Threat of Exit as a Source of Bargaining Power

This article analyzes a simple two-period model where two homogenous manufacturers compete to supply a monopolist retailer. We show that, if manufacturers are vulnerable, i.e if they are likely to exit the market in case of insufficient orders in the first period, they may exploit their threat of exit to capture the whole first period industry profit. Indeed, the retailer will accept to pay the high price to the manufacturers in order to secure upstream competition in the second period. Results are robust under different market structures or contract types

Threat of Exit as a Source of Bargaining Power

This article analyzes a simple two period model where two homogenous manufacturers compete to supply a monopolist retailer. We show that if manufacturers are vulnerable (i.e if they are likely to exit the market in case of insufficient orders in the first period) they may exploit their threat of exit to capture the whole first period industry profit. Indeed, the retailer will accept to pay the high price to the manufacturers in order to secure upstream competition in the second period. Results are robust under different market structures or contract types.Bargaining power, market entry, vertical contract

Using Molecular Initiating Events to Develop a Structural Alert Based Screening Workflow for Nuclear Receptor Ligands Associated with Hepatic Steatosis

In silico models are essential to the development of integrated alternative methods to identify organ level toxicity and lead towards the replacement of animal testing. These models include (quantitative) structure-activity relationships ((Q)SARs) and, importantly, the identification of structural alerts associated with defined toxicological endpoints. Structural alerts are able both to predict toxicity directly and assist in the formation of categories to facilitate read-across. They are particularly important to decipher the myriad mechanisms of action that result in organ level toxicity. The aim of this study was to develop novel structural alerts for nuclear receptor (NR) ligands that are associated with inducing hepatic steatosis. Current knowledge on NR agonists was extended with data from the ChEMBL database of bioactive molecules and from studying NR ligand-binding interactions within the protein data base (PBD). A computational structural alerts based workflow was developed using KNIME from these data using molecular fragments and other relevant chemical features. In total 214 structural features were recorded computationally as SMARTS strings and, therefore, they can be used for grouping and screening during drug development and risk assessment and provide knowledge to anchor adverse outcome pathways (AOP)

From passive to active: Flexibility from electric vehicles in the context of transmission system development

Electrification of transport in RES-based power system will support the decarbonisation of the transportsector. However, due to the increase in energy demand and the large peak effects of charging, the passiveintegration of electric cars is likely to undermine sustainability efforts. This study investigates three differentcharging strategies for electric vehicle in Europe offering various degrees of flexibility: passive charging,smart charging and vehicle-to-grid, and puts this flexibility in perspective with the flexibility offered byinterconnections. We use the Balmorel optimization tool to represent the short-term dispatch and long-terminvestment in the energy system and we contribute to the state-of-the-art in developing new methodologiesto represent home charging and battery degradation. Our results show how each step of increased chargingflexibility reduces system costs, affects energy mix, impacts spot prices and reduces CO2 emissions untilthe horizon 2050. We quantify how flexible charging and variable generation mutually support each other(¿100TWh from wind and solar energy in 2050) and restrict the business case for stationary batteries, whereaspassive charging results in a substitution of wind by solar energy. The comparison of each charging schemewith and without interconnection expansion highlights the interplay between European countries in terms ofelectricity prices and CO2 emissions in the context of electrified transport. Although the best outcome isreached under the most flexible scenario at the EU level, the situation of the countries with the cheapest andmost decarbonised electricity mix is damaged, which calls for adapted coordination policy at the EU level

