Creative clusters in the regeneration of Valletta and the cultural politics of Strait Street

The paper aims to unfold the narrative of development in a creative cluster project for the regeneration of Strait Street in Valletta, Malta. This is approached by first examining the distinctive, historically contentious background of the neighbourhood and, thereafter, unpacking the development narrative of policy documents and the discursive and material constructs about the creative city approach to regeneration strategies in the city. Using a ‘system-wide’ analytical framework, this material is then scrutinized to gain an understanding of the specificities involved and, finally, discuss the crucial features of the key dimensions elucidating the potential strengths and weaknesses of the case     

Rheological characterization of filled polyamide 11 and polyamide 12 solutions in polyols

A thorough understanding of the rheological properties of real-world, formulated polymer melts and solutions is important to fabricate articles via typical melt processing techniques. Polyamides have been studied extensively in the area of water purification applications. In this work, the viscosity of these homogeneous polyamide 11 and polyamide 12 solutions in specific polyols was measured in the single phase region as a function of shear rate and temperature via capillary rheometry. In addition, the viscosity of the same polyamide solutions containing various levels of dispersed, nanoscale calcium carbonate particles was characterized in order to understand the rheology of the filled systems. Viscosity-reduced shear rate master curves were constructed by applying the principle of time–temperature superposition, and the activation energies were measured for the polyamide-polyol solutions. The observed increase in viscosity caused by the addition of nanofiller could not be explained by simply applying a vertical shift to the master curve, and a density exponent was required to account for the stiffening mechanism. Also, the dependence of the relative viscosity on the filler loading was shown to be consistent with the hypothesis that the filler particles were organized in the form of small fractal aggregates. The filled polyamide 11 systems exhibited higher relative viscosities than the filled polyamide 12 systems, indicating a higher level of particle aggregation and larger mean cluster size for the filled polyamide 11 systems. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 48244.     

Do African Economies Grow Similarly?

Abstract

This paper examines economic growth in 52 African countries for 1961–2016 and seeks to find if there is common growth. As all African countries have their particular features, concerning climate, harvest, industry, size, politics, and infrastructure, and more, it seems best to rely on a non-parametric method. Dynamic Time Warping is such a convenient method, also as it allows leads and lags across countries to vary over time, and as it can easily be incorporated into a clustering technique. Five clusters are found, two of which concern Equatorial Guinea and Botswana, and the three other clusters have common growth rates of about 0, 2 and 4 over more than five decades.     

The co-location of innovation and production in clusters

ABSTRACT

This paper quantifies the extent of co-location of innovation and production for industry clusters with varying knowledge intensity. If input-output, knowledge, and skill linkages are interdependent and geographically bounded, then we would expect innovation and production to be co-located in regional clusters. However, theory predicts that the degree of agglomeration benefits associated with co-location may vary across economic activities with different knowledge intensity. Using data from the U.S. Cluster Mapping Project, I develop measures of the co-location of innovation and production for 27 industry clusters, examining patterns across regions and over time (1998–2015) in the United States. I find that there is a significant co-location of innovation and production for many clusters, especially for those with higher knowledge intensity. This paper focuses on the Information Technology and Analytical Instruments cluster and the Automotive cluster to illustrate the co-location measures and the micro-geography of innovation and production.     

Preparation of O′-Sialon-based ceramics by two-stage liquid phase sintering and study on the toughening mechanism of ultrafine-grained sintered clusters

Ultrafine-grained O′-Sialon-based ceramics were prepared by two-stage sintering at 1250 °C, with large particle GH4169 superalloy powder and nano Al₂O₃–Y₂O₃ as composite sintering aids. The effects of these aids on the densification, microstructure, and mechanical properties of O′-Sialon-based ceramics during two-stage sintering were also studied. Studies have shown that the densification process of O′-Sialon-based ceramics promoted by composite sintering additives, presents with the characteristics of two-stage liquid-phase sintering. In the first stage, GH4169 formed ultrafine-grained sintered clusters in the sintered material through liquid phase diffusion. In the second stage, the uniformly dispersed nano Al₂O₃–Y₂O₃ realized the uniform sintering of the material. In the fracture process, the ultrafine-grained sintered clusters hindered the crack propagation and promoted multiple deflections of the crack around the edge of the clusters, achieving the effect of crack deflection toughening. This effect, dominated by ultrafine-grained sintered clusters, significantly improved the fracture toughness of O′-Sialon-based ceramics up to 8.52 MPa m^1/2.     

