Superpowers Across the Sea: An Analysis of Competition Law in the US and EU via the Lens of Cultural, Political and Legal Values

This paper explores the differences in antitrust law between the United States (US) and European Union (EU) through the lens of cultural, political, and legal values. In regards to culture, the US and EU differ with respect to government involvement and public opinion, and such is reflected in each nation’s antitrust policies. Within the political realm, party values—namely conservatism or liberalism—and historical legislation—namely the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, Celler-Kefauver Act, and European Community (EC) Treaty—play a key role in the enforcement of antitrust law. Similarly, antitrust is approached differently in the US and EU with respect to legal values. This paper analyzes the cases of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. US (1911), Brown v. Board of Education, and US v. Microsoft (2011) to demonstrate the varying legal values inherent to the US and EU and how such values will play a role in the future of antitrust in both nations

Estimating three-demensional energy transfer in isotropic turbulence

To obtain an estimate of the spectral transfer function that indicates the rate of decay of energy, an x-wire probe was set at a fixed position, and two single wire probes were set at a number of locations in the same plane perpendicular to the mean flow in the wind tunnel. The locations of the single wire probes are determined by pseudo-random numbers (Monte Carlo). Second order spectra and cross spectra are estimated. The assumption of isotropy relative to second order spectra is examined. Third order spectra are also estimated corresponding to the positions specified. A Monte Carlo Fourier transformation of the downstream bispectra corresponding to integration across the plane perpendicular to the flow is carried out assuming isotropy. Further integration is carried out over spherical energy shells

Escape tactics used by bluegills and fathead minnows to avoid predation by tiger muskellunge

To explain why esocids prefer cylindrical, soft-rayed prey over compressed, spiny-rayed prey, we quantified behavioral interaction between tiger muskellunge (F1 hybrid of male northern pike Esox lucius and female muskellunge E. masquinongy) and fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) and bluegills (Lepomis macrochirus). Tiger muskellunge required four times as many strikes and longer pursuits to capture bluegills than fathead minnows. Tiger muskellunge attacked each prey species differently; fathead minnows were grasped at midbody and bluegills were attacked in the caudal area. Each prey species exhibited different escape tactics. Fathead minnows remained in open water and consistently schooled; bluegills dispersed throughout the tank and sought cover by moving to corners and edges. Due to their antipredatory behavior (dispersing, cover seeking, and remaining motionless) and morphology (deep body and spines), bluegills were less susceptible to capture by tiger muskellunge than were fathead minnows.Funding for this project was provided by the Federal Aid in Fish Restoration Act under Dingell-Johnson Project F-57-R

Autism traits: The importance of “co-morbid” problems for impairment and contact with services. Data from the Bergen Child Study

Background: Co-occurring problems are common in individuals with clinical autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but their relevance for impairment and contact with health services in ASD is largely unexplored. Aims: We investigated the extent of co-occurring problems in children with high ASD traits from a total population sample. We explored the contribution of co-occurring problems to impairment and service contact, and whether there were children without co-occurring problems in this group; as proxy for “ASD only”. Methods and procedures: Children screening positive on the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) were used as proxy for ASD. Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) were operationalised using symptom counts. A parent or teacher report above the 95th percentile counted as “problem” present for other symptom domains. Outcomes and results: 92% of ASSQ high-scorers had a minimum of two other problems. Emotional problems, ADHD symptoms and learning problems were the most commonly reported problems, also predicting impairment and contact with services. Conclusions and implications: Co-occurring problems were common in ASD screen positive children and contributed strongly to both impairment and to contact with services. Gender differences indicated that female symptoms were perceived as less impairing by parents and teachers

Arachnoid cysts do not contain cerebrospinal fluid: A comparative chemical analysis of arachnoid cyst fluid and cerebrospinal fluid in adults

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Arachnoid cyst (AC) fluid has not previously been compared with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from the same patient. ACs are commonly referred to as containing "CSF-like fluid". The objective of this study was to characterize AC fluid by clinical chemistry and to compare AC fluid to CSF drawn from the same patient. Such comparative analysis can shed further light on the mechanisms for filling and sustaining of ACs.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cyst fluid from 15 adult patients with unilateral temporal AC (9 female, 6 male, age 22-77y) was compared with CSF from the same patients by clinical chemical analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>AC fluid and CSF had the same osmolarity. There were no significant differences in the concentrations of sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, magnesium or glucose. We found significant elevated concentration of phosphate in AC fluid (0.39 versus 0.35 mmol/L in CSF; <it>p </it>= 0.02), and significantly reduced concentrations of total protein (0.30 versus 0.41 g/L; <it>p </it>= 0.004), of ferritin (7.8 versus 25.5 ug/L; <it>p </it>= 0.001) and of lactate dehydrogenase (17.9 versus 35.6 U/L; <it>p </it>= 0.002) in AC fluid relative to CSF.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>AC fluid is not identical to CSF. The differential composition of AC fluid relative to CSF supports secretion or active transport as the mechanism underlying cyst filling. Oncotic pressure gradients or slit-valves as mechanisms for generating fluid in temporal ACs are not supported by these results.</p

Utslipp av breslam til Holandsfjorden fra Svartisen kraftverk. Spredning av mulige effekter av partikkeltilførselen

