Integration of control relations in the problematic of competition between regions

The aim of this paper is to integrate control relations in the analysis of regional production systems (RPSs). Financial economy aspects are often neglected in the analysis of classical and also regional economists. However, many studies show that this financial dimension is far from neutral and that it has a considerable impact on the real economy.During the twenty last years, Swiss regions have grown according to different rhythms, compromising the convergence process of per capita incomes. The approach in terms of RPSs used by Crevoisier, Corpataux and Thierstein (2001) explains a considerable part of these different evolutions. For the authors, the Swiss economy is made up of eleven RPSs strongly specialised in activities like chemistry, textile, microtechnic, tourism, administration and finance. The RPSs specialised in traditional activities have had poor performances while the financial systems has grown rapidly. The result of these different trajectories is a clear dualisation of the Swiss economy (Corpataux and Crevoisier, 2001). The RPS approach is mainly focused on endogenous phenomenons and considers that competitiveness of regions can be explained by the history of interactions between the actors and the institutions of the RPSs. In this paper, we propose to complete this approach by measuring the level of decision-making autonomy. In respect with the theory of spatial division of labour, the idea is to take into account the existence of multilocation firms or of groups, implying a distribution of the firm functions, but also a concentration of the strategic decisional power. In addition to that, we integrate another crucial aspect for the Swiss case, that is the fiscal federalism. In the opinion of Maillat and Quiquerez (2003), the fiscal competition explains a great part of the evolution of disparities. The great differences between regions’ taxing rates clearly influences firm behaviour. Our main hypothesis is that the allocation of strategic establishments is not homogenous and that these headquarters are located in the RPS specialised in financial activities, reminiscent of what Sassen (1991) describes. But this situation is mitigated by the communities’ fiscal competition. To show that, we use data on participations and on property of establishments. The aim is to measure the intensity of cross-regional relations and also to evaluate the autonomy degree of each RPSs. Results show that there are significant disparities in terms of control. Some regions are highly dependent of other: an important share of their economy is controlled by firms located in other regions. Financial centres are at the top of this hierarchy. Beside this domination, few cantons succeed in using the fiscal tool. The spatial division of labour approach and these results about control relations in RPSs complete the analysis done considering the Swiss regions specialisations. More than that, it reinforces the idea of a dualisation of the Swiss economy. Indeed, authors like Zimmerman (1995) and Dupuy and Gilly (1995) agree to say that the embededdness (anchorage) of non autonomous firms is precarious compared to independent SMEs. Concentration of strategic jobs, with highest wages, is a factor of regional divergence. This factor is reinforced by the weak embededdness (anchorage) of the secondary units, poorly implicated in the regional economic circuit and at risk of being partially or completely relocated. Moreover, and that will be the hypothesis for our next research, we think that possessions and subsidiaries finance the headquarters, breaking out the local accumulation networks. This situation may distort the competition between regions. Bibliography CORPATAUX J. et CREVOISIER O., 2001, « Place financière ou économie de production ? Les mécanismes de la dualisation économique et spatiale de la Suisse (1975-2000) », Géographie, Economie, Société, vol. 3, n°1, pp. 3-30. CREVOISIER O., CORPATAUX J. et THIERSTEIN A., 2001, Intégration monétaire et régions : des gagnants et des perdants, Paris, L’Harmattan. Dupuy C. et Gilly J.-P., 1995, « Les stratégies territoriales des grands groupes », in Rallet A. et Torre A. (éd.), Economie industrielle et économie spatiale, Economica, Paris. Maillat D. et Quiquerez F., 2003, « L’évolution des disparités régionales en Suisse », Contribution au XXXIXème colloque de l’ASRDLF : concentration et ségrégation, dynamiques et inscriptions territoriales, Lyon, 1-3 septembre. Sassen S., 1991, The global City : New York, London, Tokyo, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Zimmermann J.B., 1995, « Dynamiques industrielles: le paradoxe du local », in Rallet A. et Torre A. (éd.), Economie industrielle et économie spatiale, Economica, Paris.

The Lin-Ni's problem for mean convex domains

We prove some refined asymptotic estimates for postive blowing up solutions to $\Delta u+\epsilon u=n(n-2)u^{\frac{n+2}{n-2}}$ on $\Omega$, $\partial_\nu u=0$ on $\partial\Omega$; $\Omega$ being a smooth bounded domain of \rn, $n\geq 3$. In particular, we show that concentration can occur only on boundary points with nonpositive mean curvature when $n=3$ or $n\geq 7$. As a direct consequence, we prove the validity of the Lin-Ni's conjecture in dimension $n=3$ and $n\geq 7$ for mean convex domains and with bounded energy. Recent examples by Wang-Wei-Yan show that the bound on the energy is a necessary condition.Comment: To appear in "Memoirs of the AMS

