103 research outputs found
Borrowers’ Participation in Group Borrowing
Get PDFBorrowers’ participation in MFI group lending credit market is not insured because of the alternative sources of credit available. The question arises what is the ideal MFI interest rate to ensure borrowers’ participation which at the same time being financially viable for MFI. The paper attempts to answer this question and analyzes the borrowers’ trade-off of borrowing from MFI or from moneylender (ML). Results show that borrowers may find comparative advantage in borrowing individually from ML as compared to borrowing in a group from MFI if the transaction cost burden is high and their credit requirement is lo
Effective Cost of Borrowing from Microfinance Institutions
Get PDFIt has been observed lately that the dependence on moneylenders for borrowing needs of poor borrowers remained stable despite the presence of MFIs, particularly in developing economies. This is surprising given the fact that MFIs charge relatively lower interest rate as compared to moneylenders. The paper explains this trend by arguing that the effective cost of borrowing from MFI is higher relative to the effective cost of borrowing from moneylender. It is due to the additional burden incurred in the form of transaction costs in case of MFI borrowing. Simulation results also support this phenomeno
sj-docx-1-mdm-10.1177_0272989X221097106 – Supplemental material for Trends in Author-Reported Cost-Effectiveness Thresholds in the United States from 1995 to 2018: Implications for Discount Rates
No full textSupplemental material, sj-docx-1-mdm-10.1177_0272989X221097106 for Trends in Author-Reported Cost-Effectiveness Thresholds in the United States from 1995 to 2018: Implications for Discount Rates by Ankur Pandya, Mike Paulden, Jinyi Zhu, Tara A. Lavelle and James Hammitt in Medical Decision Making</p
Effective Cost of Borrowing from Microfinance Institutions
Get PDFAbstract. It has been observed lately that the dependence on moneylenders for borrowing needs of poor borrowers remained stable despite the presence of MFIs, particularly in developing economies. This is surprising given the fact that MFIs charge relatively lower interest rate as compared to moneylenders. The paper explains this trend by arguing that the effective cost of borrowing from MFI is higher relative to the effective cost of borrowing from moneylender. It is due to the additional burden incurred in the form of transaction costs in case of MFI borrowing. Simulation results also support this phenomenon.Keywords. Microfinance, Group lending, Informal finance, Transaction cost, Effective cost.JEL. G21, O16, O17
Borrowers’ Participation in Group Borrowing
No full textAbstract. Borrowers’ participation in MFI group lending credit market is not insured because of the alternative sources of credit available. The question arises what is the ideal MFI interest rate to ensure borrowers’ participation which at the same time being financially viable for MFI. The paper attempts to answer this question and analyzes the borrowers’ trade-off of borrowing from MFI or from moneylender (ML). Results show that borrowers may find comparative advantage in borrowing individually from ML as compared to borrowing in a group from MFI if the transaction cost burden is high and their credit requirement is low.Keywords. Microfinance, Group lending, Informal finance, Transaction cost, Effective cost.JEL. G21, O16, O17
Embodied energetics : a digital design-production system for passive solar walls in Vinalhaven Island, Maine
No full textThis electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2019Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 102-105).I propose a digital design-production system to easily assemble, selectively disassemble, and reassemble novel passive solar walls. The problem statement I tackle is that all houses in Vinalhaven Island, Maine have high home-heating energy burden due to their thermally weak thin walls. Substituting thin walls with typical passive solar walls is a known solution, however such walls would be inundated with (i) high embodied energy in non-recoverable materials, (ii) high complexity of construction, and (iii) high cost of construction and renovation. Facilitated by a CAD-CAM interface, I develop a methodological framework called Design for Assembly, Disassembly, and Reassembly to lower all three parameters efficiently. I demonstrate both the framework and its outcomes by rapidly prototyping a few study models of passive solar walls. I speculate on the urban implications of a widespread integration of walls with reduced and recoverable material embodied energy. In order to effectively visualize this, the system boundary of urbanism scales up from a wall to a house, to two adjacent houses, and finally to five houses in Vinalhaven's downtown. I claim that successful on-site substitution of today's standard walls with Digital Passive Solar Walls will accelerate Vinalhaven's island homes toward a holistic energy transition. Broadly, I encourage professionals in the building industry to embrace such digital systems to recover material embodied energy locked in their designed artifacts.by Ankur Podder.S.M.S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architectur
Nanoemulsions: formation, properties and applications
