A heuristic to detect community structures in dynamic complex networks

Complex networks are ubiquitous; billions of people are connected through social networks; there is an equally large number of telecommunication users and devices generating implicit complex networks. Furthermore, several structures can be represented as complex networks in nature, genetic data, social behavior, financial transactions and many other structures. Most of these complex networks present communities in their structure. Unveiling these communities is highly relevant in many fields of study. However, depending on several factors, the discover of these communities can be computationally intensive. Several algorithms for detecting communities in complex networks have been introduced over time. We will approach some of them. Our goal in this work is to identify or create an understandable and applicable heuristic to detect communities in complex networks, with a focus on time repetitions and strength measures. This work proposes a semi-supervised clustering approach as a modification of the traditional K-means algorithm submitting each dimension of data to a weight in order to obtain a weighted clustering method. As a first case study, databases of companies that have participated in public bids in Paraná state, will be analyzed to detect communities that can suggest structures such as cartels. As a second case study, the same methodology will be used to analyze datasets of microarray data for gene expressions, representing the correlation of the genes through a complex network, applying community detection algorithms in order to witness such correlations between genes

Joint Ventures, Antitrust, and Transnational Cartelization

Joint ventures have fired corporate imaginations and captured the fancy of government officials, who perceive them as key weapons in the struggle to achieve global competitiveness. Characterizing the trend as corporate America\u27s version of the singles bar, Business Week reports that in the current rage for strategic alliances, scarcely a day passes without the announcement of another cooperative inter-corporate agreement. The London Economist reports that just as the vogue for aggressive takeovers in America and Britain has come to an end, many of the world\u27s biggest companies are scrambling to sign up joint-venture partners or to conclude an alliance with a confederate in some other country. The Wall Street Journal describes the number of international joint ventures as having rocketed in recent years, prompting some analysts to anoint them the wave of the future

Joint Ventures, Antitrust, and Transnational Cartelization

Joint ventures have fired corporate imaginations and captured the fancy of government officials, who perceive them as key weapons in the struggle to achieve global competitiveness. Characterizing the trend as corporate America\u27s version of the singles bar, Business Week reports that in the current rage for strategic alliances, scarcely a day passes without the announcement of another cooperative inter-corporate agreement. The London Economist reports that just as the vogue for aggressive takeovers in America and Britain has come to an end, many of the world\u27s biggest companies are scrambling to sign up joint-venture partners or to conclude an alliance with a confederate in some other country. The Wall Street Journal describes the number of international joint ventures as having rocketed in recent years, prompting some analysts to anoint them the wave of the future

Pitt Political Review: GSPIA Edition (Spring 2011, Volume 3)

This volume of the Pitt Political Review: GSPIA Edition includes "Legal and Societal Injustice: Gender Inequality and Land Rights in Tanzania" and "The Transformation of Philanthropy in Sub-Saharan Africa: from Traditional Practices to the Establishment of Grantmaking Foundations." The aim of "Legal and Societal Injustice: Gender Inequality and Land Rights in Tanzania" is to increase awareness of the problems surrounding land rights and gender inequality in Tanzania's Karagwe District. "The Transformation of Philanthropy in Sub-Saharan Africa: from Traditional Practices to the Establishment of Grantmaking Foundations" discusses the effectiveness of African foundations in development over the long-term

Systemic rivalry and balancing interests: Chinese investment meets EU law on the Belt and Road. CEPS Policy Insight No 2019-04 /21 March 2019

For years, the EU has refrained from criticising China’s attempts to shape globalisation according to its own interests. Member states have allowed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to tip the balance of power towards the companies that China owns or subsidises. Alarmed by recent Chinese takeovers in strategic industries, the EU has flagged up its intention to toughen rules on foreign investment flows into Europe. The brand-new EU Strategic Outlook on China adopts a multifaceted approach and defines the ‘Middle Kingdom’ simultaneously as a cooperation and negotiation partner with whom the Union needs to find a balance of interests, an “economic competitor” in pursuit of technological leadership, and a “systemic rival” promoting alternative models of governance. This CEPS Policy Insights paper takes stock of BRI investments in Europe and of member states’ concerns about economic and national security. It examines the EU-wide legal bulwarks and regulatory responses that are intended to hedge against unfair practices. It concludes that while a more realistic and assertive European approach toward Chinese market behaviour is welcome, the EU should take China up on its pledge to embolden the BRI with ‘soft connectivity’, i.e. legal infrastructure, rather than risk mutual harm by adopting too protectionist a stance. This should benefit not just the EU and China but also the other ‘16+1’ countries along the central corridor of the BRI, which passes through the Caucasus, the Balkans and Eastern Europe – all in the spirit of the EU’s 2018 connectivity strategy with Asia

