which restricts its usage as part of TBOX. This paper departs from previous ones by restricting FDs applicability to instances in the ABOX. We specify FD as a new constructor, an OWL concept. FD instances are mapped to Horn clauses and evaluated against the ABOX according to user’s desired behavior. The latter allows users to determine whether FDs should be interpreted as constraints, assertions or views. Our approach gives ontology users data guarantees usually found in databases, integrated with the ontology conceptual model

Innovative Clay Unit Reinforced Masonry System: Testing, Design and Applications in Europe

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Fine structure of the age-chromospheric activity relation in solar-type stars I: The Ca II infrared triplet: Absolute flux calibration

Strong spectral lines are useful indicators of stellar chromospheric activity. They are physically linked to the convection efficiency, differential rotation, and angular momentum evolution and are a potential indicator of age. However, for ages > 2 Gyr, the age-activity relationship remains poorly constrained thus hampering its full application. The Ca II infrared triplet (IRT lines) has been poorly studied compared to classical chromospheric indicators. We report in this paper absolute chromospheric fluxes in the three Ca II IRT lines, based on a new calibration tied to up-to-date model atmospheres. We obtain the Ca II IRT absolute fluxes for 113 FGK stars from high signal-to-noise ratio and high-resolution spectra covering an extensive domain of chromospheric activity levels. We perform an absolute continuum flux calibration for the Ca II IRT lines anchored in atmospheric models calculated as an explicit function of effective temperatures, metallicity, and gravities avoiding the degeneracy present in photometric continuum calibrations based solely on color indices. The internal uncertainties achieved for continuum absolute flux calculations are 2\% of the solar chromospheric flux, one order of magnitude lower than photometric calibrations. We gauge the impact of observational errors on the final chromospheric fluxes due to the absolute continuum flux calibration and find that $T_{\rm eff}$ uncertainties are properly mitigated by the photospheric correction leaving [Fe/H] as the dominating factor in the chromospheric flux uncertainty. Across the FGK spectral types, the Ca II IRT lines are sensitive to chromospheric activity. The reduced internal uncertainties reported here enable us to build a new chromospheric absolute flux scale and explore the age-activity relation from the active regime down to very low activity levels and a wide range of $T_{\rm eff}$, mass, [Fe/H], and age.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables, Accepted for publication on A&A. Abstract edited to comply with arXiv standards regarding the number of character