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This paper aims to explore the limitations of the conformal finite difference time-domain method (C-FDTD or Dey–Mittra) when modeling perfect electric conducting (PEC) and lossless dielectric curved surfaces in coarse meshes. The C-FDTD is a widely known approach to reduce error of curved surfaces in the FDTD method. However, its performance limitations are not broadly described in the literature, which are explored as a novelty in this paper.

This paper explores the C-FDTD method applied on field scattering simulations of two curved surfaces, a dielectric and a PEC sphere, through the frequency range from 0.8 to 10 GHz. For each sphere, the mesh was progressively impoverished to evaluate the accuracy drop and performance limitations of the C-FDTD with the mesh impoverishment, along with the wideband frequency range described.

This paper shows and quantifies the C-FDTD method’s accuracy drops as the mesh is impoverished, reducing C-FDTD’s performance. It is also shown how the performance drops differently according to the frequency of interest.

With this study, coarse meshes, with smaller execution time and reduced memory usage, can be further explored reliably accounting the desired accuracy, enabling a better trade-off between accuracy and computational effort.

This paper quantifies the limitations of the C-FDTD in coarse meshes in a wideband manner, which brings a broader and newer insight upon C-FDTD’s limitations in coarse meshes or relatively small objects in electromagnetic simulation.

Although it is well recognised that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent widespread social and economic changes impacted on the levels and distribution of physical health, there is very limited evidence on the social patterning of mental health in the countries that emerged. The aim of this paper is to assess levels of psychological distress and describe its demographic, social and economic correlates in eight former Soviet countries.Cross‐sectional surveys using multi‐stage random sampling were conducted in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. A standardised questionnaire was used for all countries, including the main outcome for this study of psychological distress, which consisted of 12 items on symptoms of psychological distress. Respondents who repor ted 10‐12 of the symptoms were considered to have a high psychological distress score. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was then used to investigate how demographic, social and economic factors were associated with a high psychological distress score.High psychological distress in seven of the eight countries ranges from 3.8% in Kazakhstan to 10% in Ukraine but was substantially higher (21.7%) in Armenia. Factors associated with psychological distress in the multivariate analysis included: being female; increasing age; incomplete secondary education; being disabled; experiencing two or more stressful events in the past year; lack of trust in people; lack of personal suppor t in crisis; being unemployed; and poor household economic situation.The study contributes evidence on the association of impoverishment and social isolation on psychological distress in countries of the former Soviet Union and highlights the impor tance of exploring ways of improving mental health by addressing its social determinants.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an extended Kalman particle filter (EPF) approach for dynamic state estimation of synchronous machine using the phasor measurement unit’s measurements.

EPF combines the extended Kalman filter (EKF) with the particle filter (PF) to accurately estimate the dynamic states of synchronous machine. EKF is used to make particles of PF transfer to the likelihood distribution from the previous distribution. Therefore, the sample impoverishment in the implementation of PF is able to be avoided.

The proposed method is capable of estimating the dynamic states of synchronous machine with high accuracy. The real-time capability of this method is also acceptable.

The effectiveness of the proposed approach is tested on IEEE 30-bus system.

Introducing EKF into PF, EPF is proposed to estimate the dynamic states of synchronous machine. The accuracy of a dynamic state estimation is increased.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the assessment of poverty/deprivation using different conceptions of this phenomenon including the traditional money‐metric measure and different forms of multidimensional constructs.

The data were drawn from a household survey conducted in Nsukka, Nigeria. Interviewer‐administered questionnaires were used in data collection from about 410 households across urban and rural localities. The counting and FGT methodologies were used to assess impoverishment, while regression analyses were used to assess the determinants of deprivation across different constructs.

Between 70 per cent and 78 per cent of the study population were identified as poor/deprived. However, more than 11 per cent of those living on less than USD1.25/day were classified as non‐poor using different measures of multidimensional poverty. Similarly, more than 62 per cent of individuals who live on more than 1.25USD/day (i.e. non‐poor) are classified as poor using different measures of multidimensional deprivation. There is some level of correlation between measures, some inevitably stronger than others. The major determinants of deprivation across the various constructs of deprivation include large family size, low level of education, poor employment, rural location, and poor health.

This paper uses novel datasets that incorporate variables relating to the capability approach in understanding deprivation. Specifically, it analyses the so‐called missing dimensions of poverty. It also applies a new methodology for the assessment of impoverishment and deprivation. It highlights the importance of the capability approach in explaining poverty.

This paper has a dual purpose: on one side, it analyzes what types of solidarity and social relations are implemented as social support resources applied to actions aiming at the empowerment of children living in poverty. On the other, it investigates on the role of the community in the governance of local welfare practices and its ability to produce social innovations for municipal policies in favor of children and adolescents.

Proximity, flexibility, generativity and territoriality are just some of the features that – in the framework of the scientific debate – characterize the social work in areas of social disadvantage. In the framework of the debate, this paper presents a qualitative research on the social ties and educational practices promoted and implemented by nonprofit organizations that attempt to counteract educational poverty and social exclusion of children and adolescents in the eastern peripheral neighborhoods of Naples, one of the poorest cities in the South of Italy.

The results of the analysis reveal a capacitating and generative role of the actions applied to social and educational practices for children and adolescents and their families in poor neighborhoods and peripheral areas; a role that is, however, also useful for community social policies targeting children and adolescents. Among local welfare policies enhancing community resources, such practices have indeed become an active resource of subsidiarity; they also ensure wider rights and empowerment for children and adolescents who live in poor communities and for their families as well.

