bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Analysis of economic adjustments as a result of deep crisis: case of Latvia
Authors: Lesinskis Kristaps
Published: September 2015

Latvian economy has been the most crisis affected economy so far in the whole territory of the EU. Expected GDP fall during the year 2009 is close to 20%, unemployement rate is approaching 20%, prices have already started to fall. There are major fiscal problems in the economy. For second continious year society live under the threats of devaluation of national currency. Country has applied for serious external financial assistance from IMF and European Commission. The sharp decrease in economic activity is strongly related to the high current account deficit on balance of payments developed during the previous years of high growth thus making Latvian economy extremely vulnerable. As financial inflow has strongly decreased, there is a rapid decline in both private and government consumption and investment. This paper is aimed at analysing and explaining the roots for drastic changes in almost all macroeconomic indicators that have led to serious economic adjustments and strict changes in economic policy. Paper will assess the outcomes of economic adjustments as well as extract the most important lessons that have to be taken from what has happened in the crisis most affected economy of the EU. Both quantitative analysis of indicators and qualitative analysis of economic policy decisions are analysed within this paper.
Identification of industrial cycle leading indicators using causality test
Authors: Kasperowicz Rafał
Published: September 2015

The biggest business activity fluctuation analysts’ attention is called to leading indicators. It is due to their utility in forecasting resulting form their properties. Leading indicators are aggregates describing a part of economy (e.g. sector, branch) and therefore also they partly anticipate new behaviours of all the economy. The first aim of the paper is to identify industrial business cycle leading indicators in Poland. The second aim is the estimation of a leading index of cyclical fluctuations of industry. When identifying the fluctuations, first one has to purify the time-series of incidental and seasonal fluctuations. According to that the time-series underwent adjustment procedure Census X11 and Hodrick-Prescott’s filter. These way cyclical fluctuations of time series were obtained. Seeking variables determining leading indicators of reference variable was conducted on the basis of Granger causality analysis. Series selected in that way were used to create forecasting econometric model (leading index).
NewConnect as an alternative trading system
Authors: Schweda Magdalena
Published: September 2015

The present paper is focused on NewConnect that is a new market organized and operated by the Warsaw Stock Exchange next to the main regulated market. On 30 August 2009 this new trading platform celebrated the second anniversary of its functioning. Because of short period of its operation, NewConnect still remains unknown and mysterious for both: potential issuers and investors as well as for many individuals interested in stock exchanges and capital markets. This common ignorance of NC Market operation is an essential obstacle to its development whereas NewConnect has the chance to become the significant part of Polish capital market. It is intended for young dynamic Polish and foreign entities as an alternative source of capital required for financing of small and very innovative companies and investments It gives them a chance to raise capital at a lower cost. On the other hand, investors gain great opportunity to become shareholders in a company with the prospects of success. The aim of this paper is to present basic information about NC Market, its rules, participants as well as to provide some statistics of NewConnect functioning from its beginning in August 2007 until the end of August 2009.
Directions of changes in the functioning of economic instruments for environmental policy in Poland
Authors: Ptak Michał
Published: September 2015

Environmental policy instruments allow to incorporate the problem of using the natural resources into the decision-making process of individual agents. One of the most efficient instruments for environmental protection are economic instruments, the indirect methods of influence on agents’ behavior. The aim of the article is to present the state of the Polish system of economic instruments in the light of other European countries’ experiences (especially European Union countries) and perspectives in the use of economic instruments for environmental policy during the coming years. The study is based on the literature review, reports ordered by the Polish Ministry of Environment and publications published by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Environment Agency (EEA). The analysis suggests that economic instruments are widely used in Polish environmental policy. The main economic instruments in this policy are environmental charges and fines. Some of these charges and fines have been used in Polish environmental for several dozen years. Revenues from these instruments are earmarked for environmental expenditures. There are also some new, interesting economic instruments in Polish environmental policy, such as: deposit-refund systems, tradable energy certificates and emissions trading scheme. There are some opportunities for expanding the use of economic instruments for environmental policy in Poland. For example, there could be increased use of some environmental charges or taxes, and the environmental insurance. Poland could also implement an environmental tax reform.
Evidence on Relative Tax Burden of Taxpayers with Income from Employment in the Czech Republic
Authors: Brychta Karel
Published: September 2015

