The Note on the Closure of Continuous Functions in Variable-Exponent Lebesgue Spaces for Multiple Variables

In this paper, we generalize a recently obtained result by Kopaliani and Zviadadze from the one-variable case to the several-variable case. Specifically, in terms of decreasing rearrangement, we characterize those exponents $p(\cdot)$ for which the corresponding variable-exponent Lebesgue space $L^{p(\cdot)}([0;1]^n)$ shares the property with $L^\infty([0;1]^n)$ such that the space of continuous functions $C([0;1]^n)$ forms a closed linear subspace in $L^{p(\cdot)}([0;1]^n)$ . In particular, we derive the necessary and sufficient conditions on the decreasing rearrangement of the exponent $p(\cdot)$ for which there exists an equimeasurable exponent of $p(\cdot)$ such that the corresponding variable-exponent Lebesgue space possesses the aforementioned property

Agency Problems in Political Science

This dissertation consists of three chapters analyzing agency problems in political science. More specifically the role of different/additional information available to the principal or the agent. In Chapter 2 we analyze the effect of the politician's knowledge of the external shock on his policy decisions on unrelated issues. Elected politicians cannot control some external shocks, even if they can still anticipate their occurrence better than the general public. How can politicians use these types of anticipated external shocks to their benefit? How do they change their pandering incentives? And how does a rational voter incorporate these seemingly irrelevant external shocks in her voting decision? We build on the political accountability model of Canes-Wrone Herron, Shotts (2001), adding the ability to the voter to observe her utility, which is affected by an external shock. The shock is observed by the incumbent politician but not by the voter. Our analyses show that for high or low enough magnitude external shocks, a politician's ability to anticipate them eliminates his pandering incentives in equilibrium. For medium negative shocks, pandering could be a "gamble for resurrection," while for medium positive shocks, it acts as an "insurance" to guarantee the reelection. We show that both of these pandering regions emerge in equilibrium. The politician's knowledge of the shock, overall, decreases the voter's welfare in equilibrium. In Chapter 3 we endogenize the information acquisition for the voter to study what types of policy decisions voters pay attention to, and why, and how rational voter attention affects the behavior of politicians in office. We extend the Canes-Wrone, Herron, Shotts (2001) model of electoral agency to allow the voter to rationally choose when to ``pay attention'' to an incumbent's policy choice by expending costly effort to learn its consequences. When attention is moderately costly the voter generally pays more of it after the ex-ante unpopular policy than the ex-ante popular one. Rational attention may improve accountability by encouraging the politician to be truthful. In some cases, it may also severely harm accountability both by inducing a strong incumbent to ``play it safe'' with a policy that avoids attention, or a weak incumbent to ``gamble for resurrection'' with a policy that draws it. Finally, rational attention can induce or worsen pandering but never ``fake leadership''. Chapter 4 analyzes delegated information acquisition with a biased agent who also has private information about the state of the world. The information acquired is public and its informativeness increases with costly effort. Equilibria are characterized for two cases: when the agent decides an effort level and when a principal imposes formal requirements on it. The analysis demonstrates that even when the principal cannot commit to an arbitrary decision rule, he benefits from imposing formal requirements by getting as much public information as possible and correctly aligning the biased agent's incentives. In the optimal mechanism, the principal incentivizes the low-type agent to truthfully reveal her private information by requiring a relatively low amount of costly effort, while the high private report has to be followed by the maximum effort in the public signal.</p

Rhamnose-Positive Strains of Plague Agent: Virulence and Epidemiological Significance

The aim of the review is to show the groundlessness of the unconditional assessment of rhamnose-positive strains of plague pathogen as avirulent for most species of carriers and humans and having no epidemiological significance. The main carriers of rhamnose-positive strains are several species of voles and the Mongolian pika. The vast majority of experts are of the opinion that rhamnose-positive (“vole`s” and “pika`s”) strains of Yersinia pestis are avirulent or weakly virulent for many species of warm-blooded animals and humans, and therefore have no epidemiological significance. However, in a series of experiments on infecting marmots, ground squirrels, and large gerbils with rhamnose-positive strains, some of the experimental animals fell ill acutely and died from the plague. In nature, rhamnose-positive strains have been isolated from carcasses of relatively resistant red marmots. When evaluating the epidemiological significance of rhamnose-positive strains, such an important criterion as the presence or absence of effective factors and pathways of pathogen transmission in foci of the vole and pika types is omitted. Voles and pikas are not eaten; therefore, the contact route of infecting humans in these foci is impossible. The second way of transmission of the pathogen to humans – vector-borne – is difficult due to the lack of migration of vole fleas from burrows to the surface and their low efficiency as vectors. Nevertheless, cases of human infection with rhamnose-positive strains of the plague agent in the Caucasus and Mongolia give grounds to assert that at least some rhamnose-positive strains have a sufficiently high virulence and are capable of causing infectious process in humans as well. Therefore, epidemiological surveillance in the foci of plague of the vole and pika types cannot be totally abandoned. It can be conducted according to an abbreviated scheme

