1,660 research outputs found

    The Baltics in the Geography of the Largest Transnational Corporations of Europe

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    The aim of this study is to examine the place of the Baltic States on the corporate world map, a contemporary, foreign-investment-driven alternative to the more familiar political map. To this end, the author studies the geographical place of the Baltics in the documentation of transnational corporations. The research database consists of financial reports and presentations of 60 leading European (including Russian) transnational corporations. Special attention is paid to companies from countries with significant FDI stock in the Baltic States. This study is a first step towards analyzing international investors’ interpretation of the new European borders. The connection between the neighborhood effect on FDI distribution and geographical segmentation in the corporate paperwork is established. Some companies use a multilevel division (e. g. Europe/Eastern Europe), where the Baltics is usually associated with “Europe” (with or without Russia and Turkey). However, in some cases the Baltic States are clustered u nder “home market” (as is the case with some Swedish companies), “former Soviet Union” (some Russian companies), “Northern Europe and Central Asia,” and even “Middle East and Eastern Europe." Varying understanding of where exactly th borders of Europe lie could explain the plurality of attitudes of the European business establishment to the EU sanctions against Russia

    Evolution of approaches to economic security problems in Europe

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    The report, written by the experts of the Center for European Studies of IMEMO RAN – Dr. Alexey Kuznetsov, Natalia Toganova and Anna Gutnik – analyzes the evolution of the approaches to the problems of economic security in Europe. The report is prepared for the Commission of the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative (EASI). The authors analyze the reasons why some economic problems in Europe cause the attention as the security problems. The report presents a study on transformation of the approaches to economic security based on the documents of the OSCE – most representative institution for the discussion of the security issues in the region. It also analyzes other inter-state formats elaborating approaches to the economic security in Europe, first and foremost Russia-EU dialogue

    Transborder corporate integration in the Baltic Sea Region

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    The paper examines flows of foreign direct investment within the Baltic region. The author demonstrates close investment ties among the EU members, which are of special importance for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Transborder corporate integration in the region is characterized by significant imbalances. In many aspects, it can be viewed as Sweden’s economic expansion or development of domestic markets for northern European companies. Although many German, Polish and Russian companies are involved in corporate integration in the Baltic region, other vectors of their foreign economic relations are still more important for them. As a result, the integration of Russian business in the Baltic part of the European integration area is still rather weak despite Russia’s considerable foreign direct investment in the Baltic States

    Acoustic scattering from an infinitely long cylindrical shell with an internal mass attached by multiple axisymmetrically distributed stiffeners

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    A thin infinitely long elastic shell is stiffened by J in number identical lengthwise ribs distributed uniformly around the circumference and joined to a rod in the center. The 2D model of the substructure is a rigid central mass supported by J axisymmetrically placed linear springs. The response of the shell-spring-mass system is quite different from a fluid filled shell or that of a solid cylinder due to the discrete number of contact points which couple the displacement of the shell at different locations. Exterior acoustic scattering due to normal plane wave incidence is solved in closed form for arbitrary J. The scattering matrix associated with the normal mode solution displays a simple structure, composed of distinct sub-matrices which decouple the incident and scattered fields into J families. The presence of a springs-mass substructure causes resonances which are shown to be related to the subsonic shell flexural waves, and an approximate analytic expression is derived for the quasi-flexural resonance frequencies. Numerical simulations indicate that the new solution for three or more springs results in a complicated scattering response for plane wave incidence. As the number of springs becomes large enough, the total scattering cross-section is asymptotically zero at low frequencies and slightly increased compared to the empty shell at moderate frequencies due to the added stiffness and mass. It is also observed that the sensitivity to the angle of incidence diminishes as the number of springs is increased. This system can be tuned by selecting the shell thickness, spring stiffness and added mass to yield desired quasi-static effective properties making it a candidate element for graded index sonic crystals

    Ultimate fast gyrosynchrotron codes: the first release

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    Fast codes for computing the solar gyrosynchrotron radio emission; analytical and numerically defined electron distribution functions are supported. The codes are implemented as executable libraries (DLL or SO) callable from IDL or Python. See the files CallingConventions.pdf, AnalyticalDistributions.pdf, and Diagram.pdf for more details and calling conventions, and the folder Examples for the usage examples. The folder Binaries contains the compiled Windows DLL and Linux SO libraries. This is the first release of the codes (27 July 2021)

    SMUTHI: A python package for the simulation of light scattering by multiple particles near or between planar interfaces