This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of relative tax burden of taxpayers (natural persons) with income from employment in the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2009. Single, childless taxpayers with tax residency in the Czech Republic were chosen to represent this category of taxpayers. The amount of the tax burden was conceived as the sum of natural person income tax and the social and health insurance premiums paid by the taxpayer (employee), constituting in its nature and character a tax equivalent. The amount of these legally imposed payments was set with respect to the state valid and effective as of December 31st of the relevant year, in case of the year 2009 with respect to the state as of June 30th. The results of the performed analysis prove gradual decrease in relative tax burden in the period of 1993–2009 for taxpayers of all income groups. However, the decrease cannot be characterized as uniform. The most marked decrease was identified with taxpayers in the upper income groups. The most significant change in the relative tax burden took effect in association with changes introduced in the Act on Income Taxes as of January 1st, 2008 when the progressive income tax of natural persons was replaced with a flat-rate tax and when changes were introduced to the concept of the partial income tax base calculations applicable to natural persons. The main contribution of this paper can be seen in the fact that the comparison encompasses the time interval covering the entire effective life of the Act on Income Taxes. It is also important that in view of the specified solution conditions, the relative tax burden values presented in the graphs can be understood as maximum values of the tax burden of taxpayers having income from employment.
Economic policy – state versus market controversy
Authors: Siddiqui Kalim
Published: September 2015

There was a wide ranging debate in the 1950s and 1960s in the developing countries about the role of the state in their economy when these countries attained independence, with developing their economies and eradicating poverty and backwardness being seen as their key priority.  In the post-World War II period, the all-pervasive ‘laissez-faire’ model of development was rejected, because during the pre-war period such policies had failed to resolve the economic crisis. Therefore, Keynesian interventionist economic policies were adopted in most of those countries. This is a theoretical paper, which is based on a review of published papers in the field of economic policies, especially about the debate on the role of the state and market.  In this study, a wide range of data sources are presented, which includes statistics generated by a number of organisations that are not agencies of a particular government. This is useful since data are compiled by a wide range of organisation such as IMF, World Bank and WTO. Secondary data would help our study to answer the research questions. There seems to be greater potential for examining statistical data produced by various organisations that are relatively independent of the national government.
On the evolution of corruption patterns in the post-communist countries
Authors: Cieślik Andrzej , Goczek Łukasz
Published: September 2015

In this paper, we study the evolution of corruption patterns in 27 post-communist countries during the period 1996-2012 using the Control of Corruption Index and the corruption category Markov transition probability matrix. This method allows us to generate the long-run distribution of corruption among the post-communist countries. Our empirical findings suggest that corruption in the post-communist countries is a very persistent phenomenon that does not change much over time. Several theoretical explanations for such a result are provided.
(Former) informal networks as a reflection of informal institutions in East European transitional societies: legacy or opportunism?
Authors: Banovic Ruzica Simic
Published: September 2015

Only recently has the influence of culture on economic development been increasingly discussed among theoretical economists. Besides observing culture through cultural traditions inherited from ancestors, current social interactions are also considered as an influential factor. Over a long period of time, the research on East European transitional societies has been focused on formal institutions. Throughout that period, informal networks, many of which originated from the previous socio-political system, have mostly strengthened their position in the society and gained power in the formal structures. They helped in building the new capitalist states and therewith had positive effects by speeding up the transition process. Yet, in medium and long term, their activities typically resulted in state capture. This paper explores the persistence of tight informal and mostly inefficient formal business-government-society relations in Eastern Europe. It emphasises the influence of informal networks in the interaction of formal and informal institutions, and questions the possibility of new generations to make a turnaround in the functioning of the networks. Newly emerging social interactions are contextualised in the cultural dimensions: Power Distance and Collectivism versus Individualism. This paper argues that even when informal communities solely serve their own opportunistic purposes, the prevailing collectivist culture in the society provides tacit support to their existence and therewith delays the transformation from relation-based to rule-based governance. The empirical findings confirm the oversocialised view of the society and networks suggested by economic sociologists. Additionally, the changes in transitional institutional environment are deemed to be in line with the claims of institutional economists on durability and impact of informal institutions.
Learning not blaming: the Government response
Authors: Tingle John
Published: September 2015

In this second of a two-part column, John Tingle discusses the Government's response to the consultation on the Freedom to Speak Up review, the report Investigating Clinical Incidents in the NHS, and The Report of the Morecambe Bay Investigation
Focus on people, not the system: improving the NHS in England
Authors: Glasper Alan
Published: September 2015

Emeritus professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, discusses the launch of the latest Department of Health initiative to make the NHS more people-focused, rather than system-focused
Stoma Care Nurse of the Year: BJN AWARD RUNNER UP
Authors: Disley Helen , Greening Lyn , Clow Tara , Harker Gillian
Published: September 2015

Gill Little, National Nurse Manager SecuriCare (Medical), entered Helen, Lyn, Tara and Gillian into the Stoma Care Nurse of the Year category. Here, she explains the reasons behind her nomination.
Meeting the needs of new ostomists: a patient evaluation survey
Authors: Edis Helena
Published: September 2015

Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust provides a care pathway for patients undergoing stoma formation surgery, with the stoma care nurse specialists providing ongoing support for patients, alongside the rest of the multidisciplinary team, from the preoperative consultation through to their community follow-up. In the past, the community service offered has not always been well-received and the whole pathway has not been evaluated in depth to date. This article reports on a patient evaluation survey of the stoma care pathway at NUH. The results showed that overall patients are very complimentary of the service offered to them by the stoma care team. They highly commend the stoma care nurse specialist. Two areas for amendment in the pathway have been identified: information provision and the length of time available for the stoma care nurse specialist to spend one-to-one with each patient. The results of this survey will aid the team in implementing positive changes to the stoma care pathway.
Assessment and management of acute sore throat
Authors: Green Shona
Published: September 2015

Acute sore throat is a common presentation in primary care. Shona Green discusses how to assess and manage this usually minor illness
Educating travellers on insect bite avoidance
Authors: Gawthrop Mary
Published: September 2015

Bite avoidance is a key component of protecting travellers from insect– and tick-borne diseases.

Mary Gawthrop provides an overview of bite prevention advice
Over-responsibilised and over-blamed: elected actors in media reporting on network governance. A comparative analysis in eight European metropolitan areas
Authors: Hasler Karin , Kübler Daniel , Christmann Anna , Marcinkowksi Frank
Published: September 2015

This article contributes to the study of democratic problems related to governance networks, by focusing on the role of the media. Two main rivalling hypotheses are examined. The functionalist hypothesis postulates that the media accurately inform the public about policy actors and their responsibilities, independent of these actors’ institutional status. The media-bias hypothesis postulates an attention bias towards elected policy actors, resulting in reduced public visibility of non-elected policy actors. The analysis uses standardised data on decision-making processes and newspaper content relating to public transport and economic promotion policies in eight western European metropolitan areas. Findings are that the actor mix of governance networks is quite accurately reflected in newspaper reporting. However, elected actors are more often presented as responsible for policies (‘over-responsibilised’), and they are more often blamed for policy failures than other actors (‘over-blamed’). The extent of this media bias depends on commercial pressure on media outlets. We also show that variations of this general pattern are linked to different types of media systems found across the cases under scrutiny.
The role of the Sheffield model on the minimum unit pricing of alcohol debate: the importance of a rhetorical perspective
Authors: Katikireddi Srinivasa Vittal , Hilton Shona , Bond Lyndal
Published: September 2015

The minimum unit pricing (MUP) alcohol policy debate has been informed by the Sheffield model, a study which predicts impacts of different alcohol pricing policies. This paper explores the Sheffield model's influences on the policy debate by drawing on 36 semi-structured interviews with policy actors who were involved in the policy debate. Although commissioned by policy makers, the model's influence has been far broader than suggested by views of ‘rational’ policy making. While findings from the Sheffield model have been used in instrumental ways, they have arguably been more important in helping debate competing values underpinning policy goals.
Older adult secular volunteering: volunteer engagement pathways for newcomers and longer-term residents in an American community
Authors: Paarlberg Laurie , Dula Lauren , Tschirhart Mary , Christensen Robert , Nesbit Rebecca , Clerkin Richard
Published: September 2015

When older individuals move, how do they become engaged in their new communities through volunteer work? Using data from a sample of older Americans in one community of residence in North Carolina in United States, we identify pathways to volunteer engagement for older people and demonstrate how these pathways differ for newcomers and longer-term residents. We also distinguish the differences in pathways between older ‘super volunteers’ and less active ones. For all residents, volunteers are more likely than non-volunteers to report having strong organisational pathways. These pathways may be religious and secular. However, the effect of having these pathways to volunteering is particularly strong for newcomers. While having weak organisational pathways and personal pathways are more likely to be reported for longer-term residents who volunteer, weak personal pathways are connected to a lower likelihood of being a super volunteer. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theory and practice.
Novas leituras sobre a história de Porto Rico: raça, trabalho e imigração no Caribe Espanhol.
Authors: Rückert Fabiano Quadros
Published: September 2015

A resenha destaca um tema relevante para a historiografia latino americana, e particularmente, para o Caribe e Porto Rico.O livro foi produzido como uma Tese apresentada na University of Minnesota e foi traduzi para o espanhol e publicado em 2014 com recursos da Escuela de de Estudios Hispano-Americanos.
Intervenções urbanas na cidade do Recife: uma igreja no meio do caminho de uma avenida
Authors: Nascimento Luís Domingues
Published: September 2015

