1,758 research outputs found
U.S. Multinational Services Companies: Effects of Foreign Affiliate Activity on U.S. Employment
This working paper examines the effect that U.S. services firms’ establishment abroad has on domestic employment. Whereas many papers have explored the employment effects of foreign direct investment in manufacturing, few have explored the effects of services investment. We find that services multinationals’ activities abroad increase U.S. employment by promoting intrafirm exports from parent firms to their foreign affiliates. These exports support jobs at the parents’ headquarters and throughout their U.S. supply chains. Our findings are principally based on economic research and econometric analysis performed by Commission staff, services trade and investment data published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and employment data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the aggregate, we find that services activities abroad support nearly 700,000 U.S. jobs. Case studies of U.S. multinationals in the banking, computer, logistics, and retail industries provide the global dimensions of U.S. MNC operations and identify domestic employment effects associated with foreign affiliate activity in each industry
An Overview and Examination of the Indian Services Sector
India’s service sector has grown rapidly since the 1990s. Domestic demand for services has increased as incomes have risen, triggering the expansion of industries such as banking, education, and telecommunications. Exports have also increased rapidly, led by information technology and business process outsourcing (IT-BPO). India’s ability to offer low-cost, high-quality IT-BPO services has made it a world leader in this industry. However, employment in services has not grown as quickly as output. The majority of India’s jobseekers are low-skilled, but demand for workers is growing fastest in higher-skill industries. The supply of highly-skilled workers has not kept pace with demand, causing wages to increase faster for these workers than for lower-skilled ones.
India’s government has supported the growth of service industries through a mix of deregulation, liberalization, and incentive programs, such as the Software Technology Parks of India. Nevertheless, burdensome regulations, poor infrastructure, and foreign investment restrictions continue to affect service firms’ ability to do business. USITC analysis suggests that additional liberalization would lead to an increase in India’s imports of services
Spontaneous Eyeblinks Are Correlated with Responses during the Stroop Task
The timing and frequency of spontaneous eyeblinking is thought to be influenced by ongoing internal cognitive or neurophysiological processes, but how precisely these processes influence the dynamics of eyeblinking is still unclear. This study aimed to better understand the functional role of eyeblinking during cognitive processes by investigating the temporal pattern of eyeblinks during the performance of attentional tasks. The timing of spontaneous eyeblinks was recorded from 28 healthy subjects during the performance of both visual and auditory versions of the Stroop task, and the temporal distributions of eyeblinks were estimated in relation to the timing of stimulus presentation and vocal response during the tasks. We found that the spontaneous eyeblink rate increased during Stroop task performance compared with the resting rate. Importantly, the subjects (17/28 during the visual Stroop, 20/28 during the auditory Stroop) were more likely to blink before a vocal response in both tasks (150–250 msec) and the remaining subjects were more likely to blink soon after the vocal response (200–300 msec), regardless of the stimulus type (congruent or incongruent) or task difficulty. These findings show that spontaneous eyeblinks are closely associated with responses during the performance of the Stroop task on a short time scale and suggest that spontaneous eyeblinks likely signal a shift in the internal cognitive or attentional state of the subjects
Could AGN Outbursts Transform Cool Core Clusters?
The origin of the bimodality in cluster core entropy is still unknown. At the
same time, recent work has shown that thermal conduction in clusters is likely
a time-variable phenomenon. We consider if time-variable conduction and AGN
outbursts could be responsible for the cool-core (CC), non cool-core (NCC)
dichotomy. We show that strong AGN heating can bring a CC cluster to a NCC
state, which can be stably maintained by conductive heating from the cluster
outskirts. On the other hand, if conduction is shut off by the heat-flux driven
buoyancy instability, then the cluster will cool to the CC state again, where
it is stabilized by low-level AGN heating. Thus, the cluster cycles between CC
and NCC states. In contrast with massive clusters, we predict the CC/NCC
bimodality should vanish in groups, due to the lesser role of conductive
heating there. We find tentative support from the distribution of central
entropy in groups, though firm conclusions require a larger sample carefully
controlled for selection effects.Comment: Slightly revised version, accepted for publication in MNRAS. 9 pages,
3 figure
Synthesis of a 6-Methyl-7-Deaza Analogue of Adenosine that Potently Inhibits Replication of Polio and Dengue Viruses
Bioisosteric deaza analogues of 6-methyl-9-β-D-ribofuranosylpurine, a hydrophobic analogue of adenosine, were synthesized and evaluated for antiviral activity. Whereas the 1-deaza and 3-deaza analogues were essentially inactive in plaque assays of infectivity, a novel 7-deaza-6-methyl-9-β-D-ribofuranosylpurine analogue, structurally related to the natural product tubercidin, potently inhibited replication of poliovirus (PV) in HeLa cells (IC50 = 11 nM) and dengue virus (DENV) in Vero cells (IC50 = 62 nM). Selectivity against PV over cytotoxic effects to HeLa cells was >100-fold after incubation for 7 h. Mechanistic studies of the 5'-triphosphate of 7-deaza-6-methyl-9-β-D-ribofuranosylpurine revealed that this compound is an efficient substrate of PV RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) and is incorporated into RNA mimicking both ATP and GTP
The morphology of cosmological reionization by means of Minkowski Functionals
The morphology of the total gas and the neutral hydrogen (H I) distributions
during the cosmological epoch of reionization can be quantified with Minkowski
Functionals (MFs) of isodensity surfaces. We compute the MFs from the output of
a high-resolution numerical simulation which includes explicit treatment of
transfer of UV ionizing radiation. "Galaxies" identified in the simulation
using semi-analytic models of galaxy formation are assumed to be the sole
sources of UV photons. The MFs of the total gas distribution are well described
by the analytic expressions derived for lognormal random fields. The
statistical properties of the diffuse H I depend on the gas distribution and on
the way ionized regions propagate in the inter-galactic medium (IGM). The
deviations of the MFs of the H I distribution from those of a lognormal random
field are, therefore, caused by reionization. We use the MFs to discriminate
between the various stages of reionization in the simulation. We suggest a
simple model of reionization which reproduces the MFs derived from this
simulation. Using random realizations of lognormal density fields, we also
assess the ability of MFs to distinguish between different reionization
scenarios. Our results are relevant to the analysis of future cosmological
twenty-one centimeter maps.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures; Minor content changes. To be published in MNRA
Revisiting the low-luminosity galaxy population of the NGC 5846 group with SDSS
Low-luminosity galaxies are known to outnumber the bright galaxy population
in poor groups and clusters of galaxies. Yet, the investigation of
low-luminosity galaxy populations outside the Local Group remains rare and the
dependence on different group environments is still poorly understood. Previous
investigations revealed photometric scaling relations for early-type dwarfs and
a strong dependence of morphology with environment.