A study of grease lubricants under wind turbine pitch bearing conditions

Pitch bearings in wind turbines are affected by reciprocating motion due to pitch control. The combination of oscillating operation, high loads, and mixed lubrication often leads to wear. Grease lubricants in wind turbine pitch bearings should be designed to avoid such wear. Due to different available grease lubricants, the anti-wear properties are investigated under downscaled wind turbine pitch bearing conditions. The downscaling is accomplished by load simulation for a pitch bearing and analysis of the pitch movements for a 7.5 MW reference turbine. The operational conditions of the four point contact ball bearing with 5 m outer diameter are scaled to angular contact ball bearings of the size 7208. The investigations are concluded with contact model experiments. Six Industrial grease lubricants for wind turbine pitch bearings are tested that follow very different compositions. The investigations reveal, that none of the tested grease lubricants was able to reduce wear for all tested conditions. After 250000 cycles certain conditions lead to severe wear. Therefore, the pitch controller should avoid such conditions if possible. Nevertheless, grease lubricants with low base oil viscosities and high bleeding rates are best on average for the tested conditions. Furthermore, the results of the bearing experiments are comparable to the model experiments. © 202

Development and Functional Characterization of Fetal Lung Organoids

Preterminfants frequently suffer frompulmonary complications due to a physiological and structural lung immaturity resulting in significant morbidity and mortality. Novel in vitro and in vivo models are required to study the underlying mechanisms of late lung maturation and to facilitate the development of new therapeutic strategies. Organoids recapitulate essential aspects of structural organization and possibly organ function, and can be used to model developmental and disease processes. We aimed at generating fetal lung organoids (LOs) and to functionally characterize this in vitro model in comparison to primary lung epithelial cells and lung explants ex vivo. LOs were generated with alveolar and endothelial cells from fetal rat lung tissue, using a Matrigel-gradient and air-liquid-interface culture conditions. Immunocytochemical analysis showed that the LOs consisted of polarized epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM)-positive cells with the apical membrane compartment facing the organoid lumen. Expression of the alveolar type 2 cell marker, RT2-70, and the Club cell marker, CC-10, were observed. Na+ transporter and surfactant protein mRNA expression were detected in the LOs. First time patch clamp analyses demonstrated the presence of several ion channels with specific electrophysiological properties, comparable to vital lung slices. Furthermore, the responsiveness of LOs to glucocorticoids was demonstrated. Finally, maturation of LOs induced by mesenchymal stem cells confirmed the convenience of the model to test and establish novel therapeutic strategies. The results showed that fetal LOs replicate key biological lung functions essential for lung maturation and therefore constitute a suitable in vitro model system to study lung development and related diseases

Monitoring On-line Timing Information to Support Mixed-Critical Workloads

International audienceMany/multi-cores architectures provide tremendous increase in computation power, increasing the possibility of executing additional tasks on the system. In critical embedded systems, e.g. aeronautical systems, the uncertainty of the non-uniform and concurrent memory access scheme prohibits the full utilization of the system potentials. Classical Worst Case Execution Time (WCET) estimation techniques upper bound the memory accesses -considering a fully congested memory bus - resulting in safe, but pessimistic, bounds. The proposed approach explores the increase in the system utilization by less critical tasks, while guaranteeing the safety of the critical task

Demand during peak hours versus peak-driving demand: Revisiting one size fits all dynamic grid tariffs

Electricity grid tariffs should reflect network costs in order to provide efficient incentives for timing electricity use and investment in new technologies. We compare tariff designs that deal with existing and expected future grid congestion. Although common volumetric tariff designs such as Time-Of-Use are partly cost-reflective, their designs have fundamental drawbacks in terms of the principles of cost allocations and potentially may lead to social disparities. In a case study of 1.56 million Danish households divided into 90 socio-techno-economic categories, we compare three alternative grid tariffs and investigate their impact on annual electricity bills. This study shows that penalizing consumption above a certain threshold leads to higher costs for owners of electric vehicles regardless of the timing of their consumption. In contrast, penalizing consumption during system peaks mainly affects the electricity bills of heat pump owners. The results of our design simultaneously applying a time-dependent threshold and a system peak tariff show (a) a range of different allocations that distribute the burden of additional grid costs across both technologies and (b) strong positive outcomes, including reduced expenses for lower-income groups and smaller households. Our study offers policymakers a menu that assigns grid costs to demand technologies, thereby giving them valuable input.Comment: 30 pages, 18 figures, journal articl