Entre os anos de 1971 e 1973, ocorreu na área central da cidade do Recife uma das mais incisivas intervenções urbanas, com a abertura, o prolongamento e o alargamento da Av. Dantas Barreto no trecho compreendido entre o pátio da Igreja N. S. do Carmo e a Praça Sérgio Loreto, atingindo uma área de quase 4 km2. A justificada para a obra era a necessidade de buscar uma solução capaz de enfrentar o cenário caótico do tráfego de veículos na parte central da cidade e possibilitar uma ligação direta e fluente entre o centro e a zona sul da cidade. A execução dessa obra implicou na demolição do casario de feições coloniais e da Igreja do Bom Jesus dos Martírios, construída entre 1791 e 1796. Os defensores da preservação da Igreja exigiam o seu tombamento como um bem histórico-cultural, pois ela era a única igreja do Brasil totalmente edificada por escravos no Brasil. Esse posicionamento suscitou um embate que foi denominado pelo historiador Denis Bernardes como a “A Batalha dos Martírios”, desvelando no seu decurso a lógica modernizante, fundada nos critérios de uma sociedade típica do capitalismo tardio, que orientou a construção da Av. Dantas Barreto e as políticas municipais no período, possibilitando-nos averiguar, dessa forma, a natureza dos embates suscitados e os seus desdobramentos em seu contexto histórico.
Apontamentos sobre o silêncio e a lembrança.
Authors: Silva Alexandre Junior de Lima e
Published: September 2015

Este artigo tem como objetivo principal apontar alguns elementos, de reflexão, sobre os mecanismos de controle e fixação da memória do povo. Procuramos traçar uma linha ampla porque entendemos que a problemática é complexa, exigindo elementos de história política e social. Estou cada vez mais propenso a pensar a memória como um sistema geral que permite a inclusão de subsistemas, a ele vinculados, ou por ele permitidos, ou ainda, contrários e contraditórios, até que surja outro sistema que o supere. Sendo assim, a história oficial dos operários da cana-de-açúcar estaria dentro deste grande sistema de memória, domesticada, mas não em sua totalidade. Ou seja, a memória das lutas seria uma ameaça constante, um gigante adormecido, uma revolução latente que precisava ser adiada pelas classes dominantes a todo custo. Mas a pergunta permanece: até quando?
Multiple kernel support vector regression for pricing nifty option
Authors: Verma Neetu , Das Sujoy , Srivastava Namita
Published: September 2015

The goal of present experiments is to investigate the use of multiple kernel learning as a tool for pricing options in the context of Indian stock market for Nifty index options. In this paper, fair price of an option is predicted by Multiple Kernel Support Vector Regression (MKLSVR) using linear combinations of kernels and Single Kernel Support Vector Regression (SKSVR). Prices of option highly depend on different money market conditions like deep-in-the-money, in-the-money, at-the-money, out-of-money and deep-out-of-money condition. The experimental study attempts to identify the forecasting errors with the help of mean square error; root meant square error, and normalized root meant square error between the market option prices and the calculated option prices by model for all market conditions. The results reflect that multiple kernel support vector regression performed fairly well in comparison to support vector regression with single kernel.
k
-regret queries with nonlinear utilities
Authors: Kessler Faulkner Taylor , Brackenbury Will , Lall Ashwin
Published: September 2015

In exploring representative databases, a primary issue has been finding accurate models of user preferences. Given this, our work generalizes the method of regret minimization as proposed by Nanongkai et al. to include nonlinear utility functions. Regret minimization is an approach for selecting
k
representative points from a database such that every user's ideal point in the entire database is similar to one of the
k
points. This approach combines benefits of the methods top-
k
and skyline; it controls the size of the output but does not require knowledge of users' preferences. Prior work with
k
-regret queries assumes users' preferences to be modeled by linear utility functions. In this paper, we derive upper and lower bounds for nonlinear utility functions, as these functions can better fit occurrences such as diminishing marginal returns, propensity for risk, and substitutability of preferences. To model these phenomena, we analyze a broad subset of convex, concave, and constant elasticity of substitution functions. We also run simulations on real and synthetic data to prove the efficacy of our bounds in practice.
S-Store
Authors: Meehan John , Tatbul Nesime , Zdonik Stan , Aslantas Cansu , Cetintemel Ugur , Du Jiang , Kraska Tim , Madden Samuel , Maier David , Pavlo Andrew , Stonebraker Michael , Tufte Kristin , Wang Hao
Published: September 2015

Stream processing addresses the needs of real-time applications. Transaction processing addresses the coordination and safety of short atomic computations. Heretofore, these two modes of operation existed in separate, stove-piped systems. In this work, we attempt to fuse the two computational paradigms in a single system called S-Store. In this way, S-Store can simultaneously accommodate OLTP and streaming applications. We present a simple transaction model for streams that integrates seamlessly with a traditional OLTP system, and provides both ACID and stream-oriented guarantees. We chose to build S-Store as an extension of H-Store - an open-source, in-memory, distributed OLTP database system. By implementing S-Store in this way, we can make use of the transaction processing facilities that H-Store already provides, and we can concentrate on the additional features that are needed to support streaming. Similar implementations could be done using other main-memory OLTP platforms. We show that we can actually achieve higher throughput for streaming workloads in S-Store than an equivalent deployment in H-Store alone. We also show how this can be achieved within H-Store with the addition of a modest amount of new functionality. Furthermore, we compare S-Store to two state-of-the-art streaming systems, Esper and Apache Storm, and show how S-Store can sometimes exceed their performance while at the same time providing stronger correctness guarantees.
Query from examples
Authors: Li Hao , Chan Chee-Yong , Maier David
Published: September 2015

