Indigenous Technological Capability in Developing Countries: A Preliminary Approach to Identification

There are two important issues, though closely related, which follow from technology transfers. One of these refers to the appropriateness of imported technology to the recipient countries and the other one refers to the development of indigenous technological capability. The first issue has already attracted close attention from a number of people including the present author.' So far as the issue of indigenous technological capability in less developed countries (LDCs) is concerned, a major discussion centering round the topic took place at a conference held at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, in May-June 1982.2 Although a number of important areas were debated in the above conference, no attempt was made to make any measurement of ITC achievement in LDCs, the theme of the present paper. In an earlier article, the author had an opportunity to make observations on the use of indigenous and imported technologies in East and West Africa. The present article while making general observations on ITC achievement in developing countries will, however, make specific references to three countries of the Indian sub-continent- India,Pakistanand Banglade

Chiral supersymmetric pp-wave solutions of IIA supergravity

We describe solutions of type IIA (N=2, D=10) supergravity built under the assumption of the existence of at least one residual chiral supersymmetry. Their geometry is of pp-wave type. Explicit parametrization of the metric and matter field components, in terms of Killing spinors and arbitrary functions, is provided.Comment: LaTeX file, 10 page

Improving indoor air quality for poor families : a controlled experiment in Bangladesh

The World Health Organization's 2004 Global and Regional Burden of Disease Report estimates that acute respiratory infections from indoor air pollution (pollution from burning wood, animal dung, and other bio-fuels) kill a million children annually in developing countries, inflicting a particularly heavy toll on poor families in South Asia and Africa. This paper reports on an experiment that studied the use of construction materials, space configurations, cooking locations, and household ventilation practices (use of doors and windows) as potentially-important determinants of indoor air pollution. Results from controlled experiments in Bangladesh are analyzed to test whether changes in these determinants can have significant effects on indoor air pollution. Analysis of the data shows, for example, that pollution from the cooking area diffuses into living spaces rapidly and completely. Furthermore, it is important to factor in the interaction between outdoor and indoor air pollution. Among fuels, seasonal conditions seem to affect the relative severity of pollution from wood, dung, and other biomass fuels. However, there is no ambiguity about their collective impact. All are far dirtier than clean fuels. The analysis concludes that if cooking with clean fuels is not possible, then building the kitchen with porous construction material and providing proper ventilation in cooking areas will yield a better indoor health environment.Renewable Energy,Energy Production and Transportation,Air Quality&Clean Air,Pollution Management&Control,Sanitation and Sewerage

A General Equilibrium Model Of Person Specific Information In The Labour Market

In recent years a greater emphasis has been given to the matching/sorting models of human capital investment. In these models, education generates better person-specific information which leads to a return from improved firm-worker matching. The first purpose of this thesis is to explain the factors that determine the real return for education through better firm-worker matching. The second purpose is to examine how this return is affected by two changes in the economy: firstly changes in the age composition of the labour force as a baby boom generation passes through the labour force, and secondly the introduction of a social pension plan.;The thesis shows that the real return from better firm-worker matching is determined by the structure of final output demand. The greater the demand for output produced by the \u27older worker intensive\u27 industry, the larger will be the gain from specialization through investment in person-specific information. It is also shown that the individually chosen investment in information will be in general smaller than the \u27golden rule\u27 steady state level. For the economy as a whole a higher level of productivity gains from schooling will lead to a lower allocative gain.;Any change in the age structure of the labour force leads to a change in the real gains from better firm-worker matching and the level of investment in information. When the number of younger workers increases, through changes in the demand conditions the allocative gains from education increase, and the level of investment in information is also increased. An increase in the number of older workers has the opposite effects.;In the presence of a social pension plan if the growth rate of the pension contribution and the rate of interest are not equal, the return from, as well as level of, investment in information will be affected. In the case of proportional or regressive tax rates, if the pension fund grows at a faster (slower) rate, the existence of such a plan will increase (decrease) the return from information but decrease (increase) the actual level of investment in information

