Platform Rules: Multi-Sided Platforms as Regulators

This paper provides a basic conceptual framework for interpreting non-price instruments used by multi-sided platforms (MSPs) by analogizing MSPs as "private regulators" who regulate access to and interactions around the platform. We present evidence on Facebook, TopCoder, Roppongi Hills and Harvard Business School to document the "regulatory" role played by MSPs. We find MSPs use nuanced combinations of legal, technological, informational and other instruments (including price-setting) to implement desired outcomes. Non-price instruments were very much at the core of MSP strategies.Platforms, regulation, network effects, distributed innovation

Closed-loop Dynamics of In-core Thermionic Reactor Systems

Using a point model of an in-core thermionic converter, alternative schemes for providing closed loop reactor control were investigated. It was found that schemes based on variable gain power regulation buffers which use the reactor current as the control variable provide complete protection from thermionic burnout and also provide a virtually constant voltage to the user. A side benefit is that the emitter temperature transients are small-even for a complete electric load drop the emitter temperature transient is less than 100 deg K. The current regulation scheme was selected for further study with a distributed parameter model which was developed to account for variations in thermionic and heat transfer properties along the length of a cylindrical converter. It was found that even though the emitter temperature distribution is about 200 deg K along the converter length, the dynamic properties are unchanged when using the current control scheme

Why Do Employees Keep Choosing the Expensive Health Care Plan? An Investigation of the Quality and Logic of Employee Health Care Plan Selections

In 1991, The Dannon Company provided 287 of its employees with a choice of healthcare plans. The new plan was less expensive and designed to fit employees\u27 needs better. Contrary to managerial expectation, three-quarters of employees continued to choose the more expensive plan. To study why this was occurring and to determine if these choices reflected employee mistakes, a cooperative effort was begun between The Dannon Company and Cornell University. This cooperative effort allowed us to investigate this problem using actual employee medical claims. Analysis revealed employees strive not only to minimize costs, but also to avoid risk in their health care plan decisions. Overall, employees with the most significant cost difference chose the plan with the lowest total costs. This effect translated into financial savings for the employees. Employees were better off as a group with the freedom to make their own selections than they would have been if they had been forced into either of the two available health care options. Thus, this study demonstrated that choice is valuable to employees. Implications for Dannon and for future research are discussed

Rugged, low-conductance, heat-flow probe

Lightweight, compact probe structure has low thermal conductance to enable accurate measurement of slight temperature gradients. Probe combines ruggedness, high precision, accuracy, and stability. Device can withstand vibration, shock, acceleration, temperature extremes, and high vacuums, and should interest industrial engineers and geologists

Ongoing transients in carbonate compensation

Uptake of anthropogenic CO2 is acidifying the oceans. Over the next 2000 years, this will modify the dissolution and preservation of sedimentary carbonate. By coupling new formulas for the positions of the calcite saturation horizon, zsat, the compensation depth, zcc, and the snowline, zsnow, to a biogeochemical model of the oceanic carbonate system, we evaluate how these horizons will change with ongoing ocean acidification. Our model is an extended Havardton-Bear-type box model, which includes novel kinetic descriptions for carbonate dissolution above, between, and below these critical depths. In the preindustrial ocean, zsat and zcc are at 3939 and 4750 m, respectively. When forced with the IS92a CO2 emission scenario, the model forecasts (1) that zsat will rise rapidly (“runaway” conditions) so that all deep water becomes undersaturated, (2) that zcc will also rise and over 1000 years will pass before it will be stabilized by the dissolution of previously deposited CaCO3, and (3) that zsnow will respond slowly to acidification, rising by ∼1150 m during a 2000 year timeframe. A further simplified model that equates the compensation and saturation depths produces quantitatively different results. Finally, additional feedbacks due to acidification on calcification and increased atmospheric CO2 on organic matter productivity strongly affect the positions of the compensation horizons and their dynamics.

Development of magnetostrictive active members for control of space structures

The goal of this Phase 2 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) project was to determine the technical feasibility of developing magnetostrictive active members for use as truss elements in space structures. Active members control elastic vibrations of truss-based space structures and integrate the functions of truss structure element, actively controlled actuator, and sensor. The active members must control structural motion to the sub-micron level and, for many proposed space applications, work at cryogenic temperatures. Under this program both room temperature and cryogenic temperature magnetostrictive active members were designed, fabricated, and tested. The results of these performance tests indicated that room temperature magnetostrictive actuators feature higher strain, stiffness, and force capability with lower amplifier requirements than similarly sized piezoelectric or electrostrictive active members, at the cost of higher mass. Two different cryogenic temperature magnetostrictive materials were tested at liquid nitrogen temperatures, both with larger strain capability than the room temperature magnetostrictive materials. The cryogenic active member development included the design and fabrication of a cryostat that allows operation of the cryogenic active member in a space structure testbed

Solid-Liquid two-phase partitioning bioreactors for the treatment of gas.-phase VOCs

[Abstract] Two-Phase Partitioning Bioreactors (TPPBs) consist of a cell-containing aqueous phase and a separate, biocompatible and immiscible phase that partitions toxic substrates to the cells based on their metabolic demand and on maintaining the thermodynamic equilibrium of the system. TPPBs have traditionally used immiscible liquid organic solvents as the substrate delivery phase, however, one of the limitations of organic solvents is their potential bioavailability as substrates, and therefore these TPPB systems have generally been limited to the use of pure strains of organisms incapable of metabolizing the solvent. We have replaced the organic solvent phase in TPPBs with inert polymers (plastic beads). A TPPB employing styrene-butadiene beads as the sequestering phase was used to treat high step change loadings of BTEX in a contaminated air stream. The presence of the polymers allowed the system to effectively capture the incoming VOCs, buffer the cells from high VOC levels and release the VOCs to the cells for biodegradation. The polymer TPPB system demonstrated substantially higher performance than an aqueous phase bioscrubber and comparable performance to a solvent-aqueous TPPB. Also of great interest was the increase in oxygen transfer provided to the system by the addition of polymer beads, which have significant affinity for oxygen. The presence of polymer beads, which are biocompatible and non-bioavailable, provides a simple and effective means of enhancing the bioremediation of toxic organics present in gas streams, and potentially other phases