In this paper, we propose a new approach, called Query from Examples (QFE), to help non-expert database users construct SQL queries. Our approach, which is designed for users who might be unfamiliar with SQL, only requires that the user is able to determine whether a given output table is the result of his or her intended query on a given input database. To kick-start the construction of a target query
Q
, the user first provides a pair of inputs: a sample database
D
and an output table
R
which is the result of
Q
on
D.
As there will be many candidate queries that transform
D
to
R
, QFE winnows this collection by presenting the user with new database-result pairs that distinguish these candidates. Unlike previous approaches that use synthetic data for such pairs, QFE strives to make these distinguishing pairs as close to the original (
D,R
) pair as possible. By doing so, it seeks to minimize the effort needed by a user to determine if a new database-result pair is consistent with his or her desired query. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach using real datasets from SQLShare, a cloud-based platform designed to help scientists utilize RDBMS technology for data analysis.
Tracking the conductance of rapidly evolving topic-subgraphs
Authors: Galhotra Sainyam , Bagchi Amitabha , Bedathur Srikanta , Ramanath Maya , Jain Vidit
Published: September 2015

Monitoring the formation and evolution of communities in large online social networks such as Twitter is an important problem that has generated considerable interest in both industry and academia. Fundamentally, the problem can be cast as studying evolving sugraphs (each subgraph corresponding to a topical community) on an underlying social graph - with users as nodes and the connection between them as edges. A key metric of interest in this setting is tracking the changes to the
conductance
of subgraphs induced by edge activations. This metric quantifies how well or poorly connected a subgraph is to the rest of the graph relative to its internal connections. Conductance has been demonstrated to be of great use in many applications, such as identifying bursty topics, tracking the spread of rumors, and so on. However, tracking this simple metric presents a considerable scalability challenge - the underlying social network is large, the number of communities that are active at any moment is large, the rate at which these communities evolve is high, and moreover, we need to track conductance in real-time. We address these challenges in this paper.

We propose an in-memory approximation called
BloomGraphs
to store and update these (possibly overlapping) evolving subgraphs. As the name suggests, we use Bloom filters to represent an approximation of the underlying graph. This representation is compact and computationally efficient to maintain in the presence of updates. This is especially important when we need to
simultaneously
maintain thousands of evolving subgraphs. BloomGraphs are used in computing and tracking conductance of these subgraphs as edge-activations arrive. BloomGraphs have several desirable properties in the context of this application, including a small memory footprint and efficient updateability. We also demonstrate mathematically that the error incurred in computing conductance is one-sided and that in the case of evolving subgraphs the change in approximate conductance has the same sign as the change in exact conductance in most cases. We validate the effectiveness of BloomGraphs through extensive experimentation on large Twitter graphs and other social networks.
S
ee
DB
Authors: Vartak Manasi , Rahman Sajjadur , Madden Samuel , Parameswaran Aditya , Polyzotis Neoklis
Published: September 2015

Data analysts often build visualizations as the first step in their analytical workflow. However, when working with high-dimensional datasets, identifying visualizations that show relevant or desired trends in data can be laborious. We propose S
ee
DB, a visualization recommendation engine to facilitate fast visual analysis: given a subset of data to be studied, S
ee
DB intelligently explores the space of visualizations, evaluates promising visualizations for trends, and recommends those it deems most "useful" or "interesting". The two major obstacles in recommending interesting visualizations are (a)
scale
: evaluating a large number of candidate visualizations while responding within interactive time scales, and (b)
utility
: identifying an appropriate metric for assessing interestingness of visualizations. For the former, S
ee
DB introduces
pruning optimizations
to quickly identify high-utility visualizations and
sharing optimizations
to maximize sharing of computation across visualizations. For the latter, as a first step, we adopt a deviation-based metric for visualization utility, while indicating how we may be able to generalize it to other factors influencing utility. We implement S
ee
DB as a middleware layer that can run on top of any DBMS. Our experiments show that our framework can identify interesting visualizations with high accuracy. Our optimizations lead to
multiple orders of magnitude speedup
on relational row and column stores and provide recommendations at interactive time scales. Finally, we demonstrate via a user study the effectiveness of our deviation-based utility metric and the value of recommendations in supporting visual analytics.
An application of LSC method for the measurement of gross alpha and beta activities in spiked water and drinking water samples
Authors: Çakal Gaye Özgür , Güven Rufiyet , Yücel Haluk
Published: September 2015

