National Product Preferences and International Trade

We show that when two countries are the same size then the country with stronger preferences in favour of domestic varieties of differentiated goods produced under increasing returns (IRS) will be the net exporter of that good. It is also shown that strong preferences for domestic varieties reduce welfare in the other country and that unilateral trade barriers will necessarily improve welfare there. Moreover, the country with the weaker preferences for domestic varieties may benefit from trade restrictions even when this leads to a trade war. We also show that such preferences may explain low import penetration in IRS-goods. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of such preferences. It is argued that this model can be used to for example capture aspects of US-Japan trade in high-tech goods.national preferences; trade war; Japan

Economic Geography, Comparative Advantage and Trade within Industries: Evidence from the OECD

A large share of world trade, especially among the OECD countries, is two-way trade within industries, so called intra-industry trade. Despite this, few attempts have been made to examine why countries export some products within industries, whereas they import others. We examine this issue, by means of regression analysis, by examining the shares of IIT that are vertical and horizontal and by examining price dispersion. The regression results suggest that an abundant human capital endowment as well as a large domestic market increases the quality of OECD-countries´ manufacturing exports, thus offering support for comparative advantage models as well as newer geography models. But, human capital becomes an increasingly important determinant of quality over time.comparative advantage; economic geography; intra-industry trade; vertical differentiation

Waste-to-energy in Kutai Kartanegara, Indonesia

The thesis outlined in this report is a pre-feasibility study of the potential to use waste-to-energy technology in the region Kutai Kartanegara, Borneo, Indonesia. The project is collaboration between the Kutai Kartanegara government, Uppsala University, the Swedish University of agricultural sciences and technology consultancy Sweco. The current waste management system in Kutai Kartanegara consists of landfills in the cities and open burnings and dumping in the lesser developed sub-districts. This is a growing problem both environmentally and logistically. The electrification in the sub-districts is sometimes as low as 17 % and access to electricity is often limited to a couple of hours per day. The current electricity production in the region is mainly from fossil fuels. Data was collected during a two month long field study in Tenggarong, the capital of Kutai Kartanegara. From the collected data, various waste-to-energy systems and collection areas were simulated in Matlab. Results from the simulations show that a system using both a waste incineration and biogas plant would be the best solution for the region. The chosen system is designed to handle a total of 250,000 tons of waste annually, collected from Tenggarong and neighboring districts. The system will provide between 155 and 200 GWh electricity and between 207 and 314 GWh of excess heat energy annually. Some of this is used in a district heating system with an absorption-cooling machine. The system investment cost is around 42.5 MUSD and it is expected to generate an annual profit of 16 MUSD. The recommended solution will decrease the emissions of CO2-equivalents compared to the current waste system and fossil electricity production with 50%. The results in the study clearly show that there are both economic and environmental potential for waste-to-energy technologies in the region. But the waste management and infrastructure has to be improved to be able to utilize these technologies. By implementing waste-to-energy technologies, the supplied waste can be seen as a resource instead of a problem. This would give incentives for further actions and investments regarding waste management

裏表紙

Integrated tracking and detection, based on unthresholded measurements, also referred to as track before detect (TBD) is a hard nonlinear and non-Gaussian dynamical estimation and detection problem. However, it is a technique that enables the user to track and detect targets that would be extremely hard to track and detect, if possible at all with ''classical'' methods. TBD enables us to be better able to detect and track weak, stealthy or dim targets in noise and clutter and particles filter have shown to be very useful in the implementation of TBD algorithms. This Master's thesis has investigated the use of particle filters on radar measurements, in a TBD approach. The work has been divided into two major problems, a time efficient implementation and new functional features, as estimating the radar cross section (RCS) and the extension of the target. The later is of great importance when the resolution of the radar is such, that specific features of the target can be distinguished. Results will be illustrated by means of realistic examples

Application of Control Theory to a Commercial Mobile Service Support System

The Mobile Service Support system (MSS), which Ericsson AB develops, handles the setup of new subscribers and services into a mobile network. Experience from deployed systems show that traffic monitoring and control of the system will be crucial for handling overload situations that may occur at sudden traffic surges. In this paper we identify and explore some important control challenges for this type of systems. Further, we present analysis and experiments showing some advantages of proposed solutions. First, we develop a load-dependent server model for the system, which is validated in testbed experiments. Further, we propose a control design based on the model, and a method for estimation of response times and arrival rates. The main contribution of this paper is that we show how control theory methods and analysis can be used for commercial telecom systems. Parts of our results have been implemented in commercial products, validating the strength of our work

Albiglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (Harmony Outcomes): a double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial

