Global Determinants of the International Movement of Production Factors: Economic-legal and Institutional Context

Scientific research is devoted to current problems of the influence of globalization on changes in the international movement of production factors in the 21st century. Considerable attention is focused on the economic, legal and institutional aspects of the transformation of the international movement of capital and labor in modern conditions, taking into account the need to apply an integrated interdisciplinary approach to identify new phenomena and processes that occur in the global economic environment The state and trends of development in the organization of global production, investment and marketing in the context of destabilizing phenomena in the global economy, the strengthening of non-protectionist appeals in the world avant-garde countries to return production to the national territory and the exacerbation of social and economic problems caused by international migration are revealed. The authors are looking for answers to difficult questions about the opportunities for small open economies to be attracted to global value chains through the format of investment and contractual relations, to increase the level of localization of international and national production through import substitution, to optimize the taxation of entrepreneurial activities in a liberalized international capital transfer, transform the national regulatory policy as a mechanism that ensures the possibility of taking into account the imperatives of globalization and contributes to the protection of national economic interests, ensure the development of fair competition as a prerequisite for the country’s integration into world economic processes

Mass effect and coherence in medium-induced QCD radiation off a qqˉq {\bar q} antenna

The medium-induced one-gluon radiation spectrum off a massive quark-antiquark ($q {\bar q}$) antenna traversing a colored QCD medium is calculated in this contribution. The gluon spectrum off the antenna computed at first order in the opacity expansion is collinear finite but infrared divergent, which is different from the result obtained from an independent emitter which is both infrared and collinear finite. The interference between emitters dominates the soft gluon radiation when the antenna opening angle is small and the emitted gluon is soft, whereas the antenna behaves like a superposition of independent emitters when the opening angle is large and the radiated gluon is hard. As a phenomenological consequence, we investigate the energy lost by the projectiles due to the radiation. In general, the size of the mass effects is similar in both cases.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings of Quark Matter 2011, Annecy, Franc

How metal films de-wet substrates - identifying the kinetic pathways and energetic driving forces

We study how single-crystal chromium films of uniform thickness on W(110) substrates are converted to arrays of three-dimensional (3D) Cr islands during annealing. We use low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM) to directly observe a kinetic pathway that produces trenches that expose the wetting layer. Adjacent film steps move simultaneously uphill and downhill relative to the staircase of atomic steps on the substrate. This step motion thickens the film regions where steps advance. Where film steps retract, the film thins, eventually exposing the stable wetting layer. Since our analysis shows that thick Cr films have a lattice constant close to bulk Cr, we propose that surface and interface stress provide a possible driving force for the observed morphological instability. Atomistic simulations and analytic elastic models show that surface and interface stress can cause a dependence of film energy on thickness that leads to an instability to simultaneous thinning and thickening. We observe that de-wetting is also initiated at bunches of substrate steps in two other systems, Ag/W(110) and Ag/Ru(0001). We additionally describe how Cr films are converted into patterns of unidirectional stripes as the trenches that expose the wetting layer lengthen along the W[001] direction. Finally, we observe how 3D Cr islands form directly during film growth at elevated temperature. The Cr mesas (wedges) form as Cr film steps advance down the staircase of substrate steps, another example of the critical role that substrate steps play in 3D island formation

Geometric measure of quantum discord and the geometry of a class of two-qubit states

We investigate the geometric picture of the level surfaces of quantum entanglement and geometric measure of quantum discord (GMQD) of a class of X-states, respectively. This pictorial approach provides us a direct understanding of the structure of entanglement and GMQD. The dynamic evolution of GMQD under two typical kinds of quantum decoherence channels is also investigated. It is shown that there exists a class of initial states for which the GMQD is not destroyed by decoherence in a finite time interval. Furthermore, we establish a factorization law between the initial and final GMQD, which allows us to infer the evolution of entanglement under the influences of the environment.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, comments are welcom

Learning Priors for Bayesian Computations in the Nervous System

Our nervous system continuously combines new information from our senses with information it has acquired throughout life. Numerous studies have found that human subjects manage this by integrating their observations with their previous experience (priors) in a way that is close to the statistical optimum. However, little is known about the way the nervous system acquires or learns priors. Here we present results from experiments where the underlying distribution of target locations in an estimation task was switched, manipulating the prior subjects should use. Our experimental design allowed us to measure a subject's evolving prior while they learned. We confirm that through extensive practice subjects learn the correct prior for the task. We found that subjects can rapidly learn the mean of a new prior while the variance is learned more slowly and with a variable learning rate. In addition, we found that a Bayesian inference model could predict the time course of the observed learning while offering an intuitive explanation for the findings. The evidence suggests the nervous system continuously updates its priors to enable efficient behavior

