Welfarism in economic domains

In economies with public goods, and agents with quasi-linear preferences, we give a characterization of the welfare egalitarian correspondence in terms of three axioms: Pareto optimality, symmetry, and solidarity. This last property requires that an increase in the willingness to pay for the public goods of some of the agents should not decrease the welfare of any of them.Publicad

Efficiency, Monotonicity and Rationality in Public Goods Economies

In economies with public goods, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of cost monotonic selections from the set of Pareto optimal and individualIy ratiollal allocations. Such selections exist if and only if the preCerences of the agents satisfy what we call the equal ordering property. This requirement is very restrictive in the context of more than one public good. However, whenever it holds any such mechanism must choose an egalitarian equivalent allocation

Artistic creation and intellectual property

We analyze artistic markets considering three key distinctive features that have been overlooked by the standard analysis on intellectual property. These features are the dynamic link between the current number of young artists and future high-quality artistic creation, Rosen's superstars phenomenon, and the role played by promotion costs. Introducing them into an overlapping-generations model brings about a new perspective on the consequences for artistic creation of changes in the copyright term, progress in communication technologies favoring market concentration by stars, and the enlargement of markets. The conventional result that longer copyrights always stimulate artistic creation only holds as a particular case

Automatic Deduction in Dynamic Geometry using Sage

We present a symbolic tool that provides robust algebraic methods to handle automatic deduction tasks for a dynamic geometry construction. The main prototype has been developed as two different worksheets for the open source computer algebra system Sage, corresponding to two different ways of coding a geometric construction. In one worksheet, diagrams constructed with the open source dynamic geometry system GeoGebra are accepted. In this worksheet, Groebner bases are used to either compute the equation of a geometric locus in the case of a locus construction or to determine the truth of a general geometric statement included in the GeoGebra construction as a boolean variable. In the second worksheet, locus constructions coded using the common file format for dynamic geometry developed by the Intergeo project are accepted for computation. The prototype and several examples are provided for testing. Moreover, a third Sage worksheet is presented in which a novel algorithm to eliminate extraneous parts in symbolically computed loci has been implemented. The algorithm, based on a recent work on the Groebner cover of parametric systems, identifies degenerate components and extraneous adherence points in loci, both natural byproducts of general polynomial algebraic methods. Detailed examples are discussed.Comment: In Proceedings THedu'11, arXiv:1202.453

Analysis of NPF and NRT transporter families regarding the nitrate nutrition in maritime pine (Pinus pinaster)

Nitrogen is an essential element for life and the main limiting nutrient for plant growth and development1. The main forms of inorganic nitrogen in soils are nitrate and ammonium, which relative abundances depend on environmental conditions such as temperature. In agricultural soils the most abundant nitrogen form is nitrate because the use of chemical fertilizers however in natural ecosystems nitrogen soil composition can be more complex. Conifers are tree gymnosperms with a wide distribution although their large forests dominate the boreal ecosystems where nitrification is limited and ammonium is the main nitrogen soil source2. In this context, conifers have an appreciable tolerance to ammonium. Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton) is a conifer from the western Mediterranean region of high economic and ecological interest in Spain, France and Portugal. This pine is also a research model tree with different genomic resources such as a reference transcriptome and a gene expression atlas3. Taking advantage of these resources the members of the NPF and NRT transporter families involved in nitrate uptake and transport have been identified and analyzed in maritime pine4. Among the transporter families, the NRT3 one is expanded and composed by six members. The capacity of maritime pine to use nitrate or ammonium has been analyzed in seedlings. The development and growth responses to nitrate nutrition are comparable to ammonium supply. At molecular level, there are strong gene expressions for genes involved in nitrate uptake and assimilation such as Nitrate Reductase, Nitrite Reductase, Glutamine Synthetase 1a, three NRT3 genes and different NPF family members in the different organs. Since the NPF proteins can transport different metabolites, peptides and hormones, the NPF transporters involved in nitrate transport are being identified.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. This project was supported by the grant MicroNUpE, BIO2015-73512-JIN; MINECO/AEI/FEDER, UE. JMVM was supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional (FPU17/03517) and FO by a grant from the Universidad de Málaga (Programa Operativo de Empleo Juvenil vía SNJG, UMAJI11, FEDER, FSE, Junta de Andalucía)

A zero-thickness mortar/ interface formulation with application to fracture mechanics

A zero-thickness mortar/interface element formulation is briefly described and demonstrated. This element may be considered as an extension of traditional zero-thickness interface element, in order to represent material interfaces located in between subdomains with non-matching FE meshes. In the context of small strain analysis, these elements may be equipped with the same type of constitutive laws as traditional interface elements. Therefore, if friction or fracture-mechanics-based laws are adopted, mortar/interface elements may be used to represent frictional sliding or cracking following the lines (surfaces) along which they have been pre-inserted. Two basic verification examples of this type are presented, showing that the model can correctly represent uniform states of stress and deformation when connecting unmatched mesh subdomains

¿Piensan igual los directivos actuales y futuros? Experimento con subastas de capacidad de GNL

An experiment has been carried out in the laboratory to assess the difference in the bidding behaviour between current managers of an energy company and future managers or university students of Economics. The novelty of the experiment is that it has precisely mimicked a real capacity auction of LNG off-loading and that the professionals that have participated belong to the energy company that is responsible for the auctions. The experiments show that the laboratory setting is appropriate both for teaching and experimentation. The research results demonstrate that professionals bid higher than students and that women bid higher than menSe ha llevado a cabo un experimento en laboratorio para evaluar la diferencia entre el comportamiento de licitación entre los directivos actuales de una empresa energética y los futuros directivos o estudiantes universitarios de Economía. La novedad del ensayo es que ha imitado con precisión una subasta de capacidad de descarga de GNL y que los profesionales que participaron formaban parte de la empresa energética responsable de las adjudicaciones. Las pruebas revelaron que el entorno de laboratorio es apropiado tanto para la enseñanza como para la experimentación. Los resultados de la investigación demuestran que los profesionales ofertaron un precio más alto que los estudiantes y que las mujeres ofertaron un precio más alto que los hombre