Economic globalization and the fracturing of business interest representation in the European Union

Individual firms have become the dominant lobby actors in the European Union, while associational business interest representation has declined. This is alarming because individual firms tend to overlook the long-term interests of society by focusing on what is important in the short term for their own survival. How can we explain this trend? This article argues that globalization is a key driver of firm-level lobbying and that it fractures business interest representation. The study employs an original dataset of almost 14,000 lobby contacts between senior staff of the European Commission, business interests, and NGOs. It finds support for the argument that globalization spurs individual firm lobbying in the European Union. This complicates the already challenging task of business associations aggregating and channeling the interests of their members

Computer-aided techniques for assessment of MRI-detected inflammation for early identification of inflammatory arthritis

Inflammatory arthritis comprises a group of diseases in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues. Two prevalent types of inflammatory arthritis are rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and spondyloarthritis (SpA). Clinical research points to the importance of early diagnosis, as treatment in early disease stages increases chances of better outcome and improved quality of life for patients. To this end, the diagnostic potential of imaging modalities sensitive to local inflammation, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), is of great interest. The goal of this thesis was to develop computer-aided methods for assessment of MRI-detected inflammation with the aim of aiding early diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis. In particular, we focused on the tasks of comparative visualization, automatic quantification, and feature selection. The presented studies showcase the potential of comparative visualization and automatic quantification to overcome the limitations of visual scoring and lay out a fertile ground for future improvements. Additionally, the understanding of the diagnostic role of individual inflammatory features in prediction of RA development is further advanced. Collectively, these findings can help facilitate the use of MRI for early diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis and potentially increase chances of better outcome and quality of life for patients.This research was supported by the Dutch Technology Foundation STW, under grant number 13329. STW (currently TTW) is part of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), which is partly funded by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.LUMC / Geneeskunde Repositoriu

Changes in interest group access in times of crisis: no pain, no (lobby) gain

The outbreak of Covid-19 provoked a massive shock for political institutions and societal groups. A crucial question is how such an external event affects the balance of access to political gatekeepers. In particular: Are organizations, which are highly affected by the crisis, able to increase their political voice? To address this, we focus on changes in lobbying access to key venues of public policy: government, parliament, the bureaucracy, and the media across 10 European democracies. Based on novel survey data, we assess changes in access shortly after the outbreak of Covid-19. Our findings show that affectedness is an important driver of changes in access to all venues. We interpret this as good news for the functioning of European systems of interest representation, and the ability of gatekeepers to open their doors to affected groups. However, we also show that the effect of affectedness varies considerably for economic and non-economic interests

On the Bohr inequality

The Bohr inequality, first introduced by Harald Bohr in 1914, deals with finding the largest radius $r$, $0<r<1$, such that $\sum_{n=0}^\infty |a_n|r^n \leq 1$ holds whenever $|\sum_{n=0}^\infty a_nz^n|\leq 1$ in the unit disk $\mathbb{D}$ of the complex plane. The exact value of this largest radius, known as the \emph{Bohr radius}, has been established to be $1/3.$ This paper surveys recent advances and generalizations on the Bohr inequality. It discusses the Bohr radius for certain power series in $\mathbb{D},$ as well as for analytic functions from $\mathbb{D}$ into particular domains. These domains include the punctured unit disk, the exterior of the closed unit disk, and concave wedge-domains. The analogous Bohr radius is also studied for harmonic and starlike logharmonic mappings in $\mathbb{D}.$ The Bohr phenomenon which is described in terms of the Euclidean distance is further investigated using the spherical chordal metric and the hyperbolic metric. The exposition concludes with a discussion on the $n$-dimensional Bohr radius

On the Classification of Residues of the Grassmannian

We study leading singularities of scattering amplitudes which are obtained as residues of an integral over a Grassmannian manifold. We recursively do the transformation from twistors to momentum twistors and obtain an iterative formula for Yangian invariants that involves a succession of dualized twistor variables. This turns out to be useful in addressing the problem of classifying the residues of the Grassmannian. The iterative formula leads naturally to new coordinates on the Grassmannian in terms of which both composite and non-composite residues appear on an equal footing. We write down residue theorems in these new variables and classify the independent residues for some simple examples. These variables also explicitly exhibit the distinct solutions one expects to find for a given set of vanishing minors from Schubert calculus.Comment: 20 page

Wetting films on chemically heterogeneous substrates

Based on a microscopic density functional theory we investigate the morphology of thin liquidlike wetting films adsorbed on substrates endowed with well-defined chemical heterogeneities. As paradigmatic cases we focus on a single chemical step and on a single stripe. In view of applications in microfluidics the accuracy of guiding liquids by chemical microchannels is discussed. Finally we give a general prescription of how to investigate theoretically the wetting properties of substrates with arbitrary chemical structures.Comment: 56 pages, RevTeX, 20 Figure

Common Genetic Denominators for Ca++-Based Skeleton in Metazoa: Role of Osteoclast-Stimulating Factor and of Carbonic Anhydrase in a Calcareous Sponge

Calcium-based matrices serve predominantly as inorganic, hard skeletal systems in Metazoa from calcareous sponges [phylum Porifera; class Calcarea] to proto- and deuterostomian multicellular animals. The calcareous sponges form their skeletal elements, the spicules, from amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC). Treatment of spicules from Sycon raphanus with sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) results in the disintegration of the ACC in those skeletal elements. Until now a distinct protein/enzyme involved in ACC metabolism could not been identified in those animals. We applied the technique of phage display combinatorial libraries to identify oligopeptides that bind to NaOCl-treated spicules: those oligopeptides allowed us to detect proteins that bind to those spicules. Two molecules have been identified, the (putative) enzyme carbonic anhydrase and the (putative) osteoclast-stimulating factor (OSTF), that are involved in the catabolism of ACC. The complete cDNAs were isolated and the recombinant proteins were prepared to raise antibodies. In turn, immunofluorescence staining of tissue slices and qPCR analyses have been performed. The data show that sponges, cultivated under standard condition (10 mM CaCl2) show low levels of transcripts/proteins for carbonic anhydrase or OSTF, compared to those animals that had been cultivated under Ca2+-depletion condition (1 mM CaCl2). Our data identify with the carbonic anhydrase and the OSTF the first two molecules which remain conserved in cells, potentially involved in Ca-based skeletal dissolution, from sponges (sclerocytes) to human (osteoclast)