The impact of political instability on the economic growth of ECOWAS member countries

This study contributes to the literature on political instability and economic growth by specifically investigating the impact of political instability on the economic growth of member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). West Africa is regarded as the riskiest sub-region within the African continent. To achieve this objective, this study employed panel data techniques (fixed effects and generalised method of moments) on a sample of 15 ECOWAS member countries for the period 2005–2012. The findings from the analyses showed that terrorism, poor governance, social unrest, youth unemployment, death rate and natural resource rent have negative relationships with economic growth. The findings and policy implications deduced from this study could not have been any timelier considering the recent escalation of instability in West African countries and their fragile growth prospects.     

Dynamic impact protective body armour: A comprehensive appraisal on panel engineering design and its prospective materials

Personal body armour is one of the most important pieces of equipment to protect human beings from various critical and fatal injuries. In today’s modern world, various organizations including law enforcement and security service have made it mandatory for their personnel to wear personal protection system while on field duty. However, the systems should comprise an improved ballistic performance, light-weighted, flexible as well as comfortable panel not only to be accepted with a wider range but also for effective performances of the consumer. Generally, the overall performances of the protective body armour could be affected by various parameters including armour design techniques, type of materials used and finishing of the panels. The current paper aims to critically review state-of-art for armour panel design techniques and the different perspective body armour materials. The paper starts by discussing the different body armour and its category. Later, the different states of technology for armour panel design (mostly for women), its problems and the possible solutions will be cited. Later, the commonly used different polymeric fibrous and the future possible advanced materials including carbon nanotube (CNT), Graphene CNT and shear thickening fluids (STFs) treated materials for developing the reinforced body armour panel will be discussed. The authors believe that this paper will enlighten useful guidelines and procedures about the different panel design techniques and current and promising future materials for researchers, designers, engineers and manufacturers working on the impact resistance body armour field.     

Defense–Growth Causality: Considerations of Regime-Switching and Time- and Country-Varying Effects

This paper develops a panel smooth transition vector autoregressive model to investigate the economic growth–defense causality. This model simultaneously resolves the estimation problems of endogeneity, heterogeneity, and nonlinearity. Empirical results support that the causality is bidirectional, nonlinear, time- and country-varying. Economic growth has a negative impact on military spending and vice versa. The larger the HDI, the smaller the negative causality. Evidently, the increase in the level of country development can reduce the negative impact of military outlays on economic growth. Reducing the ratio of military spending to GDP is beneficial for countries with low HDI scores; however, moderately increasing the share of military expenditure is favorable for countries with extremely high HDI scores. Policy authority needs to set optimal education, health, and economic development shares of GDP for purchasing a maximum economic growth rate.     

新疆与哈萨克斯坦高校间跨文化交流合作研究

在国家推进"丝绸之路经济带"建设和西向开放战略背景下,新疆高校应积极开展与哈萨克斯坦高校的跨文化交流合作。一是构建新疆高校、内地对口支援高校与哈萨克斯坦高校战略联盟;二是大力推动新疆与哈萨克斯坦高校间师生往来互动;三是积极开展旨在增进双方文化理解的语言和艺术体育活动;四是协同开展新丝绸之路经济带、西向开放及中亚民族宗教等问题的研究。     

Equity in genetic newborn screening

State‐level newborn screening allows for early treatment of genetic disorders, which can substantially improve health outcomes for newborns. As the cost of genetic testing decreases, it is becoming an essential part of newborn screening. A genetic disorder can be caused by many mutation variants; therefore, an important decision is to determine which variants to search for (ie, the panel design), under a testing budget. The frequency of variants that cause a disorder and the incidence of the disorder vary by racial/ethnic group. Consequently, it is important to consider equity issues in panel design, so as to reduce disparities among different groups. We study the panel design problem using cystic fibrosis (CF) as a model disorder, considering the trade‐offs between equity and accuracy, under a limited budget. Most states use a genetic test in their CF screening protocol, but panel designs vary, and, due to cost, no state's panel includes all CF‐causing variants. We develop models that design equitable genetic testing panels, and compare them with panels that maximize sensitivity in the general population. Our case study, based on realistic CF data, highlights the value of equitable panels and provides important insight for newborn screening practices.     