中小企业集群对提升产业竞争力的作用

当前，无论是在发达国家还是在发展中国家，中小企业集群对提升产业竞争力都有着十分重要的地位和作用。但在我国，人们更倾向于通过组建大企业集团来实现产业竞争力的提升。本文根据中小企业集群的定义，分别从经济学和地理学两个角度分析了中小企业集群在提升产业竞争力方面作用，从而得出扶植中小企业集群的发展势在必行的结论。     

A total environmental risk assessment model for international hub airports

This paper presents a multi-criteria decision analysis for environmental risk assessment (ERA) with regard to avoiding and eliminating damages and loss under natural disasters in international airport projects. It starts from an assumption that the strategy of eliminating damages and losses under natural disasters is related to the location selection problem, and it is necessary to use the multi-criteria decision analysis for calculated decision-making support. The paper uses the analytic network process (ANP) to demonstrate one of its utility modes in decision-making support to location selection problems, which aims at an evaluation of different projects from different locations. A set of generic criteria for risk assessment at international projects was put forward to support ANP modelling, and it was due to the consideration of social, technical, economic, environmental and political (STEEP) criteria related to the built, social and natural (BSN) trinity environment of international airport projects. At the end, an experimental case study on three international hub airports in China is given to test the ANP model called ERA.Airport, and it is concluded that ANP can be effectively used for risk assessment in the specific utility mode. The ERA.Airport is a generic multi-criteria decision-making model and can be used across the world for accurate environmental risk assessment for international airports.     

面向新能源消纳的热水器集群精细化均衡控制

针对新能源发电并网对电网可能造成的冲击,提出面向新能源消纳的热水器集群精细化均衡控制策略。相比于现有普遍研究的、对单台热水器只能实现开和关2种控制状态的控制方法,所提控制策略通过温度设置值和多级功率联合优化,并利用遗传算法,不仅考虑了单台热水器的开、关状态,更精确至单台热水器运行功率级的选择。所提方法在保障电网侧消纳任务完成情况的同时,综合考虑用户侧热水器的温度,实现了两者的双赢。仿真实验结果证明了所提控制策略可实现精准负荷调控,同时使热水器响应更加均衡。     

FOX-7团簇中分子间相互作用对其裂解影响的量子化学研究

采用色散校正密度泛函理论的RI-B2PLYP-D3和PW6B95-D3方法得到了1,1-二氨基-2,2-二硝基乙烯(FOX-7)的四种气相团簇,以此模拟FOX-7分子在晶体结构中的存在状态。绘制了团簇形成过程中各分子相邻处的电子密度差图,从电子密度变化的角度解释了分子间相互作用的形成及来源,研究了凝聚相FOX-7分子间相互作用对FOX-7裂解机理的影响。结果表明,FOX-7团簇中分子间相互作用源于电子偏移形成的部分分子间共享电子,分子间相互作用形成的同时也使部分分子内的化学键被弱化,致使FOX-7的裂解通道发生改变。采用PW6B95-D3理论时,分子间相互作用使各团簇中FOX-7的C—NO_2键裂解活化能比单分子状态时普遍降低。不同团簇中分子间相互作用力角度不同,硝基异构反应的过程有所变化,与单分子FOX-7相比,团簇Ⅱ硝基异构通道的活化能下降了210.9 k J·mol~(-1),而团簇Ⅳ硝基异构通道的活化能升高了39.4 k J·mol~(-1)。