The efficiency of private and public schools in urban and rural areas: moving beyond the development goals

Data from the Young Lives study are used to evaluate the efficiency of education systems in four low and middle income countries: Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. A meta‐frontier variant of data envelopment analysis is used to assess the relative performance of each country's system, and, within each country, to evaluate the impact of public and private schooling, and of urban and rural location. Comparisons are drawn between the four countries; the results indicate that in no country does the educational system perform uniformly badly or well. Conditioning on the inputs available, rural areas are often indicative of higher levels of efficiency, thus suggesting a number of implications for policy.     

Long-run urban dynamics: understanding local housing market change in London

Abstract

Recently, a literature has emerged using empirical techniques to study the evolution of international cities over many centuries; however, few studies examine long-run change within cities. Conventional models and concepts are not always appropriate and data issues make long-run neighbourhood analysis particularly problematic. This paper addresses some of these points. First, it discusses why the analysis of long-run urban change is important for modern urban policy and considers the most important concepts. Second, it constructs a novel data set at the micro level, which allows consistent comparisons of London neighbourhoods in 1881 and 2001. Third, the paper models some of the key factors that affected long-run change, including the role of housing. There is evidence that the relative social positions of local urban areas persist over time but, nevertheless, at fine spatial scales, local areas still exhibit change, arising from aggregate population dynamics, from advances in technology, and also from the effects of shocks, such as wars. In general, where small areas are considered, long-run changes are likely to be greater, because individuals are more mobile over short than long distances. Finally, the paper considers the implications for policy.     

Two-level intelligent modeling method for the rate of penetration in complex geological drilling process

The rate of penetration (ROP) model is of great importance in achieving a high efficiency in the complex geological drilling process. In this paper, a novel two-level intelligent modeling method is proposed for the ROP considering the drilling characteristics of data incompleteness, couplings, and strong nonlinearities. Firstly, a piecewise cubic Hermite interpolation method is introduced to complete the lost drilling data. Then, a formation drillability (FD) fusion submodel is established by using Nadaboost extreme learning machine (Nadaboost-ELM) algorithm, and the mutual information method is used to obtain the parameters, strongly correlated with the ROP. Finally, a ROP submodel is established by a neural network with radial basis function optimized by the improved particle swarm optimization (RBFNN-IPSO). This two-level ROP model is applied to a real drilling process and the proposed method shows the best performance in ROP prediction as compared with conventional methods. The proposed ROP model provides the basis for intelligent optimization and control in the complex geological drilling process.     

Collective institutional work: the case of Airbnb in Amsterdam,London and New York

ABSTRACT

Given that online platforms disrupt established industries and challenge existing institutions, they can only be successful if their innovation becomes both legal and legitimate. This requires ‘institutional work’ that changes perceptions and regulations within society. Rather than only focussing on the online platform as the sole agent engaging in institutional work, our study analyses institutional work as a collective process. We investigate the case of home-sharing platform Airbnb and the process of institutional change its introduction prompted regarding short-term rental in Amsterdam, London and New York. We find, contrary to the popular view of online platforms as disruptive entrepreneurs, that the platform mainly focusses on creating new institutions rather than disrupting existing ones, and that users and non-users undertake most of the institutional work activities. We also show that different types of actors carry out different types of institutional work suggesting that the process of institutional work is highly distributed.     

基于“天空地”一体化技术的安全监测系统建设与应用

西藏江达县白格村金沙江右岸于2018年10月11日和2018年11月3日先后发生2次大规模滑坡—堰塞湖堵江事件,溃堰洪水对下游拉哇库区不良地质体的稳定性造成不同程度的影响。为保障下游水电站建设安全,对拉哇库区主要不良地质体建立了基于星载InSAR技术、无人机技术和地面传感器实时监测的“天空地”一体化监测预警体系,以多维空间采集技术获取变形信息,通过智能监控平台对信息及时进行处理、分析和可视化呈现,利用平台、短信等方式向相关人员进行分级告警,取得了较好的应用效果。     

