Bailouts in a common market: a strategic approach

Governments in the EU grant Rescue and Restructure Subsidies to bail out ailing firms. In an international asymmetric Cournot duopoly we study effects of such subsidies on market structure and welfare. We adopt a common market setting, where consumers from the two countries form one market. We show that the subsidy is positive also when it fails to prevent the exit. The reason is a strategic effect, which forces the more efficient firm to make additional cost-reducing effort. When the exit is prevented, allocative and productive efficiencies are lower and the only gaining player is the rescued firm.subsidies; asymmetric oligopoly; exit; European Union

Analisis Kualitas Pelayanan Dinas Pengendalian Penduduk, Keluarga Berencana, Pemberdayaan Perempuan dan Perlindungan Anak (DPPKBPPPA) Kabupaten Bengkulu Selatan

  ABSTACT: Government services to the public, known as public services or what is popularly known as public services in Indonesia, are in essence a series of services performed by government officials for all levels of society with the aim of meeting the public's need for goods and services. The formulation of this problem is to analyze the Service Quality of the Office of Population Control, Family Planning, Women's Empowerment, and Child Protection (DPPKBPPPA) of South Bengkulu Regency (Case Study in the Family Planning Sector). The purpose of this thesis is to determine the service quality of the Office of Population Control, Family Planning, Women's Empowerment, and Child Protection. The method used is descriptive qualitative. Data collection techniques using interviews, observation, documentation. The data analysis techniques used are data condensation, data presentation, and conclusions. The results showed that the tangible aspects were good, reliability was good, responsiveness was not good, assurance was not good, and empathy was good.   Keywords: Public Services, DPPKBPPPA, Family Planning   ABSTRAK: Pelayanan pemerintah kepada masyarakat yang dikenal dengan pelayanan umum (public service) atau yang di Indonesia populer dengan sebutan pelayanan publik, pada hakekatnya adalah serangkaian layanan yang dilakukan oleh aparatur pemerintah kepada semua lapisan masyarakat dengan tujuan untuk memenuhi kebutuhan masyarakat akan barang dan jasa. Rumusan masalah ini adalah menganalisis Kualitas Pelayanan Dinas Pengendalian Penduduk, Keluarga Berencana, Pemberdayaan Perempuan, dan Perlindungan Anak (DPPKBPPPA) Kabupaten Bengkulu Selatan (Studi Kasus Bidang Keluarga Berencana). Tujuan dari skripsi ini adalah untuk mengetahui kualiatas pelayanan Dinas Pengendalian Penduduk, Keluarga Berencana, Pemberdayaan Perempuan, dan Perlindungan Anak. Metode yang digunakan adalah deskriptif kualitatif. Teknik pengumpulan data menggunakan wawancara, observasi, dokumentasi. Teknis analisis data yang digunakan adalah kondensasi data, penyajian data, dan kesimpulan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan untuk aspek tangible sudah baik, reliability sudah baik, responsiveness belum baik, assurance belum baik, dan emphaty sudah baik. Kata Kunci : Pelayanan Publik, DPPKBPPPA, Keluarga Berencan

DEVELOPMENT OF Cu-Ni/Ti02 BIMETALLIC CATALYST FOR PHOTOHYDROGEN PRODUCTION UNDER VISIBLE LIGHT ILLUMINATION

Photocatalytic hydrogen production from water using Ti02 as photocatalyst is one of the most promising method to produce hydrogen due to its low cost and environmental friendly process. However, it lacks the efficiency which is required in order to be economically feasible. This study is focused on enhancing the activity of Ti02 to utilize visible light by Cu-Ni incorporation onto its surface, and also improving the overall photocatalytic hydrogen production by the addition of sacrificial agent. The incorporation of Cu-Ni onto Ti02 was achieved by employing precipitation method and parameters such as calcination temperature and duration

A note on reserve price commitments in the Vickrey auction

This note provides a simple explanation why sellers rarely set optimal reserve prices in one-shot auctions. In a standard sealed-bid second-price auction, bidders with private values do not bid truthfully if the seller cannot commit to her announced reserve price. Consequently, expected revenue may be lower than without the announcement of a reserve price.Vickrey auction; reserve price; commitment

Spatial Distribution of Housing Investment and Perception of Earthquake Risk in Istanbul Metropolitan Area

Istanbul, the largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of over 15 million inhabitants, lies close to major and active fault lines and has been previously hit by fatal earthquakes several times. Facing a high seismic risk as forecasted in a number of studies; Istanbul is particularly vulnerable due to the high density of old housing areas in the city center. Although there is a great body of knowledge in the literature focusing on the seismic risk of Istanbul and possible scenarios to strengthen the capacity for emergency preparedness in the event of future earthquakes, the attitudes and perceptions of housing investors living under the threat of the earthquake is yet to be explored. This study is an attempt to address this gap and aims to investigate the relationship between the location of the housing investment and perception of earthquake risk of the investors. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire from 117 participants, who made an investment in housing in Istanbul since 1999 Kocaeli earthquake. ArcGIS is used to indicate the spatial distribution of investment and the results provide empirical evidence of how spatial distribution of housing investment differs depending on the earthquake risk perception of the investors.

Detection of intention level in response to task difficulty from EEG signals

We present an approach that enables detecting intention levels of subjects in response to task difficulty utilizing an electroencephalogram (EEG) based brain-computer interface (BCI). In particular, we use linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to classify event-related synchronization (ERS) and desynchronization (ERD) patterns associated with right elbow flexion and extension movements, while lifting different weights. We observe that it is possible to classify tasks of varying difficulty based on EEG signals. Additionally, we also present a correlation analysis between intention levels detected from EEG and surface electromyogram (sEMG) signals. Our experimental results suggest that it is possible to extract the intention level information from EEG signals in response to task difficulty and indicate some level of correlation between EEG and EMG. With a view towards detecting patients' intention levels during rehabilitation therapies, the proposed approach has the potential to ensure active involvement of patients throughout exercise routines and increase the efficacy of robot assisted therapies

Biochemical network matching and composition

This paper looks at biochemical network matching and compositio

Composition of Biochemical Networks using Domain Knowledge

Graph composition has applications in a variety of practical applications. In drug development, for instance, in order to understand possible drug interactions, one has to merge known networks and examine topological variants arising from such composition. Similarly, the design of sensor nets may use existing network infrastructures, and the superposition of one network on another can help with network design and optimisation. The problem of network composition has not received much attention in algorithm and database research. Here, we work with biological networks encoded in Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML), based on XML syntax. We focus on XML merging and examine the algorithmic and performance challenges we encountered in our work and the possible solutions to the graph merge problem. We show that our XML graph merge solution performs well in practice and improves on the existing toolsets. This leads us into future work directions and the plan of research which will aim to implement graph merging primitives using domain knowledge to perform composition and decomposition on specific graphs in the biological domain