25,124 research outputs found
Parallel imports, innovations and national welfare: The role of the sizes of the income classes and national markets for health care.
This paper shows that regardless of any intra-country income differences, parallel imports result in a lower level of health-care innovation but, contrary to popular as well as conventional theoretical wisdom, a lower price in the Third World compared to market-based discrimination. Despite such a lower price, however, parallel imports unambiguously make all buyers in the Third World worse off when intra-country income disparity exists. On the other hand, even discarding the MNC's profit, there will be cases in which the richer country prefers price discrimination as well. That is, in those cases, no countries will have any incentive under the welfare criterion to undo price discrimination, contrary to Richardso
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The relationship of drug reimbursement with the price and the quality of pharmaceutical innovations
This paper studies the strategic interaction between pharmaceutical firms' pricing decisions and government agencies' reimbursement decisions which discriminate between patients by giving reimbursement rights to patients for whom the drug is most effective. We show that if the reimbursement decision preceeds the pricing decision, the agency only reimburses some patients if the private and public health benefits from the new drug diverge. That is, when (i) there are large externalities of consuming the drug and (ii) the difference in costs between the new drug and the alternative treatment is large. Alternatively, if the firm can commit to a price in advance of the reimbursement decision, we identify a strategic effect which implies that by committing to a high price ex ante, the firm can force a listing outcome and make the agency more willing to reimburse than in the absence of commitment
Ratcheting of granular materials
We investigate the quasi-static mechanical response of soils under cyclic
loading using a discrete model of randomly generated convex polygons. This
response exhibits a sequence of regimes, each one characterized by a linear
accumulation of plastic deformation with the number of cycles. At the grain
level, a quasi-periodic ratchet-like behavior is observed at the contacts,
which excludes the existence of an elastic regime. The study of this slow
dynamics allows to explore the role of friction in the permanent deformation of
unbound granular materials supporting railroads and streets.Comment: Changed content Submitted to Physical Review Letter
Ehrenfest dynamics is purity non-preserving: a necessary ingredient for decoherence
We discuss the evolution of purity in mixed quantum/classical approaches to
electronic nonadiabatic dynamics in the context of the Ehrenfest model. As it
is impossible to exactly determine initial conditions for a realistic system,
we choose to work in the statistical Ehrenfest formalism that we introduced in
Ref. 1. From it, we develop a new framework to determine exactly the change in
the purity of the quantum subsystem along the evolution of a statistical
Ehrenfest system. In a simple case, we verify how and to which extent Ehrenfest
statistical dynamics makes a system with more than one classical trajectory and
an initial quantum pure state become a quantum mixed one. We prove this
numerically showing how the evolution of purity depends on time, on the
dimension of the quantum state space , and on the number of classical
trajectories of the initial distribution. The results in this work open new
perspectives for studying decoherence with Ehrenfest dynamics.Comment: Revtex 4-1, 14 pages, 2 figures. Final published versio
Geometric Phase and Modulo Relations for Probability Amplitudes as Functions on Complex Parameter Spaces
We investigate general differential relations connecting the respective
behavior s of the phase and modulo of probability amplitudes of the form
\amp{\psi_f}{\psi}, where is a fixed state in Hilbert space
and is a section of a holomorphic line bundle over some complex
parameter space. Amplitude functions on such bundles, while not strictly
holomorphic, nevertheless satisfy generalized Cauchy-Riemann conditions
involving the U(1) Berry-Simon connection on the parameter space. These
conditions entail invertible relations between the gradients of the phase and
modulo, therefore allowing for the reconstruction of the phase from the modulo
(or vice-versa) and other conditions on the behavior of either polar component
of the amplitude. As a special case, we consider amplitude functions valued on
the space of pure states, the ray space , where
transition probabilities have a geometric interpretation in terms of geodesic
distances as measured with the Fubini-Study metric. In conjunction with the
generalized Cauchy-Riemann conditions, this geodesic interpretation leads to
additional relations, in particular a novel connection between the modulus of
the amplitude and the phase gradient, somewhat reminiscent of the WKB formula.
Finally, a connection with geometric phases is established.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, revtex
Field experimental study of traffic-induced turbulence on highways
This paper is focused on traffic-induced turbulence (TIT) analysis from a field campaign performed in 2011, using ultrasonic anemometers deployed in the M-12 Highways, Madrid (Spain). The study attempts to improve knowledge about the influence of traffic-related parameters on turbulence. Linear relationships between vehicle speed and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) values are found with coefficients of determination (R2) of 0.75 and 0.55 for the lorry and van respectively. The vehicle-induced fluctuations in the wind components (u', v' and w') showed the highest values for the longitudinal component (v) because of the wake-passing effect. In the analysis of wake produced by moving vehicles it is indicated how the turbulence dissipates in relation to a distance d and height h. The TKE values were found to be higher at the measuring points closer to the surface during the wake analysis.This work was supported by the OASIS Research Project that was co financed by CDTI (Spanish Science and Innovation Ministry) and developed with the Spanish companies: Iridium, OHL Concesiones, Abertis, Sice, Indra, Dragados, OHL, Geocisa, GMV, Asfaltos Augusta, Hidrofersa, Eipsa, PyG, CPS, AEC and Torre de Comares Arquitectos s.l and 16 research centres
Neural-Network Vector Controller for Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motor Drives: Simulated and Hardware-Validated Results
This paper focuses on current control in a permanentmagnet synchronous motor (PMSM). The paper has two main objectives: The first objective is to develop a neural-network (NN) vector controller to overcome the decoupling inaccuracy problem associated with conventional PI-based vector-control methods. The NN is developed using the full dynamic equation of a PMSM, and trained to implement optimal control based on approximate dynamic programming. The second objective is to evaluate the robust and adaptive performance of the NN controller against that of the conventional standard vector controller under motor parameter variation and dynamic control conditions by (a) simulating the behavior of a PMSM typically used in realistic electric vehicle applications and (b) building an experimental system for hardware validation as well as combined hardware and simulation evaluation. The results demonstrate that the NN controller outperforms conventional vector controllers in both simulation and hardware implementation
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