Economic Consumption Research Articles

Resource-saving method of electric arc spraying

On the modern stage of development of resource-saving technologies the basic support is given to the economy of materials consumption without the change of the amount of their use. The special attention is given to the universal methods of renewal of details, and electric arc spraying which has a wide application did not become an exception. The review of the literary data shows that the applied electric arc spraying guns have a large expense of the compressed air. It results in the intensive affecting of the nebulizing stream on the liquid metal of the ends of molten electrodes and the degradation of the coverage quality. With the purpose of decrease in the compressed air consumption it is suggested to use a pulsating nebulizing stream. A corresponding device is worked out, to the stationary arc spraying gun EM-17, providing the pulsating mode of expiration of the nebulizing stream of air within the limits of 0–130 Herts. The oscillograms of change of dynamic pressure are given. It is set that a nebulizing stream has a pulsating form with the temporal intervals. The dependence of properties of the pulsating nebulizing stream on the frequency of closure of the channel of nozzle of the arc spray gun is shown. The obtained results of research show the reduction of the consumption of nebulizing stream at spraying. The optimal frequencies which provide the least consumption of the compressed air are 40–60 Herts, decrease at 42 %. The obtained data testifies the method of control of the nebulizing stream at spraying.

Tourism Complex Development Exploration of Small and Medium-Sized Cities in China

Tourism industry has formed special effects in regional economic development than in the general industry, especially promoting the industry cluster and new type urbanization in the region operations significantly nowadays in China. The comprehensive integrated development of tourism resources and its surrounding supporting services and facilities can achieve perfect combination between urban leisure consumption and new integrated industrial economy which are both the core power of regional integrated development. This paper discusses relevant study towards tourism complex development exploration of small and medium-sized cities in the context of the rapid development of urban-rural integration, proposes development strategies of small and medium-sized city tourism complex. Based on the case of Wushan Lake in Hubei province ecological tourism comprehensive development, using relevant theories to guide its sustainable planning development.

The ergogenic effect of amphetamine

Amphetamine (Amp) increases exercise duration. It is thought to do so by masking fatigue, but there have been very few studies looking at the effect of amphetamine on maximal oxygen consumption (VO2MAX) and running economy. Furthermore, it is unknown if amphetamine's effect on exercise duration occurs in a warm environment. We conducted separate experiments in male Sprague-Dawley rats testing the effect of amphetamine on VO2MAX (n = 12), running economy (n = 12), and exercise duration (n = 24) in a warm environment. For VO2MAX and running economy, rats were randomized to either amphetamine at 1 mg/kg (Amp-1) or 2 mg/kg (Amp-2). Animals served as their own controls in a crossover design with the administration order counter-balanced. To study the effect of amphetamine on exercise duration, we conducted run-to-exhaustion treadmill testing on rats in a 32˚C environment following administration of Amp-1, Amp-2, or Saline. Compared to control, Amp-2 increased VO2MAX (by 861 ± 184 ml/kg/hr, p = 0.005) and the time to VO2MAX (by 2.5 ± 0.8 min, p = 0.03). Amp-1 had no effect on VO2MAX but increased the time to VO2MAX (by 1.7 ± 0.5 min, p = 0.03). Neither dose improved running economy. In the warm, only rats in the Amp-1 group (+9.4 min, p = 0.02) had an increased time to exhaustion. Compared to control (41.6 ± 0.3°C), both amphetamine doses had higher temperatures at exhaustion: Amp-1 (42.0 ± 0.2°C) and Amp-2 (42.1 ± 0.2°C). Our results suggest that ergogenic effect of amphetamine occurs by masking fatigue but this effect may be offset in the warm with higher doses.

The Political Economy of Consumption and Household Debt: An Interdisciplinary Contribution*

This article offers a critical review of the literature on consumption and household debt, with the aim of identifying the main contributions and drawbacks of disciplinary approaches for understanding the multiple factors that influence these important forms of socioeconomic behaviour. On the basis of this literature review, the authors propose an interdisciplinary line of research within political economy that places particular emphasis on structural factors such as the recent transformations in contemporary capitalism, which have led to an extraordinary growth in the economic and political power of finance. It also foregrounds relevant social changes such as the increasing dominance of the neoliberal ideology, which promotes an individualisation of the provision of goods and services that favours the financial sector.

