Incentives for Clinical Trials

Who gains from more information on the quality of pharmaceutical drugs? Are there incentives for voluntary post-approval clinical trials among pharmaceutical companies? Contrary to popular belief, this paper shows that it is not in the consumer interest that clinical evidence establishing the relative effectiveness within a class of drugs are produced. Pharmaceutical companies, on the other hand, do benefit: the elimination of uncertainty regarding quality increases expected product differentiation, thereby raising prices for both high-quality and low-quality drugs, to the disadvantage of consumers. Still there is no unique equilibrium where the market provides clinical trials. If the costs of carrying out clinical trials are small, in relative terms, there will be a coordination problem between firms, as firms will want a rival firm to carry the cost. If the costs are large they will be prohibitive. Legislation that obligates entering firms to carry out post-approval trials is beneficial for firms if it solves the coordination problem, but is otherwise harmful. Legislation is never in the interest of consumers.Quality uncertainty; Symmetric information; Pharmaceutical market; Clinical trials

Strategic Interaction vs. Regulatory Compliance Among Regulated Utilities: The Swedish Water Sector

Recikliranje brodova može se definirati kao proces u kojemu brodovi odlaze u rezališta na rastavljanje, a potom se odvojeni dijelovi recikliraju te nalaze novu uporabu. Postoji više metoda rastavljanja brodova od kojih je najpoznatija metoda nasukavanja na plažu. Reciklažna postrojenja nalaze se na raznim mjestima u svijetu, ali većina brodova odlazi u Europu te u zemlje Azijskog potkontinenta. Međunarodna pomorska organizacija bavi se pitanjima reciklažnih postupaka te pruža smjernice kako obaviti taj posao na najsigurniji način. Hongkonška konvencija bavi se pitanjima sigurnog i ekološki prihvatljivog recikliranja brodova. Baselska konvencija bavi se pitanjima kontrole prekograničnih kretanja opasnog otpada i njihovog odlaganja- Oko 50 različitih vrsta brodova i platformi otišlo je na rezanje u 2016. godini s prosječnom starosti od 28 godina. Od svih vrsta brodova poslanih u rezališta u 2016. godini, najviše je bilo brodova za prijevoz rasutog tereta. Rezališta u Bangladešu, Indiji i Pakistanu najprofitabilnija su rezališta u svijetu zbog kupoprodajne cijene željeza. Razina radničkih prava, onečišćenje okoliša te zdravlje ljudi veliki su problem u zemljama Azijskog potkontinenta zbog ne provođenja propisa konvencija te dugogodišnjeg lošeg načina provođenja procesa recikliranja. Najbolji te najsigurniji način recikliranja brodova bio bi da se taj proces obavlja u brodogradilištima gdje su brodovi građeni.Ship recycling can be defined as a process in which ships go to shipbreaking yards for dismanting, separate parts are then recycled and used for a new purpose. There are several methods of disassembling ships, of which the most known is the beaching method. Recycling facilities are located in various places in the world, but most of the vessels go to Europe and II the Asian subcontinent countries. The International Maritime Organization deals with issues of recycling and provides guidance on how to do it in the safest way. The Hong Kong Convention deals with issues of safety and environmentally friendly ship recycling. The Basel Convention deals with issues of cross-border movement of hazardous waste and their disposal. About 50 different types of ships and platforms went to recycling process in 2016 with an average age of 28 years. Of all types of ships shipped to the shipbreaking yards in 2016, most of the ships were bulk carriers. Shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are the most profitable breaking yards in the world because of the purchase price of iron. The level of workers' rights, environmental pollution and human health are a major problem in the Asian subcontinent countries because of the non-compliance with the convention's regulations and the many years of bad practice of recycling. The best and the safest way to recycle ships would be to do this process in shipyards where boats were built

The comprehensive approach and European Union external action : focus on the EU official

A Abordagem Abrangente e a Ação Externa da União Europeia: Perspetiva de um Representante Nacional na UE O presente artigo foi concluído pouco depois do referendo no Reino Unido e do Conselho Europeu ter acolhido uma nova Estratégia Global da União Europeia para a Política Externa e de Segurança. A abordagem adotada nesta análise posiciona-se para além dos limites da abordagem abrangente aos conflitos e crises. Neste sentido dar-se-á atenção às condições funcionais presentes nos quarteis generais da União, em Bruxelas e no terreno. O autor debate a necessidade dos funcionários europeus adotarem uma abordagem abrangente, corajosa e ambiciosa, reconhecendo-a como um requisito, devendo igualmente as comunidades académicas e de analistas pertencentes a think-tanks corresponderem a este importante desafio.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Juridical Status of Privileged Combatants Under the Geneva Protocol of 1977 Concerning International Conflicts

Centralized control and coordination of the connections in a wireless network is not possible in practice. To keep the delay from measure-ment instants to actuating the decisions, distributed control is required. This paper focuses on the uplink (from mobiles to base stations) and dis-cusses distributing the decision of when and when not to transmit data (distributed scheduling) to the mobiles. The scheme, uplink transmission timing, utilizes mobile transmitter power control feedback from the base station receiver to determine whether the channel is favorable or not compared to the average channel condition. Thereby, the battery consumption and disturbing power to other connections are reduced. The algorithm can be described as a feedback control system. Some transient behaviors are analyzed using systems theory, and supported by wireless network simulations of a system with a WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) radio interface as in most 3G systems

Development of a Decision Support Tool for the Process of Deciding Inventory Levels : A Study at The Absolut Company

