Brazil's auto sector will face mounting challenges

Significance Ford, which has been operating in Brazil since 1920, attributed the decision to its global business restructuring plans. However, two other companies, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, had earlier taken similar decisions, highlighting the challenges faced by the Brazilian automotive sector. Impacts The effects of the pandemic on auto sales and production will continue to be felt for some time. Further restructuring or plant closures in the auto sector cannot be ruled out. The sector is still likely to see some recovery in 2021 following last year’s large contraction. Lower-cost automakers, or those focusing on hybrid and electric vehicles, may gain market share going forward.

Research and Application of Ankle Morphological Changes and Classification

Because of the motion of ankle joint, the surface morphological changes. The relevant products including ankle brace, ankle boot, etc. with both important protective effect on ankle and comfort should be designed to match the ankle varies states. The samples data with 15° plantar flexion, 40° dorsiflexion and neutral position of lower limbs(N=105) were scanned. This study analyzed the feature of the ankle morphological changes and divided it into four parts: anterolateral (I), posterolateral (II), posteromedial (III) and anteromedial (IV). The anterior and posterior parts had large contraction and expansion during plantar flexion and dorsiflexion motions. The medial and lateral parts of ankle shape were asymmetric, but had equal skin areas. Therefore, the area of the entire ankle surface remained almost the same when morphological changes. We unified the data of the models and measured the distances of characteristic points. According to the main dimensions, the ankles were classified into 17 groups. The rigid brace design was taken as an example to fit mass ankles. It showed a great statistical comfort degree in total by the user experience and evaluation. The method combining with features of ankle morphological changes and shape classification was proved to be effective for the ankle related products design to fit mass ankles.

Unusual triplet–triplet annihilation in a 3D copper(i) chloride coordination polymer

[Cu2Cl2(EtS(CH2)4SEt)4]n exhibits ultrafast Dexter driven triplet–triplet annihilation at 298 K (kQ = 1.3 × 1010 s−1) but a significantly slower one at 77 K (by 20 folds), despite large contraction of the unit cell. This process is explained by a large activation barrier.

Study of periodic and nonnegative periodic solutions of nonlinear neutral functional differential equations via fixed points

In this paper, we study the existence of periodic and non-negative periodic solutions of the nonlinear neutral differential equation $${{\rm{d}} \over {{\rm{dt}}}}{\rm{x}}({\rm{t}}) = - {\rm{a}}\;({\rm{t}})\;{\rm{h}}\;({\rm{x}}\;({\rm{t}})) + {{\rm{d}} \over {{\rm{dt}}}}{\rm{Q}}\;({\rm{t}},\;{\rm{x}}\;({\rm{t}} - {\rm \tau} \;({\rm{t}}))) + {\rm{G}}\;({\rm{t}},\;{\rm{x}}({\rm{t}}),\;{\rm{x}}\;({\rm{t}} - {\rm \tau} \;({\rm{t}}))).$$ We invert this equation to construct a sum of a completely continuous map and a large contraction which is suitable for applying the modificatition of Krasnoselskii’s theorem. The Caratheodory condition is used for the functions Q and G.

Liquidity Crunch/Trap: Some Unconventional Output/Employment/Growth Implications1

The chapter shows that a sudden and sufficiently large contraction of bonds' liquidity could generate a fall in output, liquidity trap and price deflation, suggesting that there is no contradiction between Liquidity Crunch and Liquidity Trap, in line with the discussion in Chapter 2. The discussion is based on a simple model in which there are two types of liquid assets: fiat money and liquid bonds (e.g., Asset-Backed securities) under flexible prices. Fiat money is the liquid asset of choice for households, while under normal conditions firms have a preference for bonds. The model is employed to discuss quantitative easing (QE) in exchange for 'toxic' assets, and to show that the loss of bond liquidity could give rise to secular stagnation.