Trade Liberalisation and Optimal R&D Policies in a Model of Exporting Firms Conducting Process Innovation

URL des Documents de travail : http://ces.univ-paris1.fr/cesdp/cesdp2016.htmlDocuments de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 2016.28 - ISSN 1955-611XThis paper discusses the impact of trade liberalisation and R&D policies on exporting firms' incentive to innovate and social welfare. Key factors determining the government's optimal policy are the strength of R&D spillover effect and the toughness of firm competition. When firms only compete in an overseas market, the optimal policy is to tax R&D. Trade liberalisation in the overseas market induces a higher R&D tax rate to be imposed on firms. When firms also conduct business in the home market, the government should financially support firms' R&D. Trade liberalisation always increases firms' output sales, R&D investments, and social welfare

Stabilization for equal-order polygonal finite element method for high fluid velocity and pressure gradient

This paper presents an adapted stabilisation method for the equal-order mixed scheme of finite elements on convex polygonal meshes to analyse the high velocity and pressure gradient of incompressible fluid flows that are governed by Stokes equations system. This technique is constructed by a local pressure projection which is extremely simple, yet effective, to eliminate the poor or even non-convergence as well as the instability of equal-order mixed polygonal technique. In this research, some numerical examples of incompressible Stokes fluid flow that is coded and programmed by MATLAB will be presented to examine the effectiveness of the proposed stabilised method

A nonlinear concrete damaged plasticity model for simulation reinforced concrete structures using ABAQUS

The reinforced concrete structure is typical and widely used in many fields. The behavior of concrete is nonlinear and complex. Especially, when cracks/crushings occurred in softening phase. Thus, It is important to find a damaged model of concrete with high reliability in the numerical simulation. The nonlinear behavior of concrete is the most feature used in the simulation. This characteristic is expressed through the parameters defining the yield surface, the flow potential, and the nonlinear relationship of stress-strain in the cases of tension and compression. This paper introduces a damaged concrete model that applies to the simulation of reinforced concrete structures. The reinforced concrete beam and flat slab are selected as examples to evaluate the reliability of the model presented. Through the results achieved, the model used in this paper shows high reliability and can be used to simulate more complex reinforced concrete structures

Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica along the pig commodity chain in Vietnam

Foodborne diseases are a particularly important concern in the current Vietnamese context, shortly after accession to the WTO, not only for public health reasons, but also because of the global evolution of consumer demand and habits, the production chain and state regulations. Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica (Salmonella) is known as one of the most frequent food-borne zoonoses in the world and has been isolated in human and pork products in Vietnam, where pork represents 77% of total meat consumption. The aim of this paper is to describe Salmonella prevalence and epidemiology results along the pig commodity chain, at farm, slaughterhouses (both in Hanoi suburb, 206 samples and in slaughter plants connected with Nam Sach farmers in Hai Duong Province, 126 samples,) and for traditional raw meat fermented Vietnamese sausages 'nem chua'. The prevalences by fattening pigs at farm (19%) and in caecal content before slaughter (52% and 40%) were comparable to other studies, whereas the carcass contamination rates were much higher (95.7% and 67%). 35.7% of 213 'nem chua' samples were positive. Serotyping of these isolates suggested that Salmonella contamination is mainly originated from the pig meat itself, with a smaller contribution from the sausages' processing steps. The results confirm that slaughterhouses in Vietnam are the key point to be focused on for improving food safety in the pork commodity chain. The potential public health threat of Salmonella in pork products has been proven by the high prevalence found on 'nem chua' sausages. Further serotyping and genotyping of Hanoi slaughterhouses' isolates aimed to understand the ways of contamination of Salmonella at this important key step. The direct contamination of carcasses through faecal material from the same pig was not clear, but a direct faecal contamination was observed for the tank and the well water. Thus, our results suggested that the main source of carcass contamination was indirect, through the slaughtering environment. Moreover, the results may indicate that live pigs could be infected during lairage through contaminated water and environment, leading to a persistence of certain clones over longer periods. Since the majority (about 90%) of the pig production in Vietnam goes through small slaughter plants, we propose priority economical hygienic control measures adapted to small plants, that could largely decrease the carcass contamination rate. (Résumé d'auteur

Sperner Lemma, Fixed Point Theorems, and the Existence of Equilibrium

In characterizing the existence of general equilibrium, existing studies mainly draw on Brouwer and Kakutani fixed point theorems and, to some extent, Gale-Nikaido-Debreu lemma. In this paper, we show that Sperner lemma can play a role as an alternative powerful tool for the same purpose. Specifically, Sperner lemma can be used to prove those theorems as well as the lemma. Additionally, Kakutani theorem is shown as a corollary of Gale-Nikaido-Debreu lemma. For a demonstration of the use of Sperner lemma to prove general equilibrium existence, we consider two competitive economies marked either by production goods or financial assets. In each case, we successfully provide another proof on the existence of a general equilibrium using only Sperner lemma and without a need to call on the fixed point theorems or the lemma

Liquid pumping and mixing by PZT synthetic jet

In this paper, a PZT synthetic jet that can function as both an efficient pumping and mixing device is developed. Compare with the conventional design where the practice of controlling the internal flow is undertaken by microvalves structure, this approach promotes the durability and allows the device to work with different liquids at high Reynold number without losing of backflow from the diffuser, therefore provides efficient mixing. The pumping performance is applicable for commercialized counterparts while the homogeneous medium was obtained at downstream in the experiments, which was further confirmed by simulation. Notably, the chaotic mixing feature of the device is also applicable for immiscible liquids with the micro-droplet formation result at the outlet

Artemisinin analogues as potent inhibitors of in vitro hepatitis C virus replication

We reported previously that Artemisinin (ART), a widely used anti-malarial drug, is an inhibitor of in vitro HCV subgenomic replicon replication. We here demonstrate that ART exerts its antiviral activity also in hepatoma cells infected with full length infectious HCV JFH-1. We identified a number of ART analogues that are up to 10-fold more potent and selective as in vitro inhibitors of HCV replication than ART. The iron donor Hemin only marginally potentiates the anti-HCV activity of ART in HCV-infected cultures. Carbon-centered radicals have been shown to be critical for the anti-malarial activity of ART. We demonstrate that carbon-centered radicals-trapping (the so-called TEMPO) compounds only marginally affect the anti-HCV activity of ART. This provides evidence that carbon-centered radicals are not the main effectors of the anti-HCV activity of the Artemisinin. ART and analogues may possibly exert their anti-HCV activity by the induction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The combined anti-HCV activity of ART or its analogues with L-N-Acetylcysteine (L-NAC) [a molecule that inhibits ROS generation] was studied. L-NAC significantly reduced the in vitro anti-HCV activity of ART and derivatives. Taken together, the in vitro anti-HCV activity of ART and analogues can, at least in part, be explained by the induction of ROS; carbon-centered radicals may not be important in the anti-HCV effect of these molecules

Model and Feature Diversity for Bayesian Neural Networks in Mutual Learning

Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) offer probability distributions for model parameters, enabling uncertainty quantification in predictions. However, they often underperform compared to deterministic neural networks. Utilizing mutual learning can effectively enhance the performance of peer BNNs. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to improve BNNs performance through deep mutual learning. The proposed approaches aim to increase diversity in both network parameter distributions and feature distributions, promoting peer networks to acquire distinct features that capture different characteristics of the input, which enhances the effectiveness of mutual learning. Experimental results demonstrate significant improvements in the classification accuracy, negative log-likelihood, and expected calibration error when compared to traditional mutual learning for BNNs.</p