Economic design of X¯ control charts for two manufacturing process models

Control charts are widely used for process surveillance. The design of a control chart refers to the choice of sample size, the width of the control limits, and the interval between samples. Economic designs have been widely investigated and shown to be an effective method of determining control chart parameters. This article describes two different manufacturing process models to which the X¯ control chart is applied: The first model assumes that the process continues in operation while searches for the assignable cause are made, and the second assumes that the process must be shut down during the search. Economic models of the control chart for these two manufacturing process models are developed, and the sensitivity of the control chart parameters to the choice of model is explored. It is shown that the choice of the proper manufacturing process model is critical because selection of an inappropriate process model may result in significant economic penalties.     

上海合作组织框架下中国新疆与周边国家恐怖主义犯罪及打击对策

在环新疆经济圈新疆主体功能区的建设中,恐怖主义犯罪对该经济圈的建设构成重大威胁。本文就上海合作组织框架下新疆及周边国家的恐怖主义犯罪活动对环新疆经济圈的危害,以及如何有效打击该地区的恐怖主义犯罪进行了分析并提出相应的对策。     

PEER REVIEW AS A TOOL FOR CO-OPERATION AND CHANGE

Peer review can be described as the systematic examination and assessment of the performance of a state by other states, with the ultimate goal of helping the reviewed state improve its policy making, adopt best practices and comply with established standards and principles. This paper examines the practice of peer review and the related effect of peer pressure in the context of international organisations, particularly the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It outlines the main features of these two concepts and attempts to establish a model based on the different peer review mechanisms used at the OECD.     

A RANDOM RATIONING MECHANISM WHICH REDUCES THE RISKS OF NO SON LEFT AT HOME

This paper empirically re‐examines the long‐run co‐movements and the causal relationships between GDP and defence expenditures in a multivariate model with real defence expenditure per capita (ME), real GDP per capita (GDP), and real capital stock per capita (K). We apply the view of the aggregate production function to construct the empirical model. Using up‐to‐date data for 27 OECD countries and 62 non‐OECD countries for the 1988–2003 period, we combine cross‐sectional and time series data to re‐investigate the relationship between GDP and ME. Previous studies using time series data may have yielded misleading results on account of the short time span of typical datasets. By contrast, we use recently developed panel unit root tests and heterogeneous panel cointegration tests, and conclude that there is fairly strong evidence in favour of the hypothesis of a long‐run equilibrium relationship between GDP and ME. The long‐run panel regression parameter results, such as the fully modified OLS, indicate that a positive relationship between GDP and ME only holds for OECD countries, whereas a negative relationship from ME to GDP only exists in non‐OECD countries under examination and in the panel as a whole. Furthermore, by implementing the dynamic panel‐based error correction model, we determine that GDP and ME lack short‐run causalities, but do show long‐run bidirectional causalities in both OECD and non‐OECD countries.     

片体干扰对三体船附加质量和附加惯性矩的影响研究

基于三维Rankine源方法,进行三体船附加质量和附加惯性矩计算,分析了片体干扰对三体船附加质量和附加惯性矩的影响,为三体船操纵性预报奠定基础.通过对圆球、椭球附加质量和附加惯性矩的计算,以及对三体船附加质量和附加惯性矩定性规律的分析,说明了文中方法的可靠性.研究表明,片体干扰对三体船附加质量和附加惯性矩有一定影响,但并不十分明显,且这种影响随着间距的增大很快衰减.     

Military Expenditure,Economic Growth and Heterogeneity

This paper examines the impact of military expenditure on economic growth on a large balanced panel, using an exogenous growth model and dynamic panel data methods for 106 countries over the period 1988–2010. A major focus of the paper is to consider the possibility group heterogeneity and non-linearity. Having estimated the model for all of the countries in the panel and finding that military burden has a negative effect on growth in the short and long run, the panel is broken down into various groupings based upon a range of potentially relevant factors, and the robustness of the results is evaluated. The factors considered are different levels of income, conflict experience, natural resources abundance, openness and aid. The estimates for the different groups are remarkably consistent with those for the whole panel, providing strong support for the argument that military spending has adverse effects on growth. There are, however, some intriguing results that suggest that for certain types of countries military spending has no significant effect on growth.     

