The Evolution of C Programming Practices: A Study of the Unix Operating System 1973-2015

Tracking long-term progress in engineering and applied science allows us to take stock of things we have achieved, appreciate the factors that led to them, and set realistic goals for where we want to go. We formulate seven hypotheses associated with the long term evolution of C programming in the Unix operating system, and examine them by extracting, aggregating, and synthesising metrics from 66 snapshots obtained from a synthetic software configuration management repository covering a period of four decades. We found that over the years developers of the Unix operating system appear to have evolved their coding style in tandem with advancements in hardware technology, promoted modularity to tame rising complexity, adopted valuable new language features, allowed compilers to allocate registers on their behalf, and reached broad agreement regarding code formatting. The progress we have observed appears to be slowing or even reversing prompting the need for new sources of innovation to be discovered and followed

Integrin Binding Dynamics Modulate Ligand-Specific Mechanosensing in Mammary Gland Fibroblasts

The link between integrin activity regulation and cellular mechanosensing of tissue rigidity, especially on different extracellular matrix ligands, remains poorly understood. Here, we find that primary mouse mammary gland stromal fibroblasts (MSFs) are able to spread efficiently, generate high forces, and display nuclear YAP on soft collagen-coated substrates, resembling the soft mammary gland tissue. We describe that loss of the integrin inhibitor, SHARPIN, impedes MSF spreading specifically on soft type I collagen but not on fibronectin. Through quantitative experiments and computational modeling, we find that SHARPIN-deficient MSFs display faster force-induced unbinding of adhesions from collagen-coated beads. Faster unbinding, in turn, impairs force transmission in these cells, particularly, at the stiffness optimum observed for wild-type cells. Mechanistically, we link the impaired mechanotransduction of SHARPIN-deficient cells on collagen to reduced levels of collagen-binding integrin α11β1. Thus integrin activity regulation and α11β1 play a role in collagen-specific mechanosensing in MSFs.</p

Imbibition in Disordered Media

The physics of liquids in porous media gives rise to many interesting phenomena, including imbibition where a viscous fluid displaces a less viscous one. Here we discuss the theoretical and experimental progress made in recent years in this field. The emphasis is on an interfacial description, akin to the focus of a statistical physics approach. Coarse-grained equations of motion have been recently presented in the literature. These contain terms that take into account the pertinent features of imbibition: non-locality and the quenched noise that arises from the random environment, fluctuations of the fluid flow and capillary forces. The theoretical progress has highlighted the presence of intrinsic length-scales that invalidate scale invariance often assumed to be present in kinetic roughening processes such as that of a two-phase boundary in liquid penetration. Another important fact is that the macroscopic fluid flow, the kinetic roughening properties, and the effective noise in the problem are all coupled. Many possible deviations from simple scaling behaviour exist, and we outline the experimental evidence. Finally, prospects for further work, both theoretical and experimental, are discussed.Comment: Review article, to appear in Advances in Physics, 53 pages LaTe

Correction of Basic Equations for Deep Bed Filtration with Dispersion

Copyright © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Deep bed filtration of particle suspensions in porous media occurs during water injection into oil reservoirs, drilling fluid invasion into reservoir productive zones, fines migration in oil fields, bacteria, virus or contaminant transport in groundwater, industrial filtering, etc. The basic features of the process are advective and dispersive particle transport and particle capture by the porous medium. Particle transport in porous media is determined by advective flow of carrier water and by hydrodynamic dispersion in micro-heterogeneous media. Thus, the particle flux is the sum of advective and dispersive fluxes. Transport of particles in porous media is described by an advection–diffusion equation and by a kinetic equation of particle capture. Conventional models for deep bed filtration take into account hydrodynamic particle dispersion in the mass balance equation but do not consider the effect of dispersive flux on retention kinetics. In the present study, a model for deep bed filtration with particle size exclusion taking into account particle hydrodynamic dispersion in both mass balance and retention kinetics equations is proposed. Analytical solutions are obtained for flows in infinite and semi-infinite reservoirs and in finite porous columns. The physical interpretation of the steady-state flow regimes described by the proposed and the traditional models favours the former.Altoe, J. E., Bedrikovetski, P.G., Siqueira, A. G., de Souza, A. L., Shecaira, F.http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/503345/description#descriptio

FDI and Institutions in BRIC and CIVETS Countries: An Empirical Investigation

In recent years, a number of countries with emerging economies have proceeded to use market-oriented strategies, deregulation and reforms in order to attract more foreign investors and attract foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. The present paper aims to empirically investigate the role of governance in attracting FDI using panel data and comparing two groups of fast-growing emerging countries, namely BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa). The study includes a panel data analysis using the latest available secondary data ranging from 2002 to 2019. Empirical models are extended and presented. The findings suggest that FDI inflows in BRICS are attracted by rule of law, regulatory quality, political stability and absence of violence, while CIVETS absorb FDI inflows due to control of corruption, political stability, absence of violence, regulatory quality and government effectiveness. The paper contributes to the existing literature since it is the first attempt to investigate the role of governance in attracting FDI in BRIC and CIVETS economies, taking into consideration other FDI determinants. To our knowledge, it is the first paper to study and compare FDI and institutional determinants in the specific groups of emerging countries. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

FDI in Central Asia: The case of Uzbekistan

FDI inflows are a significant form of capital flows mostly towards the developing countries and they decisively affect the host country's economic growth, the macroeconomic stability, the infrastructure and the governmental policy. The present paper focuses on the FDI inflows absorbed by the Central Asian countries, studying the case of Uzbekistan that attracts limited amount of FDI contrary to other countries of the region. It is argued that Uzbekistan attracts FDI mostly because of its market size and its adequacy on natural resources; however, the transformations performed failed to further increase the country's attractiveness to foreign investors. © 2016, Asociacion Euro-Americana de Estudios del Desarrollo. All rights reserved

F.D.I. Through the imitation procedure: The case of China

Over the past decades great changes have taken place in the economic environment worldwide regarding the foreign direct investment (F.D.I.). However, some of the developing countries have managed to gain more F.D.I. compared to other developing countries via skills acquisition, competition, exports and imitation. These spillovers channels are used to transfer technological knowledge among firms, while the imitation is used by many multinational enterprises (MNEs) and it is considered one of the most important spillovers channels. Therefore, many Chinese enterprises have imitated the developed countries firms' managerial and production procedures so far. China is one the largest recipient of F.D.I. inflow worldwide and the country's development affects the policies and the growth of other developing countries. Hence, under certain circumstances, developing countries have the ability to attract F.D.I. through imitating China