Added distance, entry mode choice, and the moderating effect of experience: The case of British MNEs in emerging markets

We argue that a Developed Market Multinational Enterprise’s (DMNE) decision regarding the mode of entry in an Emerging Market (EM) will be affected by the geographic and administrative distance between the locations in which the MNE has previously held operations. Drawing our arguments on the Transaction Costs Economics (TCE) and Internalization Theory we propose that for low and high geographic and administrative distance, DMNEs will opt to enter EMs via a wholly owned subsidiary (WOS), while for moderate levels of distance via a joint venture (JV). Furthermore, we argue that DMNE’s previous international experience in EMs will have a positive effect on the suggested U-shaped relationship, alleviating the negative effects associated with the coordination and knowledge dissipation costs incurred due to the level of distance. We test our hypotheses against a dataset composed of 316 entries of FTSE 250 British MNEs in 39 EMs over the period 1971 – 2010. The results provide support for the U-shaped relationship, and partial support for the moderating effect of international experience

Online Makespan Minimization with Parallel Schedules

In online makespan minimization a sequence of jobs $\sigma = J_1,..., J_n$ has to be scheduled on $m$ identical parallel machines so as to minimize the maximum completion time of any job. We investigate the problem with an essentially new model of resource augmentation. Here, an online algorithm is allowed to build several schedules in parallel while processing $\sigma$. At the end of the scheduling process the best schedule is selected. This model can be viewed as providing an online algorithm with extra space, which is invested to maintain multiple solutions. The setting is of particular interest in parallel processing environments where each processor can maintain a single or a small set of solutions. We develop a (4/3+\eps)-competitive algorithm, for any 0<\eps\leq 1, that uses a number of 1/\eps^{O(\log (1/\eps))} schedules. We also give a (1+\eps)-competitive algorithm, for any 0<\eps\leq 1, that builds a polynomial number of (m/\eps)^{O(\log (1/\eps) / \eps)} schedules. This value depends on $m$ but is independent of the input $\sigma$. The performance guarantees are nearly best possible. We show that any algorithm that achieves a competitiveness smaller than 4/3 must construct $\Omega(m)$ schedules. Our algorithms make use of novel guessing schemes that (1) predict the optimum makespan of a job sequence $\sigma$ to within a factor of 1+\eps and (2) guess the job processing times and their frequencies in $\sigma$. In (2) we have to sparsify the universe of all guesses so as to reduce the number of schedules to a constant. The competitive ratios achieved using parallel schedules are considerably smaller than those in the standard problem without resource augmentation

EVALUATION OF THE ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF THE FLAVONOIDS ISOLATED FROM HELIOTROPIUM SINUATUM RESIN USING ORACFL, DPPH AND ESR METHODOLOGIES

Indexación: Web of Science; Scielo.The antioxidant capacity has been determined for a number of flavonoid compounds from Heliotropium sinuatum, a plant that grows in arid areas in the north of Chile. The methodologies used were: ORAC(FL) (oxygen radical absorbance capacity - fluorescein), DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) bleaching and electron spin resonance (ESR). These compounds were studied in homogeneous and heterogeneous media. The results showed that the 7-o-methyleriodictiol and 3-o-methylisorhamnetin are those with the highest antioxidant capacity.http://ref.scielo.org/m82cz

SUSY dark matter and lepton flavor violation

We study lepton flavor-violating (LFV) processes within a supersymmetric type-I seesaw framework with flavor-blind universal boundary conditions, properly accounting for the effect of the neutrino sector on the dark matter relic abundance. We consider several possibilities for the neutrino Yukawa coupling matrix and show that in regions of SUSY parameter space that yield the correct neutralino relic density, LFV rates can differ from naive estimates by up to two orders of magnitude. Contrary to common belief, we find that current LFV limits do not exclude neutrino Yukawa couplings larger than top Yukawa couplings. We introduce the ISAJET-M program that was used for the computations.Comment: 37 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables. Version to appear in PR

Biomassa e atividade microbiana do solo sob pastagem em sistemas de monocultura e silvipastoril.