A Quantitative Study of Pure Parallel Processes

In this paper, we study the interleaving -- or pure merge -- operator that most often characterizes parallelism in concurrency theory. This operator is a principal cause of the so-called combinatorial explosion that makes very hard - at least from the point of view of computational complexity - the analysis of process behaviours e.g. by model-checking. The originality of our approach is to study this combinatorial explosion phenomenon on average, relying on advanced analytic combinatorics techniques. We study various measures that contribute to a better understanding of the process behaviours represented as plane rooted trees: the number of runs (corresponding to the width of the trees), the expected total size of the trees as well as their overall shape. Two practical outcomes of our quantitative study are also presented: (1) a linear-time algorithm to compute the probability of a concurrent run prefix, and (2) an efficient algorithm for uniform random sampling of concurrent runs. These provide interesting responses to the combinatorial explosion problem

Periodic optimal control for biomass productivity maximization in a photobioreactor using natural light

We address the question of optimization of the microalgal biomass long term productivity in the framework of production in photobioreactors under the influence of day/night cycles. For that, we propose a simple bioreactor model accounting for light attenuation in the reactor due to biomass density and obtain the control law that optimizes productivity over a single day through the application of Pontryagin's maximum principle, with the dilution rate being the main control. An important constraint on the obtained solution is that the biomass in the reactor should be at the same level at the beginning and at the end of the day so that the same control can be applied everyday and optimizes some form of long term productivity. Several scenarios are possible depending on the microalgae's strain parameters and the maximal admissible value of the dilution rate: bang-bang or bang-singular-bang control or, if the growth rate of the algae is very strong in the presence of light, constant maximal dilution. A bifurcation diagram is presented to illustrate for which values of the parameters these different behaviors occur. Finally, a simple sub-optimal bang-bang strategy is proposed that numerically achieves productivity levels that almost match those of the optimal strategy

Stars War in French Gastronomy: Prestige of Restaurants and Chefs’ Careers

In this paper, we analyze the careers from a sample of more than 1,000 top French chefs over more than twenty years and link it to the success or reputation of the restaurants where they have worked. This allows us to test what are the determinants of success but also to investigate the dynamics of performance and reputation, stressing the importance of the quality of apprenticeships, mentoring and entrepreneurship spirit. We find that the prestige of the restaurant where individuals work is on average declining along the career, and that the quality of apprenticeship is strongly related to the future success as chef. We also find that prices of restaurants with higher reputation are more sensitive to bad signals.reputation, careeers, gastronomy

Stars War in French Gastronomy: Prestige of Restaurants and Chefs’ Careers

In this paper, we analyze the careers from a sample of more than 1,000 top French chefs over more than twenty years and link it to the success or reputation of the restaurants where they have worked. This allows us to test what are the determinants of success but also to investigate the dynamics of performance and reputation, stressing the importance of the quality of apprenticeships, mentoring and entrepreneurship spirit. We find that the prestige of the restaurant where individuals work is on average declining along the career, and that the quality of apprenticeship is strongly related to the future success as chef. We also find that prices of restaurants with higher reputation are more sensitive to bad signals.No; keywords

A limitation of the hydrostatic reconstruction technique for Shallow Water equations

Because of their capability to preserve steady-states, well-balanced schemes for Shallow Water equations are becoming popular. Among them, the hydrostatic reconstruction proposed in Audusse et al. (2004), coupled with a positive numerical flux, allows to verify important mathematical and physical properties like the positivity of the water height and, thus, to avoid unstabilities when dealing with dry zones. In this note, we prove that this method exhibits an abnormal behavior for some combinations of slope, mesh size and water height.Comment: 7 page

Modeling and simulation of inertial drop break-up in a turbulent pipe flow downstream of a restriction.

This work deals with the modeling of drop break-up in an inhomogeneous turbulent flow that develops downstream of a concentric restriction in a pipe. The proposed approach consists in coupling Euler–Lagrange simulations of the drop motion to an interface deformation model. First the turbulent flow downstream of the restriction is solved by means of direct numerical simulation. Single drop trajectories are then calculated from the instantaneous force balance acting on the drop within the turbulent field (one-way coupling). Concurrently, the interface deformation is computed assuming the drop to behave as a Rayleigh–Lamb type oscillator forced by the turbulent stress along its trajectory. Criterion for break-up is based upon a critical value of drop eformation. This model has been tested against experimental data. The flow conditions and fluids properties have been chosen to match those experimental investigations. Both turbulent flow statistics and break-up probability calculations are in good agreement with experimental data, strengthening the relevance of this approach for modeling break-up in complex unsteady flow

GraphStream: A Tool for bridging the gap between Complex Systems and Dynamic Graphs

The notion of complex systems is common to many domains, from Biology to Economy, Computer Science, Physics, etc. Often, these systems are made of sets of entities moving in an evolving environment. One of their major characteristics is the emergence of some global properties stemmed from local interactions between the entities themselves and between the entities and the environment. The structure of these systems as sets of interacting entities leads researchers to model them as graphs. However, their understanding requires most often to consider the dynamics of their evolution. It is indeed not relevant to study some properties out of any temporal consideration. Thus, dynamic graphs seem to be a very suitable model for investigating the emergence and the conservation of some properties. GraphStream is a Java-based library whose main purpose is to help researchers and developers in their daily tasks of dynamic problem modeling and of classical graph management tasks: creation, processing, display, etc. It may also be used, and is indeed already used, for teaching purpose. GraphStream relies on an event-based engine allowing several event sources. Events may be included in the core of the application, read from a file or received from an event handler