The Effects of Retail Regulations on Prices Evidence form the Loi Galland

In 1997, a new legislation banning below-invoice retail prices came into force in France. Individually negotiated discounts could no longer be passed on to consumers, which is equivalent to allowing industry-wide price oors. The anti-competitive effects of such practices are well-known. The elimination of intra-brand competition is expected to lead to a sharp increase in the retail prices. Using CPI raw data, we nd evidence supporting this claim. The modification or revocation of the existing legislation (as it has been done in Ireland in December 2005) would then be expected to reduce retail prices.retail prices, pricing regulations, resale price maintenance

Alien Registration- Pare, Marie P. (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/30646/thumbnail.jp

Contrôle des installations d’assainissement non collectif : l’apport déterminant des outils de diagnostic non destructifs

Depuis juillet 2012, un nouveau cadre juridique s’applique aux installations d’assainissement non collectif, visant à améliorer leur contrôle et leur rénovation progressive. Cette note nous présente une méthodologie de contrôle simplifié des installations élaborée grâce l’apport déterminant des outils de diagnostic non destructifs

The Environmental Effect of Green Taxation: the Case of the French "Bonus/Malus"

At the beginning of 2008 was introduced in France a feebate on the purchase of new cars called the Bonus/Malus. Since January 2008, less polluting cars benefit from a price reduction of up to 1,000 euros, while the most polluting ones are subject to a taxation of 2,600 euros. We estimate the impact of this policy on carbon dioxide emissions in the short and long run. These emissions depend on the market shares and the average emissions per kilometer of each car, but also on their manufacturing, car fleet size and the average number of kilometers travelled by their owners. We first develop a simple tractable model that relates car choice and mileage. We then estimate this model, using both the exhaustive dataset of car registrations and a recent transportation survey which provides information on individual journeys. We show that if the shift towards classes benefiting from rebates is spectacular, the environmental impact of the policy is negative. The reform has notably increased sales, leading to an important increase in manufacturing and travelling emissions. We thus stress that such policies may be efficient tool for reducing CO2 emissions since consumers do react to such financial incentives, but should be designed with care to achieve their primary goal.environmental taxation, automobiles, carbon dioxide emissions, policy evaluation

3D-printed system optimizing dissolution of hyperpolarized gaseous species for micro-sized NMR

International audienceDissolution of hyperpolarized species in liquids of interest for NMR is often hampered by the presence of bubbles that degrade the field homogeneity. Here a device constituted by a bubble pump and a miniaturized NMR cell fitting both inside the narrow bore of an NMR magnet is built by 3D printing. 129Xe NMR experiments performed with hyperpolarized xenon reveal high and homogeneous dissolution of the gas in water

The Impact of Dielectric Constant Model and Surface Reference on Differences Between SMOS and Aquarius Sea Surface Salinity

Two ongoing space missions share the scientific objective of mapping the global Sea Surface Salinity (SSS), yet their observations show significant discrepancies. ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and NASA's Aquarius use L-band (1.4 GHz) radiometers to measure emission from the sea surface and retrieve SSS. Significant differences in SSS retrieved by both sensors are observed, with SMOS SSS being generally lower than Aquarius SSS, except for very cold waters where SMOS SSS is the highest overall. Figure 1 is an example of the difference between the SSS retrieved by SMOS and Aquarius averaged over one month and 1 degree in longitude and latitude. Differences are mostly between -1 psu and +1 psu (psu, practical salinity unit), with a significant regional and latitudinal dependence. We investigate the impact of the vicarious calibration and retrieval algorithm used by both mission on these differences

The sonic spectrums of skateboarding: from polarity to plurality

This is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this recordThe sounds produced by skateboards, or skatesounds, are a common basis of complaint among the urban public and yet a source of inspiration and joy for skateboarding participants. These opposing responses to skatesound have escaped scholarly attention due to skateboarding’s visuocentric culture, yet this disagreement is significant in planning for city-built skateparks, registering public complaints of skateboarders in city spaces, and adding hostile architecture like skate stoppers, which often pivot on this polarity of reactions to skatesounds. We present a spectrum of theoretical responses of skatesound to dispel these reactions, including subjectivism, semiotics, soundscapes, and texturology. We argue that for some people skatesounds may be merely subjective with either a positive or negative valence. For others, skatesound is associated with pro-social or anti-social behaviors. For some, skatesound is both associative and provides wayfinding information about a city. Lastly, we introduce a novel theory of texturology: that skateboarders possess a unique sensory knowledge of the surface materials and textures of the city through skatesound, a knowledge specific to skateboarding

The play's the thing

For very understandable reasons phenomenological approaches predominate in the field of sensory urbanism. This paper does not seek to add to that particular discourse. Rather it takes Rorty’s postmodernized Pragmatism as its starting point and develops a position on the role of multi-modal design representation in the design process as a means of admitting many voices and managing multidisciplinary collaboration. This paper will interrogate some of the concepts underpinning the Sensory Urbanism project to help define the scope of interest in multi-modal representations. It will then explore a range of techniques and approaches developed by artists and designers during the past fifty years or so and comment on how they might inform the question of multi-modal representation. In conclusion I will argue that we should develop a heterogeneous tool kit that adopts, adapts and re-invents existing methods because this will better serve our purposes during the exploratory phase(s) of any design project that deals with complexity