Bridging the gap? Corruption, knowledge and foreign ownership

We argue that in addition to host corruption per se, as accounted for by the existing literature, an explanation of inter-country variation in FDI needs to account for the distance between the host and home corruption, which we call relative corruption. We use a large matched home-host firm-level panel data-set for 1998-2006 from CEE transition countries. Year-specific selectivity corrected estimates suggest that, ceteris paribus, higher relative ‘grand’ corruption lowers foreign ownership as the returns to investment tends to be lower in more corrupt environment. However, after controlling for the selectivity bias, knowledge-intensive parent firms are found to hold controlling ownership, as the difficulty of successful joint venture looms large in more corrupt environment. Results are robust to alternative specifications.Financial support from the ESRC under RES-062-23-0986 is acknowledge

Benchmarking Reidentification in Multi-Camera Tracking Systems with YOLOv8 and ResNet-50

The aim of this paper is to benchmark reidentification within a multi-camera tracking system. This benchmark has been carried out by leveraging transfer learning, utilizing YOLOv8 for real-time object detection and ResNet-50 for feature extraction. The objective is to evaluate the system's performance in accurately reidentifying vehicles across multiple cameras in real-world traffic surveillance scenarios. This benchmarking endeavor aims to provide an evaluation framework for assessing the capabilities and limitations of vehicle reidentification techniques, with a focus on their applicability in challenging conditions such as low- light environments, image compression, and object occlusions

Geographical Assessment of Sacred Groves in Bolpur Sub-division, India

Human culture evolved around sporadic elements of nature. Our ancestors developed a special world view of nature around them. While receiving all the material benefits from nature, they in turn expressed their love & respect by worshiping elements in nature. One consequence of such nature worship is that different elements of bio-diversity are conserved and best exemplified in the initiation of ‘sacred groves’. Sacred groves are patches of natural vegetation dedicated by local communities to worship of ancestral spirits and deities. These groves may consist of a multi-species forestry, a clump of trees belonging to one species or even a single old tree depending on the history of the vegetation and local culture. Local communities because of their religious customary taboos and sanction with cultural and ecological implication protect these groves. These sacred groves have sporadic physical and non- physical dimensions in this study area. The regional peoples can easily conserve their fruitful environment through the preserve species of trees and also curtail the pollution impact from our society with the access of this indigenous model station.Key words: Nature worship, Sacred Grove, indigenous model

Staggered and extreme localization of electron states in fractal space

We present exact analytical results revealing the existence of a countable infinity of unusual single particle states, which are localized with a multitude of localization lengths in a Vicsek fractal network with diamond shaped loops as the 'unit cells'. The family of localized states form clusters of increasing size, much in the sense of Aharonov-Bohm cages [J. Vidal et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 5888 (1998)], but now without a magnetic field. The length scale at which the localization effect for each of these states sets in can be uniquely predicted following a well defined prescription developed within the framework of real space renormalization group. The scheme allows an exact evaluation of the energy eigenvalue for every such state which is ensured to remain in the spectrum of the system even in the thermodynamic limit. In addition, we discuss the existence of a perfectly conducting state at the band center of this geometry and the influence of a uniform magnetic field threading each elementary plaquette of the lattice on its spectral properties. Of particular interest is the case of extreme localization of single particle states when the magnetic flux equals half the fundamental flux quantum.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Valves of High-Nickel Alloys

The practical difficulties encountered in the manufacture of high-nickel alloys have been enumerated.Some properties of the core sand , facing and backing sands used for moulding have been given. Suitable fluxes are mentioned, but only the proprietary flux acted as a degassing agent and for deoxidation. It has been noticed that despite adoption of all precautions, porosity could not be entirely eliminated. Author has invited remedial suggestions to solve difficulties

Removal of Aluminium from Copper-based Alloys to Ensure Pressure-Tight Castings

The preserce of aluminium is harmful in gunmetal particularly meant for the production of pressure-tight castings, because aluminium, if present in gunmetal even in traces, causes leakage; but the metal is sometimes introduced into the alloy along with the used scraps which may contain aluminium varying from 0.5 to 2.5 per cent., viz. naval parts, impellers, propellers, etc. The passing of dry compressed air under 100 lb./sq. in. through the melt containing different proportions of intentionally added aluminium caused .the removal of even traces of the metal practically without any loss of zinc or tin, as aluminium has the tendency for preferential oxidation. The extent of its removal has been shown to depend on its percentage in the melt and the amount of compressed air passed through it