How Does Market Network Structure Affect Participants' Benefits?

A mathematical model is made to answer the question of how market network structure affects market participants’ benefits. In this paper, one monopoly, one kind of goods, and n consumers are assumed to form the market. The market network structure is defined as the mutual influences among consumers on purchase behaviors, and the benefits are defined as the sum of each consumer’s utility as well as the profit of the monopoly. By completely knowing or not knowing the market network structure, the monopoly is designed to make decisions on price in such two cases. As a result, this paper finds that (1) when the market network structure is symmetric, completely knowing or not knowing the market structure network structure does not change the participants’ benefits; (2) when the market network structure is asymmetric, knowing the network structure can help to improve the monopoly’s profit, and meanwhile the consumers’ benefits are identical on average in the statistical sense; (3) the increasing degree of the network structure matrix’s asymmetry leads to the increasing benefits of the monopoly with fixing its original structure. Besides, policy implications and further work are also discussed

Restive Subjects: Russian Protest, 2007–2013

This dissertation develops and evaluates a structural theory of protest onset, applied to the Russian case. Russian stability has become a pressing international political concern, as Putin has annexed the Crimea, fomented one war, in Ukraine, and become a major player in another, in Syria. In December 2011, thousands of Russians gathered in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and other cities for the largest set of protests since the fall of the USSR. Waves of protest have reappeared sporadically since. Each time, events create islands of dissent, spread widely, but unevenly, throughout the country - in a picture reminiscent of the pre-collapse Soviet Union. The dissertation argues that only an integrated theoretical framework can adequately explain protest onset variation. Such a framework must include three leading positions: social mobilization capacity, grievances, and political opportunity structure. It must include an additional element as well: state capacity, which is only weakly present in the theoretical canon of Social Movement Studies. The project requires novel sub-national data to test the integrated framework. Independent variable data derives from the Russian Federal Statistics Service. Dependent variable data derives from activist-curated web collections. According to statistical results, structural factors do, in fact, systematically explain variation in Russian protest from 2007 to 2013. A time series negative binomial regression model reports that protests are most likely in federal subjects featuring highly urbanized populations, high unemployment, and low social spending. These structural factors provide a probabilistic explanation of Russian protest variation over the time horizon. A paired case study, focused on Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk Krai, evaluates quantitative results and offers model specification suggestions. Conclusions indicate that targeted public spending serves as a tool with which the Russian state can coopt public obedience; local governments can employ revenues as a tool to maintain social order. These finding generate novel international political implications, particularly connected with commodity price fluctuation and wars in Ukraine and Syria

Contesting corporate environmentalism in post-apartheid South Africa: A process of institutional and organisational change.

The environmental governance of multinational corporations in developing countries is relatively understudied. Much of the existing work on the greening of industry focuses on one scale of governance (international, national or local), without adequately accounting for the socio-spatial complexities, either external or internal to the firm, which influence the take up and implementation of corporate environmentalism at the site level. My thesis explores how and why corporate environmentalism has evolved in three South African fuel oil refineries (two in Durban and one in Cape Town) between 1994 and 2006. Institutional and organisational theory, with insights from the literature on spatialities of corporate greening, informs this study. An analytical framework of multinational corporation complexity and organisational field dynamics is established to explore the process of institutional and organisational change. At the macro or organisational field level, actors compete to construct meanings of legitimate corporate environmental practice. Organisational fields are shaped by the interaction between institutional actors, institutional logics and governance structures. At the micro level, firm legitimation strategies and characteristics may explain how corporate greening differs. The research findings are triangulated using key informant interviews, document analysis and social network analysis. Punctuated by key events, bifurcated processes of institutional and organisational change are documented. In Durban changing normative and cognitive institutions drove the evolution of regulation: above all, an internationally networked civil society exercised discursive power by demanding environmental justice and corporate accountability from the private and public sectors. In Cape Town the organisational field remained fragmented as community-driven discursive strategies did not achieve significant governance outcomes and institutional and organisational change evolved more slowly. The company with the most significant home country and parent company pressure, Shell/Sapref, made the most gains in repairing its legitimacy and improving its environmental performance. In sum, corporate environmentalism in post-apartheid South Africa has been contested and constructed by processes of scalar and place-based politics

A Comparative Analysis of Variations in Synthetic Biology Regulation.

