2,498 research outputs found
Competition and Innovation: Pushing Productivity Up or Down?
This paper examines the relationship between competition, innovation and productivity for the Netherlands. We use industry level data aggregated from micro data as well as moments from firm level data for the period 1996-2006. We match innovation data from Community Innovation Survey with accounting data to link innovative activities with performance at the industry level. We find strong evidence for a positive impact of competition on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) at the industry level. Competition directly increases TFP by reducing X-ineficiencies and removing inefficient forms from markets, but also through more innovation. Nonetheless, there exists an inverted U- curve between competition and innovation for the Netherlands, at least for manufacturing industries. Yet, our results indicate that a negative effect of competition on productivity through lower innovation expenditures arises only at very high levels of competition.competition;innovation;profit elasticity;productivity
Benefits and costs of biologically contained genetically modified tomatoes and eggplants in Italy and Spain
In this paper we assess the benefits and costs of introducing biologically contained genetically modified (GM) crops, with an application to the potential introduction of GM tomatoes and eggplants in Italy and Spain. Such crops possess both the standard beneficial GM traits, and they prevent introgression of transgenes from GM crops to their conventional or wild relatives, thereby adding to the safety of their cultivation. As a result, coexistence regulations for these crops are less stringent than for crops without biological containment. The potential adoption of biologically contained GM tomatoes and eggplants is assessed in a cost-benefit framework for Italy and Spain. We conclude that biological containment has considerable potential benefits if policy makers are willing to loosen the restrictions on the introduction of these varietie
Phonon Rabi-assisted tunneling in diatomic molecules
We study electronic transport in diatomic molecules connected to metallic
contacts in the regime where both electron-electron and electron-phonon
interactions are important. We find that the competition between these
interactions results in unique resonant conditions for interlevel transitions
and polaron formation: the Coulomb repulsion requires additional energy when
electrons attempt phonon-assisted interlevel jumps between fully or partially
occupied levels. We apply the equations of motion approach to calculate the
electronic Green's functions. The density of states and conductance through the
system are shown to exhibit interesting Rabi-like splitting of Coulomb blockade
peaks and strong temperature dependence under the it interacting resonant
conditions.Comment: Updated version, 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. B
on 9/1
Charge transport in nanoscale vertical organic semiconductor pillar devices
We report charge transport measurements in nanoscale vertical pillar
structures incorporating ultrathin layers of the organic semiconductor
poly(3-hexylthiophene)(P3HT). P3HT layers with thickness down to 5 nm are
gently top-contacted using wedging transfer, yielding highly reproducible,
robust nanoscale junctions carrying high current densities (up to
A/m). Current-voltage data modeling demonstrates excellent hole injection.
This work opens up the pathway towards nanoscale, ultrashort-channel organic
transistors for high-frequency and high-current-density operation.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
Spin properties of single electron states in coupled quantum dots
Spin properties of single electron states in laterally coupled quantum dots
in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field are studied by exact
numerical diagonalization. Dresselhaus (linear and cubic) and Bychkov-Rashba
spin-orbit couplings are included in a realistic model of confined dots based
on GaAs. Group theoretical classification of quantum states with and without
spin orbit coupling is provided. Spin-orbit effects on the g-factor are rather
weak. It is shown that the frequency of coherent oscillations (tunneling
amplitude) in coupled dots is largely unaffected by spin-orbit effects due to
symmetry requirements. The leading contributions to the frequency involves the
cubic term of the Dresselhaus coupling. Spin-orbit coupling in the presence of
magnetic field leads to a spin-dependent tunneling amplitude, and thus to the
possibility of spin to charge conversion, namely spatial separation of spin by
coherent oscillations in a uniform magnetic field. It is also shown that spin
hot spots exist in coupled GaAs dots already at moderate magnetic fields, and
that spin hot spots at zero magnetic field are due to the cubic Dresselhaus
term only.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure
Non-Markovian dynamics of double quantum dot charge qubits due to acoustic phonons
We investigate the dynamics of a double quantum dot charge qubit which is
coupled to piezoelectric acoustic phonons, appropriate for GaAs
heterostructures. At low temperatures, the phonon bath induces a non-Markovian
dynamical behavior of the oscillations between the two charge states of the
double quantum dot. Upon applying the numerically exact quasiadiabatic
propagator path-integral scheme, the reduced density matrix of the charge qubit
is calculated, thereby avoiding the Born-Markov approximation. This allows a
systematic study of the dependence of the Q-factor on the lattice temperature,
on the size of the quantum dots, as well as on the interdot coupling. We
calculate the Q-factor for a recently realized experimental setup and find that
it is two orders of magnitudes larger than the measured value, indicating that
the decoherence due to phonons is a subordinate mechanism.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, replaced with the version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Transient regime in non-linear transport through many-level quantum dots
We investigate the nonstationary electronic transport in noninteracting
nanostructures driven by a finite bias and time-dependent signals applied at
their contacts to the leads. The systems are modelled by a tight-binding
Hamiltonian and the transient currents are computed from the non-equilibrium
Green-Keldysh formalism. The numerical implementation is not restricted to weak
coupling to the leads and does not imply the wide-band limit assumption for the
spectral width of the leads. As an application of the method we study in detail
the transient behavior and the charge dynamics in single and double quantum
dots connected to leads by a step-like potential, but the method allows as well
the consideration of non-periodic potentials or short pulses. We show that when
the higher energy levels of the isolated system are located within the bias
window of the leads the transient current approaches the steady state in a
non-oscillatory smooth fashion. At moderate coupling to the leads and fixed
bias the transient acquires a step-like structure, the length of the steps
increasing with the system size. The number of levels inside a finite bias
window can be tuned by a constant gate potential. We find also that the
transient behavior depends on the specific way of coupling the leads to the
mesoscopic system.Comment: RevTeX, 12 pages, 11 include .eps figure
Spin current and shot noise from a quantum dot coupled to a quantized cavity field
We examine the spin current and the associated shot noise generated in a
quantum dot connected to normal leads with zero bias voltage across the dot.
The spin current is generated by spin flip transitions induced by a quantized
electromagnetic field inside a cavity with one of the Zeeman states lying below
the Fermi level of the leads and the other above. In the limit of strong
Coulomb blockade, this model is analogous to the Jaynes-Cummings model in
quantum optics. We also calculate the photon current and photon current shot
noise resulting from photons leaking out of the cavity. We show that the photon
current is equal to the spin current and that the spin current can be
significantly larger than for the case of a classical driving field as a result
of cavity losses. In addition to this, the frequency dependent spin (photon)
current shot noise show dips (peaks) that are a result of the discrete nature
of photons
An unusual presentation of a patient with intrathoracic stomach: a case report
An intrathoracic stomach is the end stage of a hiatal hernial diaphragm and has a very low incidence. Frequently the diagnosis is made incidentally by endoscopic or radiographic investigations. There could be no clinical symptoms, however an intrathoracic stomach could be life treating. In this case we report a 61-year-old woman with an atypical presentation of an intrathoracic stomach. The patient had fever, night sweats and cough; the chest X-ray showed a retroperitoneal mass. A computed tomography scan was performed for determining the diagnosis of an intrathoracic stomach
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