Get PDFNanoemulsions are kinetically stable liquid-in-liquid dispersions with droplet sizes on the order of 100 nm. Their small size leads to useful properties such as high surface area per unit volume, robust stability, optically transparent appearance, and tunable rheology. Nanoemulsions are finding application in diverse areas such as drug delivery, food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and material synthesis. Additionally, they serve as model systems to understand nanoscale colloidal dispersions. High and low energy methods are used to prepare nanoemulsions, including high pressure homogenization, ultrasonication, phase inversion temperature and emulsion inversion point, as well as recently developed approaches such as bubble bursting method. In this review article, we summarize the major methods to prepare nanoemulsions, theories to predict droplet size, physical conditions and chemical additives which affect droplet stability, and recent applications.Eni S.p.A
Accelerating circularity in Built-environment through "Active-procurement": An aggregated assessment framework to make sustainable choices while using secondary material at early design phase
No full textIn Europe, 1/3rd of all the products reaching recycling facilities can be sold as secondary materials, and this can be a high-quality replacement for low-quality new products. Circular Material Use rate shows how much material demand was catered by reused or recycled content. The Netherlands was estimated at 29% in 2016 is the highest among all other member states and more than twice of Europe’s average. The Netherlands has now set up the goal to become 100% circular by 2050. Principles of circularity aim at lowering the environmental impacts and halve the emissions by 2030 and carbon neutral by 2050, according to the Paris Agreement. However, even though high circularity rates in the Netherlands, 12.2 tonnes per capita of greenhouse gases were released in 2016, which is 3.5 tonnes higher than the EU average. In transitioning to a circular built environment, the most crucial challenge is to keep all materials in a closed loop in a way that proves lower environmental impact compared to extracting a virgin equivalent. In current practice, building materials are procured at the end of a design phase, which results in minimum use of secondary stock and maximum extraction of virgin material to fit “circular” designs. Since buildings are designed for longer lifespans, this virgin material returns as secondary much later and do not reflect in the indicator defined by the EU. The main question is what information is needed by a designer or engineer in procuring secondary materials and when & how it can be best provided to them. This research gives an Assessment Framework to assess parameters such as the circular flow of materials,embodied CO2, cost and technical performance while designing.It is composed of five significant interfaces - material database, material explorer, assessment dashboard, digital design and a visual script toassess various parameters such as MCI, embodied CO2, distance from the project site, cost, U-value, Thermal conductivity, Density and other labels in 3D.The framework provides a Preliminary and Advanced assessment of different parameters. The only difference is that Advanced assessment takes into account is the disassembly potential of various components at a system level and determines whether they can be reused or have to be demolished at EOL. Demolition would mean a product reach EOL sooner, which result in higher embodied CO2. Hence, allowing design/engineering optimization. Other instance, where a component reaches EOL before its surrounding product, replacement of that component should not result in the demolition of others.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Building Technolog
Particle Manipulation using Microfluidics
No full textThe progress made by microfabrication technologies has escalated the interest in particle manipulation on micron scale. Particles are not only limited to solid particles but also include cells, droplets and bubbles. Activities involved in manipulation are trapping, sorting, separation and so on. The devices designed to execute such activities are aimed for a particular application. However, there lies a gap in literature to design an all-in-one device. Microfluidics research carried out at the Laboratory for Aero and Hydrodynamics is currently working on designing such devices which can carry out different manipulation tasks.This thesis is aimed at designing and fabricating such a device where two particles can be manipulated simultaneously. The application of designing such a device would be to study cell-cell interaction, droplet coalescence and so on. To achieve this, a microfluidic device is designed as a Hele-Shaw flow cell. Since the height-averaged velocity in a Hele-Shaw flow cell is irrotational, analytical solution is possible for such a design. Although a Hele-Shaw flow is viscous flow between two closely spaced plates, it produces same streamline patterns as a 2D ideal flow. This enables the use of basic building blocks of an ideal flow field such as sources, sinks, uniform flow and so on. In this case, sources and sinks are superimposed to get the flow field inside the microfluidic device. The microfluidic device is fabricated using Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a commonly used polymer to fabricate microfluidic devices. The design of the device is validated by comparing experimental flow fields, streamlines and stagnation points to the corresponding analytical solution. Single particle manipulation activities are carried out in the device. This is executed by manually controlling the flow rates or the strength of sources and sinks. Firstly, the particle is trapped at the stagnation point for a certain timespan. Finally, some manipulation activities are carried out using a single particle with the aid of streamlines produced by the sources and sinks.Mechanical Engineerin
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