The Comparative Analysis of Structure and Energy Consumption between Electric Cars and Traditional Fuel Cars

Because of the defects in energy utilization and environment protection of the traditional fuel vehicle, the electric cars have increasing market advantage. This paper analyzed the main structural characteristics of the electric cars by comparing the traditional fuel vehicles from the vehicle structure principle, main components and so on. We known the electric car is different from traditional fuel vehicle in energy consumption economy from energy consumption analysis of the two aspects of efficiency and fuel consumption per hundred kilometers. It is concluded that electric vehicles are significantly higher than the traditional fuel efficiency cars and fuel consumption per hundred kilometers is lower than the traditional fuel cars by comparative analysis. To study the ways to improve the efficiency of energy of electric vehicles, we analyzed the key problems to further improve the development space of energy efficiency, pointed out the key problems which should be researched in the future.

The Parameters Matching and Simulation of Pure Electric Vehicle Composite Power Supply Based on CRUISE

Pure electric vehicles develop rapidly all over the world. According to building the model of pure electric vehicle in the CRUISE software, first the power supply system parameters are designed and simulated, and then the power performance and feasibility of the model are verified. The design of CPS (composite power supply) which combined UC (ultra capacitor) with Li-B (lithium battery) can extend the life of the Li-B, and protect the Li-B in some way. Under the NEDC operating condition, the simulations of the SPS (single power supply) and the CPS are taken. The result shows that the variation of the Li-B SOC decrease by 8%, compared the CPS system with the SPS system, the comprehensive energy consumption economy is 6.25%.

Souvenirs, materialities and animal encounters: Following Texas cowboy boots

Rather than take the tourist or the tourist place as the starting point of analysis, in this article, I begin with a seemingly superficial souvenir object, the Texan cowboy boot, in order to trace a more complex picture of the material cultures of tourism. I describe the Texan boot at the intersection of three threads: historical legacies, materialities of animal encounters and a political economy of ‘things’ (including their composite materials). The iconic Texas cowboy boot is a mythological but very material object of mobility – made by hand, with wild cowboy flair, by (mostly) Mexican artisans who use slowly accrued haptic skills with a variety of leathers to assemble neocolonial, hyper-masculine artefacts of fashion, fable and travel. Drawing on archival work and interviews in bootmaking workshops, I unravel a historical cultural economy of material production and consumption that entangles animal skins, migrant workers, Western movie stars and tourists.

Automated and coupled services of advanced smart surveillance systems toward green IT: tracking, retrieval and digital evidence

Green Security is a new research field defining and investigating security solutions using an energy-aware perspective. Growing efforts and interests for an intelligent or smart surveillance system which is capable of automatically detecting and tracking target objects is in the spotlight in the security community. So far, these technologies are mainly aimed at single camera applications and are evolving with the demand for wide-area surveillance systems currently. However, the tracking techniques used on a single camera have limitations in providing effective crime prevention and countermeasures when an incident occurs since an object is not linked to other cameras. In addition, the use of multi-camera systems for wide-area surveillance not only produces large amounts of video data to be stored, but also have more technical requirements in the interrelation between cameras or server. It require a considerable amount of time, manpower and energy in multi-camera tracking and back-tracking of objects. Therefore, we propose the advanced smart surveillance system for wide-areas which is capable of the automated tracking and retrieval of target object and digital evidence-video collection. Furthermore, we considered the multiple-camera environment with non-overlapping views which includes more constraint conditions by various light changes. This system enables real-time object tracking, fast post-retrieval and selective digital evidence collection with economy of time, manpower, memory devices, and energy consumption. Also, this system is more energy-efficient since our schemes are organically connected to each other.

The anatomy of a crisis: investment and output in Britain 1958-62

Although the determination of the trend, not the cycle, of economic growth is now the fashion, a conjunction of economic phenomena which resemble a distinguishable part of a trade cycle has recently been witnessed. The present article is concerned with the period 1959-61, and the changing patterns in investment and growth which may have important implications for the future trend of economic growth in Britain. It is argued that a high investment economy in a free enterprise society tends to be more unstable than a high consumption economy. If the 1959-61 boom marks Britain’s re-emergence as a high investment economy it will become a more volatile one. The chief problem considered is whether or not England is entering the first downswing of the post-war trade cycle as a result of these changes in investment and consumption.

