Leftist Politics and the Limits of Microcredit in Argentina

The success of microcredit lending programs depends in part on the regulatory framework that policymakers create to support them. A fact that many microcredit analyses often ignore or overlook is that this framework is shaped by both ideological and partisan political considerations of policymakers. In Argentina, the Peronist governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner launched and supported a state-centered microcredit program characterized by strict loan conditions and direct state grants for capital and operational costs to existing non-profit organizations that were largely supportive of Peronism. Provinces and municipalities governed by anti-Peronists refused to participate. As a result, the National Microcredit Program has come to mimic past patronage based policies to a significant extent, engendering dependency on government resources, and thereby threatening its long-term viability. This article explores the impact of the left’s ideological and political project on microcredit policy, implementation, and outcomes in Argentina

Financing public sector investment

Globally, there is a massive shortfall in infrastructure investment. This is the result of a combination of several factors: (i) the continued rise in the global population; (ii) the ongoing process of urbanisation; (iii) a shortage of public spending on infrastructures due to the legacy effects of the Great Recession and the need to consolidate public budgets; and (iv) new challenges such as climate change and the IT revolution that require additional investments. The infrastructure gap is felt in developed countries as much as in emerging market and developing countries. In Europe, public investment at the municipal level has been hit particularly hard. In spite of substantial interest from the private sector, shortages of funding continue to be a major (though not the only) bottleneck on the path towards higher investment volumes. Using the example of Berlin, this article looks at some trends in urban infrastructure policies and discusses alternative sources of financing

Multiband variability studies and novel broadband SED modeling of Mrk 501 in 2009

We present an extensive study of the BL Lac object Mrk 501 based on a data set collected during the multi-instrument campaign spanning from 2009 March 15 to 2009 August 1, which includes, among other instruments, MAGIC, VERITAS, Whipple 10 m, and Fermi-LAT to cover the γ-ray range from 0.1 GeV to 20 TeV; RXTE and Swift to cover wavelengths from UV tohard X-rays; and GASP-WEBT, which provides coverage of radio and optical wavelengths. Optical polarization measurements were provided for a fraction of the campaign by the Steward and St. Petersburg observatories. We evaluate the variability of the source and interband correlations, the γ-ray flaring activity occurring in May 2009, and interpret the results within two synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) scenarios. Aims. The multiband variability observed during the full campaign is addressed in terms of the fractional variability, and the possible correlations are studied by calculating the discrete correlation function for each pair of energy bands where the significance was evaluated with dedicated Monte Carlo simulations. The space of SSC model parameters is probed following a dedicated grid-scan strategy, allowing for a wide range of models to be tested and offering a study of the degeneracy of model-to-data agreement in the individual model parameters, hence providing a less biased interpretation than the “single-curve SSC model adjustment” typically reported in the literature. Methods. We find an increase in the fractional variability with energy, while no significant interband correlations of flux changes are found on the basis of the acquired data set. The SSC model grid-scan shows that the flaring activity around May 22 cannot be modeled adequately with a one-zone SSC scenario (using an electron energy distribution with two breaks), while it can be suitably described within a two (independent) zone SSC scenario. Here, one zone is responsible for the quiescent emission from the averaged 4.5-month observing period, while the other one, which is spatially separated from the first, dominates the flaring emission occurring at X-rays and very-high-energy (>100 GeV, VHE) γ rays. The flaring activity from May 1, which coincides with a rotation of the electric vector polarization angle (EVPA), cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by either a one-zone or a two-independent-zone SSC model, yet this is partially affected by the lack of strictly simultaneous observations and the presence of large flux changes on sub-hour timescales (detected at VHE γ rays). Results. The higher variability in the VHE emission and lack of correlation with the X-ray emission indicate that, at least during the 4.5-month observing campaign in 2009, the highest energy (and most variable) electrons that are responsible for the VHE γ rays do not make a dominant contribution to the ~1 keV emission. Alternatively, there could be a very variable component contributing to the VHE γ-ray emission in addition to that coming from the SSC scenario. The studies with our dedicated SSC grid-scan show that there is some degeneracy in both the one-zone and the two-zone SSC scenarios probed, with several combinations of model parameters yielding a similar model-to-data agreement, and some parameters better constrained than others. The observed γ-ray flaring activity, with the EVPA rotation coincident with the first γ-ray flare, resembles those reported previously for low frequency peaked blazars, hence suggesting that there are many similarities in the flaring mechanisms of blazars with different jet properties

Very-high-energy gamma-rays from the Universe's middle age: detection of the z=0.940 blazar PKS 1441+25 with MAGIC

