Swiss antitrust enforcement between 1995 and 2015

In 1995 the Cartel Act was passed by the regulators and with it the Competition Commission was set up. Since then the commission has investigated and enforced antitrust regulations for over 20 years. The commission is required by law to publish all of the decisions from the conducted investigations into economic misconduct. However, there does not exist an overview over the work done by them. Not even the commission itself has an overview of all their work. This thesis provides such an overview. It includes all the work done by the commission, but focuses mainly on the investigations into economic misconduct. It further analysises the impact different factors have on the outcome of the investigations. There are a multitude of factors which could potentially have an impact on it. There is the report route of the investigation, the type of misconduct, the year in which the decisions was issued and the economic sector the corporation operates in. All of these are likely to have an impact in some way. To analyse the work done by the commission during this time all the publicly available annual reports and issued decisions were collected and put into a data set. To complete the data set outside information was added to all the information from the Competition Commission. This thesis presents and further analysis the collected data. Contrary to expectations the amount of issued decisions each year has not been rising. However, there has been both an upward trend in both the average time it takes the commission to complete an investigation and the amount of pages the published decision has. This could be explained by an increasing complexity. What has changed over the year is the type of the decision the investigation leads up to. In fact, it is the only factor which had a significant impact on the type of decision. For example, investigations after 2011 were far more likely to end in an amicable settlement than at the beginning of the Competition Commission. The analysis further shows the type of economic misconduct does not have an impact on the outcome of the investigation. Corporations who made illegal agreements are nearly as likely to be forced to change their behaviour as corporations who abuse their dominance. The investigations for both are also nearly equally likely to be discontinued. The report route of the case also does not make a significant difference in the outcome of the investigations. The same is true for the economic sector in which the corporation operates in. These results are quite surprising as the general expectation is that different types of misconduct should lead to different results. The next step in evaluating the work done by the Competition Commission would be to compare the findings of this thesis to similar studies of other antitrust agencies around the world. These comparisons would show if there are similarities or differences between the agencies, which could potentially offer new insights into antitrust regulations

Variational techniques for breathers in nonlinear wave equations

In this thesis we investigate the quasilinear wave equation \begin{align*} g(x)w_{tt}-w_{xx}+h(x)(w_t^3)_t=0 \quad \text{for } (x,t)\in\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{R}, \end{align*} and the semilinear wave equation \begin{align} V(x)u_{tt}-\Delta u=f(x,t,u),\qquad\text{on}~~(x,t)\in\mathbb{R}^N\times\mathbb{R}, \end{align} where $\Delta$ denotes the Laplacian acting only on the variable $x$. Most of the time we refer to $x$ as $\textit{space}$ and to $t$ as $\textit{time}$. We are specially interested in spatially localized and time-periodic solutions, so-called $\textit{breathers}$

Breather solutions for a quasi‐linear (1+1)‐dimensional wave equation

We consider the (1 + 1)-dimensional quasi-linear wave equation $()_{} − _{} + ℎ()(^{3}_{} )_{} = 0$ on ℝ×ℝ that arises in the study of localized electromagnetic waves modeled by Kerr-nonlinear Maxwell equations. We are interested in time-periodic, spatially localized solutions. Here $∈ ^{∞}(ℝ)$ is even with ≢ 0 and $ℎ() = _{0}()$ with ∈ ℝ∖{0} and $_{0}$ the delta-distribution supported in 0. We assume that 0 lies in a spectral gap of the operators _{} = − \frac {d^{2}}{d^{2}} − ^{2}^{2} on $^{2}(ℝ)$ for all ∈ 2ℤ+1 together with additional properties of the fundamental set of solutions of $_{}$. By expanding into a Fourier series in time, we transfer the problem of finding a suitably defined weak solution to finding a minimizer of a functional on a sequence space. The solutions that we have found are exponentially localized in space. Moreover, we show that they can be well approximated by truncating the Fourier series in time. The guiding examples, where all assumptions are fulfilled, are explicitly given step potentials and periodic step potentials . In these examples, we even find infinitely many distinct breathers

Breather solutions for a quasilinear (1+1)-dimensional wave equation

We consider the $(1 + 1)$-dimensional quasilinear wave equation $g(x)w_{tt} − w_{xx} + h(x)(w^3_t)_t = 0$ on $\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{R}$ which arises in the study of localized electromagnetic waves modeled by Kerr-nonlinear Maxwell equations. We are interested in time-periodic, spatially localized solutions. Here $g\in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R})$ is even with $g\not\equiv 0$ and $h(x) = \gamma\delta_0(x)$ with $\gamma\in\mathbb{R}\backslash\{0\}$ and $\delta_0$ the delta distribution supported in $0$. We assume that $0$ lies in a spectral gap of the operators $L_k = \frac{d^2}{dx^2}-k^2\omega^2g$ on $L^2(\mathbb{R})$ for all $k\in 2\mathbb{Z}+1$ together with additional properties of the fundamental set of solutions of $L_k$. By expanding $w$ into a Fourier series in time we transfer the problem of finding a suitably defined weak solution to finding a minimizer of a functional on a sequence space. The solutions that we have found are exponentially localized in space. Moreover, we show that they can be well approximated by truncating the Fourier series in time. The guiding examples, where all assumptions are fulfilled, are explicitely given step potentials and periodic step potentials $g$. In these examples we even find infinitely many distinct breathers

