Support Ratio Research Articles

Remittances‐Adjusted Support Ratio

AbstractWe introduce a new demographic indicator, the remittances‐adjusted support ratio (RASR), which incorporates the support offered through remittances into the existing support ratio (SR). Remittances have increased rapidly in recent decades due to improved technology, and they play a crucial role in the countries that send migrants abroad. This is important as many countries are still undergoing their demographic transitions, and here remittances are particularly relevant. Our formulation of the RASR suggests an alternative in which population pressures are alleviated through migration, but where migrants send remittances and thus provide support without being present in their home countries. We show that the RASR has diverged substantially from the SR in a range of countries during the last three decades. The RASR, therefore, offers new insight into economic and demographic support and constitutes a useful tool for policymakers and researchers in the 21st century.

Concept of a small fast breeder reactor system capable of transmuting MA and LLFP

The issues of nuclear power systems are the effective use of uranium resources and the reduction of radioactive wastes. Important radioactive wastes are minor actinides (MA : 237Np, 241Am, 243Am, etc.) and long-lived fission products (LLFP : 129I, 99Tc, 79Se, etc.). The purpose of this study was to construct a system that simultaneously achieves the breeding of fissile materials and the transmutation of MA and LLFP using small fast reactors. Transmutation was achieved by loading the innovative Duplex type MA-containing fuel in the core region and the LLFP-containing moderator in the first layer of the radial blanket. Breeding of the entire small fast reactor system was achieved by combining two small fast reactors: one for transmutation and the other for breeding. As a result, it was clarified that in this small fast reactor system, a breeding ratio of approximately 1.03 was obtained, and support ratios (SRs) of 2 or more were achieved for MAs and LLFPs.

Electrophysiological Modulation in an Effort to Complete Illusory Figures: Configuration, Illusory Contour and Closure Effects.

Figure recognition process: From the coarse configuration standing from the background to the closure of a meaningful shape, was investigated by ERP technique. ERP components at different latencies from stimulus onset allowed to tap into the figure recognition process at discrete time-points when different cognitive operations take place. In this study, we present two experiments where the support-ratio (SR) of illusory figures was manipulated to vary continuously the recognition of geometrical figures. In the first experiment three shapes were used to vary the SR and the P1 component (80-130ms) was modulated by the configuration-effect explained, in part for the first time, with the unbalanced physical stimulation between upper and lower visual field. In the second experiment, we used one shape and varied systematically the SR in a discrimination task. The N1 (130-180ms) and the N2 (230-270ms) were modulated by two effects: The Ic-effect, represented by the N1, and the closure-effect, represented by the N2, being larger when the SR was small and the discrimination more difficult with respect to large SRs and easier discrimination. These results showed that figure recognition proceeded from the coarse parsing of the visual scene (configuration-effect), through the completion of a set of illusory borders (Ic-effect) to the final assembling of a meaningful shape (closure-effect).