Leadership in the fluid moral economy of conspicuous consumption

Purpose – In the last few years, signs of material excess by organizational and political leaders have often evoked public outcry. The paper aims to argue that there is insight to be gleaned from drawing together strands from the leadership literature with the literatures on moral economy and conspicuous consumption. The premise is that views of leader conspicuous consumption are shaped by their moral economy, the interplay between moral attitudes and economic activities. The paper seeks to juxtapose tales of Cleopatra and Antony's display of wealth with current media accounts to contribute to the leadership literature on ethics, specifically its intersection with power and narrative representation. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts an analytic approach, with an international orientation and an interdisciplinary perspective. It acknowledges the role of narrative representation in shaping leadership and the psychological ambivalence with which societies approach their leaders' practices, focus here on desire-disdain and discipline-decadence. Cleopatra and Antony's conspicuous consumption generated a legacy of condemnation for millennia. Drawing from the retellings of their story, four moralizing representations – by Plutarch, Shakespeare, Sarah Fielding and Hollywood – are analyzed and juxtaposed with current media accounts. Altogether, the paper combines the interest in leadership across history with moralizing perspectives on the display of wealth by leaders. Findings – The intersection of the literatures on leadership, moral economy and conspicuous consumption draws together several dynamics of relevance to leadership. First, evaluations of the display of wealth on the part of a leader are contextual: they change across time and place. Second, interpretations of conspicuous consumption involve aesthetic judgment and so sit at the nexus of morality and taste. Third, following tragedies, tales of leader conspicuous consumption offer critics another knife to dig into the fallen tragic hero. Fourth, views of conspicuous consumption are gendered. Last, conspicuous consumption by leaders attracts condemnation through support for social responsibility and sustainability. Originality/value – The paper establishes a novel articulation between the literatures on leadership, moral economy and conspicuous consumption.

Making Money/Printing Painting: Warhol’s Dollar Bill Paintings

spectacle is the other side of money: it is the general abstract equivalent of all commodities. Money dominated society as the representation of general equivalence, namely of the exchangeability of different goods whose uses could not be compared. spectacle is the developed modern complement of money where the totality of the commodity world appears as a whole, as a general equivalence for what the society can be and can do. spectacle is the money which one only loo\s at, because in the spectacle the totality of use is already exchanged for the totality of abstract representation. spectacle is not only the servant of pseudo-use, it is already in itself the pseudo-use of life.-Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (1983)'By his own account, Andy Warhol's Dollar Bill paintings, which date from the early spring of 1962, were his first silk-screened works (figure l).2 As he put it to Glenn O'Brien, who interviewed him in 1977, started [silk screening] when I was printing money.3 Clearly, the logic of coupling printing with money was irresistible to Warhol. Printing, of course, had played an instrumental role in his work since the beginning of his career as an illustrator. His inked and blotted line drawings of the 1950s are, in effect, monoprints, as are the works he produced using gum erasers that he carved by hand, including numerous drawings of the mid-1950s, and the SH its internalization of the economies of mass production, distribution, and consumption; its passive reflection of the spectacle. If as Debord claimed, The spectacle is the money which one only loo\s it surely behooves us to consider more closely how Warhol looked at money. I mean this quite literally in both senses of the term: how Warhol felt about money, and how he chose to represent it. Let us begin with the former.In the rhetorical figures that surround his work, Warhol himself seemed to propagate and authenticate the very that so narrowly defined him. Two not so very different narratives that we might think of as myths of origin have been in circulation concerning Warhol's paintings of dollar bills. Their imbrication suggests that both were idealizations, underwriting their status as myth. first account appears in 1970 in Calvin Tomkins's essay Raggedy one of the seminal sources of Warholian myth. Let me cite it in full:Andy was desperate for ideas. What'll I do next? he kept asking his new art world friends. Ivan Karp and Henry Geldzahler, a young curator at the Metropolitan, who was taking an especially active interest in new artists, had urged Andy to develop images that were not being used by anyone else, but he couldn't think of any. One evening early in 1962, in the apartment over Florence's Pinup, Muriel Latow told Andy that she had an idea but it would cost him money to hear it. Muriel ran an art gallery that was going broke. How much? Andy asked her. Muriel said fifty dollars. Andy went straight to the desk and wrote out a check.All right, Muriel said. Now tell me, Andy, what do you love more than anything else?I don't know, Andy said. What?Money, Muriel said. Why don't you paint money?Andy thought that was a terrific idea. Later on that evening Muriel also suggested (gratis this time) that he paint that was so familiar that nobody even noticed it anymore, something like a can of Campbell's Soup. …

