Search results for "convergence"
showing 10 items of 655 documents
Elected and Unelected Institutions
2015
Having broken away from the Soviet Union, the Baltic states rapidly moved towards new constitutional orders more in line with the demands of the new democratic and market-economy framework that they were committed to building. The aim was to construct the major elected and unelected political institutions that would allow them to join the principal European organisations and usher in an era of boring normality. From what was a similar starting point, the Baltic states chose very different constitutional frameworks (although the demands of integration with the Western world has led to some institutional convergence). Nevertheless all three have largely achieved their ambition of making polit…
The Digitalisation of Political Parties in Comparative Perspective
2021
This chapter outlines the main findings of the edited book. Through the study of a wide range of political parties from Europe and beyond, this book has explored the different degrees of digitalisation that political parties present, and, at the same time, discussed the main technological, democratic issues and trade-offs that political parties have faced in their digital transition. The most relevant finding is that all political parties operating in the democracies analysed have digitalised their organisations to some extent. Our main finding across several cases shows that the digitalisation of parties does not entail a homogenous process of convergence towards a new mode of managing par…
The Magnus expansion and some of its applications
2008
Approximate resolution of linear systems of differential equations with varying coefficients is a recurrent problem, shared by a number of scientific and engineering areas, ranging from Quantum Mechanics to Control Theory. When formulated in operator or matrix form, the Magnus expansion furnishes an elegant setting to build up approximate exponential representations of the solution of the system. It provides a power series expansion for the corresponding exponent and is sometimes referred to as Time-Dependent Exponential Perturbation Theory. Every Magnus approximant corresponds in Perturbation Theory to a partial re-summation of infinite terms with the important additional property of prese…
A predictive function optimization algorithm for multi-spectral skin lesion assessment
2015
The newly introduced Kubelka-Munk Genetic Algorithm (KMGA) is a promising technique used in the assessment of skin lesions. Unfortunately, this method is computationally expensive due to its function inverting process. In the work of this paper, we design a Predictive Function Optimization Algorithm in order to improve the efficiency of KMGA by speeding up its convergence rate. Using this approach, a High-Convergence-Rate KMGA (HCR-KMGA) is implemented onto multi-core processors and FPGA devices respectively. Furthermore, the implementations are optimized using parallel computing techniques. Intensive experiments demonstrate that HCR-KMGA can effectively accelerate KMGA method, while improv…
Spatial Convergence Clubs and the European Growth Process, 1980-1995
2003
Bernard Fingleton
groups acting on the line and the circle with at most N fixed points
2022
A classical theme in dynamical systems is that the first fundamental information comes from the understanding of periodic orbits. When studying group actions, this means that we want to understand the fixed points of elements of the group, and a natural question that emerges from that is: Which groups of homeomorphisms can act on a 1-manifold having all non-trivial elements with at most N fixed points? Our main objective in this work is to approach that question and understand what properties can such dynamical hypothesis induces to the group.For the case N=0, a classical result from O. Hölder implies that such group of homeomorphisms acting on the line is always semi-conjugate to a subgrou…
Do distantly related parasites rely on the same proximate factors to alter the behaviour of their hosts?
2006
Phylogenetically unrelated parasites often increase the chances of their transmission by inducing similar phenotypic changes in their hosts. However, it is not known whether these convergent strategies rely on the same biochemical precursors. In this paper, we explored such aspects by studying two gammarid species ( Gammarus insensibilis and Gammarus pulex ; Crustacea: Amphipoda: Gammaridae) serving as intermediate hosts in the life cycle of two distantly related parasites: the trematode, Microphallus papillorobustus and the acanthocephalan, Polymorphus minutus . Both these parasite species are known to manipulate the behaviour of their amphipod hosts, bringing them towards the water surfa…
A Dynamic Distributed Algorithm for Multicast Path Setup
2005
In the past few years, there has been a considerable work on multicast route selection techniques, with the aim to design scalable protocols which can guarantee an efficient use of network resources. Steiner tree-based multicast algorithms produce optimal trees, but they are prohibitively expensive. For this reason, heuristic methods are generally employed. Conventional centralized Steiner heuristics provide effective solutions, but they are unpractical for large networks, since they require a complete knowledge of the network topology. In this paper, we propose a new distributed approach that is efficient and suitable for real network adoption. Performance evaluation indicates that it outp…
About the finite convergence of the proximal point algorithm
1988
We study the finite convergence property of the proximal point algorithm applied to the partial inverse, with respect to a subspace, of the subdifferential of a polyhedral convex function. Using examples we show how sufficient conditions providing the finite convergence can be realized and we give a case with non finite termination.
Trade in Central and Eastern European countries ten years after their EU accession — Is there convergence?
2015
The paper focuses on the effects of EU’s Eastern Enlargement of 2004 on trade convergence within the EU and among the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE-8). Using sigma-convergence approach, it finds evidence of convergence of exports and imports per capita as well as of productivity levels associated with the member states’ export baskets. Convergence of territorial and commodity structures of trade has not occurred; conversely, divergence has been observed, leading to the possible conclusion that multinational companies have adjusted their production structure in facilities across the EU to achieve higher economies of scale. Correlation analysis shows that revealed com…