Synthetic biology is an emerging technology with the potential to offer significant scientific developments to various fields such as with pharmaceutical development. Despite such promise, it has uncertain potential risks that may yield lasting and consequential damage to humans, animals, and the environment. In order to address such risks, national governments may utilize regulatory instruments to capture the process of synthetic biology development. However, where synthetic biology remains an uncertain technology with limited experimental testing, the regulation and governance of synthetic biology may vary from one government to another. This dissertation seeks to explain why such variations in the regulation of synthetic biology arise across various governments. Focusing on the specific cases of the United States, Singapore, and the European Union, these variations are hypothesized to be caused by elements of risk culture, or the political and institutional factors that influence local regulatory decision making. This hypothesis is tested via a literature analysis and an assessment of subject expert interviews from each case via qualitative discourse analysis. More specifically, findings from this dissertation indicate that of these factors, historical path dependency of the regulation of genetically modified organisms and similar biotechnologies has the strongest effect with respect to influencing variations of regulation for synthetic biology.PHDHealth Services Organization & PolicyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135739/1/bdtrump_1.pd

THE SALIVARY IL-1? AS PERIODONTAL DISEASE DIAGNOSTIC MARKER

Abstract. Periodontal disease is preceeded from gingivitis, if not treated appropriately this inflamation disease will be worse . It turns into periodontitis . more severe . Periodontitis is characterized by loss of tissue attachment and alveolar bone destruction. Interleukin-1? (IL-1?) is one of the main cytokines related to pathology of inflammatory and potentially stimulate bone resorption. Saliva is oral fluid that may reflect the levels of IL-1? as a biological marker of inflammation in periodontal disease. The purpose of this study was to determine the difference between the levels of IL-1? GCF contained in the present in saliva . Samples have as many as 54 people, divided into three main groups, 18 patients with mild gingivitis, 18 with mild periodontitis patients and 18 healthy controls with ages ranging between 17-45 years. Unstimulated whole saliva were collected, then IL-1? levels were measured using ELISA. The average levels of IL-1? contained in saliva by Ramfjord PDI group has significant difference (p <0.05). There are differences between the levels of IL-1? contained in saliva on healthy group, mild gingivitis, and mild periodontitis

ATTITUDE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION TEACHER CANDIDATE ACCOUNTING

This study aims to determine the attitude of student teachers entrepreneur accounting education in preparation for the world of work. The population is of students of accounting education Pasundan University Bandung. The method used to use descriptive research with case study design and field (Case study and field study). The time required within a period of one semester, the details of which include: 1) introduction; 2) implementation of research; 3) data collection; 4) decision-making. Sources of data throughout the student population accounting education courses at the Teaching Faculty of Education and Science force in 2012 while a student sample as many as 25 people. While the data collection tool can be collected with instruments in the form of 1. Questionnaire, 2. Interview Guide, 3. Observation and 4. Documentation. The results of the initial data questionnaire Accounting majors are not normally distributed, so do non-parametric statistical tests by SPSS 17.0 for Windows using the Chi square with a significance level of 0.05, and tested one party that is testing the right side. From the calculation results still need to be developed research instruments to make the data more accurate Keyword : attitude , accounting education, the prospective teacher, entrepreneu

Rethinking the risk matrix

So far risk has been mostly defined as the expected value of a loss, mathematically PL (being P the probability of an adverse event and L the loss incurred as a consequence of the adverse event). The so called risk matrix follows from such definition. This definition of risk is justified in a long term “managerial” perspective, in which it is conceivable to distribute the effects of an adverse event on a large number of subjects or a large number of recurrences. In other words, this definition is mostly justified on frequentist terms. Moreover, according to this definition, in two extreme situations (high-probability/low-consequence and low-probability/high-consequence), the estimated risk is low. This logic is against the principles of sustainability and continuous improvement, which should impose instead both a continuous search for lower probabilities of adverse events (higher and higher reliability) and a continuous search for lower impact of adverse events (in accordance with the fail-safe principle). In this work a different definition of risk is proposed, which stems from the idea of safeguard: (1Risk)=(1P)(1L). According to this definition, the risk levels can be considered low only when both the probability of the adverse event and the loss are small. Such perspective, in which the calculation of safeguard is privileged to the calculation of risk, would possibly avoid exposing the Society to catastrophic consequences, sometimes due to wrong or oversimplified use of probabilistic models. Therefore, it can be seen as the citizen’s perspective to the definition of risk

The Effect of Values on System Development Project Outcomes

In order to understand why organizations make certain decisions and target certain outcomes, it is useful to understand their priorities and preferences, commonly referred to as “values.” This research explores the relationship between the technical values held by system development teams and the operational effectiveness of the systems those teams produce. Specifically, it examines the impact of a value set called FIST (Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, Tiny) on DoD and NASA system development projects, and investigates the correlation between the FIST values and operational outcomes. The findings show that the FIST value set enhances project stability, increases the project leader’s control and accountability, optimizes failure, fosters “luck,” and facilitates learning. These benefits of the FIST approach all support the goal of ensuring the organization delivers systems which are “available when needed and effective when used.” FIST is therefore recommended as an effective approach to system development, and several heuristics are provided to facilitate understanding and application of these values

Management: A continuing literature survey with indexes, March 1976

Management is a compilation of references to selected reports, journal articles, and other documents on the subject of management. This publication lists 368 documents originally announced in the 1975 issues of Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports (STAR) or International Aerospace Abstracts (IAA). It includes references on the management of research and development, contracts, production, logistics, personnel, safety, reliability and quality control. It also includes references on: program, project and systems management; management policy, philosophy, tools, and techniques; decisionmaking processes for managers; technology assessment; management of urban problems; and information for managers on Federal resources, expenditures, financing, and budgeting