Optimal Integration Strategies for the Multinational Firm

We examine integration strategies of multinational firms that face a rich array of choices of international organization. Each firm in an industry must provide headquarter services from its home country, produce intermediate inputs, and assemble the intermediate goods into final products. Both production of intermediate goods and assembly can be performed at home, in another “Northern” country, in the low-wage “South,” or in several of these locations. We study the equilibrium choices of firms that differ in productivity (and thus size), focusing on the role of industry characteristics such as the fixed costs of foreign subsidiaries, the cost of transporting intermediate and final goods, and the share of the consumer market that resides in the South in determining optimal integration strategies.direct foreign investment, multinational corporations, intra-firm trade, vertical integration

Optimal Integration Strategies for the Multinational Firm

We examine integration strategies of multinational firms that face a rich array of choices of international organization. Each firm in an industry must provide headquarter services from its home country, produce intermediate inputs, and assemble the intermediate goods into final products. Both production of intermediate goods and assembly can be performed at home, in another “Northern” country, in the low-wage “South,” or in several of these locations. We study the equilibrium choices of firms that differ in productivity (and thus size), focusing on the role of industry characteristics such as the fixed costs of foreign subsidiaries, the cost of transporting intermediate and final goods,and the share of the consumer market that resides in the South in determining optimal integration strategies.

Optimal Integration Strategies for the Multinational Firm

We examine integration strategies of multinational firms that face a rich array of choices of international organization. Each firm in an industry must provide headquarter services from its home country, produce intermediate inputs, and assemble the intermediate goods into final products. Both production of intermediate goods and assembly can be performed at home, in another Northern' country, in the low-wage South,' or in several of these locations. We study the equilibrium choices of firms that differ in productivity (and thus size), focusing on the role of industry characteristics such as the fixed costs of foreign subsidiaries, the cost of transporting intermediate and final goods, and the share of the consumer market that resides in the South in determining optimal integration strategies.

YabA of Bacillus subtilis controls DnaA-mediated replication initiation but not the transcriptional response to replication stress

yabA encodes a negative regulator of replication initiation in Bacillus subtilis and homologues are found in many other Gram-positive species. YabA interacts with the β-processivity clamp (DnaN) of DNA polymerase and with the replication initiator and transcription factor DnaA. Because of these interactions, YabA has been proposed to modulate the activity of DnaA. We investigated the role of YabA in regulating replication initiation and the activity of DnaA as a transcription factor. We found that YabA function is mainly limited to replication initiation at oriC. Loss of YabA did not significantly alter expression of genes controlled by DnaA during exponential growth or after replication stress, indicating that YabA is not required for modulating DnaA transcriptional activity. We also found that DnaN activates replication initiation apparently through effects on YabA. Furthermore, association of GFP-YabA with the replisome correlated with the presence of DnaN at replication forks, but was independent of DnaA. Our results are consistent with models in which YabA inhibits replication initiation at oriC, and perhaps DnaA function at oriC, but not with models in which YabA generally modulates the activity of DnaA in response to replication stress.United States. Public Health Service (Grant GM41934)National Institutes of Health (U.S) ( Kirschstein NRSA postdoctoral fellowship 5 F32 G-076950

B_s-anti-B_s Mixing in Z' Models with Flavor-Changing Neutral Currents

In models with an extra U(1)' gauge boson family non-universal couplings to the weak eigenstates of the standard model fermions generally induce flavor-changing neutral currents. This phenomenon leads to interesting results in various B meson decays, for which recent data indicate hints of new physics involving significant contributions from b -> s transitions. We analyze the B_s system, emphasizing the effects of a Z' on the mass difference and CP asymmetries.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures; references added, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Identification of complex metabolic states in critically injured patients using bioinformatic cluster analysis

IntroductionAdvances in technology have made extensive monitoring of patient physiology the standard of care in intensive care units (ICUs). While many systems exist to compile these data, there has been no systematic multivariate analysis and categorization across patient physiological data. The sheer volume and complexity of these data make pattern recognition or identification of patient state difficult. Hierarchical cluster analysis allows visualization of high dimensional data and enables pattern recognition and identification of physiologic patient states. We hypothesized that processing of multivariate data using hierarchical clustering techniques would allow identification of otherwise hidden patient physiologic patterns that would be predictive of outcome.MethodsMultivariate physiologic and ventilator data were collected continuously using a multimodal bioinformatics system in the surgical ICU at San Francisco General Hospital. These data were incorporated with non-continuous data and stored on a server in the ICU. A hierarchical clustering algorithm grouped each minute of data into 1 of 10 clusters. Clusters were correlated with outcome measures including incidence of infection, multiple organ failure (MOF), and mortality.ResultsWe identified 10 clusters, which we defined as distinct patient states. While patients transitioned between states, they spent significant amounts of time in each. Clusters were enriched for our outcome measures: 2 of the 10 states were enriched for infection, 6 of 10 were enriched for MOF, and 3 of 10 were enriched for death. Further analysis of correlations between pairs of variables within each cluster reveals significant differences in physiology between clusters.ConclusionsHere we show for the first time the feasibility of clustering physiological measurements to identify clinically relevant patient states after trauma. These results demonstrate that hierarchical clustering techniques can be useful for visualizing complex multivariate data and may provide new insights for the care of critically injured patients

Doubly-charged scalar bosons from the doublet

We consider the extended Higgs models, in which one of the isospin doublet scalar fields carries the hypercharge Y=3/2. Such a doublet field $\Phi_{3/2}$ is composed of a doubly charged scalar boson as well as a singly charged one. We first discuss a simple model with $\Phi_{3/2}$ (Model I), and study its collider phenomenology at the LHC. We then consider a new model for radiatively generating neutrino masses with a dark matter candidate (Model II), in which $\Phi_{3/2}$ and an extra Y=1/2 doublet as well as vector-like singlet fermions carry the odd quantum number for an unbroken discrete $Z_2$ symmetry. We also discuss the neutrino mass model (Model III), in which the exact $Z_2$ parity in Model II is softly broken. It is found that the doubly charged scalar bosons in these models show different phenomenological aspects from those which appear in models with a Y=2 isospin singlet field or a Y=1 triplet one. They could be clearly distinguished at the LHC.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Fig. 2 replaced, references added, typo correcte