Effects of the EU-Enlargement on Income Convergence in the Eastern Border Regions

This paper analyses the effect of the EU enlargement process on income convergence among regions in the EU and in the Eastern neighbourhood of the EU. The data used is NUTS II regions in the EU and Oblasts' of Russia over the period 1996-2004. The estimation techniques used take into account both regional and spatial heterogeneity. The main findings are that the regional income differences are reduced within EU15. The income convergence within the EU is mainly driven by reductions in the differences across countries rather than by a reduction in regional differences within countries. When differences in initial conditions in the regions are controlled for by fixed regional effects there are strong evidences of convergence among regions in all studied country groups.Income convergence, European integration, Border effects

The Evidence of Buyer Bargaining Power in The Stockholm Residential Real Estate Market

The objective is to investigate whether uninformed buyers pay higher prices for single-family houses than do other buyers and test whether the bargaining power increases with information. We examine data on real estate prices and attributes, as well as household characteristics and buying process from Stockholm. Our results show that uninformed buyers seem to pay a higher price than informed buyers do. Bargaining power is not weaker for a first-time buyer but is weaker if the household has participated in several biddings and lost. Repeated bidding-and-losing households are more willing to increase their reservation price and pay a higher overall price compared to other households.

Understanding the Unoriginal: Indeterminant Originalism and Independent Interpretation of the Alaska Constitution

Loudspeakers were invented over 150 years ago, but the loudspeakers used todayare still based on the same ideas. Traditionally, good sound quality has been obtainedby using expensive materials in the loudspeakers and by allowing themto be big. However, nowadays loudspeakers are wanted in applications such asmobile phones and tablets where size and weight are very limited and there is aconstant desire to decrease production costs. Special small loudspeakers, knownas micro loudspeakers, have been developed for this purpose but due to the severerestrictions in size and manufacturing costs, the sound quality in the microloudspeakers is relatively poor. One problem is that the nonlinearities of thesystem, present in any loudspeaker, become more evident in the case of microloudspeakers and cause noticeable distortion of the sound.This master’s thesis has been performed in cooperation with Opalum (formerlyActiwave), a company specializing in using digital signal processing to improvethe sound in loudspeakers with poor acoustic properties. The objective of thethesis is to investigate ways to increase the sound quality in micro loudspeakersby using nonlinear control. Focus has been on frequencies below the resonancefrequency since the distortion is more noticeable at low frequencies. First, a nonlinearmodel of the micro loudspeaker has been obtained using system identificationstrategies. The model describes the relationship between the voltage overthe voice-coil and the diaphragm displacement. Subsequently, input-output linearisationhas been used to design a controller for the system and the effect onthe distortion has been investigated through experiments. Two different modelstructures have been tested, a physical model based on the Thiele-Small modeland a black-box model with a Hammerstein-Wiener structure. In both cases, thenonlinearities were modelled as polynomials. The controller was then extendedwith an updating algorithm, making it adaptive.The efficiency of the controllers has been proved by experiments, where distortionwas decreased by up to 60 % compared to the case without control. The effectwas largest for low frequencies, around one third of the resonance frequency,but improvements were noted up to about two thirds of the resonance frequency,depending on the loudspeaker unit. The approach using a physical model andthat using a black-box model have shown similar results.Högtalaren uppfanns för över 150 år sedan men de högtalare som används idagbygger till stora delar på samma teknik. Högkvalitativt ljud har traditionellt uppnåttsgenom att ge högtalaren goda akustiska egenskaper genom att tillåta den attvara stor och tillverkad av dyra material. Utmaningen idag ligger i att högtalarefinns inbyggda i exempelvis mobiltelefoner, vilket innebär att de behöver görassmå, lätta och billiga att producera. För att möta dessa krav har kompromisserkrävts vilket gör att dessa små högtalare, kallade mikrohögtalare, har sämre ljudkvalitet.Ett problem är att de olinjäriteter som finns i alla högtalare blir extraframträdande i små högtalare vilket leder till distorsion och övertoner i ljudsignalen.Detta examensarbete är gjort i samarbete med Opalum (tidigare Actiwave), vilketär ett företag som specialiserar sig på att med hjälp av digital signalbehandlingförbättra ljudkvaliteten för högtalare med akustiskt dåliga egenskaper. Syftetmed examensarbetet har varit att minska distorsionen i en mikrohögtalaremed hjälp av olinjär reglering. Fokus har legat på den lägre delen av frekvensbandet,under resonansfrekvensen, eftersom det är där distorsionen är mest märkbar.Först har en olinjär modell av högtalaren tagits fram genom systemidentifiering.Modellen förklarar sambandet mellan spänningen över högtalarens talspole ochmembranets utslag. I ett nästa steg har en regulator designats utifrån modellenoch regulatorns effekt på distorsionen har utvärderats genom experiment. Två olikamodellstrukturer har undersökts, dels en fysikalisk modell baserad på Thiele-Smallmodellen och dels en svartlådemodell med Hammerstein-Wienerstruktur.I båda fallen har olinjäriteterna modellerats som polynom. Regulatorn har sedanutökats med en uppdateringsalgoritm som gör den adaptiv.Experiment har visat att regleringen bidrog till att minska distorsionen med upptill 60 % jämfört med då systemet kördes utan reglering. Effekten har varit störstför låga frekvenser, kring en tredjedel av resonsnsfrekvensen, men förbättringarhar kunnat ses upp till frekvenser kring två tredjedelar av resonansfrekvensen.Både metoden med en fysikalisk modellstruktur och med en svartlådestrukturhar visat likartade resultat