HOW TO ACHIEVE A LOW-CARBON ECONOMY IN CHINA: FROM INDIVIDUAL ATTITUDES TO ACTUAL CONSUMPTION BEHAVIORS

Based on an analysis of the attitude formation process, a theoretical model of the realization of low-carbon (LC) consumption was constructed. An empirical study of China was then carried out to identify the reasons for differences between attitudes and actual behavior to investigate ways of realizing an LC economy. The results indicate that environmental cognition has a positive influence on social consciousness consumption behavior and a negative influence on individual consciousness consumption behavior, so enhancement of environmental cognition is an effective approach. Cognition of LC consumption significance, LC consumption preference regarding others, and LC consumption behavioral tendency promoted social consciousness consumption behavior, so these are beneficial for an LC economy. LC consumption preference regarding self had a negative impact on individual consciousness consumption behavior, so it needs to be guided. Current social consumption culture pressure had a negative impact on the relationship between attitude processes, behavioral tendency and actual behavior, so a healthy social consumption culture needs to be cultivated. Suggestions for achieving an LC consumption economy are proposed.

Analysis of the cause of global balance of payment imbalance

For decades, the US economy have had a chronic current account deficit, which is a consequence of the high trade balance deficit. The highest value of the current account deficit was recorded in 2006 (798.5 billion USD), when the Chinese share in US trade deficit was 32%. Hence, there is a discussion about sustainability of the US trade deficit, as well as the debate about the most important perpetrator for global trade imbalances. China is accused because of the high saving level and depressed currency policy. On the other side, US used the historic privilege of USD as world reserve currency to build a cult of consumption economy. This paper aims to reconsider these statements and, based on the cause analysis of the disequilibrium, define not only the main levers, but also the instruments which can be used for neutralization of this global imbalance. The analysis for each country covers the period 2000-2013 and includes many variables, e.g. current account deficit, savings, investment, interest rate level, etc. The research showed that China brought the referent down interest rate with the investment of excess liquidity, and that the FED did not use any other instrument as a defence of the interest rate level. The FED prescribed the required reserve level, but it failed to respect the rules. The reserve level was allowed to be reduced and thus enabled money supply expansion and low interest rate level.

Contributions of the old urban homegardens for food production and consumption in Rio Claro, Southeastern Brazil

Urban homegardens are green areas of households within the city limits and they have the potential to provide families with a cheap alternative for diet improvement, and to complement the income of the families who sell cultivated products. This research analyzes the contributions of old urban homegardens on food consumption and household economy. Data related to homegardens composition were collected by interviews and by collecting cultivated plants. Diets were assessed through a retrospective method (last 24 hours food recall) and administered every two months, during a year, to include seasonal variations. The diet of the sampled population was found to be dependent on certain foods, indicating a narrow food niche (Levins index = 25.9; Levins standardized index = 0.23). Variations in interviewees' diet are related to the consumption of fruits and vegetables, which are partly supplied by homegardens. Spices and teas consumed were obtained from homegardens, revealing its importance in food consumption and health. Among the 98 species found in homegardens, only 38% appeared in the interviewees' diet, indicating an under-exploitation of these homegardens. Our study found that the main role of homegardens is to supply variation in the diet, contributing to the consumption of different types of products.

The Ideal Economy: A Prototype

Standard economics starts with behavioral assumptions that are formally expressed as axioms. This approach met with little scientific success but still enjoys some popularity for lack of a convincing alternative. To replace the subjective formal foundations by objective structural axioms is the first task of this paper. To give a correct account of how the monetary economy works is the second. This entails an explanation of the continuous clearing of both the product and the labor market in the random consumption economy, that is, of how the economy could establish ongoing full employment and price stability in principle.

La unidad de producción familiar caprina: promotora del avance socioeconómico en la Mixteca Poblana, México

El presente trabajo establece que la unidad de producción familiar (UPF) caprina, representa la forma de manutención básica en las distintas actividades socioeconómicas de la Mixteca Poblana. Ya que a través de las diferentes transformaciones de la producción caprina, se crea la plataforma de una economía de ahorro y autoconsumo, la cual sustenta y beneficia la vida comunitaria en esa región. El objetivo fue: Determinar a la unidad de producción familiar caprina como promotora del avance socioeconómico de la Mixteca Poblana en México. Se empleó una encuesta tipo cuestionario en forma de entrevista, abarcando aspectos sociales, económicos y zootécnicos establecidos en el modelo estructural propuesto por Raj. Los resultados arrojan en cuanto a educación para los integrantes familiares de las UPF caprinas, ciertos niveles significativos para secundaria y bachillerato; 10 UPF de Tehuaxtla alcanzaron 50% en el nivel bachillerato; 73% de los productores reciben recursos de Estados Unidos de Norteamérica y el 27% restante no tienen este financiamiento. Finalmente, dentro de la actividad zootécnica, tienen un costo de producción/caprino de $ 121,05 y su beneficio neto/caprino alcanzo $ 679,57 mostrando una desviación estándar de ±85.58, en relación a otros indicadores productivos dentro del sistema empleado en la región Mixteca de Puebla.