A biomassa microbiana é um importante componente do solo que contribui para manutenção do ecossistema de pastagens, principalmente em solos tropicais. Neste sentido, o objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar a biomassa e atividade microbiana do solo sob pastagem em sistemas de monocultura de pasto de Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu, e em sistema silvipastoril formado por pasto e coqueiros (Cocos nucifera)

Generalizing movements with information-theoretic stochastic optimal control

Stochastic optimal control is typically used to plan a movement for a specific situation. Although most stochastic optimal control methods fail to generalize this movement plan to a new situation without replanning, a stochastic optimal control method is presented that allows reuse of the obtained policy in a new situation, as the policy is more robust to slight deviations from the initial movement plan. To improve the robustness of the policy, we employ information-theoretic policy updates that explicitly operate on trajectory distributions instead of single trajectories. To ensure a stable and smooth policy update, the ”distance” is limited between the trajectory distributions of the old and the new control policies. The introduced bound offers a closed-form solution for the resulting policy and extends results from recent developments in stochastic optimal control. In contrast to many standard stochastic optimal control algorithms, the current approach can directly infer the system dynamics from data points, and hence can also be used for model-based reinforcement learning. This paper represents an extension of the paper by Lioutikov et al. (“Sample-Based Information-Theoretic Stochastic Optimal Control,” Proceedings of 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 2014, pp. 3896–3902). In addition to revisiting the content, an extensive theoretical comparison is presented of the approach with related work, additional aspects of the implementation are discussed, and further evaluations are introduced

Nutrientes de cultivares de Cynodon, em duas épocas do ano, no Estado do Piauí.

Avaliaram-se os teores de proteína bruta, cálcio e fósforo em oito cultivares de cynodon: C. dactylon (L.) Pers. var. Aridus cv. Callie, C. dactylon (L.) Pers. cv. Coastcross, C. nlemfuensis Vanderyst cv. Estrela africana..

Improving the Price of Anarchy for Selfish Routing via Coordination Mechanisms

We reconsider the well-studied Selfish Routing game with affine latency functions. The Price of Anarchy for this class of games takes maximum value 4/3; this maximum is attained already for a simple network of two parallel links, known as Pigou's network. We improve upon the value 4/3 by means of Coordination Mechanisms. We increase the latency functions of the edges in the network, i.e., if $\ell_e(x)$ is the latency function of an edge $e$, we replace it by $\hat{\ell}_e(x)$ with $\ell_e(x) \le \hat{\ell}_e(x)$ for all $x$. Then an adversary fixes a demand rate as input. The engineered Price of Anarchy of the mechanism is defined as the worst-case ratio of the Nash social cost in the modified network over the optimal social cost in the original network. Formally, if \CM(r) denotes the cost of the worst Nash flow in the modified network for rate $r$ and \Copt(r) denotes the cost of the optimal flow in the original network for the same rate then [\ePoA = \max_{r \ge 0} \frac{\CM(r)}{\Copt(r)}.] We first exhibit a simple coordination mechanism that achieves for any network of parallel links an engineered Price of Anarchy strictly less than 4/3. For the case of two parallel links our basic mechanism gives 5/4 = 1.25. Then, for the case of two parallel links, we describe an optimal mechanism; its engineered Price of Anarchy lies between 1.191 and 1.192.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, preliminary version appeared at ESA 201

Composição bromatológica do pasto de capim-marandu sob sistemas de monocultura e silvipastoril.

Objetivou-se avaliar os teores de matéria seca (MS), proteína bruta (PB), fibra em detergente neutro (FDN) e fibra em detergente ácido (FDA) do pasto de capim-marandu (Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu) em sistemas de monocultura e silvipastoril formado por coqueiros (Cocos nucifera) e vacas leiteiras

Características do pasto de capim-marandu irrigado sob sistemas de monocultura e silvipastoril em duas condições de pastejo.

Objetivou-se avaliar a altura, a massa de forragem e composição morfológica do pasto de capim Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu irrigado sob sistemas de monocultura e silvipastoril formado por coqueiros (Cocos nucifera) e vacas leiteiras, em duas condições de pastejo