These are the Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Multibody Systems and Mechatronics (MUSME 2017) which was held in Florianopolis, Brazil, October 24-28, 2017. Topics addressed include analysis and synthesis of mechanisms; dynamics of multibody systems; design algorithms for mechatronic systems; simulation procedures and results; prototypes and their performance; robots and micromachines; experimental validations; theory of mechatronic simulation; mechatronic systems; and control of mechatronic systems. The MUSME 2017 Symposium was one of the activities of the FEIbIM Commission for Mechatronics and IFToMM technical Committees for Multibody Dynamics, Robotics and Mechatronics.

EU Cohesion policy accounts for a major share of the EU budget and is central to economic and social development in many European countries. This book provides a comprehensive and theoretically-informed analysis of how Cohesion policy has evolved over time, in particular the budgetary and policy dynamics of the 2007-13 reform. In the context of the budgetary politics of the EU, the book examines the process by which the reform of Cohesion policy has been shaped; it identifies the key factors that explain the allocation of funding, assesses the roles of the Member States, European Commission and European Parliament, and tests whether the process and outcome are consistent with the expectations of EU decision-making and integration theories. Based on extensive, EU-wide research over a ten-year period, the book provides new insights into both the process and outcomes of EU policy reform. Presenting original research in an accessible format, this book will be of interest to scholars as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of European integration and policy studies.

Testing for economic convergence across countries has been a central issue in the literature of economic growth and development. This book introduces a modern framework to study the cross-country convergence dynamics in labor productivity and its proximate sources: capital accumulation and aggregate efficiency. In particular, recent convergence dynamics of developed as well as developing countries are evaluated through the lens of a non-linear dynamic factor model and a clustering algorithm for panel data. This framework allows us to examine key economic phenomena such as technological heterogeneity and multiple equilibria. In this context, the book provides a succinct review of the recent club convergence literature, a comparative view of developed and developing countries, and a tutorial on how to implement the club convergence framework in the statistical software Stata.

These are the Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Multibody Systems and Mechatronics (MUSME 2017) which was held in Florianopolis, Brazil, October 24-28, 2017. Topics addressed include analysis and synthesis of mechanisms; dynamics of multibody systems; design algorithms for mechatronic systems; simulation procedures and results; prototypes and their performance; robots and micromachines; experimental validations; theory of mechatronic simulation; mechatronic systems; and control of mechatronic systems. The MUSME 2017 Symposium was one of the activities of the FEIbIM Commission for Mechatronics and IFToMM technical Committees for Multibody Dynamics, Robotics and Mechatronics.