Russia’s Chemical and Petrochemical Industries at the Eve of WTO-Accession

Although Russia’s WTO-accession is foreseeable, there are still deficits in the literature on its concrete effects on the sectoral and regional levels. In this paper we analyse effects on Russia’s chemical and petrochemical sectors (CPS), which are, unlike for example its oil and mineral gas industry, rarely in the focus of public attention. On the basis of an extensive examination of these sectors’ current condition, we expect serious problems for them to emerge in the nearer future, the perhaps most serious and most puzzling problem being under-investment. Our analysis is based on data provided by GOSKOM-STAT/ROSSTAT, Russia’s official statistics institute. The authors like to thank Henning P. Jørgensen for valuable comments on an ear-lier version of the paper.Russia, chemical and petrochemical industries, WTO

From Solution Shop to Boutique Consulting? Capturing Recent Developments on the German Consulting Market

Digitalization, globalization, new technologies and shorter product life cycles are only a few keywords underlining the fact that companies are under increasing pressure for faster adaptation, innovation and hence applying a higher knowledge intensity. We assume that these conditions require an increasingly important role of consulting companies, because they seem to be the intermediaries needed to bridge the faster growing gaps between existing business models, organizational structures and accelerating market change. Market pressure is growing on the market for consultant companies as well. New technologies and digitalization should influence both the structure of the consultancy market and the business models of consultancies. Christensen suggested a trend from Dzsolution shop” to Dzboutique consulting.” To track current developments, we concentrate on the German consulting market as one of the most important consultant markets worldwide and explore changes of the last two years based on various studies. Processes of change seem to be both substantially driven by digitalization and to reflect change on the non-consultancy markets. A high willingness to switch among providers documents a high pressure on performance. The impact of digitalisation seem to be observable in structural and qualitative change. With regard to the German consulting market and the latest available data we cannot validate a tendency from a dominance of “solution shop” consultancies to “boutique” consultancy service

Die Neue E.ON auf dem deutschen Strommarkt - Wettbewerbliche Auswirkungen der innogy-Übernahme

Der Deal der beiden größten deutschen Energielieferanten RWE und E.ON zum Tausch verschiedener Geschäftseinheiten, welcher Mitte September 2019 genehmigt wurde, wird den deutschen Energiemarkt wesentlich umstrukturieren und sowohl im Bereich Erzeugung als auch im Vertrieb zu jeweils einem dominanten Wettbewerber führen. E.ON wird dabei durch die Übernahme der innogy Geschäfte im Bereich des klassischen Energievertriebs und der Ladeinfrastruktur für Elektrofahrzeuge wesentliche Wettbewerbsvorteile erhalten. Dazu zählt unter anderem der Zugang zu einer Vielzahl an Messstellen und damit Datensätzen im Bereich des Haushalts- und Geschäftskundenvertriebs. Die Auswertung und Nutzung dieser Datensätze eröffnet dem zusammengeschlossenen Unternehmen neue Geschäftsfelder, aber auch Möglichkeiten die dominante Stellung auf dem Markt zu missbrauchen. Dieser Beitrag widmet sich den potenziellen Auswirkungen der innogy-Übernahme durch E.ON in den Bereichen klassischer Vertrieb und E-Mobilität, in welchen die angesprochenen Aspekte der Datenökonomik eine wesentliche Rolle spielen. Des Weiteren werden die Auswirkungen der Marktumstrukturierung auf den Konzessionsmarkt betrachtet und die politökonomische Dimension des Zusammenschlusses erläutert. Wir schließen mit einer Kurzanalyse der Erlaubnisentscheidung und der damit verbundenen Auflagen und kommen zu dem Schluss, dass diese nicht geeignet sind, die erheblichen anti-kompetitiven Auswirkungen des Zusammenschlusses einzudämmen oder zu verhindern

Comparison of Single-Wavelength and Multi-Wavelength Transponders in a Physical-layer-aware Network Planning Study

Based on suitable system architectures and realistic specifications, transmit OSNR penalties and spectral constraints of multi-wavelength transponders are identified and analyzed in a network study. We report up to 70% less required lasers at the expense of a slight increase in number of lightpaths.Comment: The work has been partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the project STARFALL (16KIS1418K) and the project 6G-life (16KISK002), as well as the European Research Council through the ERC-CoG FRECOM project (grant no. 771878

Ensemble modeling highlights importance of understanding parasite-host behavior in preclinical antimalarial drug development

Emerging drug resistance and high-attrition rates in early and late stage drug development necessitate accelerated development of antimalarial compounds. However, systematic and meaningful translation of drug efficacy and host-parasite dynamics between preclinical testing stages is missing. We developed an ensemble of mathematical within-host parasite growth and antimalarial action models, fitted to extensive data from four antimalarials with different modes of action, to assess host-parasite interactions in two preclinical drug testing systems of murine parasite P. berghei in mice, and human parasite P. falciparum in immune-deficient mice. We find properties of the host-parasite system, namely resource availability, parasite maturation and virulence, drive P. berghei dynamics and drug efficacy, whereas experimental constraints primarily influence P. falciparum infection and drug efficacy. Furthermore, uninvestigated parasite behavior such as dormancy influences parasite recrudescence following non-curative treatment and requires further investigation. Taken together, host-parasite interactions should be considered for meaningful translation of pharmacodynamic properties between murine systems and for predicting human efficacious treatment

Experimental Demonstration of ML-Based DWDM System Margin Estimation

SNR margins between partially and fully loaded DWDM systems are estimated without detailed knowledge of the network. The ML model, trained on simulation data, achieves accurate predictions on experimental data with an RMSE of 0.16 dB.Comment: This work has been partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the CELTIC-NEXT project AI-NET-PROTECT (#16KIS1279K) and in the programme of "Souver\"an. Digital. Vernetzt." joint project 6G-life (#16KISK002). Work was also funded by Science Foundation Ireland projects OpenIreland (18/RI/5721) and 13/RC/2077 p

Observation of orbital order in the van der Waals material 1T−TiSe2

Besides magnetic and charge order, regular arrangements of orbital occupation constitute a fundamental order parameter of condensed matter physics. Even though orbital order is difficult to identify directly in experiments, its presence was firmly established in a number of strongly correlated, three-dimensional Mott insulators. Here, reporting resonant x-ray-scattering experiments on the layered van der Waals compound 1T-TiSe2, we establish that the known charge density wave in this weakly correlated, quasi-two-dimensional material corresponds to an orbital ordered phase. Our experimental scattering results are consistent with first-principles calculations that bring to the fore a generic mechanism of close interplay between charge redistribution, lattice displacements, and orbital order. It demonstrates the essential role that orbital degrees of freedom play in TiSe2, and their importance throughout the family of correlated van der Waals materials