The flat-spectrum radio quasar PKS 1441+25 at a redshift of z = 0.940 is detected between 40 and 250 GeV with a significance of 25.5 {\sigma} using the MAGIC telescopes. Together with the gravitationally lensed blazar QSO B0218+357 (z = 0.944), PKS 1441+25 is the most distant very high energy (VHE) blazar detected to date. The observations were triggered by an outburst in 2015 April seen at GeV energies with the Large Area Telescope on board Fermi. Multi-wavelength observations suggest a subdivision of the high state into two distinct flux states. In the band covered by MAGIC, the variability time scale is estimated to be 6.4 +/- 1.9 days. Modeling the broadband spectral energy distribution with an external Compton model, the location of the emitting region is understood as originating in the jet outside the broad line region (BLR) during the period of high activity, while being partially within the BLR during the period of low (typical) activity. The observed VHE spectrum during the highest activity is used to probe the extragalactic background light at an unprecedented distance scale for ground-based gamma-ray astronomy

Shifting Europe from Austerity to Growth: A Proposed Investment Programme for 2012-2015

This paper is focused on finding a policy approach that quickly facilitates and stimulates future growth, and thus goes well beyond austerity. Increasingly, as economic performance has deteriorated in most European countries, EU public opinion and leaders have begun to stress with increased urgency the need for far greater emphasis on growth. Meaningful actions on a sufficient scale have however not yet been taken. In this paper we aim to make specific proposals on how one key and successful EU institution, the European Investment Bank, (EIB) can expand its lending significantly, in ways that will make a meaningful contribution to growth, particularly in the countries, whose economies and citizens have suffered most from the sovereign debt crisis; we will also examine the role which EU Structural Funds can both on their own, and especially as a complement to EIB lending, further contribute to EU growth. After outlining in some detail the type of measures that can be taken, as well as their scale, we model the likely impact on GDP and employment, which would be significant. One important advantage of our approach is that with fairly limited public resources, it can achieve a very large impact, due to the benefits of leverage

Dynamic Hardness Evolution in Metals from Impact Induced Gradient Dislocation Density

A clear understanding of the dynamic behavior of metals is critical for developing superior structural materials as well as for improving material processing techniques such as cold spray and shot peening. Using a high-velocity (from 120 m/s to 550 m/s; strain rates >10^7 1/s) micro-projectile impact testing and quasistatic (strain rates: 10^-2 1/s) nanoindentation, we investigate the strain-rate-dependent mechanical behavior of single-crystal aluminum substrates with (001), (011), and (111) crystal orientations. Independent of crystal orientation, the dynamic hardness initially increases with increasing impact velocity and reaches a plateau regime at hardness 5 times higher than that of at quasistatic indentations. Based on coefficient of restitution and post-mortem transmission Kikuchi diffraction analyses, we show that distinct plastic deformation mechanisms with a gradient dislocation density evolution govern the dynamic behavior. We also discover a distinct deformation regime-stable plastic regime-that emerge beyond the deeply plastic regime with unique strain rate insensitive microstructure evolution and dynamic hardness. Our work additionally demonstrates an effective approach to introduce strong spatial gradient in dislocation density in metals by high-velocity projectile impacts to enhance surface mechanical properties, as it can be employed in material processing techniques such as shot peening and surface mechanical attrition treatment

Investigating the peculiar emission from the new VHE gamma-ray source H1722+119

The Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes observed the BL Lac object H1722+119 (redshift unknown) for six consecutive nights between 2013 May 17 and 22, for a total of 12.5 h. The observations were triggered by high activity in the optical band measured by the KVA (Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) telescope. The source was for the first time detected in the very high energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) γ-ray band with a statistical significance of 5.9σ. The integral flux above 150 GeV is estimated to be (2.0 ± 0.5) per cent of the Crab nebula flux. We used contemporaneous high energy (HE, 100 MeV < E < 100 GeV) γ-ray observations from Fermi-Large Area Telescope to estimate the redshift of the source. Within the framework of the current extragalactic background light models, we estimate the redshift to be z = 0.34 ± 0.15. Additionally, we used contemporaneous X-ray to radio data collected by the instruments on board the Swift satellite, the KVA, and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory telescope to study multifrequency characteristics of the source. We found no significant temporal variability of the flux in the HE and VHE bands. The flux in the optical and radio wavebands, on the other hand, did vary with different patterns. The spectral energy distribution of H1722+119 shows surprising behaviour in the ∼3 × 10^(14)–10^(18) Hz frequency range. It can be modelled using an inhomogeneous helical jet synchrotron self-Compton model