Price Discrimination between Retailers with and without Market Power

Some retail markets are more competitive than others. A manufacturer with market power in the wholesale market who sells his product to competing retailers in cities and monopolistic ones in each of various towns must set the wholesale price difference between towns and cities to be smaller than the transportation cost to prevent “grey market” arbitrage. If he uses linear pricing, the town retail price will be even higher than under single-retailer double marginalization. Two-part tariffs do not solve the problem as they would if there were a single retailer, because the wholesale unit price must be higher than marginal cost to prevent arbitrage to the cities. If transportation costs are low, price discrimination is difficult and two- part tariffs come to resemble inefficient linear monopoly pricing. High transportation costs allow greater efficiency in contracting, and this can outweigh the negative direct effect on welfare.price discrimination, double marginalization, retail network, transportation costs, two-part tariffs, vertical restraints

One step growth of GaN/SiO2 core/shell nanowire in vapor-liquid-solid route by chemical vapor deposition technique

GaN/SiO2 core/shell nanowires are grown by cobalt phthalocyanine catalyst assisted vapor-liquid-solid route, in which Si wafer coated with a mixture of gallium and indium is used as the source for Ga and Si and ammonia is used as the precursor for nitrogen and hydrogen. Gallium in the presence of indium and hydrogen, which results from the dissociation of ammonia, forms Si-Ga-In alloy at the growth temperature around 910 degree Celsius. This alloy acts as the source of Si, Ga and In. A detailed study using a variety of characterization tools reveals that these wires, which are several tens of micron long, has a diameter distribution of the core ranging from 20 to 50 nm, while the thickness of the amorphous SiO2 shell layer is about 10 nm. These wires grow along direction. It has also been observed that the average width of these wires decreases, while their density increases as the gallium proportion in the Ga-In mixture is increased.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

The Future of Quail Hunting in the Southeastern United States

More than 60 years of habitat improvement efforts by state agencies has not prevented the decline of northern bobwhites (Colinus virginianus) in southeastern states, nor has ten years of habitat improvement sponsored by Quail Unlimited resulted in their restoration. Therefore, it would appear reasonable to speculate that the cause of the decline might be something other than habitat loss or degradation. Since recent research seems to also absolve most agricultural chemicals, it may be reasonable to consider some other causes. One very likely suspect is predation. This suspicion is confirmed by recent research in Oklahoma and Virginia. Also, reduction of predation on several project areas has resulted in apparent increases in quail populations. We need more research to further test this hypothesis, and the parameters of both mammalian and avian predation should be investigated. If predation is the primary factor responsible for the decline of quail, and assuming that current wildlife policy will not allow wide-scale reduction of predator populations, the future quail hunting opportunities will be limited to areas where predator reduction and control are a major component of northern bobwhite management efforts

Effect of spacetime geometry on neutrino oscillations

Propagation of fermions in spacetime requires a spin connection, which can be split into a universal gravitational part and a non-universal ``contorsion'' part. The latter is non-dynamical and can be eliminated from the theory, leaving an effective four-fermion interaction with unknown coupling constants. The generic form of the contorsion-fermion coupling, and thus the four-fermion interaction, breaks chiral symmetry. This interaction affects all fermions -- in particular neutrinos passing through matter will notice a contribution to their effective Hamiltonian, just like the MSW effect coming from weak interactions. Then there is a possibility that this geometrical contribution is not negligible for neutrinos passing through normal matter, provided the coupling constants are not too small. We calculate the matter potential due to this interaction and thus write the conversion and survival probabilities including its effect. We plot conversion probabilities of $\nu_\mu$ to $\nu_e$ and $\nu_\tau$ for a baseline of 1300 km (DUNE) with and without the geometrical interaction. If the geometrical couplings are not too small, it should be possible to observe this effect

Application and Energy-Aware Data Aggregation using Vector Synchronization in Distributed Battery-less IoT Networks