Zyxin Links Fat Signaling to the Hippo Pathway

Using genetic and molecular analyses, the authors identify Zyx as a positive regulator of Hippo signaling and characterize its role within the pathway

Grasping Objects with Environmentally Induced Position Uncertainty

Due to noisy motor commands and imprecise and ambiguous sensory information, there is often substantial uncertainty about the relative location between our body and objects in the environment. Little is known about how well people manage and compensate for this uncertainty in purposive movement tasks like grasping. Grasping objects requires reach trajectories to generate object-fingers contacts that permit stable lifting. For objects with position uncertainty, some trajectories are more efficient than others in terms of the probability of producing stable grasps. We hypothesize that people attempt to generate efficient grasp trajectories that produce stable grasps at first contact without requiring post-contact adjustments. We tested this hypothesis by comparing human uncertainty compensation in grasping objects against optimal predictions. Participants grasped and lifted a cylindrical object with position uncertainty, introduced by moving the cylinder with a robotic arm over a sequence of 5 positions sampled from a strongly oriented 2D Gaussian distribution. Preceding each reach, vision of the object was removed for the remainder of the trial and the cylinder was moved one additional time. In accord with optimal predictions, we found that people compensate by aligning the approach direction with covariance angle to maintain grasp efficiency. This compensation results in higher probability to achieve stable grasps at first contact than non-compensation strategies in grasping objects with directional position uncertainty, and the results provide the first demonstration that humans compensate for uncertainty in a complex purposive task

Statistical Analysis of Molecular Signal Recording

A molecular device that records time-varying signals would enable new approaches in neuroscience. We have recently proposed such a device, termed a “molecular ticker tape”, in which an engineered DNA polymerase (DNAP) writes time-varying signals into DNA in the form of nucleotide misincorporation patterns. Here, we define a theoretical framework quantifying the expected capabilities of molecular ticker tapes as a function of experimental parameters. We present a decoding algorithm for estimating time-dependent input signals, and DNAP kinetic parameters, directly from misincorporation rates as determined by sequencing. We explore the requirements for accurate signal decoding, particularly the constraints on (1) the polymerase biochemical parameters, and (2) the amplitude, temporal resolution, and duration of the time-varying input signals. Our results suggest that molecular recording devices with kinetic properties similar to natural polymerases could be used to perform experiments in which neural activity is compared across several experimental conditions, and that devices engineered by combining favorable biochemical properties from multiple known polymerases could potentially measure faster phenomena such as slow synchronization of neuronal oscillations. Sophisticated engineering of DNAPs is likely required to achieve molecular recording of neuronal activity with single-spike temporal resolution over experimentally relevant timescales.United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Living Foundries ProgramGoogle (Firm)New York Stem Cell Foundation. Robertson Neuroscience Investigator AwardNational Institutes of Health (U.S.) (EUREKA Award 1R01NS075421)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Transformative R01 1R01GM104948)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Single Cell Grant 1 R01 EY023173)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1R01DA029639)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1R01NS067199)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CAREER Award CBET 1053233)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant EFRI0835878)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant DMS1042134)Paul G. Allen Family Foundation (Distinguished Investigator in Neuroscience Award

Recommendations for the design of laboratory studies on non-target arthropods for risk assessment of genetically engineered plants

This paper provides recommendations on experimental design for early-tier laboratory studies used in risk assessments to evaluate potential adverse impacts of arthropod-resistant genetically engineered (GE) plants on non-target arthropods (NTAs). While we rely heavily on the currently used proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) in this discussion, the concepts apply to other arthropod-active proteins. A risk may exist if the newly acquired trait of the GE plant has adverse effects on NTAs when they are exposed to the arthropod-active protein. Typically, the risk assessment follows a tiered approach that starts with laboratory studies under worst-case exposure conditions; such studies have a high ability to detect adverse effects on non-target species. Clear guidance on how such data are produced in laboratory studies assists the product developers and risk assessors. The studies should be reproducible and test clearly defined risk hypotheses. These properties contribute to the robustness of, and confidence in, environmental risk assessments for GE plants. Data from NTA studies, collected during the analysis phase of an environmental risk assessment, are critical to the outcome of the assessment and ultimately the decision taken by regulatory authorities on the release of a GE plant. Confidence in the results of early-tier laboratory studies is a precondition for the acceptance of data across regulatory jurisdictions and should encourage agencies to share useful information and thus avoid redundant testing