Confronting the Future: Coping with Discovery of Electronic Material

Earlier research has found that housing and childbearing are linked, difficulties accessinghousing possibly delaying childbearing and negatively effecting education opportunities. Toincrease housing accessibility, some municipalities have earmarked apartments for youngadults. These “youth dwellings” are criticized for being small and not necessarily facilitatingfamily formation and fertility, better suiting students’ needs. We analyze the childbearing andeducation patterns of young adults entering youth housing in 1996. We follow them for 14years to examine the causal effect of youth housing on childbearing and higher educationusing a propensity score matching technique. Results indicates that gaining access to small,low-rent inner-city rental apartments earmarked for young adults promote higher educationbut negatively affect childbearing, unless the rest of the housing market permits these rentersto advance their housing careers.Qc 20150205</p

Engineering the cooling and ventilation for the LHC

Early in the LHC-project, a decision was made to complete in-house, as much of the engineering for the new cooling and ventilation systems as was practicable. This is achieved using the competence of resident (CERN staff) engineers for the studies, project management, on-site installation, supervision, etc. The documentation has however, been compiled using the format of tender drawings in the technical office by industrial service personnel. This model, adopted by the Cooling and Ventilation (CV) group is attractive from the viewpoint of conservation of “know-how” within CERN. The main difficulty is however, to be able to absorb such an important project within available manpower. This paper will revisit the arguments behind this method as well as summarize the results to date. Finally, the author will outline other methods (followed by other groups within the project), for a comparison with the model chosen by ST/CV

Co-generation at CERN: Beneficial or not?

A co-generation plant for the combined production of electricity and heat has recently been installed on the CERN Meyrin site. This plant consists of: a gas turbine generator set (GT-set), a heat recovery boiler for the connection to the CERN primary heating network, as well as various components for the integration on site. A feasibility study was carried out and based on the argument that the combined use of natural gas -available anyhow for heating purposes- gives an attractively high total efficiency, which will, in a period of time, pay off the investment. This report will explain and update the calculation model, thereby confirming the benefits of the project. The results from the commissioning tests will be taken into account, as well as the benefits to be realized under the condition that the plant can operate undisturbed by technical setbacks which, incidentally, has not been entirely avoided during the first year of test-run and operation

New Trends in the Outsourcing of Maintenance/Operation Services

The contracting-experience of maintenance/operation work in our group can today be considered as rich with the first generation of contract implemented more than 15 years ago. The incumbent contract was started in 1997, so it is now into its 4th year. Certain improvements that have already been implemented has had a large impact on our contract culture e.g. performance indicators. The next re-tendering is now approaching and with this borne in mind, the author will discuss through various sections of this report the following main points: firstly, an overview of the trends today in this area; secondly, comparing these trends with implemented practices; and finally, what can be future development in the outsourcing of the maintenance/operation of the Cooling & Ventilation services

Field Programmable Gate Arrays and Reconfigurable Computing in Automatic Control

New combustion engine principles increase the demands on feedback combustion control, at the same time economical considerations currently enforce the usage of low-end control hardware limiting implementation possibilities. Significant development is simultaneously and continuously carried out within the field of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). In recent years FPGAs have developed, from being a device mainly used to implement grids of 'glue-logic' to something of a flexible 'dream device' in cost and performance sensitive applications. It is not solely the development of FPGA devices which has made the FPGA the promising implementation platform it is, development of software tool sets and design methodologies is as important as the device as such. This thesis describes the nature of FPGAs, how they work, which programming environments that are available and which design methodologies that can be used on different levels. Focus is set on implementing control and feedback control on FPGAs in general terms. There are a lot of practical considerations differing between the FPGA environment and the well-known micro-controller environment and those are discussed from the view of the literature available in the different areas. The potential application of FPGAs is described and illustrated with application examples found in the literature, both general applications and control applications are discussed. The intended application is control of internal combustion engines and one FPGA implementation of a modeling algorithm commonly used within automotive control is described and discussed. The intention is to illustrate the usefulness in automotive control applications. Finally a suggestion of a suitable FPGA based automotive-control development environment is treat

Harmonizing Unfair Commercial Practices Law: The Cultural and Social Dimensions

This article discusses, in light of the European experience concerning harmonization of unfair commercial practices law, the impact of social, cultural, and linguistic variations on the possibility of harmonizing or transplanting rules on commercial communications to consumers. Empirical research on national variations in consumers\u27 responses to advertising and other marketing is used to create a typology of cases in which cultural factors should be taken into account when assessing a commercial practice from a consumer point of view. Differences between countries with regard to consumers\u27 trust, understandings, rationality patterns, decision-making behaviour, values, and preferences are discussed as relevant cases. The empirical examples provide a basis for a criticism of culturally blind harmonization and transplantation attempts

Strict Liability for Dangerous Activities in Nordic Tort Law - an Adequate Answer to Late Modern Uncertainty?

Nordic (Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish) tort law illustrates the oscillation between negligence and forms of strict liability in contemporary tort law. Starting from negligence as the main rule Nordic tort law has through both legislation and court practice pragmatically developed several instances of strict liability. Therefore, as to strict liability Nordic tort law appears fragmented and there are differences in detail between the Nordic countries as well. However, in the paper this lack of rigid systematics is not pictured as a failure, but rather as a natural reaction to the need of experimentalism in late modern tort law. The inherent uncertainty of the risk society in combination with the stability demands of the insurance society is well served by situation-specific reactions to new dangers stabilizing in islands of strict liability. A combination of a generalizing and a case list method offers the courts tools for a continuously learning law. However, when assessing the general system of compensation for personal injury, such learning through case law can only provide pointillistic improvement. The bulk of personal injury cases, related i.a. to traffic and employment, is, also in the Nordic countries, covered by legislation based on strict liability and mandatory insurance.Peer reviewe