Do vertical tax externalities lead to tax rates being too high? A note

When both vertical and horizontal externalities are at work in a federation, they generally distort levels of taxation in opposite directions. This article is an extension of the Keen and Kotsogiannis (Am Econ Rev March: 363–370, 2002) model. It focuses on state tax policy when states provide an industrial public good increasing firms’ marginal productivity rather than a residential public good intended to households. We find that some results related to whether equilibrium state taxes are likely to be too high or too low are much more complex when state-provided industrial public goods are considered. First, we show that in the presence of industrial public goods, a dominant vertical externality may result in state tax rates being too low (and not too high as it is the case with residential public goods). Second, we find that under certain conditions, horizontal and vertical externalities may point in the same direction and reinforce each other towards tax rates being too high or too low.     

基于数字比较法的宽频标准电流互感器溯源技术研究

对于宽频标准电流互感器的校准,在50Hz附近的频段通常采用测差的方法,而在低至5Hz高至2.5kHz的频率下,由于标准器大都采用磁通门传感器的原理,无法与被检互感器的变比一一对应,因此必须采用同步采样的数字比较方法,本文通过对同轴分流器的宽频特性分析,设计了一种适合同轴分流器自校准的宽频互感器校验仪,以此完成对宽频标准电流互感器的误差校准,并采用多功能校准源与高精度数字万用表的配合实现分流器的校准和溯源。文章提供了完善的校准方案和详实的测试数据,并对各环节的校准不确定度进行了科学的分析,论证了校准方法的合理性和准确性,本方法对目前正在运行的浙江省电力公司20Hz示范性电网的计量工作有很大的实用意义。     

Effect of pre‐germination time of brown rice on serum cholesterol levels of hypercholesterolaemic rats

BACKGROUND: Brown rice is unpolished rice with immeasurable benefits for human health. Brown rice (BR) and pre‐germinated brown rice (PGBR) are known to contain various functional compounds such as γ‐oryzanol, dietary fibre and γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA). In the present study, the experimental diets containing BR and PGBR (24, 48 h pre‐germination) were used to investigate the influence of pre‐germination time of brown rice on blood cholesterol in Sprague–Dawley male rats. RESULTS: Hypercholesterolaemia and elevation of LDL‐cholesterol were successfully ameliorated by the experimental diets containing BR and PGBR (24 and 48 h pre‐germination). As compared to the control sample, the pre‐germination time had a significant (P < 0.05) effect on blood cholesterol of Sprague–Dawley male rats. It was also found that the significantly (P < 0.05) better effect on lipid profile of hypercholesterolaemic rats was observed by prolonging the pre‐germination time. As compared to non‐germinated brown rice, the germinated brown rice showed the higher cardio‐protective effect on hypercholesterolaemic Sprague–Dawley male rats. CONCLUSION: The present study suggests that the changes of blood cholesterol can be mainly modulated by using the PGBR rather than BR. The prolonging of pre‐germination time led to an increase in the bioactive components, thereby providing a more efficient functional diet affecting the high blood cholesterol. This study suggests that PGBR can be used instead of BR and polished rice in the human diet. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

Solvent extraction of gold by LIX 79: experimental equilibrium study

The extraction of gold(I) from aurocyanide aqueous solutions using LIX 79 has been studied. Different variables that could affect the extraction system were evaluated: equilibration time, aqueous pH, metal and extractant concentrations, organic phase diluent and aqueous ionic strength. The extraction of the aurocyanide complex with respect to other metal‐cyano complexes has also been studied on both synthetic and real leach solutions. Gold experimental data have been analysed numerically to determine the stoichiometry of extracted species and its equilibrium constant. It was found that gold(I) was extracted into the organic phase by the formation of the species RHAu(CN)₂ (LIX 79=R). Stripping of gold from loaded organic phases was carried out using NaOH or NaCN solutions. © 1999 Society of Chemical Industry     

