The effect of the boundary conditions on the global dynamics of cellular neural networks (CNNs) is investigated. As a case study one dimensional template CNNs are considered. It is shown that if off-diagonal template elements have the same sign (i.e. the CNN is completely stable), then the qualitative dynamics is not influenced by the boundary conditions. If the off-diagonal template elements h...

Unlike industrialized countries, where parents expect to spend some portion of midto later-life without children at home, traditional patterns of living arrangements in Mexico reflect high levels of family caregiving for the elderly and a high degree of continuity of parent-child coresidence over the lifecourse. Living alone is uncommon due both to structural constraints, fed by economic instab...

This address explores a broad framework for thinking sociologically about emancipatory alternatives to dominant institutions and social structures, especially capitalism. The framework is grounded in two foundational propositions: (1) Many forms of human suffering and many deficits in human flourishing are the result of existing institutions and social structures. (2) Transforming existing inst...

Africa’s disappointing economic performance, the East Asian financial crisis, and the weak record of the former Soviet Union have focused attention on the role of institutions in determining a country’s economic growth. This article critically reviews the literature that tries to link quantitative measures of institutions, such as civil liberties and property rights, with growth of gross domest...

This research analyses through the use of instrumental variables estimation whether democracy has an effect on variables belonging to three different categories: fiscal policy, inequality in income distribution and political instability. It shows there is no stable relation between democracy and fiscal policy variables between countries of the sample in the 1978-1988 period. Democracy, on the o...

One of the challenges in the study of generative adversarial networks is the instability of its training. In this paper, we propose a novel weight normalization technique called spectral normalization to stabilize the training of the discriminator. Our new normalization technique is computationally light and easy to incorporate into existing implementations. We tested the efficacy of spectral n...

Modern political economy stresses “society’s polarization” as a determinant of development outcomes. Among the most common sources of social polarization are class divisions and ethnic divisions. A middle class consensus is defined as a high share of income for the middle class and a low degree of ethnic divisons. A middle class consensus distinguishes development successes from failures. The p...

This paper tests the validity of the claim that inequality leads to political instability, as well as several other hypotheses about the tolerance for inequality. Using data from the Social Conflict in Africa Database, I examine macro-level implications of micro-level theories about grievances and collective action, complementing earlier research on the individual-level correlates of protest pa...

We examine how regional inequality affects happiness and self-rated health at an individual level by using micro data from nationwide surveys in Japan. Individuals who live in the area of high inequality tend to report themselves as both unhappy and unhealthy, even after controlling for various individual and regional characteristics and taking into account the correlation between the two subje...

In this paper, we investigate the determinants of political instability in Latin America. In a panel of 18 Latin American countries from 1971 to 2000, we find that democratic countries experience less average instability in the region, indicating that the move to increased democracy in the last couple decades may alleviate the persistent problem of instability in the area. We also find that inc...