In this study, after the pulse shape calibration of a liquid scintillation counting (LSC) spectrometer (Quantulus 1220), the effi ciency was determined depending on sample quenching parameters. Then, gross alpha and beta activities in two spiked water samples obtained from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were used for the validation of the ASTM D7283-06 method, which is a standard test method for alpha and beta activity in water by LSC. Later, the drinking water samples (35 tap water and 9 bottled water) obtained from different districts of Ankara, Turkey, were measured. The maximum gross alpha activities are measured to be 0.08 Bq/L for tap waters and 0.13 Bq/L for bottled waters, whereas the maximum gross beta activities are found to be 0.18 Bq/L for tap waters and 0.16 Bq/L for bottled waters. These results indicate that these drinking water samples are below the required limits, which are 0.1 Bq/L for alpha emitting radionuclides and 1 Bq/L for beta emitting radionuclides. As a result, gross alpha and beta activities in drinking water of Ankara were determined accurately by this validated LSC method. It is also worth noting that LSC is a rapid and accurate method for the determination of gross alpha and beta activities without requiring a tedious sample preparation.
Dictyonema black shale and Triassic sandstones as potential sources of uranium
Authors: Kiegiel Katarzyna , Zakrzewska-Kołtuniewicz Grażyna , Gajda Dorota , Miśkiewicz Agnieszka , Abramowska Anna , Biełuszka Paweł , Danko Bożena , Chajduk Ewelina , Wołkowicz Stanisław
Published: September 2015

The main objective of the present study was an assessment of the possibility of uranium recovery from domestic resources in Poland. In the first stage uranium was leached from the ground uranium ore by using acidic (sulfuric acid or hydrochloric acid) or alkaline (carbonate) solutions. The leaching efficiencies of uranium were dependent on the type of ore and it reached 81% for Dictyonemic shales and almost 100% for sandstones. The novel leaching routes, with the application of the helical membrane contactor equipped with rotating part were tested. The obtained postleaching solutions were concentrated and purified using solvent extraction or ion exchange chromatography. New methods of solvent extraction, as well as hybrid processes for separation and purification of the product, were studied. Extraction with the use of membrane capillary contactors that has many advantages above conventional methods was also proposed as an alternative purification method. The final product U3O8 could be obtained by the precipitation of ‘yellow cake’, followed by calcination step. The results of precipitation of ammonium diuranate and uranium peroxide from diluted uranium solution were presented
Neutronic and thermal-hydraulic coupling for 3D reactor core modeling combining MCB and fluent
Authors: Królikowski Igor P. , Cetnar Jerzy
Published: September 2015

Three-dimensional simulations of neutronics and thermal hydraulics of nuclear reactors are a tool used to design nuclear reactors. The coupling of MCB and FLUENT is presented, MCB allows to simulate neutronics, whereas FLUENT is computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The main purpose of the coupling is to exchange data such as temperature and power profile between both codes. Temperature required as an input parameter for neutronics is significant since cross sections of nuclear reactions depend on temperature. Temperature may be calculated in thermal hydraulics, but this analysis needs as an input the power profile, which is a result from neutronic simulations. Exchange of data between both analyses is required to solve this problem. The coupling is a better solution compared to the assumption of estimated values of the temperatures or the power profiles; therefore the coupled analysis was created. This analysis includes single transient neutronic simulation and several steady-state thermal simulations. The power profile is generated in defined points in time during the neutronic simulation for the thermal analysis to calculate temperature. The coupled simulation gives information about thermal behavior of the reactor, nuclear reactions in the core, and the fuel evolution in time. Results show that there is strong influence of neutronics on thermal hydraulics. This impact is stronger than the impact of thermal hydraulics on neutronics. Influence of the coupling on temperature and neutron multiplication factor is presented. The analysis has been performed for the ELECTRA reactor, which is lead-cooled fast reactor concept, where the coolant fl ow is generated only by natural convection
Charged projectile spectrometry using solid-state nuclear track detector of the PM-355 type
Authors: Malinowska Aneta , Jaskóła Marian , Korman Andrzej , Szydłowski Adam , Malinowski Karol , Kuk Mirosław
Published: September 2015

To use effectively any radiation detector in high-temperature plasma experiments, it must have a lot of benefits and fulfill a number of requirements. The most important are: a high energy resolution, linearity over a wide range of recorded particle energy, high detection efficiency for these particles, a long lifetime and resistance to harsh conditions existing in plasma experiments and so on. Solid-state nuclear track detectors have been used in our laboratory in plasma experiments for many years, but recently we have made an attempt to use these detectors in spectroscopic measurements performed on some plasma facilities. This paper presents a method that we used to elaborate etched track diameters to evaluate the incident projectile energy magnitude. The method is based on the data obtained from a semiautomatic track scanning system that selects tracks according to two parameters, track diameter and its mean gray level.
Modeling minor actinide multiple recycling in a lead-cooled fast reactor to demonstrate a fuel cycle without long-lived nuclear waste
Authors: Stanisz Przemysław , Cetnar Jerzy , Domańska Grażyna
Published: September 2015