Discontinuities detection in welded joints based on inverse surface thresholding

Automated detection of welding defects in radiographic images becomes nontrivial when uneven illumination, contrast and noise are present. In this paper, a new approach using surface thresholding method is proposed to detect defects in radiographic images of welding joints. In the first stage, several image processing techniques namely fuzzy c means clustering, region filling, mean filtering, edge detection, Otsu thresholding, and morphological operations method are utilized to locate the area where defects might exist. This is followed by the construction of the inverse thresholding surface and its implementation to locate defects in the identified area. The proposed method was tested on 60 radiographic images and it obtained 94.6% sensitivity. Its performance is compared to that of the watershed segmentation, which obtained 69.6%.     

Adaptive support vector machine-based surface quality evaluation and temperature monitoring. Application to billet continuous casting process

A method for surface quality evaluation and temperature monitoring of the billet in continuous casting is considered in this paper. This method uses the difference between the measured and the filtered temperature computed using an adaptive support vector machine method. The temperature field, measured by an infrared camera, is affected by an important noise called calamine (a metal oxide generated during the cooling process). The quality of the billet’s surface temperature is connected to the secondary cooling behavior, and therefore an evaluation of the calamine effect is needed. Methods such as soft sensing and adaptive support vector machine are used for a global evaluation of calamine intensity on the monitored area of the billet in continuous casting. This kind of approaches is applied in continuous casting process for constructing a complementary condition monitoring system, which allows an online calamine evaluation. Simulation results, based on the measured surface temperature and the adaptive support vector machine analysis, showed that this new combined approach is easily implementable and gives good results when applied online.     

Evaluation-based closed-loop errors using principal component analysis and self-organisation map with an application to a pickling process

Closed-loop control is a basic technology in control engineering. Its role is to avoid the tracking error between set points and real variables. The evaluation of plant performance can be based on multivariate statistical process control connected to closed-loop errors behaviour. Due to its practicality, this approach has found many applications in several industries. This paper suggests a combined use of principal component analysis (PCA) and self-organisation map (SOM) algorithms to evaluate the process on the basis of closed-loop errors dynamic. Generally, it is possible to evaluate a product quality in the basis of the dynamic changes of the closed-loop control errors. In this paper, a new method based on the analysis of the control errors is proposed; it is carried out by a combined use of the PCA-SOM algorithm. Comparatively to the conventional PCA method, this new technique is characterised by the performant indexes that give an accurate evaluation of the process variability and its impact on the product quality. As shown in the different simulation results, the proposed approach gives a global evaluation and improves considerably the performance of computed indexes used for the evaluation of the controlled process.     

Apparatus for high temperature friction measurement

The static and dynamic coefficient of friction between two flat surfaces at elevated temperature is under investigation. The equipment used in this study was originally designed for the precision glass molding (PGM) process and was then modified for friction measurement. The ultimate aim of this research is to study and characterize the frictional behavior between glass and a mold surface at elevated temperatures typical of the PGM process and under conditions similar to those for this process. This paper describes the design of the apparatus, and validation experiments using a steel-steel material pair at room temperature for comparison with values reported in the literature. The average friction coefficient between the steel-steel pair was found to be 0.17. Subsequent experiments using steel against steel and BK-7 glass against steel, found the stick-slip phenomena is happening at 577 °C.     

US Foreign Affiliates,Technology Diffusion and Host Country Human Development: Human Development Index versus Human Capital

In this study, we use a cross-sectionally correlated and timewise autoregressive model and panel data for the period 1966–2000 to investigate human development as a measure of host country absorptive capacity in 30 developed and developing countries. The results suggest that technology diffusion from US foreign affiliates has a positive and significant impact on labor productivity only if host countries have a minimum level of human development. This condition may partially explain why previous studies show mixed support for the hypothesis that foreign affiliates have a positive effect on productivity in developing countries. Although the results have to be interpreted with caution, the policy implication is that human development enhances the capacity of countries to reap the benefits of foreign direct investments.