Scale Economies and Synergies in Horizontal Merger Analysis

Three years ago, the Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission revised their Horizontal Merger Guidelines to articulate in greater detail how they would treat claims of efficiencies associated with horizontal mergers: claims that are frequently made, as for instance in the recently proposed merger between Heinz and Beech-Nut in the market for baby food. While these revisions to the Guidelines have a solid economic basis, they leave open many questions, both in theory and in practice. In this essay, we evaluate some aspects of the treatment of efficiencies, based on three years of enforcement experience under the revised Guidelines, including several litigated mergers, and based on economic principles drawn from oligopoly theory regarding cost savings, competition, and consumer welfare.

Strong invariance and noise-comparison principles for some parabolic stochastic PDEs

We consider a system of interacting diffusions on the integer lattice. By letting the mesh size go to zero and by using a suitable scaling, we show that the system converges (in a strong sense) to a solution of the stochastic heat equation on the real line. As a consequence, we obtain comparison inequalities for product moments of the stochastic heat equation with different nonlinearities.Comment: 26 page

Nanomechanical detection of the spin Hall effect

The spin Hall effect creates a spin current in response to a charge current in a material that has strong spin-orbit coupling. The size of the spin Hall effect in many materials is disputed, requiring independent measurements of the effect. We develop a novel mechanical method to measure the size of the spin Hall effect, relying on the equivalence between spin and angular momentum. The spin current carries angular momentum, so the flow of angular momentum will result in a mechanical torque on the material. We determine the size and geometry of this torque and demonstrate that it can be measured using a nanomechanical device. Our results show that measurement of the spin Hall effect in this manner is possible and also opens possibilities for actuating nanomechanical systems with spin currents.Comment: 5 pages + 2 pages supplementary material, 4 figures tota

Nanoparticle Agglomeration via Ionic Colloidal Destabilization as a Novel Approach to Dry Powder Formulations for Pulmonary Drug Delivery

Efficient administration of poorly water soluble drugs represents a leading challenge in pulmonary medicine. This route of administration has been used for steroidal treatments for some time, but with room for advancement. New inhalable medicines require a more reliable and effective dosing regimen due to narrow therapeutic indices, and specific and enhanced deposition in the lungs is also desired. This thesis investigates a general method for producing micron sized dry powders for a general class of drugs, poorly water soluble small molecule drugs, for their use in pulmonary drug delivery. Formulation methods already exist for inhalable aerosols, but the resulting powders often show limited deposition efficiency in the deep lung. In this body of work, an alternative formulation strategy is provided for inhalable dry powders using nanoparticle agglomeration that results in a potentially more efficient line of therapy. The model drug used in this study was nifedipine, a well known calcium channel blocker used to treat various symptoms of hypertension. The results indicated that nanoparticle agglomeration is a viable means of creating dry powders with suitable characteristics for pulmonary drug delivery as an alternative to more expensive and less controllable formulation strategies

Analysis of Patient Fall Data

Patient falls are common adverse events that occur in all healthcare environments. Patient falls are a common cause of morbidity ("disability caused by accident") and the leading cause of nonfatal injuries producing trauma-related hospitalizations in the United States. Patient falls result in longer hospital stays, attendant increases in medical costs and reduced quality of life for the patients who experience these events. The purpose of this thesis was to examine the patient fall data collected by a community based acute teaching hospital. These data were then analyzed by a variety of analytical methods to determine if there are correlations related to location and timing of the falls, as well as the characteristics of the patients who fell. Conclusions were then made as to possible improvements in methods to monitor patients to reduce patient fall rate. The major results of this analysis were: (1) statistical methods were found to be useful in providing an improved understanding of the characteristics of the patient fall data and thus allow hospital staff to rely on quantitative metrics to make decisions of how to try and reduce patient fall rates, (2) the time intervals between consecutive fall events were found to be distributed exponentially, (3) the hospital-wide hospital monthly fall rate goals, as well as the individual hospital unit patient fall rate goals were shown to be regularly exceeded by the measured data, and (5) review of the fall score screen values used to assess the risk for patient falls, while overall a predictor of patient who did and did not fall, was not a good predictor for determining if individual patients would fall. As a result of this study, a number of specific recommendations will proposed to the hospital as a means to potentially improve the methods for addressing patient falls. A hospital-wide cultural change had been commenced in June 2007 to attempt to reduce the rate of patient falls. The effect of implementing this program will be followed by observing whether the over-all hospital and unit monthly fall rates are reduced

Instructor-Student Classroom Interactions: An Experimental Study of Language, Sex-Differences, and Student Perceptions of Instructors

Higher education instructors must establish meaningful relationships with students in order to be effective. Student ratings of instructor dynamism, approachability, and credibility impact overall evaluations of instructors. Instructor use of strategic language choices, such as slang use in the classroom, impact these student evaluations. Here, the outcome of language choices’ impact on student evaluations is explored. To do so, both instructor and student sex main effects and interactions are tested. Last, specific methods, findings, as well as meaning and application are covered. Overall, instructor use of slang impacts student evaluations

Geology of the Black Dog area, Osage County, Oklahoma

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Oklahoma, 1957.Two folded maps in pocket.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-75

Ocean Transport of Containerized Liner Cargo in the United States-Mexico Trade

Commerce between the United States and Mexico will continue to grow due to the incremental benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement. This growth, however, will be slowed at least temporarily by the recent Mexican Peso crisis. Ocean transportation currently only moves about 8.5 percent of US-Mexico cargo by value even though it is the most efficient mode of transport over longer distances. This study hypothesized that the underutilized ocean transport sector has captured significant high-growth general cargo that is amenable to containerized transport from the air and/or trucking and rail sectors of the US-Mexico trade. Historical and ex post facto methodologies were utilized to study the subject. Nationalism, corruption, import substitution policies, intense trucking and rail competition, poor shipper recognition, and the marginal attention given to Mexico\u27s port system have all hindered waterborne commerce in the trade. In 1989, however, Mexico began upgrading its transportation infrastructure in earnest. Market entry by liner operators has been increasing as Mexican ports become more efficient. The hypothesis was accepted. A shift-share analysis revealed specific fast-growth general cargoes with long-term potential for capture by maritime transportation