Comparative Analysis of Ethnic Diversity Measures on Provisioning of Basic Public Goods: Cross Country Assessment

Ethnic diversity and provision of public goods have long been understood to share a negative relationship. While there has been a concerted effort to define and measure ethnic diversity around the world, we are interested in analyzing the possible differences in these measures when it comes to using them to explain their impact on provision of public goods. Defining public goods using a single aggregate measure or using only one variable as proxy is a vague concept. It is also unclear specifically which aspects of a country’s atmosphere tend to drive the negative relation between public goods provision and ethnic diversity. Our empirical analysis shows that given the strong impact, there is a lot of room for flexibility when choosing the ethnic diversity measure. We also introduce three new possible measures of public goods provision and by including the major basic public sectors, we conclude that the most significant negative impact of ethnic diversity is on the health and sanitation sectors

Comparative Analysis of Expression of the Main Virulence Genes in Various <i>Vibrio cholerae</i> О1 Strains

The aim of the work was a comparative study of the expression of the main virulence genes in Vibrio cholerae strains of the classical biovar, typical and genetically modified strains of V. cholerae, El Tor biovar.Materials and methods. Natural toxigenic strains of V. cholerae O1, classical biovar (J89, Pakistan, 1969), typical (M-887, Astrakhan, 1970) and genetically modified (301, Taganrog, 2011) strains of the El Tor biovar were used as model ones. The strains were grown under optimum conditions for the production of cholera toxin and toxin-coregulated pili. The assessment of strain growth was carried out in LB broth at room temperature with determination of the cells number on a Biowave DNA spectrophotometer (Biochrome Ltd., UK). Determination of gene expression was performed using real-time PCR with reverse transcription.Results and discussion. The expression of structural (ctxA, tcpA) and regulatory (toxR, toxT, tcpP, tcpH) virulence genes has been investigated in V. cholerae strains of the classical biovar, typical and genetically modified strains of the El Tor biovar. Significant differences have been revealed in terms of time and level of maximum expression of these genes in strains of classical and El Tor biovars. It was found that ctxA and toxR genes expression in the genovariant strain reached its maximum 1–3 h earlier than in the other strains. At the same time, the level of ctxA gene expression corresponded to the level of the classical strain. The maximum expression of the toxR gene in the genovariant strain was higher than in typical El Tor and classical strains, and also had a clear inverse correlation with ctxA gene expression. Expression of the tcpA, toxT, and tcpH genes in the classical biovar strain reached its maximum 1–2 h earlier than in the El Tor biovar strains. These differences should be taken into account when conducting research work related to the study of the expression of the main virulence genes

Comparative Analysis of Ethnic Diversity Measures on Provisioning of Basic Public Goods: Cross Country Assessment

Ethnic diversity and provision of public goods have long been understood to share a negative relationship. While there has been a concerted effort to define and measure ethnic diversity around the world, we are interested in analyzing the possible differences in these measures when it comes to using them to explain their impact on provision of public goods. Defining public goods using a single aggregate measure or using only one variable as proxy is a vague concept. It is also unclear specifically which aspects of a country’s atmosphere tend to drive the negative relation between public goods provision and ethnic diversity. Our empirical analysis shows that given the strong impact, there is a lot of room for flexibility when choosing the ethnic diversity measure. We also introduce three new possible measures of public goods provision and by including the major basic public sectors, we conclude that the most significant negative impact of ethnic diversity is on the health and sanitation sectors

Chemi-ionization in Solar Photosphere: Influence on the Hydrogen Atom excited States Population

In this paper, the influence of chemi-ionization processes in $H^*(n \ge 2) + H(1s)$ collisions, as well as the influence of inverse chemi-recombination processes on hydrogen atom excited-state populations in solar photosphere, are compared with the influence of concurrent electron-atom and electron-ion ionization and recombination processes. It has been found that the considered chemi-ionization/recombination processes dominate over the relevant concurrent processes in almost the whole solar photosphere. Thus, it is shown that these processes and their importance for the non-LTE modeling of the solar atmosphere should be investigated further