The Telephone War: Interconnection, Competition, and Monopoly in the making of the universal telephone service, 1894-1920

The dissertation is a historical and theoretical study of competition between the Bell and independent telephone systems between 1894 and 1920. It is concerned with the historical origins of telephone monopoly in the U.S., and with the unique dynamics of competition between unconnected or incompatible communications networks. The study focuses on the competing networks\u27 refusal to interconnect with each other, exploring the economic and communicative consequences of fragmented telephone communications. Two bodies of theory provided the foundation for the study\u27s method: the network externality literature in Economics and the probabilistic models of interdependent demand developed by W. Brian Arthur. The dynamics of network competition are illustrated by means of an urn model. Unlike previous efforts, this urn model incorporates the possibility of nonuniform calling patterns and user duplication. In order to display the actual scope of telephone competition and to evaluate theories about the role of long distance connections in the competitive struggle, maps of the telephone access universes of three cities at various points in time were constructed. The conclusions of the study conflict with many standard assumptions about telephone history. Bell\u27s refusal to connect with the independents stimulated and broadened the scope of competition rather than thwarting it. The concept of universal service, first formulated at this time, denoted an end to competitive fragmentation rather than a telephone in every home. The universality of the U.S. telephone system had its roots in the competitive era rather than in subsequent regulatory policies. A telephone monopoly was created not because it realized supply-side economies of scale, but to achieve demand-side economies of scope. The decisive ingredient in Bell\u27s success was not its ultra-long distance transmission technology but its ability to offer near-universal connections within a 100 mile region

The Currency of the Word: Communications, War and Revolution in the formation of the Nation-state, 1608-1655

An original and provocative analysis of the role of communications in the Thirty Years War and the English Revolution of 1640-1649. The years covered by the book saw the first printed new periodicals, the opening of the royal postal system to public correspondence, the monopolization of the posts by the state, and the exploitation of this communications infrastructure for surveillance and news purposes by the emerging territorial state. The book argues that all these developments were related aspects in the emergence of a currency of the word, a change in the temporal status of literate media. Printed commentary now flowed synchronously alongside the events it described creating dispersed publics and major changes in political institutions. Both the Thirty Years War and the English Revolution were simultaneous and violent reformulations of power relations among territorially dispersed political authorities

Governing Internet Territory: ICANN, Sovereignty Claims, Property Rights and Country Code Top-level Domains

This paper examines the legal and Internet governance controversies over country code top-level domain names (ccTLDs). In recent litigation (Weinstein v. Islamic Republic of Iran and ICANN), terrorism victims argued that ccTLDs are property and attempted to seize Iran’s .IR domain for compensation. In refusing to uphold this claim, an appeals court ruled that a court-ordered redelegation would impair the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN’s) role in global Internet governance. While the .IR case is recent, the underlying tensions between state sovereignty, the role of ICANN and the rights of organizations that have been awarded ccTLDs have been simmering for two decades. Three governance models are in play: a sovereignty-based model, a property rights/market-based model, and a global public trustee model. The legal and political science literature leaves this Internet governance issue unexplored and unsettled, while court rulings on the property status of domains have been mixed or indecisive. Most legal scholars merely assume that states have sovereignty rights over their ccTLDs and do not critically assess the justification for, or the implications of, a sovereignty-based model. Likewise, many legal scholars, governments and Internet governance institutions have resisted recognizing TLD delegations as a property right, but their arguments are often based on misunderstandings of the economics and technology of the domain name system. Drawing on law, economics and sovereignty theories, this paper shows that top-level domain names have all the essential features of a property right. It argues that a governance regime that recognized them as such would be preferable to a regime based on sovereignty claims or a global public trustee model.

Taking Blockchain Seriously

In the present techno-political moment it is clear that ignoring or dismissing the hype surrounding blockchain is unwise, and certainly for regulatory authorities and governments who must keep a grip on the technology and those promoting it, in order to ensure democratic accountability and regulatory legitimacy within the blockchain ecosystem and beyond. Blockchain is telling (and showing) us something very important about the evolution of capital and neoliberal economic reason, and the likely impact in the near future on forms and patterns of work, social organization, and, crucially, on communities and individuals who lack influence over the technologies and data that increasingly shape and control their lives. In this short essay I introduce some of the problems in the regulation of blockchain and offer counter-narratives aimed at cutting through the hype fuelling the ascendency of this most contemporary of technologies

Infrared renormalons and the relations between the Gross-Llewellyn Smith and the Bjorken polarized and unpolarized sum rules