电磁精细探测法在隐伏型导水地质裂缝勘探中的应用

针对传统隐伏型导水地质裂缝勘探方法存在勘测精度较差的问题,提出电磁精细探测法探析隐伏型导水地质裂缝。依照屏蔽系数、实测场强和理论场强数据绘制综合曲线图,通过该图获取隐伏型导水地质裂缝所处位置几何阴影范围,采用层析成像法得到网格化的工作面,获取隐伏型导水地质图像。通过图像直接观测隐伏型导水地质工作面裂缝所处位置,在此基础上,观测四个电磁场分量,采用正交电磁场分量计算介质视电阻率,依据计算视电阻率数值和视电阻率分布状态研究裂缝发育情况和裂缝富水程度。结果表明:采用该方法能较为精准地获取隐伏型导水地质裂缝位置。通过裂缝位置进一步检测出隐伏型导水地质裂缝最大发育高度为63.5 m。当视电阻数值不断增加时,隐伏型导水地质裂缝和裂缝富水性逐渐减小,与实际情况较为相符,说明该种方法探析效果较好。     

影响煤层气开发效果的地质因素再认识

地质特征认识对煤层气开发效果起着重要作用。在资源特征相差不大的情况下,发现煤层气相邻井的产量差异仍较大。排除工程因素后,通过选取8类地质参数,细致比对了保德区块低产井与邻井的参数特征,筛查出其关键因素为煤层微幅构造与顶板封盖条件,其中以微幅构造为主。据此,重新认识并划分出区块新的次生褶皱背斜单元、向斜单元和斜坡单元,获得了不同次生褶皱构造单元的开发特征。结果表明,高、低产井分布与次生褶皱背斜、向斜相关性高达92%。其中:高产井主要分布在次生褶皱背斜变化较缓、呈隆起状的“平台”,且煤层顶板以泥岩、碳质泥岩为主,封盖性较好;低产井主要分布在次生褶皱向斜,同一井台各井开发效果差异表现为从向斜条带轴部—向斜条带内—向斜条带外的煤层气井平均单井产量不断增加,到向斜轴部的距离大于向斜曲率半径73.5%的范围为主力产气区,小于向斜曲率半径40.0%范围为产水主力区。这对煤层气新井部署、生产管理、开发调整等,具有一定的指导意义。     

针对不同地质目标的叠前时间偏移成像解释评价

随着计算机硬件和地震勘探成像技术的发展，叠前时间偏移正逐步替代常规的NMO加DMO加叠后时间偏移成为地震数据成像处理方法的主流。但对于不同的地质目标，叠前时间偏移的成像效果是否优于常规NMO加DMO加叠后时间偏移的成像效果呢？为此，从地震数据成像处理方法、处理流程和处理参数等方面进行了讨论，并基于某地区三维数据常规处理结果和叠前时间偏移处理结果，针对不同地质目标进行了剖析与评价。认为：叠前时间偏移成像的垂向分辨率较常规处理明显降低，但对于空间波阻抗变化明显的河流和断层，叠前时间偏移成像的空间分辨率要高于常规处理；对于小于1／4波长的叠置薄储层，叠前时间偏移成像的垂向和空间分辨率低于常规处理结果。     

洪家渡水电站工程高边坡综述

乌江洪家渡水电站坝址河谷深切300余m,硬质岩与软质岩相间分布,岸坡地形陡峻,软弱夹层发育,卸荷、崩塌等物理地质作用强烈。根据坝址地质条件与电站枢纽布置,工程存在:隧洞群进水口同向高边坡整体稳定问题;坝肩开挖、隧洞进出口开挖、厂房开挖及料场开挖等高边坡稳定问题;泄洪冲刷及雾化区1号、2号塌滑体高边坡稳定问题;王家渡堆料场、瓦房寨砂石系统高边坡稳定问题。因此,工程高边坡稳定问题是本工程的主要工程问题之一,但通过参建各方共同努力,本工程高边坡处理都取得了圆满成功。