The concept of closed nuclear fuel cycle seems to be the most promising options for the efficient usage of the nuclear energy resources. However, it can be implemented only in fast breeder reactors of the IVth generation, which are characterized by the fast neutron spectrum. The lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR) was defined and studied on the level of technical design in order to demonstrate its performance and reliability within the European collaboration on ELSY (European Lead-cooled System) and LEADER (Lead-cooled European Advanced Demonstration Reactor) projects. It has been demonstrated that LFR meets the requirements of the closed nuclear fuel cycle, where plutonium and minor actinides (MA) are recycled for reuse, thereby producing no MA waste. In this study, the most promising option was realized when entire Pu + MA material is fully recycled to produce a new batch of fuel without partitioning. This is the concept of a fuel cycle which asymptotically tends to the adiabatic equilibrium, where the concentrations of plutonium and MA at the beginning of the cycle are restored in the subsequent cycle in the combined process of fuel transmutation and cooling, removal of fission products (FPs), and admixture of depleted uranium. In this way, generation of nuclear waste containing radioactive plutonium and MA can be eliminated. The paper shows methodology applied to the LFR equilibrium fuel cycle assessment, which was developed for the Monte Carlo continuous energy burnup (MCB) code, equipped with enhanced modules for material processing and fuel handling. The numerical analysis of the reactor core concerns multiple recycling and recovery of long-lived nuclides and their influence on safety parameters. The paper also presents a general concept of the novel IVth generation breeder reactor with equilibrium fuel and its future role in the management of MA.
Application of the new Monte Carlo code AlfaMC to the calibration of alpha-particle sources
Authors: Vargas Miguel Jurado , Timón Alfonso Fernández , García Orellana Carlos
Published: September 2015

Measurements of α-particle sources require corrections to the counting rate due to scattering and self-absorption in the source and the backing material. In this study, we describe a simple procedure to estimate these corrections using the new Monte Carlo code AlfaMC to consider the effects of scattering and self-absorption conjointly, and so to determine the activity of α emitters. The procedure proposed was applied to 235UO2 sources deposited on highly polished platinum backings. In general, the dependence of the efficiency with source thickness was in good agreement with a simple model considering a linear and a hyperbolic behavior for thin and thick sources, respectively, although significant deviations from this model were found for very thin sources. For these very thin sources, the Monte Carlo simulation revealed to be as a required method in the primary calibration of α-particle sources. The efficiency results obtained by simulation with AlfaMC were in agreement with available efficiency data.
From The Lisbon Strategy To Europe 2020
Authors: Lucian Paul
Published: September 2015

The idea of a Western Europe economic recovery occurs after World War II. First as a common market, and later, after enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe as the single internal market. Due to the new challenges with which the global economy was faced, the longterm and short-term European economy needs a coherent growth economic strategy; the success of this strategy depends on joint action. Expanding the European economy is a continuous and irreversible process, yet it advances too slowly. The Lisbon strategy is a commitment to revive the European economy in all sectors. At 5 years after implementation of this strategy it was found that the results are insufficient, so meetings were held to relaunch the Lisbon Strategy. The success of the Lisbon Strategy (2000-2010) established different opinions from European political leaders. Due to the challenges of the globalized world, the objective of the Lisbon Strategy after 2010 remained valid and recognition of the failure of the Lisbon Strategy has been transformed into formulating a new strategy, namely "Europe 2020", whose objectives are more affordable and easier control. The "Europe 2020" strategy is a mechanism of coordination of several policies, such as social policy, education, research and energy, which are the competence of national governments. The E.U. aims to further improve the competitiveness of the global economy, and promoting their interests. Under the new strategy, each Member State must assume bold development objectives for their economies, and in accordance to tradition. The competitiveness of the EU economy is directly influenced by the political stability of Europe.
Co-Movements Of U.S. And European Stock Markets Before And After The 2008 Gloal Stock Market Crash
Authors: Meric Ilhan , Nygren Lan Ma , Bentley Jerome T. , McCall Charles W.
Published: September 2015

Empirical studies show that correlation between national stock markets increased and the benefits of global portfolio diversification decreased significantly after the global stock market crash of 1987. The 1987 and 2008 crashes are the two most important global stock market crashes since the 1929 Great depression. Although the effects of the 1987 crash on the comovements of national stock markets have been investigated extensively, the effects of the 2008 crash have not been studied sufficiently. In this paper we study this issue with a research sample that includes the U.S stock market and twenty European stock markets. We find that correlation between the twenty-one stock markets increased and the benefits of portfolio diversification decreased significantly after the 2008 stock market crash.
The Effects Of Asymmetric Transmission Of Exchange Rate On Inflation In Iran: Application Of Threshold Models
Authors: Naghdi Yazdan , Kaghazian Soheila
Published: September 2015

