Regional concentration and efficiency in Mexican manufacturing

This paper explores the link between industrial location, concentration, and economic efficiency in Mexican manufacturing. Using a linear programming approach, the authors calculate indices of overall, technical, allocative, and scale efficiency for Mexican manufacturing industries by state to test whether, in 1985, those regions with high levels of industrial concentration were suffering from the costs of congestion. The evidence suggests that, at least at the aggregate level, there continued to be a positive relationship between industry concentration and efficiency in production. There is also evidence that overall efficiency was related to scale efficiency, although highly industrialized regions on the production frontier often operated at inefficient scales. In particular, the most concentrated regions (the Federal District, the state of Mexico, Jalisco, and Nuevo León) consistently display decreasing returns to scale, indicating that the process of industrial concentration may be leading to diseconomies of scale. Finally, an econometric analysis suggests that scale, urbanization, and agglomeration economies are positively related to overall and technical efficiency at the regional level, while foreign ownership is negatively related. Agglomeration economies at the industry level were not significant. The paper also makes a methodological contribution. It is the first application of a distance-function production methodology to measuring regional efficiency in a developing country. It demonstrates how to conduct distance-function efficiency analysis using the newly developed GAMS mathematical programming environment. These tools should be of considerable interest to applied microeconomists.     

N-body quantum scattering theory in two Hilbert spaces. III. Theory of approximations

A rigorous mathematical theory of approximations is developed for abstract nonrelativistic quantum scattering systems within the two-Hilbert-space framework. An approximate space of asymptotic states and an approximate asymptotic Hamiltonian must be specified initially. An approximate N-particle Hamiltonian is then constructed and proved to be self-adjoint. Approximate wave operators are shown to exist and, in certain interesting cases, to be asymptotically complete. Certain sequences of the approximate wave operators are proved to converge to the exact wave operators in an appropriate limit. Thus approximate scattering operators are unitary and converge to the exact scattering operator.     

Classical diffusion in strong random media

We study classical diffusion of particles in random media. Although many of our results are general, we focus on the case of an ion in a three-dimensional medium with random, quenched charge centers obeying bulk charge neutrality. Within a functional-integral framework, we calculate the effective diffusion coefficients by first-order and second-order self-consistent perturbation theory (with a Gaussian reference in both cases). We also carry out a one-loop order momentum space renormalization group calculation. The self-consistent methods are complicated numerically and fail beyond intermediate disorder strengths. In contrast, the renormalization group calculation gives an analytical result that appears valid even to high disorder strengths. The methodology, generally applicable to a quantitative calculation of effective diffusion coefficients in disordered media, resolves deficiencies in self-consistent perturbation theory approaches to this class of problems.     

The Principia's theory of the motion of the lunar apse

An analysis of Newton's theory of the lunar apsidal motion in the Principia shows an inadequacy for which he attempted to compensate by adjusting his numerical assumptions.     

Microporous metal-organic frameworks formed in a stepwise manner from luminescent building blocks

A series of trivalent lanthanides (Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy) have been complexed to the dianionic ligand, 4,4'-disulfo-2,2'-bipyridine-N,N'-dioxide, L, in a 3:1 ratio to form trianionic complex building blocks. These units were then cross-linked into a network solid by addition of BaCl2 to form mixed-metal networks of formula {Ba2(H2O)4[LnL3(H2O)2](H2O)nCl}infinity, Ln = Sm3+ (1), Eu3+ (2), Gd3+ (3), Tb3+ (4), Dy3+ (5). The networks were isostructural and contained open channels which readily absorbed and desorbed water accompanied by a spongelike shrinkage and expansion of the host. CO2 sorption measurements confirmed microporosity giving a DR surface area of 718 m2/gm and an average pore size of 6.4 A. Ligand L sensitized all the lanthanide ions with the exception of Gd3+. Studying the series of Ln complexes allowed the determination of the triplet state energy of L which is itself a new ligand for sensitization purposes. The luminescent properties of the lanthanide building blocks were retained in the porous network solid. From the luminescence data, it was possible to attribute the spongelike properties of the network to the Ba2+ coordination sphere rather than the Ln3+ center. Networks were characterized by X-ray crystallography, PXRD, DSC/TGA, water vapor and gas sorption, and luminescence spectroscopy.     

Space-time thermodynamics and subsystem observables in a kinetically constrained model of glassy materials

In a recent article [M. Merolle et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102, 10837 (2005)], it was argued that dynamic heterogeneity in d-dimensional glass formers is a manifestation of an order-disorder phenomenon in the d+1 dimensions of space time. By considering a dynamical analog of the free energy, evidence was found for phase coexistence between active and inactive regions of space time, and it was suggested that this phenomenon underlies the glass transition. Here we develop these ideas further by investigating in detail the one-dimensional Fredrickson-Andersen (FA) model, in which the active and inactive phases originate in the reducibility of the dynamics. We illustrate the phase coexistence by considering the distributions of mesoscopic space-time observables. We show how the analogy with phase coexistence can be strengthened by breaking microscopic reversibility in the FA model, leading to a nonequilibrium theory in the directed percolation universality class.