Heterogeneity of Southern Countries and Southern Intellectual Property Rights Policy

We develop a model with one innovating northern firm and heterogeneous southern firms that compete in a final product market. We assume southern firms differ in their ability to adapt technology and study southern incentives to protect intellectual property rights. We find that, in a non-cooperative equilibrium, governments resist IPR protection, but collectively southern countries benefit from some protection. We show that, in general, countries with more efficient firms prefer higher collective IPR protection than those with less efficient firms. Given the aggregate level of IPR protection, it is more efficient if the more efficient countries have weaker IPR protection.

Transient non-isothermal model of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell

In this paper we present a one-dimensional transient model for the membrane electrode assembly of a polymer-electrolyte fuel cell. In earlier work we established a framework to describe the water balance in a steady-state, non-isothermal cathode model that explicitly included an agglomerate catalyst layer component. This paper extends that work in several directions, explicitly incorporating components of the anode, including a micro-porous layer, and accounting for electronic potential variations, gas convection and time dependence. The inclusion of temperature effects, which are vital to the correct description of condensation and evaporation, is new to transient modelling. Several examples of the modelling results are given in the form of potentiostatic sweeps and compared to experimental results. Excellent qualitative agreement is demonstrated, particularly in regard to the phenomenon of hysteresis, a manifestation of the sensitive response of the system to the presence of water. Results pertaining to pore size, contact angle and the presence of a micro-porous layer are presented and future work is discussed

Welfare Effects of Intellectual Property Rights Under Asymmetric Spillovers

We develop a model with one innovating northern firm and several heterogeneous Southern firms that compete in a final product market. We assume the southern firms differ in their ability to adapt technology and use this heterogeneity to study the differing incentives of southern governments to protect intellectual property rights. We find that governments representing more efficient firms have greater incentive to protect IPR than do those representing less efficient firms. However, efficiency considerations imply that, given policies resulting in the same overall innovation rate, it would be better to have weaker IPR protection for the more efficient southern firms.innovation; imperfect competition; commercial policy; intellectual property rights protection; trade

Noncommutative Q-balls

We obtain Q-ball solutions in noncommutative scalar field theory with a global U(1) invariance. The Q-ball solutions are shown to be classically and quantum mechanically stable. We also find that "excited Q-ball" states exist for some class of scalar potentials, which are classically stable in the large noncommutativity limit.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, v2: a typo corrected, v3: two references adde

Effect of fibronectin on the binding of antithrombin III to immobilized heparin

An objective of this research is to verify the mechanism of anticoagulant activity of surface-immobilized heparin in the presence of plasma proteins. The competition and binding interaction between immobilized heparin and antithrombin III (ATIII)/thrombin have been described in vitro. However, the strong ionic character of heparin leads to its specific and nonspecific binding with many other plasma proteins. Most notably, fibronectin contains six active binding sites for heparin which may interfere with the subsequent binding of heparin with ATIII or thrombin. \ud Heparin was covalently immobilized through polyethylene oxide (PEO) hydrophilic spacer groups onto a model surface synthesized by random copolymerization of styrene and p-aminostyrene. The binding interaction of immobilized heparin with ATIII was then determined in the presence of different fibronectin concentrations. The binding interaction was studied by first binding immobilized heparin with ATIII, followed by the introduction of fibronectin; heparin binding with fibronectin, followed by incubation with ATIII, and simultaneous incubation of surface immobilized heparin with ATIII and fibronectin. The extent of ATIII binding to heparin in each experiment was assayed using a chromogenic substrate for ATIII, S-2238. \ud The results of this study demonstrate that the displacement of ATIII from immobilized heparin was proportional to the fibronectin concentration, and was reversible. Furthermore, the binding sequence did not play a role in the final concentration of ATIII bound to immobilized heparin

Heparin release from thermosensitive hydrogels

Thermosensitive hydrogels (TSH) were synthesized and investigated as heparin releasing polymers for the prevention of surface induced thrombosis. TSH were synthesized with N-isopropyl acrylamide (NiPAAm) copolymerized with butyl methacrylate (BMA) (hydrophobic) or acrylic acid (AAc) (hydrophilic) comonomers. The incorporation of hydrophobic and hydrophilic comonomers strongly influences the swelling/shrinking behavior of TSH. Upon deswelling, gels containing the hydrophobic comonomer formed a skin-type layer, which acted as a rate controlling membrane, while the hydrophilic comonomer greatly increased gel swelling, relative to NiPAAm. Equilibrium swelling in isotonic PBS and deswelling kinetics of the synthesized gels were examined at various temperatures. The loading of heparin into the different gels was studied as a function of temperature, solution concentration, and gel composition. The release kinetics of heparin was found to be influenced by gel composition and loading temperature; the release correlated with the gel deswelling kinetics. In the case of Ni-PAAm/BMA gel, the release profile of heparin was affected by temperature dependent properties of the skin-type diffusional barrier formed on the gel surface

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Opportunities for Local Governments: A Quantification and Prioritization Framework

Local governments have steadily increased their initiative to address global climate change, and many present their proposed strategies through climate action plans (CAPs). This study conducts a literature review on current local approaches to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction strategies by assessing CAPs in California and presents common strategies in the transportation sector along with useful tools. One identified limitation of many CAPs is the omission of quantitative economic cost and emissions data for decision-making on the basis of cost-effectiveness. Therefore, this study proposes a framework for comparing strategies based on their life cycle emissions mitigation potential and costs. The results data can be presented in a marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) to allow for side-by-side comparison of considered strategies. Researchers partnered with Yolo and Unincorporated Los Angeles Counties to analyze 7 strategies in the transportation and energy sectors (five and two, respectively). A MACC was subsequently developed for each county. Applying the life cycle approach revealed strategies that had net cost savings over their life cycle, indicating there are opportunities for reducing emissions and costs. The MACC also revealed that some emissions reduction strategies in fact increased emissions on a life cycle basis. Applying the MACC framework to two case study jurisdictions illustrated both the feasibility and challenges of including quantitative analysis in their decision-making process. An additional barrier to using the MACC framework in the context of CAPs, is the mismatch between a life cycle and annual accounting basis for GHG emissions. Future work could explore more efficient data collection, alternative scopes of emissions for reporting, and environmental justice concerns.View the NCST Project Webpag