Given the recent fluctuation in the exchange rate and the presence of several factors such as the various economy-political sanctions (mainly embargos on oil and banking), extreme volatility in different economic fields, and consequently the devaluation of national and public procurement -A landmark that is emanating from exchange rate fluctuation - two points should be noted: First, it is essential to review the effect of exchange rate fluctuation on macro economic variables such as inflation and to provide appropriate policies. Second, the existence of this condition provides the chance to study the relation between exchange rate and inflation in a non-linear and asymmetric method. Hence, the present study seeks to use TAR model and, on the basis of monthly time series data over the period March 2002 to March 2014, to analyze the cross-asymmetric and non-linear exchange rate on consumer price index (CPI) in Iran. The results also show the presence of an asymmetric long-term relationship between these variables (exchange rate and CPI). Also, in the Iranian economy, the effect of negative shocks of exchange rate on inflation is more sustainable than the one from positive shocks.
Development Of An Econometric Model Case Study: Romanian Classification System
Authors: Savescu Roxana
Published: September 2015

The purpose of the paper is to illustrate an econometric model used to predict the lean meat content in pig carcasses, based on the muscle thickness and back fat thickness measured by the means of an optical probe (OptiGrade PRO).The analysis goes through all steps involved in the development of the model: statement of theory, specification of the mathematical model, sampling and collection of data, estimation of the parameters of the chosen econometric model, tests of the hypothesis derived from the model and prediction equations. The data have been in a controlled experiment conducted by the Romanian Carcass Classification Commission in 2007. The purpose of the experiment was to develop the prediction formulae to be used in the implementation of SEUROP classification system, imposed by European Union legislation. The research methodology used by the author in this study consisted in reviewing the existing literature and normative acts, analyzing the primary data provided by and organization conducting the experiment and interviewing the representatives of the working team that participated in the trial.
The Bi-dimensional space of Korenblum and composition operator
Authors: Guerrero José A. , Merentes Nelson , Sánchez José L.
Published: September 2015

In this paper we present the concept of total κ-variation in the sense of Hardy-Vitali-Korenblum for a real function defined in the rectangle Ia
b⊂R2. We show that the space κBV(Ia
b, R) of real functions of two variables with finite total κ-variation is a Banach space endowed with the norm ||f||κ = |f (a)| + κTV( f, Ia
b). Also, we characterize the Nemytskij composition operator H that maps the space of functions of two real variables of bounded κ-variation κBV(Ia
b, R) into another space of a similar type and is uniformly bounded (or Lipschitzian or uniformly continuous).
Generalized cluster sets of real functions
Authors: Jędrzejewski Jacek , Kowalczyk Stanisław
Published: September 2015

Limit numbers of real functions were introduced into considerations in many articles. In the present paper, new ideas of generalized limit numbers and some first properties of such topics can be found. In particular, connections with generalized topologies are studied.
I-approximately continuous functions
Authors: Hejduk Jacek , Loranty Anna , Wiertelak Renata
Published: September 2015

In this paper, density-like points and density-like topology connected with a sequence I = {In}n∊ℕ of closed intervals tending to 0 will be considered. We introduce the notion of an I -approximately continuous function associated with this kind of density points. Moreover, we present some properties of these functions and we demonstrate their connection with continuous functions with respect to this kind of density topology.
On perfect cones and absolute Baire-one retracts
Authors: Karlova Olena
Published: September 2015

We introduce perfect cones over topological spaces and study their connection with absolute B1 -retracts.
On points of extreme chaos for almost continuous functions
Authors: Pawlak Ryszard J.
Published: September 2015

In this paper, we introduce a new notion: extremely chaotic point and, moreover, a dual notion: family of functions having extremely chaotic point property. The basic properties of such a kind of families of functions will be considered.
On M0-sets for series with respect to characters of compact zero-dimensional
Authors: Skvortsov Valentin
Published: September 2015

Generalizing our previous result on Walsh system, we consider the system of characters of zero-dimensional compact abelian group. For this system, we give a construction of a perfect M0-set set whose Hausdorff h-measure equals zero, where h is any non-decreasing right-continuous function taking the value zero at the origin.
Resolvability of abstract density topologies in Rn generated by lower or almost lower density operators
Authors: Horbaczewska Grażyna
Published: September 2015

Maximal resolvability and extraresolvability (with MA) of abstract density topologies in ℝn generated by lower or almost lower density operators are shown. We note that, in some models of ZFC, the abstract density topologies in ℝn generated by a lower density operator cannot be extraresolvable.