Allies: twenty-seven bold ideas to reimagine the US-Colombia relationship

Este libro también es un llamado a aprovechar las oportunidades emergentes para la participación de Estados Unidos y Colombia en siete áreas generales reflejadas en los capítulos del libro. Estos incluyen y van más allá de las áreas tradicionales de colaboración, estableciendo la base para una sociedad revitalizada de Estados Unidos con Colombia.This book is also an appeal to seize emerging opportunities for US-Colombia engagement in seven overarching areas reflected in the book’s chapters. These include and go beyond traditional areas of collaboration, setting the foundation for a revitalized US partnership with Colombia

Interrelationship models in energy markets

This thesis aims to make two types of academic contributions. It includes both methodological insights about the application of quantitative methods to the study of network industries and theoretical results concerning the economics of energy markets. The theoretical literature on interconnectors has established their potential to mitigate local market power, but the relationship between capacity utilisation and locational market splitting has not been studied empirically. Thus, in the first essay of the thesis I apply Vector Autorregressive (VAR) modelling techniques to data from the Bacton (UK)-Zeebrugge (Belgium) natural gas pipeline. The analysis identifies a threshold of capacity utilisation after which the UK and Continental markets split. The relationship between local price differences and capacity use is increasing and convex. A difference between the UK and Continental markets is that while there are extensive crossholdings in the Continent, UK firms remain in general independent from each other. This raises the issue of how crossholdings affect the firms' ability to coordinate in higher prices. Hence, the second essay presents a set of simulations in which computational agents try to optimise their profit using parameters adapted from the Roth and Erev (1995) reinforcement algorithm. The auction setting is a double-sided stylisation of the European energy markets. The results indicate that market transparency leads to higher prices, that the functional form of the crossholdings to prices relationship is not linear but concave and that more downstream competition reduces the influence of information on wholesale prices. The model in the third essay is complementary to the crossholdings research and incorporates key aspects of the interlinked operations of gas and electricity wholesale markets in the short-run. These sequential multiple-unit auctions present many non-Pareto ranked equilibria and we propose another Roth and Erev (1995) simulation as an alternative. The simulations unveil a new market power mechanism that explains why vertical market power can be observed in the energy industry

The Demise of the Hub-and-Spoke Cartel and the Rise of the Student Athlete: A Significant Step Toward a New Era of Conferences in \u3cem\u3eNCAA v. Alston\u3c/em\u3e

The NCAA is not above the law. On June 21, 2021, the Supreme Court unanimously held in NCAA v. Alston that the NCAA’s student-athlete compensation restrictions violated § 1 of the Sherman Act, and student athletes may now obtain education-related benefits from their name, image, and likeness (NIL). The Court’s holding marked the first time the NCAA’s compensation restrictions failed antitrust scrutiny under the Rule of Reason analysis, but by limiting its holding to education-related benefits, the Court refused to open the floodgates to all forms of NIL compensation. Within its holding, the Court notably rejected the NCAA’s procompetitive argument of preserving amateur athletics, which had largely withstood judicial pressure for nearly half a century. While the Court found the NCAA’s compensation restrictions amounted to horizontal restraints on the student-athlete cognizable labor market as the NCAA engaged in blatant price fixing, it is the NCAA’s enforcement of the restrictions rather than the restrictions themselves that manifests the Sherman Act violation. This Note argues that the NCAA should cede its control over to the conferences comprised of its member institutions, which would remedy the Sherman Act violation as the conferences are in competition with each other, thus making the compensation restrictions a reasonable restraint on trade. Significantly, Justice Kavanaugh’s fiery concurrence in Alston implored the Court to expand its holding to other areas of NIL compensation restrictions outside education, which foreshadows that the Court’s decision in Alston may be essentially mark the end of the NCAA’s iron grip on student athletes