Does defence expenditure have a spillover effect on income inequality? A cross-regional analysis in China

China’s defence expenditure has been growing rapidly along with GDP growth during the past two decades. Meanwhile, the income gap has continued to increase. There are conflicting views regarding whether the defence expenditure is capable of reducing income inequality. Therefore, this paper investigates the existence of any spillover effect of defence expenditure on income inequality, with a special focus on the regional differences among 31 provinces and 7 military regions in China. We extend panel cointegration and the impulse response function by using panel data during the period of 1997–2012. The empirical results show that the defence expenditure has an impact on income inequality, and the effect varies over different regions in China. The defence expenditure has a spillover effect on income inequality in the full sample panel and the southeastern panel. An increase in the defence expenditure does not crowd out social welfare spending due to the high level of economic development and government expenditure. On the contrary, in the northern panel, the effect is opposite because of the unbalanced economic development levels within the panel. Beijing as the capital of China, benefits more from the expansion of defence expenditure thus widening the income gap. In addition, the impulse response analyses further confirm a stronger effect of the defence expenditure on income inequality in the northern and the southeastern panels over a short period.     

Does civil war hamper financial development?

We examine how armed conflict effects financial development in a cross-country setting using dynamic panel data analysis in a panel of 66 developing countries for the period 1985–2010. Financial development is measured by M2 as a share of GDP, and credit allocated to private sector by banks as a share of GDP. Our findings suggest that armed conflict has a significant adverse effect on financial development. Simultaneously, the quality of governance is always highly significant and conducive to the financial development. The quality of governance is more salient in determining financial development compared to low- and medium-intensity armed conflict; however, the quality of governance cannot entirely offset the adverse impact of high-intensity armed conflict on financial development.     

A DYNAMIC PANEL DATA MODEL FOR ANALYZING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MILITARY EXPENDITURE AND GOVERNMENT DEBT IN THE EU

This paper examines the impact of military spending on general government debt in the enlarged European Union (EU) countries. For this purpose, we use panel data analysis and provide estimates from a dynamic Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) panel model. The dynamics are found to be important and the results suggest that military expenditures do have a large positive impact on the share of general government debt in the EU.     

Damage modeling of ballistic penetration and impact behavior of concrete panel under low and high velocities

This work presents a numerical simulation of ballistic penetration and high velocity impact behavior of plain and reinforced concrete panels. This paper is divided into two parts. The first part consists of numerical modeling of reinforced concrete panel penetrated with a spherical projectile using concrete damage plasticity (CDP) model, while the second part focuses on the comparison of CDP model and Johnson-Holmquist-2 (JH-2) damage model and their ability to describe the behavior of concrete panel under impact loads. The first and second concrete panels have dimensions of 1500 mm × 1500 mm × 150 mm and 675 mm × 675 mm × 200 mm, respectively, and are meshed using 8-node hexahedron solid elements. The impact object used in the first part is a spherical projectile of 150 mm diameter, while in the second part steel projectile of a length of 152 mm is modeled as rigid element. Failure and scabbing characteristics are studied in the first part. In the second part, the com-parison results are presented as damage contours, kinetic energy of projectile and internal energy of the concrete. The results revealed a severe fracture of the panel and high kinetic energy of the projectile using CDP model comparing to the JH-2 model. In addition, the internal energy of concrete using CDP model was found to be less comparing to the JH-2 model.     

桁梁式壁板结构优化设计

文中把承受集中载荷的多桁单梁壁板,简化为单桁单梁壁板计算模型。用有限元素法对大梁进行强度分析和用数学规划法进行结构综合,提出了一个优化设计方法。用此方法计算的实例表明,与现有设计方法相比,在相同载荷作用下,可降低结构重量19.2%.     

ON ETHNIC CONFLICT AND THE ORIGINS OF TRANSNATIONAL TERRORISM

Using the ITERATE dataset, we explore the origins of transnational terrorist activity, from 1982 through 1997, in 118 countries. We model terrorism, not as a function of a nation’s ethnic, religious or linguistic fractionalization, but as an independent measure of perceived ethnic tensions. When we control for institutional quality, evidence that political rights and civil liberties mitigate the terrorism‐producing effects of ethnic tensions exists only since 1990. Economic freedoms, on the other hand, robustly reduce the number of terrorist attacks originating in ethnically tense societies.     

应用统计能量分析法预测板材隔声量

应用统计能量分析法SEA(Statistical Energy Analysis)预测板隔声量,先建立板材的SEA模型,将板材的隔声量预测转变成求解声振动功率的线性代数方程组,对方程组的变量(SEA参数)值进行确定,得出板材的隔声量,再根据混响室法测量板材实际隔声量。将预测结果与实验结果进行对比分析,证明统计能量分析法能有效的预测板材隔声量。