Etter at Svartisen kraftverk kom i drift i 1993 er det i perioder blitt observert brunlig vann i store deler av Nordfjord/Holandsfjord. Hovedårsaken har vært en høy tilførsel av partikler til fjorden gjennom kraftverket. Det siste års målinger av suspendert materiale (SPM) i kraftverksvannet viser en markant reduksjon i tilførselen av partikler til fjorden gjennom kraftverket, og bedringene er blitt bekreftet av SPM- og siktedypsmålinger i fjorden. Det er anslått at ca. 30% av den leire og silt som slippes ut gjennom kraftverket transporteres forbi Enganeset, hvor den raskt fortynnes og konsentrasjonen av SPM vil komme ned på "bakgrunnsnivå". Sandfraksjonen vil i hovedsak sedimentere rett utenfor utslippet innerst i Nordfjord. Beregninger foretatt med utgangspunkt i dagens-, og den antatt fremtidige situasjon, indikerer liten negativ påvirkning på livet i fjorden. Lokalt, og i korte perioder, vil påvirkningen kunne være større. For å fortsatt kunne følge utviklingen i fjorden i tiden fremover foreslåes at pågående undersøkelser/målinger, med enkelte tillegg og justeringer, videreføres frem til år 2001-02 da en større etterundersøkelse er planlagt

Analysis of Transaction Management Performance

There is currently much interest in incorporating transactions into both operating systems and general purpose programming languages. This paper provides a detailed examination of the design and performance of the“¢ transaction manager of the Camelot system. Camelot is a transaction facility that provides a rich model of transactions intended to support a wide variety of general-purpose applications. The transaction manager's principal function is to execute the protocols that ensure atomicity. The conclusions of this study are: a simple optimization to two-phase commit reduces logging activity of distributed transactions; non-blocking commit is practical for some applications; multithreaded design improves throughput provided that log batching is used; multi-casting reduces the variance of distributed commit protocols in a LAN environment; and the performance of transaction mechanisms such as Camelot depend heavily upon kernel performance

Better Not Sleep Under Water : A Comparison of Two Norwegian Films and their American Remakes

Close to half of the films produced in Hollywood every year are based on books, TV-series, comic books, cartoons or earlier films. Many of these earlier films are produced in other countries than the United States. Making a film based on another film can be a dangerous game, especially if that earlier film is a product of a different country and different culture. This thesis looks at the differences in remakes and their originary films, and more specifically the differences between the two Norwegian films Hodet over vannet (Nils Gaup, 1993) and Insomnia (Erik Skjoldbjærg, 1999) and their American remakes Head Above Water (Jim Wilson, 1996) and Insomnia (Christopher Nolan, 2002). The analysis focuses on the cultural and industry related differences that can be read out of comparing the films. The thesis makes the claim that the there are many pitfalls that a production company or a director can fall into when remaking a film from a different country, and that both the ideological content and the narrative structure of the films have to be reworked in order to make a successful cross-cultural remake

Oljeforurensning i sedimentene utenfor Sjursøya Oljehavn. 2002

Årsliste 2003Sedimentene utenfor Sjursøya er sterkt forurenset av olje, konsentrasjonene er like høye eller høyere i dag sammenlignet med undersøkelsene i 1993. Andelen NPD (oljerelatert PAH) var høyere i dag enn i 1993. Konsentrasjonen av sumPAH var noe lavere enn i 1993. Undersøkelsene tyder på at sedimentene kontinuerlig mottar olje fra Sjursøya eller nærliggende landområde. Den høye konsentrasjonen av olje i sedimentene utenfor Sjursøya kan ikke forklares med spredning fra sterkt forurensede sedimenter i inder deler av Oslo havn. Det er ikke sannsynlig at en reduksjon i oljeforurensning vil føre til noen bedring av en generelt forurensningsbelastet bunnfauna i området. De forurensede sedimentene ligger på dypt vann (>30 m) og med unntak av området nærmest kaia er de utsatt for lite forstyrrelse. Før en vurderer eventuelle tiltak på bunnsedimentene må tilførslene fra land stoppes eller reduseres betydelig.Oslo kommune Havnevesenet v/NG

Efficient state-based CRDTs by delta-mutation

CRDTs are distributed data types that make eventual consistency of a distributed object possible and non ad-hoc. Specifically, state-based CRDTs ensure convergence through disseminating the entire state, that may be large, and merging it to other replicas; whereas operation-based CRDTs disseminate operations (i.e., small states) assuming an exactly-once reliable dissemination layer. We introduce Delta State Conflict-Free Replicated Datatypes (δ-CRDT) that can achieve the best of both worlds: small messages with an incremental nature, disseminated over unreliable communication channels. This is achieved by defining δ-mutators to return a delta-state, typically with a much smaller size than the full state, that is joined to both: local and remote states. We introduce the δ-CRDT framework, and we explain it through establishing a correspondence to current state-based CRDTs. In addition, we present an anti-entropy algorithm that ensures causal consistency, and two δ-CRDT specifications of well-known replicated datatypes.This work is co-financed by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (ON.2, O Novo Norte), under the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), within project NORTE07-0124-FEDER-000058; and by EU FP7 SyncFree project (609551)