Aggregate litigation and regulatory innovation: another view of judicial efficiency

In this article, we argue that aggregate litigation and the court system can not only restore the protection of victims and the production of deterrence, but also play a pivotal role in stimulating regulatory innovation. This is accomplished through a reward system that seems largely to mimic the institutional devices used in other domains, such as intellectual property rights, by defining a proper set of incentives. Precisely the described solution relies on creating a specific economic framework able to foster economies of scale and grant a valuable property right over a specific litigation to an entrepreneurial individual, who in exchange provides the venture capital needed for the legal action, and produces inputs and focal points for amending regulations. In this light, aggregate litigation thus can be equally seen as an incubator for regulation.aggregate litigation, efficiency, market for risk, hierarchy, regulation, innovation, asbestos

Charging strategies for electrostatic control of spacecraft formations

Formation control by means of electrostatic forces, generating attractive or repulsive actions by charging the satellites’ surfaces, has been recently proposed for high altitude orbits to precisely maintain the configuration without risk of plume impingement. This paper focuses on electrostatic control and switching strategies for charge distribution in spacecraft formations, taking into account the limits on the power requirements. Two nonlinear global control approaches are presented and applied to two and three satellites’ formations. Then, an optimized charge distribution process among the satellites is discussed and applied to the three spacecraft formation case. Numerical simulations are performed in order to evaluate the advantages and drawbacks of this configuration control technique

Performance monitoring and analysis of a yield-control support system in squeezing rock

ISBN 978-0-415-58654-

Existence and regularity of solutions for an evolution model of perfectly plastic plates

We continue the study of a dynamic evolution model for perfectly plastic plates, recently derived from three-dimensional Prandtl-Reuss plasticity. We extend the previous existence result by introducing non-zero external forces in the model, and we discuss the regularity of the solutions thus obtained. In particular, we show that the first derivatives with respect to space of the stress tensor are locally square integrable

Wave propagation in discontinuous media

Wave propagation in discontinuous media, which is of interest for design analysis of underground structures and geotechnical works in general, is studied in this paper with the scattering matrix method. This method determines the response of a system, i.e. the discontinuous medium, excited by an elastic wave. Both P, SV or SH waves can be applied to the model with any oblique angle of incidence. The scattering matrix is composed of reflection and transmission coefficients of a single joint or a set of parallel joints. The analytical solution is obtained in the frequency domain and allows one to consider multiple wave reflections between joints. Reflected and transmitted waves are calculated for one and more joints in dry or fluid filled conditions. The solutions obtained are compared with analytical and numerical solutions available in the literature or obtained independently by using the Distinct Element Metho

The Economics of Next Generation Access Networks and Regulatory Governance: Towards Geographic Patterns of Regulation

This paper examines the mix of technical, regulatory, and business strategy issues that arise in implementing next generation broadband platforms in Europe. Our review of some European studies on NGAN in Europe and our specific focus on the Italian situation, in particular on the competitive situation in Milano, shows the relevant flaw of continuing to advocate national patterns of regulation. In fact, the deployment of NGAN calls for a radical shift of regulation on a geographic level. The recognition that a NGAN business case does exist for OLO in a number of local areas, mainly metropolitan ones, has relevant regulatory implications.In the first place, since the conditions of competition differ significantly among local areas, regulation should promote both incumbents' and OLO's investments in NGAN by limiting ex ante interventions to those enduring economic bottlenecks found at a specific geographic markets level. In the second place, market definition is the most important step in the market analysis procedure to help decide whether to regulate a given service provided over a NGAN or not. We have proposed a taxonomy of local areas that may be adopted in a country like Italy for a correct geographic definition of markets 4 and 5 and, as a consequence, for the imposition of appropriate remedies.Next Generation Networks, geographic markets, geographic remedies, infrastructure sharing, market definition

The Economics of Next Generation Access Networks and Regulatory Governance: Towards Geographic Patterns of Regulation

This paper examines the mix of technical, regulatory, and business strategy issues that arise in implementing next generation broadband platforms in Europe. Our review of some European studies on NGAN in Europe and our specific focus on the Italian situation, in particular on the competitive situation in Milano, shows the relevant flaw of continuing to advocate national patterns of regulation. In fact, the deployment of NGAN calls for a radical shift of regulation on a geographic level. The recognition that a NGAN business case does exist for OLO in a number of local areas, mainly metropolitan ones, has relevant regulatory implications.In the first place, since the conditions of competition differ significantly among local areas, regulation should promote both incumbents' and OLO's investments in NGAN by limiting ex ante interventions to those enduring economic bottlenecks found at a specific geographic markets level. In the second place, market definition is the most important step in the market analysis procedure to help decide whether to regulate a given service provided over a NGAN or not. We have proposed a taxonomy of local areas that may be adopted in a country like Italy for a correct geographic definition of markets 4 and 5 and, as a consequence, for the imposition of appropriate remedies.Next Generation Networks, geographic markets, geographic remedies, infrastructure sharing, market definition.

