748 research outputs found
System Estimates of Cyclical Unemployment and Cyclical Output in the 15 European Union Member-States, 1961-1999
The purpose of this paper was to estimate cyclical unemployment and cyclical output in the 15 European Union member-states using a system of Phillips curve and Okunâs law equations. Treating both the NAIRU and the potential output growth rate as time varying unobserved stochastic processes, a state-space maximum likelihood estimation method - using Kalman filter where the state variables were random walks - was followed in order to estimate the 15 systems of equations. Overall, the estimated with the new approach systems of conditional equations suggested that the extent and direction of changes of cyclical unemployment and cyclical output over the period 1961-1999 is mixed across the 15 EU member states. The paper concludes that the application of âcommonâ policies across the 15 EU member states may be questionable because of the different expected effects of these policies on the various economies.Phillips curve, Okunâs law, Kalman filter, Cyclical unemployment, Potential output growth rate, NAIRU, Europe
ANALYSIS OF THE BENEFITS OF INTRA-PORT COMPETITION
Intra-port competition is widely regarded as beneficial, for the competitiveness of ports, for local and national economies and for consumers and exporting industries. The aim of the paper is to analyse the benefits resulting from the presence of intra-port competition. Even though this issue has been addressed before, a thorough and complete overview of the effects of intra-port competition, enabling conditions for intra-port competition and policies in case of lacking intra-port competition are absent. The paper presents first a short overview of previous studies dealing with intra-port competition. Second, it discusses the two main arguments underlying the benefits of intra-port competition. In this context, attention is given to the relation between intra-port and inter-port competition. Third, the paper examines the conditions under which these arguments are valid and intra-port competition can be introduced. Possible policy responses to limited or absent intra-port competition are discussed in this section as well. Fourth, the need to introduce effects of intra-port competition in port modelling is briefly. Finally, the paper presents empirical evidence of the effects of intra-port competition.ports, intra-port competition, regulation, port policies
PORT REORGANISATION AND THE WORLDS OF PRODUCTION THEORY
Taking into consideration the new dimensions of port production that have become evident during the resent past, this paper tackles the issue of port reorganisation. In the light of the changes in the world economy and the new competitive environment, the paper focuses on the new structures of the port industry and the characteristics of the contemporary port product within a more general analytical framework of âWorlds of Productionâ. This conceptualisation suggests that neither the industrial model of mass production, nor any other model alone, can determine a single effective pattern of organisation of port production. Within the new reality, modern ports must provide a greater variety of services to port users than in the past. The diversity and complexity of the contemporary port product demand the application of multiple organisational transformations incorporating elements from different possible action frameworks. In this vein, the introduction of intra-port competition, the development of strategic or regional networks, and the reconsideration of the role of port authority turn to critical parameters of the necessary restructuring.Port Industry, reorganisation, worlds of production theory
The EU port policy in a historical perspective
This paper examines the evolution of the European Union (EU) Port Policy
within a historical perspective. Analysing the changing aspects of the
sectoral socio-economic context and the alterations of the institutional setting,
the paper explains the slow start towards a European Port Policy
(EPP), that lasted more than three decades, and then assesses why, and how,
policy actors involved in the EU policy making have succeeded in carving
out elements of a policy framework. The study chronicles the stages by which
the EU has moved into the port policy field. Grounding on the analysis of the
changing sectoral environment, the paper analyses the complex sequence of
events, which have led either to legislative and political decisions or to output
failures. As demonstrated by the historical analysis (1957-2004), policy
integration is a dynamic, seemingly irreversible, process, which marked by
the searching for a balance between liberalisation and harmonisation.peer-reviewe
Maritime interests and the EU port services directive
A key theme of the EU Port Policy has been the establishment of free market access to the provision of
port services in EU ports. However, two successive European Commission proposals for a relevant EU
port services directive (PSD) failed to produce a new policy regime. This paper examines the mobilisation
of maritime interests, aiming to identify stakeholdersâ preferences and their contribution to the rejection
of this port policy proposal. The analysis suggests that, although they did not share the same perspective,
the views of organised maritime interests shared a common denominator: they were against the proposed
EU rule due to its structural deficiencies. Assisted by the industrial heterogeneity, the difficulties to
implement a âone size fits all portsâ policy, and the observed institutional tensions a variety of vested
interests frequently with monopolistic positions contributed to the produced policy output failure
Quintessential Kination and Cold Dark Matter Abundance
The generation of a kination-dominated phase by a quintessential exponential
model is investigated and the parameters of the model are restricted so that a
number of observational constraints (originating from nucleosynthesis, the
present acceleration of the universe and the dark-energy-density parameter) are
satisfied. The decoupling of a thermal cold dark matter particle during the
period of kination is analyzed, the relic density is calculated both
numerically and semi-analytically and the results are compared with each other.