Background: Glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists differ in chemical structure, duration of action, and in their effects on clinical outcomes. The cardiovascular effects of once-weekly albiglutide in type 2 diabetes are unknown. We aimed to determine the safety and efficacy of albiglutide in preventing cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke. Methods: We did a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 610 sites across 28 countries. We randomly assigned patients aged 40 years and older with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (at a 1:1 ratio) to groups that either received a subcutaneous injection of albiglutide (30–50 mg, based on glycaemic response and tolerability) or of a matched volume of placebo once a week, in addition to their standard care. Investigators used an interactive voice or web response system to obtain treatment assignment, and patients and all study investigators were masked to their treatment allocation. We hypothesised that albiglutide would be non-inferior to placebo for the primary outcome of the first occurrence of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke, which was assessed in the intention-to-treat population. If non-inferiority was confirmed by an upper limit of the 95% CI for a hazard ratio of less than 1·30, closed testing for superiority was prespecified. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02465515. Findings: Patients were screened between July 1, 2015, and Nov 24, 2016. 10 793 patients were screened and 9463 participants were enrolled and randomly assigned to groups: 4731 patients were assigned to receive albiglutide and 4732 patients to receive placebo. On Nov 8, 2017, it was determined that 611 primary endpoints and a median follow-up of at least 1·5 years had accrued, and participants returned for a final visit and discontinuation from study treatment; the last patient visit was on March 12, 2018. These 9463 patients, the intention-to-treat population, were evaluated for a median duration of 1·6 years and were assessed for the primary outcome. The primary composite outcome occurred in 338 (7%) of 4731 patients at an incidence rate of 4·6 events per 100 person-years in the albiglutide group and in 428 (9%) of 4732 patients at an incidence rate of 5·9 events per 100 person-years in the placebo group (hazard ratio 0·78, 95% CI 0·68–0·90), which indicated that albiglutide was superior to placebo (p<0·0001 for non-inferiority; p=0·0006 for superiority). The incidence of acute pancreatitis (ten patients in the albiglutide group and seven patients in the placebo group), pancreatic cancer (six patients in the albiglutide group and five patients in the placebo group), medullary thyroid carcinoma (zero patients in both groups), and other serious adverse events did not differ between the two groups. There were three (<1%) deaths in the placebo group that were assessed by investigators, who were masked to study drug assignment, to be treatment-related and two (<1%) deaths in the albiglutide group. Interpretation: In patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, albiglutide was superior to placebo with respect to major adverse cardiovascular events. Evidence-based glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists should therefore be considered as part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes. Funding: GlaxoSmithKline

Computation of Mileage Limits for Traveling Salesmen by Means of Optimization Techniques

Many companies have traveling salesmen that market and sell their products.This results in much traveling by car due to the daily customer visits. Thiscauses costs for the company, in form of travel expenses compensation, and environmentaleffects, in form of carbon dioxide pollution. As many companies arecertified according to environmental management systems, such as ISO 14001,the environmental work becomes more and more important as the environmentalconsciousness increases every day for companies, authorities and public.The main task of this thesis is to compute reasonable limits on the mileage ofthe salesmen; these limits are based on specific conditions for each salesman’sdistrict. The objective is to implement a heuristic algorithm that optimizes thecustomer tours for an arbitrary chosen month, which will represent a “standard”month. The output of the algorithm, the computed distances, will constitute amileage limit for the salesman.The algorithm consists of a constructive heuristic that builds an initial solution,which is modified if infeasible. This solution is then improved by a local searchalgorithm preceding a genetic algorithm, which task is to improve the toursseparately.This method for computing mileage limits for traveling salesmen generates goodsolutions in form of realistic tours. The mileage limits could be improved if theinput data were more accurate and adjusted to each district, but the suggestedmethod does what it is supposed to do

Can factor proportions explain vertical intra-industry trade?

Two questions in particular will be addressed. First, can earlier results for specific industries that suggest a positive relation between quality and capital-labour ratios of exporting countries be generalized to other industries? Second, what type of capital, physical or human, is most important in affecting the quality of vertically differentiated products? The results suggest that the relation between factor endowments and the quality of exported products is not just restricted to the product groups in previous analyses and that it is primarily human and not physical capital that determines the quality of production.

Country Size and Comparative Advantage: An Empirical Study

We formulate a simple model that captures two recent hypotheses: (i) that countries with an abundant absolute endowment of skilled labour will be net exporters in R&D-intensive industries; and (ii) that countries with a large domestic market will be net exporters in scale-intensive industries. The hypotheses are empirically tested by studying the trade of each and every OECD country individually. Thereafter, we pool the data into one regression by introducing, simultaneously, country and industry characteristics. The results offer relatively strong support for hypothesis (i) and some support for hypothesis (ii).Comparative Advantage; Country Size; Economic Geography; Trade

The factor content of net trade for the OECD countries

Applies the two-factor version of the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) theorem. Two hypotheses are derived. The empirical analysis offers support for the second but not for the first hypothesis when trade of each Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the rest of the world is analysed. Examines the factor content of net trade with data on foreign trade between the OECD countries and then determines average capital-labour ratio as the OECD average. Both the hypotheses receive empirical support. Finds that the two-factor version of the HOV theorem performs well when applied to the environment where it is supposed to apply.Capital, Economics, International trade, Labour, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Develop, Ratios