Background: Supply Chain Management is receiving increased attention as companies are trying to remain competitive in a global and challenging environment. An important topic to consider when managing the supply chain is inventory control. Companies today have enormous investments in inventories, which means that there are potential improvements regarding tied up capital in raw materials, work-in-progress and finished goods. There are a variety of tools available in the theory to support the process of determining inventory levels, but these general tools are not suitable for every company. Problem description: This master thesis was conducted at The Absolut Company (TAC) – a large spirits manufacturer. They are responsible for the production of Absolut Vodka, a premium vodka brand. As for any manufacturing company it is crucial that the production constantly has material available to avoid stoppages in the lines. The inventory of the bottle cap, which is one of the materials used in the production process, has historically been kept high to ensure constant supply, but now TAC has started to question if these is managed correctly. Hence, there is a desire from TAC to develop a better understanding of what is affecting the inventory levels. There is also a need for an analytical tool that supports the decision making process related to the inventory levels of the bottle caps. Purpose:The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate which factors affect the inventory levels of bottle caps at TAC and to develop a decision support tool for the process of determining appropriate inventory levels for the bottle caps. Research questions: 1. What factors are affecting the inventory levels at TAC? 2. How do the identified factors affect the inventory levels of bottle caps at TAC? 3. How should a tool for deciding appropriate inventory levels of the bottle caps at TAC be designed? Methodology: The research approach for this thesis is a systems approach and the research is performed inductively. A case study has been chosen as research strategy and the design of the case is single case and single unit of analysis. The system is studied by analyzing both qualitative (interview and observations) and quantitative data (operational data from TAC’s ERP system). The quality of the research is evaluated based on the dimensions reliability and validity. Conclusion: During the analysis it was concluded that the factors affecting the inventory levels at TAC come from the cycle and safety inventory. The identified factors associated with the cycle inventory were supplier lead time, purchase batching and production batching, while the factors affecting the safety inventory were forecast accuracy, quality defects, delivery reliability and delivery dependability. From the analysis it was concluded that the factors purchase batching, forecast error and delivery reliability contributed the most to the inventory levels at TAC. The decision support tool was designed to suggest appropriate inventory levels and to give the user an overview of how much each factor contributes to the inventory. In the tool a baseline scenario, reflecting the current situation, and two alternative scenarios are presented. One scenario shows appropriate inventory levels to cover for the mean error and the other scenario is calculated to cover for the maximum error. The tool also gives the user an overview of all the factors affecting the inventory levels of caps that can be used to spread the information in the company and create understanding across departments. Furthermore, the decision support tool can be used to analyze how improvements or deteriorations of the factors affect the inventory levels, to support TAC’s supply chain department in deciding which improvement project should be prioritized

When Handsets Became Smart

The main cause of the intra industry value migration is that the base of competition has shifted from product performance to flexibility, differentiation and speed which in this industry means ecosystem, brand and time-to-market. The asymmetric business models and the two-sided platforms have proven to be a cause of inter industry value migration. This is a natural cause of their nature, since resources is spent in one end and value is absorbed in the other, and if these parts operate in different industries, inter industry value migration has to happen. Our value flow framework has proven to be a useful tool to identify, measure and evaluate a value flow, regardless of the industry level it occurs on

Seeing ethnographically: teaching ethnography as part of CSCW

While ethnography is an established part of CSCW research, teaching and learning ethnography presents unique and distinct challenges. This paper discusses a study of fieldwork and analysis amongst a group of students learning ethnography as part of a CSCW & design course. Studying the students’ practices we explore fieldwork as a learning experience, both learning about fieldsites as well as learning the practices of ethnography. During their fieldwork and analysis the students used a wiki to collaborate, sharing their field and analytic notes. From this we draw lessons for how ethnography can be taught as a collaborative analytic process and discuss extensions to the wiki to better support its use for collaborating around fieldnotes. In closing we reflect upon the role of learning ethnography as a practical hands on – rather than theoretical – pursuit

The Due-on-Sale Controversy: Beneficial Effects of the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institution Act of 1982

Radio resource management (RRM) in cellular radio system is an example of automatic control. The system performance may be increased by introducing decentralization, shorter delays and increased adaptation to local demands. However, it is hard to guarantee system stability without being, too conservative while using decentralized resource management. In this paper, two algorithms that both guarantee system stability and use local resource control are proposed for the uplink (mobile to base station). While one of the algorithms uses only local decisions, the other uses a central node to coordinate resources among different local nodes. In the chosen design approach, a feasible solution to the optimization problems corresponds to a stable system. Therefore, the algorithms will never assign resources that lead to an unstable system. Simulations indicate that the proposed algorithms also provide high capacity at any given uplink load level

Incentives vs. Nonpartisanship: The Prosecutorial Dilemma in an Adversary System

The limiting factor in the uplink of all CDMA cellular systems is the relation between uplink noise rise and intended coverage. In link budgets, noise rise is usually simply handled as a constant contribution to the background noise in logarithmic scale, often referred to as interference margin. In practice, however, it is not constant. We model the uplink noise rise as a lognormal distribution, and investigate the impact to link budgets. Simulations and numerical calculations show that the uplink noise rise variance does not critically affect the uplink capacity and coverage. System feasibility and its relation to the uplink load is also discussed. It is shown that approximative load expressions provides an upper bound on the uplink load and therefore they can be used to imply system feasibility. Furthermore, the uplink load expressions provide accurate approximations of the load given that the load is within the practical limits given by the link budgets