The present study aims to analyse the photometric and spectroscopic
properties of the low-luminosity galaxy population in the nearby, well-evolved
and early-type dominated NGC 5846 group of galaxies. It is the third most
massive aggregate of early-type galaxies after the Virgo and Fornax clusters in
the local universe. Photometric scaling relations and the distribution of
morphological types as well as the characteristics of emission-line galaxies
are investigated.
Spectroscopically selected low-luminosity group members from the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey with cz<3000 km/s within a radius of 2 deg=0.91 Mpc around
NGC 5846 are analysed. Surface brightness profiles of early-type galaxies are
fit by a Sersic model r^(1/n). Star formation rates, oxygen abundances and
emission characteristics are determined for emission-line galaxies. [abridged]Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures; accepted for publication in A&
Thermal Instability in Gravitationally-Stratified Plasmas: Implications for Multi-Phase Structure in Clusters and Galaxy Halos
We study the interplay among cooling, heating, conduction, and magnetic
fields in gravitationally stratified plasmas using simplified, plane-parallel
numerical simulations. Since the physical heating mechanism remains uncertain
in massive halos such as groups or clusters, we adopt a simple,
observationally-motivated prescription which enforces global thermal
equilibrium when averaged over large scales. The plasma remains susceptible to
local thermal instability, however, and cooling drives an inward flow of
material. In contrast to previous results, we argue that the thermal stability
of the plasma is independent of its convective stability. We find that the
ratio of the cooling timescale to the dynamical timescale t_cool/t_ff controls
the saturation of the thermal instability: when t_cool/t_ff < 1, the plasma
develops extended multi-phase structure, whereas when t_cool / t_ff > 1 it does
not. (In a companion paper, we show that the criterion for thermal instability
in a spherical potential is somewhat less stringent, t_cool / t_ff < 10.) When
thermal conduction is anisotropic with respect to the magnetic field, the
criterion for multi-phase structure is essentially independent of the thermal
conductivity of the plasma. Our criterion for local thermal instability to
produce multi-phase structure is an extension of the cold vs. hot accretion
modes in galaxy formation that applies at all radii in hot halos, not just to
the virial shock. We show that this criterion is consistent with data on
multi-phase gas in the ACCEPT sample of clusters; in addition, when t_cool /
t_ff > 1, the net cooling rate to low temperatures and the mass flux to small
radii are suppressed enough relative to models without heating to be
qualitatively consistent with star formation rates and x-ray line emission in
groups and clusters.Comment: This is an electronic version of an article published in Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 419, Issue 4, pp. 3319-333
The nucleus of the Sagittarius dSph galaxy and M54: a window on the process of galaxy nucleation
We present the results of a thorough study of the nucleus of the Sgr dwarf
spheroidal galaxy and of the bright globular cluster M54 that resides within
the same nucleus (Sgr,N). We have obtained accurate radial velocities and
metallicity estimates for 1152 candidate Red Giant Branch stars of Sgr and M54
lying within ~ 9 arcmin from the center of the galaxy, from Keck/DEIMOS and
VLT/FLAMES spectra of the infrared Calcium II triplet. Using both velocity and
metallicity information we selected two samples of 425 and 321 very-likely
members of M54 and of Sgr,N, respectively. The two considered systems display
significantly different velocity dispersion profiles: M54 has a steeply
decreasing profile from r=0, where sigma= 14.2 km/s, to r=3.5 arcmin where it
reaches sigma=5.3 km/s, then it appears to rise again to sigma= 10 km/s at r=7
arcmin. In contrast Sgr,N has a uniformly flat profile at sigma=9.6 km/s over
the whole 0 < r < 9 arcmin range. Using data from the literature we show that
the velocity dispersion of Sgr remains constant at least out to r ~ 100 arcmin
and there is no sign of the transition between the outer
flat-luminosity-profile core and the inner nucleus in the velocity profile.
These results - together with a re-analysis of the surface brightness profile
of Sgr,N and a suite of dedicated N-body simulations - provide very strong
support for the hypothesis that the nucleus of Sgr formed independently of M54,
which probably plunged to its present position, coincident with Sgr,N, because
of significant decay of the original orbit due to dynamical friction.Comment: Accepted for publication by the Astronomical Journal. emulateapj.cls,
26 pag., 21 low resolution figures. A full-resolution color version of the
paper can be retrieved from http://www.bo.astro.it/SGR/Sgr_nucleus.ps.g
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