Is tuberculosis elimination a reality?

Multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis is a public health emergency and a challenging scenario for both patients and clinicians. In 2012, there were more than 450 000 incident cases and 170 000 deaths worldwide. Treatment of MDR tuberculosis is complex and expensive (€100 000 or more for drugs for one patient), especially its most severe, extensively drug-resistant forms. Treatment is long (at least 2 years), the drugs are toxic (specific expertise is needed to manage adverse reactions), and the outcomes are poor (with low success and high death rates). New drugs will soon be available that will probably shorten and simplify treatment for MDR tuberculosis and increase effectiveness, and public health strategies have been developed to prevent the occurrence of drug resistance. The traditional approach of national tuberculosis programmes, focused on tuberculosis control (ie, rapid diagnosis and early, effective treatment of newly detected infectious cases), which was advocated by the WHO Stop TB Strategy, will soon be replaced by the post-2015 strategy focused on the concept of tuberculosis elimination (ie, fewer than one new sputum smear-positive tuberculosis case per 1 million population). Whereas traditional contact tracing (eg, looking for the contacts of individuals with tuberculosis and MDR tuberculosis in progressive circles) recommends identification and treatment of latently infected individuals and additional tuberculosis cases, new approaches recommend genotypic identification of the causative strain, monitoring of the epidemic, and initiation of adequate measures to manage it. One such approach is mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit-variable-number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR) strain typing. In The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Laura F Anderson and colleagues report an assessment of transmission of MDR tuberculosis in the UK between 2004 and 2007, using the 24-loci MIRU-VNTR method together with epidemiological data collected through the national surveillance system and an ad-hoc cluster investigation questionnaire. The scope was to identify the relative frequency of MDR tuberculosis cases transmitted nationwide. 204 patients were diagnosed with MDR tuberculosis in the study period of whom 189 (92·6%) had an MIRU-VNTR profile. 15% of these cases were clustered. Furthermore, Anderson and colleagues analysed the risk factors associated with MDR tuberculosis transmission: being born in the UK (odds ratio 4·81; 95% CI 2·03—11·36, p=0·0005) and having a history of illicit drug use (4·75; 1·19—18·96, p=0·026) significantly increased the probability of transmission. Most cases (21 of 22) were transmitted in the household. The occurrence of MDR tuberculosis transmission in the UK is lower than in other European and non-European settings, probably as a consequence of scarce transmission occurring between specific population groups. The study is an excellent example of nationwide implementation of one of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recommendations to eliminate tuberculosis in the European Union. Moreover, the identification of risk factors allows the prioritisation of the public health investigations, reducing the probability of transmission related to health-care system delay. The core strength of the study is the high proportion of MDR tuberculosis cases assessed with the novel diagnostic approach (ie, 24-loci MIRU-VNTR) and the ability to increase sensitivity compared with the traditional epidemiological investigations. However, other more sensitive techniques such as whole genome sequencing analysis could also have increased the ability to identify additional epidemiological links, which means that a potential underestimation of MDR tuberculosis transmission should be considered. Low culture confirmation (about 60% in the UK) could also have underestimated the true prevalence of transmission. Molecular methods have several public health applications, including identification of outbreaks, population groups at highest risk of transmission, transmission across jurisdictions, transmission chains, reinfected and relapsing cases, and laboratory cross-contamination. However, several technical problems currently hinder their integration into national tuberculosis programmes, including the absence of a gold standard to effectively assess their discriminatory power. The ECDC recommends monitoring and assessment of transmission of drug-susceptible and drug-resistant mycobacterial strains by adoption of sensitive and specific molecular methods. Molecular fingerprinting, alongside classic epidemiological studies, will be helpful to discriminate real clusters of tuberculosis cases (ie, individuals infected by the same genotypes) and to (indirectly) assess the efficacy of a tuberculosis control programme implemented at a national or regional level. If we are to make tuberculosis elimination a reality, this UK experience needs to be followed up in other European Union countries. The implementation of molecular methods with increased sensitivity allows the bypassing of low discriminatory power associated with traditional contact tracing procedures, scaling up part of the European Union's tuberculosis elimination package.</br