The energetically optimal cadence decreases after prolonged cycling exercise

This study investigated the change in the energetically optimal cadence after prolonged cycling. The energetically optimal cadence (EOC) was determined in 14 experienced cyclists by pulmonary gas exchange at six different cadences (100-50rpm at 10rpm intervals). The determination of the EOC was repeated after a prolonged cycling exercise of 55min duration, where cadence was fixed either at high (>95rpm) or low (<55rpm) pedalling rates. The EOC decreased after prolonged cycling exercise at a high as well as at a low fixed cadence (P<0.01). According to the generalized muscle equations of Hill, this indicates that most likely more type I muscle fibres contribute to muscular power output after fatiguing cycling exercise compared to cycling in the beginning of an exercise bout. We suggest that the determination of EOC might be a potential non-invasive method to detect the qualitative changes in activated muscle fibres, which needs further investigatio

POSTER: spaceQUIC: securing communication in computationally constrained spacecraft

Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the number of CubeSats and other small satellites in orbit – these have highly constrained computational and communication resources, but still require robust secure communication to operate effectively. The QUIC transport layer protocol is designed to provide efficient communication with cryptography guarantees built-in, with a particular focus on networks with high latency and packet loss. In this work we provide spaceQUIC, a proof of concept implementation of QUIC for NASA’s “core Flight System” satellite operating system, and assess its performance

Sticky fingers: resilience of satellite fingerprinting against jamming attacks

In the wake of increasing numbers of attacks on radio communication systems, a range of techniques are being deployed to increase the security of these systems. One such technique is radio fingerprinting, in which the transmitter can be identified and authenticated by observing small hardware differences expressed in the signal. Fingerprinting has been explored in particular in the defense of satellite systems, many of which are insecure and cannot be retrofitted with cryptographic security. In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of radio fingerprinting techniques under interference and jamming attacks, usually intended to deny service. By taking a pre-trained fingerprinting model and gathering a new dataset in which different levels of Gaussian noise and tone jamming have been added to the legitimate signal, we assess the attacker power required in order to disrupt the transmitter fingerprint such that it can no longer be recognized. We compare this to Gaussian jamming on the data portion of the signal, obtaining the remarkable result that transmitter fingerprints are still recognizable even in the presence of moderate levels of noise. Through deeper analysis of the results, we conclude that it takes a similar amount of jamming power in order to disrupt the fingerprint as it does to jam the message contents itself, so it is safe to include a fingerprinting system to authenticate satellite communication without opening up the system to easier denial-of-service attacks

The road map toward room temperature superconductivity: manipulating different pairing channels in systems composed of multiple electronic components

While it is known that the amplification of the superconducting critical temperature Tc is possible in a system of multiple electronic components in comparison with a single component system, many different road maps for room temperature superconductivity have been proposed for a variety of multicomponent scenarios. Here we focus on the scenario where the first electronic component is assumed to have a vanishing Fermi velocity corresponding to a case of the intermediate polaronic regime, and the second electronic component is in the weak coupling regime with standard high Fermi velocity using a mean field theory for multiband superconductivity. This roadmap is motivated by compelling experimental evidence for one component in the proximity of a Lifshitz transition in cuprates, diborides and iron based superconductors. By keeping a constant and small exchange interaction between the two electron fluids, we search for the optimum coupling strength in the electronic polaronic component which gives the largest amplification of the superconducting critical temperature in comparison with the case of a single electronic component.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

Gas Production from the Radiolysis of Water Adsorbed on ZnO Nanoparticles

The presence of a metal oxide surface can significantly alter the product yield distribution during the radiolysis of water with some metal oxides such as ZrO2 or CeO2, increasing the yield of H2 during the irradiation of water adsorbed on the oxide as compared to liquid water, while other oxides such as PuO2 decrease H2 yields. In this study, the γ-ray radiolysis of the ZnO/H2O system was investigated. Surprisingly, both O2 and H2 were produced in similar quantities. The production of O2 is unexpected as no, or negligible, amounts of O2 have been observed for the radiolysis of water adsorbed on other oxides. Molecular oxygen production is observed during the radiolysis of both wet and dry ZnO, indicating that the source of at least some of the O2 is the bulk oxide. The production of H2 due to the radiolysis of water adsorbed on ZnO is an order of magnitude greater than for pure water. This increase is likely due to an energy-transfer process from the oxide to the adsorbed water molecules. However, the radiolysis of aqueous suspensions of ZnO resulted in lower radiolytic H2 yields than for pure water