Firm technological responses to regulatory changes: A longitudinal study in the Le Mans Prototype racing

Despite the critical role of regulations on competition and innovation, little is known about firm responses and related effects on performance under regulatory contingencies that are permissive or restrictive. By longitudinally investigating hybrid cars competing in the Le Mans Prototype racing (LMP1), we counter-intuitively suggest that permissive regulations increase technological uncertainty and thus decrease the firms’ likelihood of shifting their technological trajectory, while restrictive regulations lead to the opposite outcome. Further, we suggest that permissive regulations favour firms that innovate their products by sequentially upgrading core and peripheral subsystems, while restrictive regulations—in the long term— favour firms upgrading them simultaneously. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

Load Balancing a Cluster of Web Servers using Distributed Packet Rewriting

In this paper, we propose and evaluate an implementation of a prototype scalable web server. The prototype consists of a load-balanced cluster of hosts that collectively accept and service TCP connections. The host IP addresses are advertised using the Round Robin DNS technique, allowing any host to receive requests from any client. Once a client attempts to establish a TCP connection with one of the hosts, a decision is made as to whether or not the connection should be redirected to a different host---namely, the host with the lowest number of established connections. We use the low-overhead Distributed Packet Rewriting (DPR) technique to redirect TCP connections. In our prototype, each host keeps information about connections in hash tables and linked lists. Every time a packet arrives, it is examined to see if it has to be redirected or not. Load information is maintained using periodic broadcasts amongst the cluster hosts.National Science Foundation (CCR-9706685); Microsof

Large Transverse Momentum Jet Production and DIS Distributions of the Proton

We have calculated the single jet inclusive cross section as measured at Fermilab in next-to-leading order QCD using recent parton distributions of the CTEQ collaboration. We studied the scheme dependence of the jet cross section by employing the \overline{\mbox{MS}} and DIS factorization schemes consistently. For $E_T > 200$ GeV, we find that the cross section in the DIS scheme is larger than in the \overline{\mbox{MS}} scheme yielding a satisfactory description of the CDF data over the whole $E_T$ range in the DIS scheme.Comment: 7 pages, latex, 2 figures include

MAGDA: A Mobile Agent based Grid Architecture

Mobile agents mean both a technology and a programming paradigm. They allow for a flexible approach which can alleviate a number of issues present in distributed and Grid-based systems, by means of features such as migration, cloning, messaging and other provided mechanisms. In this paper we describe an architecture (MAGDA – Mobile Agent based Grid Architecture) we have designed and we are currently developing to support programming and execution of mobile agent based application upon Grid systems

Measurement of the neutral pion cross section in proton-proton collisions at sqrt{s}=200GeV with PHENIX

The inclusive cross section for neutral pion production in the range 1<p_T<13GeV/c in |eta|<0.35 has been measured by the PHENIX experiment in proton-proton collisions at sqrt{s}=200GeV. An NLO pQCD calculation is, within the experimental and theoretical uncertainties, consistent with the measurement.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Talk presented at Quark Matter 2002, Nantes, France, July 18-24, 2002. To appear in the proceedings (Nucl. Phys. A

A história da educacâo matemática como linha de pesquisa em um mestrado profissional em educacâo matemática

A Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) criou no Brasil, desde 2002, uma segunda modalidade de pós-graduação em nível de mestrado: aos mestrados acadêmicos juntaram-se os mestrados profissionais. As pesquisas nesse nível de formação na linha de História da Educação Matemática têm sido normalmente desenvolvidas por programas acadêmicos. Como contribuição ao debate, trago as experiências vividas pelo Laboratório de Pesquisa em História da Educação Matemática (LaPHEM), em especial sobre as adequações que vem desenvolvendo em produções de um mestrado profissional nessa linha de pesquisa

Heavy-quark jets in hadronic collisions

We present a next-to-leading order QCD calculation of the production rates of jets containing heavy quarks. This calculation is performed using the standard Snowmass jet algorithm; it therefore allows a comparison with similar results known at next-to-leading order for generic jets. As an application, we present results for the inclusive transverse energy of charm and bottom jets at the Tevatron collider, with a complete study of the dependence on the jet cone-size and of the theoretical uncertainties.Comment: 23 pages Latex, uses epsfig.sty, 16 eps figures appended as uuencoded, gzipped, tarred fil

Scientific image processing within the NFFA-EUROPE Data Repository

This thesis is embedded within the NFFA-EUROPE project, that aims to setup the first overarching Information and Data management Repository Platform (IDRP) for the nanoscience community. The main goal of the IDRP developement is to semiautomatize the harvesting of scientific data coming from many different instruments among NFFA European facilities, and identify the correct metadata to allow them to be searchable accordingly to the FAIR Guiding Principles [1]. For our analysis, we selected data from a specific instrument, the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The reasons for this choice are many:..

Investigation on the Performance of a Long Breathing Lean NOx Trap Using n-Butanol

As regulations for nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions continue to be tightened, the need for both alternative fuels and intensive exhaust after-treatment will increase. n-Butanol as an alternative fuel has demonstrated the potential to reduce both NOx and particulate matter (PM) emissions, simultaneously. The use of n-butanol in a compression ignition (CI) engine was studied on an engine test bench, at low and medium load. Engine-out NOx emissions were reduced with the application of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), although, they were not low enough to meet emission regulations, indicating that further NOx reduction in the exhaust would be required. Lean NOx trap (LNT) experiments were conducted on an after-treatment flow bench using simulated exhaust conditions. n-Butanol proved to be a more effective reductant than diesel for regeneration at 3% exhaust oxygen concentration, due to a higher hydrogen production, although at 0% exhaust oxygen concentration, diesel was slightly more effective than n-butanol. The long breathing n-butanol LNT strategy of this work proved to be capable of reducing the fuel penalty associated with an LNT by nearly 90% compared to the conventional LNT operating schemes, while simultaneously achieving ultra-low NOx emissions

T cell depleted haploidentical transplantation: positive selection

Interest in mismatched transplantation arises from the fact that a suitable one-haplotype mismatched donor is immediately available for virtually all patients, particularly for those who urgently need an allogenic transplant. Work on one haplotype-mismatched transplants has been proceeding for over 20 years all over the world and novel transplant techniques have been developed. Some centres have focused on the conditioning regimens and post transplant immune suppression; others have concentrated on manipulating the graft which may be a megadose of extensively T celldepleted or unmanipulated progenitor cells. Excellent engraftment rates are associated with a very low incidence of acute and chronic GVHD and regimen-related mortality even in patients who are over 50 years old. Overall, event-free survival and transplant-related mortality compare favourably with reports on transplants from sources of stem cells other than the matched sibling