Firm Capabilities, Competition and Industrial Policies in a History-Friendly Model of the Computer Industry

In this paper, we explore some problems that industrial policy faces in industries characterized by dynamic increasing returns on the basis of a 'history friendly model' of the evolution of the computer industry. How does policy affect industry structure over the course of industry evolution? Is the timing of the intervention important? Do policy interventions have indirect and perhaps unintended consequences on different markets at different times? We focus on two sets of policies: antitrust and interventions aiming at supporting the entry of new forms in the industry. The results of our simulations show that, if strong dynamic increasing returns are operative, both through technological capabilities and through customer tendency to stick with a brand, there is little that antitrust and entry policy could have done to avert the rise of a dominant firm in mainframes. On the other hand, if the customer lock in effect had been smaller, either by chance or through policies that discouraged efforts of firms to lock in their customers, the situation might have been somewhat different. In the first place, even in the absence of antitrust or entry encouraging policies, market concentration would have been lower, albeit a dominant firm would emerge anyhow. Second, antitrust and entry encouraging policies would have been more effective in assuring that concentration would decrease. The leading firm would continue to dominate the market, but its relative power would be reduced. © Elsevier Science B.V

Public policies and changing boundaries of firms in a “history-friendly” model of the co-evolution of the computer and semiconductor industries

In this paper, we explore the effects of alternative policies, ranging from antitrust to public procurement, open standards, information diffusion and basic research support on the dynamics of two vertically related industries in changing and uncertain technological and market environments. The two industries are a system industry and a component industry, and the evolution of these industries is characterized by periods of technological revolutions punctuating periods of relative technological stability and smooth technical progress. We have been inspired by the co-evolution of the computer and component industries from their inceptions to the 1980s. On the basis of that evolution, we have developed a history friendly-model this co-evolution. In sum, this paper has stressed that various types of policies may sometimes have contrasting effects on the industry, mainly on concentration and technical change and innovation. It has also shown that the consequences of policies may spillover from one industry to another, and from one type of firms to another. Policies that aim at a specific industry may provoke major changes in a related industry through the product market, the changing boundaries of firms or knowledge and technological interdependencies. The policy maker has to be aware of that. Finally, a major point of the paper regards the unintended consequences of policies

Platelet activation and cardiovascular co-morbidities in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Objective: Platelet activation in COPD patients is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events. Aim of the study: to assess the mean platelet volume (MPV), as an index of platelet activation, in patients with COPD both when stable or during exacerbation. Research design and methods: 478 patients with COPD (75 with exacerbation) and 72 age-matched healthy controls were enrolled. Medical history, co-morbidities, medications, pulmonary function tests, MPV and blood cell count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ERS) and C reactive protein (CRP) were recorded. Results: MPV was higher in COPD patients than in controls (8.7 \ub1 1.1 fL and 8.4 \ub1 0.8 fL respectively, p = 0.025) and increased across the severity of the diseases as assessed by the GOLD post bronchodilator FEV1 categorized I to IV (p>0.05). MPV was higher in COPD patients during acute exacerbation as compared with stable condition (8.7 \ub1 1.0 fL and 8.9 \ub1 1.0 fL, p = 0.021). MPV 65 10.5 fL correlated with the presence of at least one co-existing cardiovascular disease (p = 0.008) . No correlation was observed between MPV and CRP or ERS in patients or in controls. An inverse significant correlation was found between platelets count and MPV in COPD patients. Conclusions: Elevated MPV is associated with lower platelet count and with cardiovascular co-morbidity in COPD patients. MPV value is higher in more severe COPD and during acute exacerbation. Present findings warrant future studies to confirm a possible clinically relevant role for platelet activation and cardiovascular risk in the population of COPD

Frontal brain asymmetries as effective parameters to assess the quality of audiovisual stimuli perception in adult and young cochlear implant users

How is music perceived by cochlear implant (CI) users? This question arises as "the next step" given the impressive performance obtained by these patients in language perception. Furthermore, how can music perception be evaluated beyond self-report rating, in order to obtain measurable data? To address this question, estimation of the frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha activity imbalance, acquired through a 19-channel EEG cap, appears to be a suitable instrument to measure the approach/withdrawal (AW index) reaction to external stimuli. Specifically, a greater value of AW indicates an increased propensity to stimulus approach, and vice versa a lower one a tendency to withdraw from the stimulus. Additionally, due to prelingually and postlingually deafened pathology acquisition, children and adults, respectively, would probably differ in music perception. The aim of the present study was to investigate children and adult CI users, in unilateral (UCI) and bilateral (BCI) implantation conditions, during three experimental situations of music exposure (normal, distorted and mute). Additionally, a study of functional connectivity patterns within cerebral networks was performed to investigate functioning patterns in different experimental populations. As a general result, congruency among patterns between BCI patients and control (CTRL) subjects was seen, characterised by lowest values for the distorted condition (vs. normal and mute conditions) in the AW index and in the connectivity analysis. Additionally, the normal and distorted conditions were significantly different in CI and CTRL adults, and in CTRL children, but not in CI children. These results suggest a higher capacity of discrimination and approach motivation towards normal music in CTRL and BCI subjects, but not for UCI patients. Therefore, for perception of music CTRL and BCI participants appear more similar than UCI subjects, as estimated by measurable and not self-reported parameters

Industry dynamics, technological regimes and the role of demand

In this paper, we propose an industrial dynamics model to analyze the interactions between the price-performance sensitivity of demand, the sources of innovation in a sector, and certain features of the corresponding pattern of industrial transformation. More precisely, we study market concentration in different technological regimes and demand conditions. The computational analysis of our model shows that market demand plays a key role in industrial dynamics. Thus, although for intermediate values of the price-performance sensitivity, our results show the well-known relationships in the literature between technological regimes and industry transformation, we find surprising outcomes when demand is strongly biased either towards price or performance. Hence, for different technological regimes, a high performance sensitivity of demand tends to concentrate the market. On the other hand, under conditions of high price sensitivity, the industry generally tends to atomize. That is to say, for extreme values of the price-performance sensitivity of demand, we find concentrated or atomized market structures no matter the technological regime we are in. These results highlight the importance of considering the role of demand in the analysis of industrial dynamics

Kinetics versus thermodynamics in materials modeling: The case of the di-vacancy in iron

Monte Carlo models are widely used for the study of microstructural and microchemical evolution of materials under irradiation. However, they often link explicitly the relevant activation energies to the energy difference between local equilibrium states. We provide a simple example (di-vacancy migration in iron) in which a rigorous activation energy calculation, by means of both empirical interatomic potentials and density functional theory methods, clearly shows that such a link is not granted, revealing a migration mechanism that a thermodynamics-linked activation energy model cannot predict. Such a mechanism is, however, fully consistent with thermodynamics. This example emphasizes the importance of basing Monte Carlo methods on models where the activation energies are rigorously calculated, rather than deduced from widespread heuristic equations.Fil: Djurabekova, F.. No especifíca;Fil: Malerba, L.. No especifíca;Fil: Pasianot, Roberto Cesar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Olsson, P.. No especifíca;Fil: Nordlund, K.. No especifíca