Performance Evaluation of Electric Vehicle with 2-Speed I-AMT

For a novel electric vehicle equipped with 2-speed Inverse Automated Manual Transmission (I-AMT), optimal design of the gear ratios is carried out using dynamic programming (DP) under vehicle dynamic constraints. Given multiple driving cycles, the design target is to make the electric vehicle obtain the best energy consumption economy. After the gear ratios are determined, the performance of the 2-speed electric vehicle is compared with the same vehicle with a single-speed gear box, and it is shown that the 2-speed transmission has much better performacne in terms of acceleration time, maximum speed and energy economy.

Following the caterpillar fungus: nature, commodity chains, and the place of Tibet in China's uneven geographies

Following caterpillar fungus as it travels from the Tibetan Plateau to wealthy Chinese consumers, this article makes several interventions into geographical studies of commodity chains. First, it argues for an expansion beyond the usual call to connect the political economy of production with cultures of consumption; the cultural politics of production and political economies of consumption must also be considered. Second, it argues for bringing together political economy and more-than-human analytical approaches to commodity chains, showing how nature and the nonhuman play a key role in an assemblage that has allowed Tibetans to navigate livelihoods in a rapidly changing economy. This challenges a tendency to assume a universal figure of ‘the human’ in more-than-human geographies. Third, by connecting the erasure of Tibetans from representations of various natures used to sell caterpillar fungus with the broader politics of Tibetans within the People's Republic of China, we show that commodity fetishism can conceal not just labor relations, but also political struggles not reducible to class. Finally, we show that following a small fungus can shed light on the unevenness of China's capitalist development obscured in monolithic narratives of China's rise, demonstrating the value of expanding commodity chain studies beyond those that end with Western consumers.

Geography and Economic Preferences as Cultural Markers in a Border Town: The Faunal Remains from Tel Beth‐Shemesh, Israel

AbstractWe present a zooarchaeological analysis of the faunal remains at Tel Beth‐Shemesh, a site located in the Shephelah region of Israel, which has been dated to the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age I. The site, identified as the biblical city of Beth‐Shemesh, was a Canaanite border town between Philistine and Israelite settlements and of great importance in our attempts to understand the social and cultural transformations that occurred in the southern Levant during those periods. This study contributes to a more accurate understanding of the cultural identity of the site's inhabitants by exploring the cultural differences between populations as reflected in their different dietary preferences. We analysed the subsistence economy at the site, the general exploitation patterns, herd management strategies and consumption practices, all of which are based mostly on domestic livestock. We determined the cultural identity at the site mainly by comparing the representation of pig remains with that found at other sites in the region, and offer various explanations for the differences. The comparisons revealed clear differences between Tel Beth‐Shemesh and other known nearby Philistine sites. This site appears to have possessed a self‐contained production and consumption economy with similarities in the general pattern of animal exploitation between the two periods. These similarities constitute evidence for the continuation of the local population and of its culture at the site during the period of turmoil that swept the region during the transition to the Iron Age. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Vita brevis, ars longa: ekphrasis, the art object, and the consumption of the subject in Henry James and Michel Houellebecq

In Henry James's The Wings of the Dove and Michel Houellebecq's La Carte et le territoire, the art object serves a double function: it encapsulates the materiality of the object and the signification of art, referring to both its aesthetic existence and its commodity status. On the one hand, it stands for observable commodity structures. On the other hand, it organises the affective impressions and thoughts that pass between characters, allowing meaning to circulate via the look in James, or artistic perspective in Houellebecq. As both object and art, the art object is entangled in commodified, libidinal, heuristic, and metaphysical economies. Both James and Houellebecq employ ekphrasis to formally frame the art object's role, critiquing free-market liberalism's commodification of human relationships and its reification of subjects into consumable objects. Ekphrasis also locates the art object vis-à-vis particular ways of seeing, which mirror the way in which subjective relations are structured through the manner we see and perceive others and how, in turn, our moral or ethical responses are shaped by this ‘gaze’. In this article, the author hopes to illuminate how ekphrasis recursively poses an ethical question about the economies of consumption, which objectify subjects in the texts and frame their relations to each other.