It is argued that the enhancement, with respect to the standard paradigm, of
the cold dark matter abundance can be expressed as a function of the
quintessential density parameter at the onset of nucleosynthesis. We find that
values of the latter quantity close to its upper bound require the
thermal-averaged cross section times the velocity of the cold relic to be
almost three orders of magnitude larger than this needed in the standard
scenario so as compatibility with the cold dark matter constraint is achieved.Comment: Published versio
K\"ahler-driven Tribrid Inflation
We discuss a new class of tribrid inflation models in supergravity, where the
shape of the inflaton potential is dominated by effects from the K\"ahler
potential. Tribrid inflation is a variant of hybrid inflation which is
particularly suited for connecting inflation with particle physics, since the
inflaton can be a D-flat combination of charged fields from the matter sector.
In models of tribrid inflation studied so far, the inflaton potential was
dominated by either loop corrections or by mixing effects with the waterfall
field (as in "pseudosmooth" tribrid inflation). Here we investigate the third
possibility, namely that tribrid inflation is dominantly driven by effects from
higher-dimensional operators of the K\"ahler potential. We specify for which
superpotential parameters the new regime is realized and show how it can be
experimentally distinguished from the other two (loop-driven and
"pseudosmooth") regimes.Comment: 28 pages, v2: added some references, this version matches the
publication in JCA
Tracking Quintessence and Cold Dark Matter Candidates
We study the generation of a kination-dominated phase in the context of a
quintessential model with an inverse-power-law potential and a Hubble-induced
mass term for the quintessence field. The presence of kination is associated
with an oscillating evolution of the quintessence field and the barotropic
index. We find that, in sizeable regions of the parameter space, a tracker
scaling solution can be reached sufficiently early to alleviate the coincidence
problem. Other observational constraints originating from nucleosynthesis, the
inflationary scale, the present acceleration of the universe and the
dark-energy-density parameter can be also met. The impact of this modified
kination-dominated phase on the thermal abundance of cold dark matter
candidates is investigated too. We find that: (i) the enhancement of the relic
abundance of the WIMPs with respect to the standard paradigm, crucially depends
on the hierarchy between the freeze-out temperature and the temperature at
which the extrema in the evolution of the quintessence field are encountered,
and (ii) the relic abundance of e-WIMPs takes its present value close to the
temperature at which the earliest extremum of the evolution of the quintessence
field occurs and, as a consequence, both gravitinos and axinos arise as natural
cold dark matter candidates. In the case of unstable gravitinos, the gravitino
constraint can be satisfied for values of the initial temperature well above
those required in the standard cosmology.Comment: Final versio
P2-201: Correlation of gefitinib efficacy and detection of new EGFR mutation variants in pre-treated patients (pts) with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)
Early changes in rpS6 phosphorylation and BH3 profiling predict response to chemotherapy in AML cells
Blasts from different patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) vary in the agent(s) to which they are most responsive. With a myriad of novel agents to evaluate, there is a lack of predictive biomarkers to precisely assign targeted therapies to individual patients. Primary AML cells often survive poorly in vitro, thus confounding conventional cytotoxicity assays. The purpose of this work was to assess the potential of two same-day functional predictive assays in AML cell lines to predict long-term response to chemotherapy. (i) Ribosomal protein S6 (rpS6) is a downstream substrate of PI3K/akt/mTOR/ kinase and MAPK kinase pathways and its dephosphorylation is also triggered by DNA double strand breaks. Phospho-rpS6 is reliably measurable by flow cytometry and thus has the potential to function as a biomarker of responsiveness to several therapeutic agents. (ii) A cellâs propensity for apoptosis can be interrogated via a functional assay termed âDynamic BH3 Profilingâ in which mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization in drug-treated cells can be driven by pro-apoptotic BH3 domain peptides such as PUMA-BH3. The extent to which a particular cell is primed for apoptosis by the drug can be determined by measuring the amount of cytochrome C released on addition of BH3 peptide. We demonstrate that phospho-rpS6 expression and PUMA-BH3 peptide-induced cytochrome C release after 4 hours both predict long term chemoresponsiveness to tyrosine kinase inhibitors and DNA double strand break inducers in AML cell lines. We also describe changes in expression levels of the prosurvival BCL-2 family member Mcl-1 and the pro-apoptotic protein BIM after short term drug culture
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