More recent studies focusing on the role of social ties in deprived context and impoverishment processes, demonstrated that nonprofit organizations operate as crucial actors fostering inclusion and social cohesion, by means of “elective participation”; this guarantees access to protection and recognition resources that are an integral part of the social support these organizations provide in their areas of intervention. Despite the wide debate on the key role of the Third Sector in territorial welfare policies, further empirical studies on the role of these organizations in poor neighborhoods of the cities of the south of Italy are necessary. The value of this article is an attempt to provide to bridge this gap.

Hardly a day goes by without a report about one of the great traditions of British dissent: a small group protesting at the demolition of a cottage; a lone crusader chaining him or herself to a tree to prevent its felling; or a band of enthusiasts standing in the way of a bulldozer as it attempts to fill in a duckpond. Yet that same culture, which has bred a stubborn tradition of activism in the cause of a manageable and human‐centred environment, is curiously silent in the face of a threat that will involve the demolition, potentially, of hundreds of cottages, thousands of trees and scores of duckponds. Additionally, it will involve the desecration and impoverishment of the urban landscape that city‐dwellers are only now beginning to learn is every bit as fragile and in need of care and attention as our natural heritage. This is the looming threat of the giant multi‐purpose out‐of‐town retail centre. Whether it be for a large clear span warehouse, for a retail ‘farm’ of several similar centres selling stratified lines in bulk, or the establishment of an entire alternative High Street in the middle of nowhere, most urban centres and particularly free‐standing centres, face a plethora of applications and a wash of finance and public relations expertise in the drive to persuade, cajole or bully local authorities into accepting planning applications of monumental consequences for the established retail centres of those authorities. In South Hampshire alone there are currently 18 applications under consideration for out‐of‐town shopping centres which together total in excess of 4,000,000 sq. ft. (To put this figure into real context, Southampton City Centre currently has 1,500,000 sq. ft of retail.)

These are hard times. It seems that the harder we try, the poorer we become. Cash which flowed like a Mississippi of money in the 1980s has dried to a fitful trickle, seeped without a trace into deserts of debt in the arid 1990s. What went wrong? Whatever did we do to bring about this impoverishment? Do you understand what the hell is happening to our capitalist economy? I'm dammed if I do.

The aim of this paper is to explore community resilience during the short-term stages of recovery of Wittenberge in 1945, surrender in the final months of the Second World War and the commencement for the town of Soviet administration; with comments on longer-term contexts of continued resilience and recovery to the present day. The paper examines origins and current use of the term “resilience” for comparison with its realities that are identified.

Translated extracts of a chronology of events in Wittenberge during 1945 (Muchow) are the basis of an exploration of social impacts for a town in wartime of exhaustion, defeat, surrender, political change and impoverishment.

Current interpretations of social resilience frequently do not match its reality, largely due to overuse of the word. Resilience is conditioned by circumstances that cannot be assumed, sudden change here being part of the war experience, not a consequence.

Whereas other research (e.g. Hewitt) has considered the social impact of mass bombing during the second World War, this paper takes the example of a single town in an exposed geographical situation which is described.

Whereas Second World War military history continues to be repeatedly re-examined, its social impacts are comparatively understated. This paper offers a rare example in English of the experience of a small town in Germany in 1945.

WHAT were the circumstances that prompted the Carnegie Corporation of New York to send to South Africa last year its President and Secretary; to make subsequently a liberal grant to libraries here, and further to delegate Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Pitt to report on them? Did our silence forbode feverish activity or stagnation? In either case the matter should be investigated, and if accused of suspecting the latter state, the Corporation could plead its interest in the former only. However, without ascribing to the instigators of the present survey any but philanthropic motives, its inception was obviously not without reason. The most self‐satisfied amongst us would not imagine for one moment that current South African library practice reflects the professional Manual. Is our conservatism due entirely to financial impoverishment, or has the enervation of a South African summer produced a winter lassitude in would‐be reader and librarian alike? Let us hastily glance at existing conditions.

Protecting households against financial risks of healthcare services is one of the main functions of health systems. The purpose of this paper is to provide a pooled estimate of the prevalence of catastrophic healthcare expenditures (CHE) among households in Iran.

Both international (PubMed, Scopus and Clarivate Analytics (previously known as the Institute for Scientific Information)) and Iranian (Scientific Information Database, Iranmedex and Magiran) scientific databases were searched for published studies on CHE among Iranian households. The following keywords in Persian and English language were used as keywords for the search: “catastrophic healthcare costs,” “catastrophic health costs,” “impoverishment due to health costs,” “fair financial contribution,” “prevalence,” “frequency” and “Iran” with and without “health system”. The I²-test and χ²-based Q-test suggested heterogeneity in the reported prevalence among the qualified studies; thus, a random-effects model was used to estimate the overall prevalence of CHE among households in Iran.

A total of 24 studies with a cumulative sample of 301,097 households were included in the study. The estimated pooled prevalence of CHE among households was 7 percent (95 percent confidence interval: 6–8 percent). Meta-regression analysis indicated that the prevalence of CHE was inversely related to the sample size (p<0.05). The results did not suggest a significant association between the prevalence of CHE and the year of data collection.

The findings revealed that the prevalence of CHE among Iranian households is significantly higher than 1 percent, which is the goal set out in Iran’s fourth five-year development plan. This warrants further policy interventions to protect households from incurring CHE in Iran.