It is demonstrated that the infrared renormalon calculus indicates that the QCD theoretical expressions for the Gross-Llewelln Smith sum rules and for the Bjorken polarized and unpolarized ones contain an identical negative twist-4 1/Q^2 correction. This observation is supported by the consideration of the results of calculations of the corresponding twist-4 matrix elements. Together with the indication of the similarity of perturbative QCD corrections to these three sum rules, this observation leads to simple new theoretical relations between the Gross-Llewellyn Smith and Bjorken polarized and unpolarized sum rules in the energy region $Q^2\geq 1 GeV^2$. The validity of this relation is checked using concrete experimental data for the Gross-Llewellyn Smith and Bjorken polarized sum rulesComment: 7 pages, LaTeX, minor misprints corrected, results unchanged, to be published in JETP Letters, vol 81, issue 1

The Two-Loop Scale Dependence of the Static QCD Potential including Quark Masses

The interaction potential V(Q^2) between static test charges can be used to define an effective charge $\alpha_V(Q^2)$ and a physically-based renormalization scheme for quantum chromodynamics and other gauge theories. In this paper we use recent results for the finite-mass fermionic corrections to the heavy-quark potential at two-loops to derive the next-to-leading order term for the Gell Mann-Low function of the V-scheme. The resulting effective number of flavors $N_F(Q^2/m^2)$ in the $\alpha_V$ scheme is determined as a gauge-independent and analytic function of the ratio of the momentum transfer to the quark pole mass. The results give automatic decoupling of heavy quarks and are independent of the renormalization procedure. Commensurate scale relations then provide the next-to-leading order connection between all perturbatively calculable observables to the analytic and gauge-invariant $\alpha_V$ scheme without any scale ambiguity and a well defined number of active flavors. The inclusion of the finite quark mass effects in the running of the coupling is compared with the standard treatment of finite quark mass effects in the $\bar{MS}$ scheme.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figure

The cost of changing physical activity behaviour: Evidence from a "physical activity pathway" in the primary care setting

Copyright @ 2011 Boehler et al.BACKGROUND: The ‘Physical Activity Care Pathway’ (a Pilot for the ‘Let’s Get Moving’ policy) is a systematic approach to integrating physical activity promotion into the primary care setting. It combines several methods reported to support behavioural change, including brief interventions, motivational interviewing, goal setting, providing written resources, and follow-up support. This paper compares costs falling on the UK National Health Service (NHS) of implementing the care pathway using two different recruitment strategies and provides initial insights into the cost of changing physical activity behaviour. METHODS: A combination of a time driven variant of activity based costing, audit data through EMIS and a survey of practice managers provided patient-level cost data for 411 screened individuals. Self reported physical activity data of 70 people completing the care pathway at three month was compared with baseline using a regression based ‘difference in differences’ approach. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses in combination with hypothesis testing were used to judge how robust findings are to key assumptions and to assess the uncertainty around estimates of the cost of changing physical activity behaviour. RESULTS: It cost £53 (SD 7.8) per patient completing the PACP in opportunistic centres and £191 (SD 39) at disease register sites. The completer rate was higher in disease register centres (27.3% vs. 16.2%) and the difference in differences in time spent on physical activity was 81.32 (SE 17.16) minutes/week in patients completing the PACP; so that the incremental cost of converting one sedentary adult to an ‘active state’ of 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per week amounts to £ 886.50 in disease register practices, compared to opportunistic screening. CONCLUSIONS: Disease register screening is more costly than opportunistic patient recruitment. However, additional costs come with a higher completion rate and better outcomes in terms of behavioural change in patients completing the care pathway. Further research is needed to rigorously evaluate intervention efficiency and to assess the link between behavioural change and changes in quality adjusted life years (QALYs).This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Human and Chimpanzee Gene Expression Differences Replicated in Mice Fed Different Diets

Although the human diet is markedly different from the diets of closely related primate species, the influence of diet on phenotypic and genetic differences between humans and other primates is unknown. In this study, we analyzed gene expression in laboratory mice fed diets typical of humans and of chimpanzees. The effects of human diets were found to be significantly different from that of a chimpanzee diet in the mouse liver, but not in the brain. Importantly, 10% of the genes that differ in their expression between humans and chimpanzee livers differed also between the livers of mice fed the human and chimpanzee diets. Furthermore, both the promoter sequences and the amino acid sequences of these diet-related genes carry more differences between humans and chimpanzees than random genes. Our results suggest that the mouse can be used to study at least some aspects of human-specific traits