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    SMUTHI is a python package for the efficient and accurate simulation of electromagnetic scattering by one or multiple wavelength-scale objects in a planarly layered medium. The software combines the T-matrix method for individual particle scattering with the scattering matrix formalism for the propagation of the electromagnetic field through the planar interfaces. In this article, we briefly introduce the relevant theoretical concepts and present the main features of SMUTHI. Simulation results obtained for several benchmark configurations are validated against commercial software solutions. Owing to the generality of planarly layered geometries and the availability of different particle shapes and light sources, possible applications of SMUTHI include the study of discrete random media, meta-surfaces, photonic crystals and glasses, perforated membranes and plasmonic systems, to name a few relevant examples at visible and near-visible wavelengths

    Lévy matters

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    This is the second volume in a subseries of the Lecture Notes in Mathematics called Lévy Matters, which is published at irregular intervals over the years. Each volume examines a number of key topics in the theory or applications of Lévy processes and pays tribute to the state of the art of this rapidly evolving subject with special emphasis on the non-Brownian world.   The expository articles in this second volume cover two important topics in the area of Lévy processes. The first article by Serge Cohen reviews the most important findings on fractional Lévy fields to date in a self-contained piece, offering a theoretical introduction as well as possible applications and simulation techniques. The second article, by Alexey Kuznetsov, Andreas E. Kyprianou, and Victor Rivero, presents an up to date account of the theory and application of scale functions for spectrally negative Lévy processes, including an extensive numerical overview

    Acoustic scattering from an infinitely long cylindrical shell with an internal mass attached by multiple axisymmetrically distributed stiffeners

    No full text
    A thin infinitely long elastic shell is stiffened by J in number identical lengthwise ribs distributed uniformly around the circumference and joined to a rod in the center. The 2D model of the substructure is a rigid central mass supported by J axisymmetrically placed linear springs. The response of the shellspring-mass system is quite different from a fluid filled shell or that of a solid cylinder due to the discrete number of contact points which couple the displacement of the shell at different locations. Exterior acoustic scattering due to normal plane wave incidence is solved in closed form for arbitrary J. The scattering matrix associated with the normal mode solution displays a simple structure, composed of distinct sub-matrices which decouple the incident and scattered fields into J families. The presence of a springs-mass substructure causes resonances which are shown to be related to the subsonic shell flexural waves, and an approximate analytic expression is derived for the quasi-flexural resonance frequencies. Numerical simulations indicate that the new solution for J ≥ 3 springs results in a complicated scattering response for plane wave incidence. As the number of springs becomes large enough, the total scattering cross-section is asymptotically zero at low frequencies and slightly increased compared to the empty shell at moderate frequencies due to the added stiffness and mass. It is also observed that the sensitivity to the angle of incidence diminishes as the number of springs is increased. This system can be tuned by selecting the shell thickness, spring stiffness and added mass to yield desired quasi-static effective properties making it a candidate element for graded index sonic crystals.Peer reviewed"Received 9 October 2013, Revised 18 July 2014, Accepted 24 October 2014, Available online 25 November 2014."--Publisher's website

    Tunable cylindrical shell as an element in acoustic metamaterial

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    Elastic cylindrical shells are fitted with an internal mechanism which is optimized so that, in the quasi-static regime, the combined system exhibits prescribed effective acoustic properties. The mechanism consists of a central mass supported by an axisymmetric distribution of elastic stiffeners. By appropriate selection of the mass and stiffness of the internal mechanism, the shells effective acoustic properties (bulk modulus and density) can be tuned as desired. Subsonic flexural waves excited in the shell by the attachment of stiffeners are suppressed by including a sufficiently large number of such stiffeners. Effectiveness of the proposed metamaterial is demonstrated by matching the properties of a thin aluminum shell with a polymer insert to those of water. The scattering cross section in water is nearly zero over a broad range of frequencies at the lower end of the spectrum. By arranging the tuned shells in an array the resulting acoustic metamaterial is capable of steering waves. As an example, a cylindrical-to-plane wave lens is designed by varying the bulk modulus in the array according to the conformal mapping of a unit circle to a square

    Green's functions for symmetric loading of an elastic sphere with application to contact problems

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    A compact form for the static Green’s function for symmetric loading of an elastic sphere is derived. The expression captures the singularity in closed form using standard functions and quickly convergent series. Applications to problems involving contact between elastic spheres are discussed. An exact solution for a point load on a sphere is presented and subsequently generalized for distributed loads. Examples for constant and Hertzian-type distributed loads are provided, where the latter is also compared to the Hertz contact theory for identical spheres. The results show that the form of the loading assumed in Hertz contact theory is valid for contact angles up to about 10 degrees. For larger angles, the actual displacement is smaller and the contact surface is no longer flat.Peer reviewe
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