Indoor air quality for poor families: new evidence from Bangladesh

Indoor air pollution (IAP) from cooking and heating is estimated to kill a million children annually in developing countries. To promote a better understanding of IAP, the authors investigate the determinants of IAP in Bangladesh using the latest air monitoring technology and a national household survey. The study concludes that IAP is dangerously high for many poor families in Bangladesh. Concentrations of respirable airborne particulates(PM10) 300 ug/m3 or greater are common in the sample, implying widespread exposure to a serious health hazard. Poor households in Bangladesh depend heavily on wood, dung, and other biomass fuels. The econometric results indicate that fuel choice significantly affects indoor pollution levels: Natural gas and kerosene are significantly cleaner than biomass fuels. However, household-specific factors apparently matter more than fuel choice in determining PM10 concentrations. In some biomass-burning households, concentrations are scarcely higher than in households that use natural gas. The results suggest that cross-household variation is strongly affected by structural arrangements-cooking locations, construction materials, and ventilation practices. The authors'analysis also suggests that poor families may not have to wait for clean fuels or clean stoves to enjoy significantly cleaner air. Within their sample household population, some arrangements are already producing relatively clean conditions, even when"dirty"biomass fuels are used. Since these arrangements are already within the means of poor families, the scope for cost-effective improvements may be larger than is commonly believed.Sanitation and Sewerage,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Montreal Protocol,Construction Industry,Montreal Protocol,Transport and Environment,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,TF030632-DANISH CTF - FY05 (DAC PART COUNTRIES GNP PER CAPITA BELOW USD 2,500/AL,Sanitation and Sewerage

Who suffers from indoor air pollution? evidence from Bangladesh

In this paper the authors investigate individuals'exposure to indoor air pollution. Using new survey data from Bangladesh, they analyze exposure at two levels-differences within households attributable to family roles, and differences across households attributable to income and education. Within households, they relate individuals'exposure to pollution in different locations during their daily round of activity. The authors find high levels of exposure for children and adolescents of both sexes, with particularly serious exposure for children under 5. Among prime-age adults, they find that men have half the exposure of women (whose exposure is similar to that of children and adolescents). They also find that elderly men have significantly lower exposure than elderly women. Across households, they draw on results from their previous paper (Dasgupta et al, 2004), which relate pollution variation across households to choices of cooking fuel, cooking locations, construction materials, and ventilation practices. They find that these choices are significantly affected by family income and adult education levels (particularly for women). Overall, the authors find that the poorest, least-educated households have twice the pollution levels of relatively high-income households with highly-educated adults. For children in a typical household, pollutionexposure can be halved by adopting two simple measures-increasing their outdoor time from 3 to 5 or 6 hours a day, and concentrating outdoor time during peak cooking periods. The authors recognize that weather and other factors may intervene occasionally, and that child supervision outdoors may be difficult for some households. However, the potential benefits are so great that neighbors might well agree to pool outdoor supervision once they became aware of the implications for their children's health.Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,Population&Development,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Water and Industry,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Water and Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Population&Development,TF030632-DANISH CTF - FY05 (DAC PART COUNTRIES GNP PER CAPITA BELOW USD 2,500/AL

Genetic Algorithms Based Approach for Designing Spring Brake Orthosis – Part Ii: Control of FES Induced Movement

Spring brake orthotic swing phase for paraplegic gait is initiated through releasing the brake on the knee mounted with a torsion spring. The stored potential energy in the spring, gained from the previous swing phase, is solely responsible for swing phase knee flexion. Hence the later part of the SBO operation, functional electrical stimulation (FES) assisted extension movement of the knee has to serve an additional purpose of restoring the spring potential energy on the fly. While control of FES induced movement as such is often a challenging task, a torsion spring, being antagonistically paired up with the muscle actuator, as in spring brake orthosis (SBO), only adds to the challenge. Two new schemes are proposed for the control of FES induced knee extension movement in SBO assisted swing phase. Even though the control schemes are closed-loop in nature, special attention is paid to accommodate the natural dynamics of the mechanical combination being controlled (the leg segment) as a major role playing feature. The schemes are thus found to be immune from some drawbacks associated with both closed-loop tracking as well as open-loop control of FES induced movement. A leg model including the FES knee joint model of the knee extensor muscle vasti along with the passive properties is used in the simulation. The optimized parameters for the SBO spring are obtained from the earlier part of this work. Genetic algorithm (GA) and multi-objective GA (MOGA) are used to optimize the parameters associated with the control schemes with minimum fatigue as one of the control objectives. The control schemes are evaluated in terms of three criteria based on their ability to cope with muscle fatigue