The battery-less Internet of Things (IoT) devices are a key element in the sustainable green initiative for the next-generation wireless networks. These battery-free devices use the ambient energy, harvested from the environment. The energy harvesting environment is dynamic and causes intermittent task execution. The harvested energy is stored in small capacitors and it is challenging to assure the application task execution. The main goal is to provide a mechanism to aggregate the sensor data and provide a sustainable application support in the distributed battery-less IoT network. We model the distributed IoT network system consisting of many battery-free IoT sensor hardware modules and heterogeneous IoT applications that are being supported in the device-edge-cloud continuum. The applications require sensor data from a distributed set of battery-less hardware modules and there is provision of joint control over the module actuators. We propose an application-aware task and energy manager (ATEM) for the IoT devices and a vector-synchronization based data aggregator (VSDA). The ATEM is supported by device-level federated energy harvesting and system-level energy-aware heterogeneous application management. In our proposed framework the data aggregator forecasts the available power from the ambient energy harvester using long-short-term-memory (LSTM) model and sets the device profile as well as the application task rates accordingly. Our proposed scheme meets the heterogeneous application requirements with negligible overhead; reduces the data loss and packet delay; increases the hardware component availability; and makes the components available sooner as compared to the state-of-the-art.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure

Business Development in Renewable Energy (Case Study: Independent Power Plant (IPP) of Marine Current Turbine PT T-Files Indonesia

— Indonesia is experience a surplus in generating capacity of up to 27TWh by 2014 and makes this country struggling to provide electricity for its currents needs that sometimes give delays in capacity development (including with Independent Power Producer (IPP) projects). There are around 20 million households, or 80 million people, who currently have no access to public electricity. This study intends to find out what renewable energy in Indonesia in accordance with the potential that exists with case studies ocean current turbine power plant owned by PT T-Files Indonesia. This plant uses Gorlov turbine with a permanent magnet generator. Specifically this study aims to determine the feasibility of ocean current turbine power plants can be private power plants that sell electricity to PT PLN (Persero) to meet the electricity demand in Indonesia. Calculation of the cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour sales done in the conventional way with the ABCD method is the removal of the component C fuel component. Eligibility is done by searching IRR, NPV and PP from the power plant. Thus obtained if the power plant is feasible or not. Feasibility of the calculation found that the power plant is feasible electricity sales. Plan implementation is done by making 1-year period and electricity sales contracts for 15 years. It can be concluded that the development of electricity generation from renewable energy is feasible for IRR, NPV and PP meet

Studies Of Structural, Dielectric And Electrical Properties Of A/B Site Modified (Na0.5bi0.5)Tio3 Ceramic Oxides

In recent years, there is an urgent need for the development of lead-free alternative ferroelectrics to replace the most dominant lead-based ferroelectrics (e.g., Lead zirconate titanate (PZT)) due to the toxicity of lead. Sodium bismuth titanate (Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3 (NBT) based erroelectrics are supposed to be the future materials for solid state electronics devices because of their relatively high Curie temperatures and high remnant polarization among the non-lead ferroelectrics. The present work deals with the synthesis and analysis of the electrical properties of NBT based lead free ferroelectric materials with suitable substitution at A and B sites.In this context, the systematic studies of lanthanum (La) / yttrium (Y) and zirconium (Zr) substitution at A and B sites of NBT have been undertaken through structural, dielectric and impedance spectroscopy studies. NBT and modified NBT samples were synthesized by conventional solid state reaction route. The desired phase and crystal structure formation of the synthesized materials were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The preliminary XRD analysis of the material revealed rhombohedral crystal system with hexagonal axis. The scanning electron micrographs (SEM) were taken at different magnifications to visualize the microstructure (grain size, grain distribution, voids etc.) of the materials. The appearance of the characteristic peak of BO6 octahedra in FTIR spectrum confirms the formation of perovskite phase

An unusual case of spinal manifestations of sickle cell disease

Sickle cell disease (SCD) results from the presence of abnormal beta globin chains within hemoglobin. Overtime, the disease produces various spinal abnormalities as a result of chronic anemia which include marrow hyperplasia, reversion of yellow marrow to red marrow, and occasionally extramedullary hematopoiesis. Vaso-occlusion may manifest as ischemia and infarction whereas superimposed infection may lead to osteomyelitis. There is paucity of literature illustrating the spinal manifestations of the SCD in a single case. Hence, in the present work, we report the case of a 30-year-old male with SCD who presented with almost all the manifestations of the disease in the spine