Entry and competition in freight transport : the case of a prospective transalpine rail link between France and Italy

We analyze the expected effects of building a rail tunnel between Lyon and Turin on i) the market shares of the established and the new suppliers, and ii) consumer surplus. The prospective project consists of a 53km rail tunnel providing freight shippers with a new alpine path. We calibrate an equilibrium model where freight shippers choose a mode and alpine path to ship goods from a given origin to a given destination. Freight carriers strategically set prices for the differentiated products they supply. Deriving the market equilibrium, we simulate the entry of a quality-improved product and test its competitive viability. The prospective alpine path proves both competitive and welfare-enhancing on the regional market, loses its competitive edge on the wider North-South market, and leads to a modal shift on the West-East market. We argue that the new infrastructure is only one tool out of a global modal shift-oriented policy toolbox

Complicating to Persuade?

This paper addresses a common criticism of certification processes: that they simultaneously generate excessive complexity, insuficient scrutiny and high rates of undue validation. We build a model of persuasion in which low and high types pool on their choice of complexity. A natural criterion based on forward induction selects the high-type optimal pooling equilibrium.When the receiver prefers rejection ex ante, the sender simplifies her report. When the receiver prefers validation ex ante, however, more complexity makes the receiver less selective, and we provide sufficient conditions that lead to complexity inflation in equilibrium

Analisis Efek Near Far Terhadap Interferensi Pada Sistem Komunikasi HF TRDMA

Sistem komunikasi radio High Frequency (HF) memiliki kelebihan yakni dapat memberikan transmisi jarak jauh, biaya relatif murah serta fleksibel. Namun, karena bandwidth kanal yang digunakan pada sistem komunikasi HF terbatas yaitu pada frekuensi 3-30 MHz, diperlukan suatu metode akses jamak yang mampu meningkatkan efisiensi penggunaan kanal. Salah satunya adalah dengan menggunakan metode Time-Reversal Division Multiple Access (TRDMA) pada komunikasi HF. Salah satu permasalahan yang perlu diatasi dalam mengimplementasikan TRDMA pada komunikasi HF adalah efek nearfar. Efek near-far adalah fenomena saat terdapat dua pemancar (atau lebih) yang memancarkan sinyal ke satu penerima yang sama, dalam konteks uplink pada proses multiple-access, yang bekerja dengan frekuensi yang sama. Karena bekerja di frekuensi yang sama, tentu akan ada efek interferensi antara keduanya, sehingga mempengaruhi kualitas sinyal pemancar utama, yang diukur menggunakan parameter signal to interference ratio (SIR). Pengaruh jarak setiap pemancar terhadap kualitas sinyal dari masing-masing pemancar tersebut itulah yang disebut sebagai efek near-far. Pada penelitian ini digunakan data dari rekomendasi ITU-R P.533 untuk mendapatkan kinerja komunikasi pada band HF. Dilakukan mekanisme kontrol daya pancar untuk mendapat hasil SIR ideal untuk semua user, dengan cara menyamakan daya di penerima untuk setiap pemancar, mendekati -120 dBW. Lalu dilakukan perhitungan SIR untuk pemancar utama Kupang dan Merauke, dengan penerima di Surabaya. Didapatkan hasil kinerja SIR komunikasi HF TRDMA, cukup baik hanya jika hanya ada 1 peng-interferensi. Sedangkan lebih dari itu nilainya sudah dibawah 0 dB, sehingga perlu digabungkan dengan teknik spread spectrum, dengan level yang rendah, agar tidak boros dalam penggunaan bandwidth. ========================================================================================================= High frequency (HF) radio communication systems has an advantage, that it can provide a long distances transmission, relatively cheap, and flexible. But consider that the channel bandwidth of HF frequency band was limited, from 3-30 MHz, it is necessary to use an multiple access method to increase channel usage efficiency. Once of it was by apllied Time Reversal Division Multiple Access (TRDMA) method for HF communication systems. One of the problem to be solved to implements TRDMA on HF communications system is near far effect. Near far effect is a phenomenon when there was two transmitter (or more) that propagates a signal to a same receiver, in an uplink context of a multiple access process, using a same frequency. Because of using a same frequency, there was an interference effect between them, that affect to signal quality of the main trasmitter, which caltulated by signal to interference ratio (SIR) parameter. The affection of distances and signal quality of each transmitter is named near far effect. In this research, is using data from ITU-R P.533 to get information about communication performance at high frequency band. We applied transmission power control to get an ideal SIR performance for each user, by equate received power for each user, approach -120 dBW for each user. Then SIR performance was calculated, with the receiver in Surabaya, and two main transmitter at Kupang and Merauke. So we get SIR performance of HF communication systems. It found that SIR performance of HF TRDMA communication systems is only have positive value in dB scale, when only has 1 interference link. When the interference link was 2 or more, the value was negative. So it need to be combined with other techniques such as spread spectrum with a low sequence level, that enough to increase SIR performance, but still efficient in using bandwidth

Determinantes Sociales de la Salud relacionados con el embarazo en adolescentes. Centro Ciudad Mujer de Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Enero 2020

Estudio cuantitativo, descriptivo de corte transversal, con 30 adolescentes embarazadas de 15 a 19 años, que asistieron al Centro Ciudad Mujer de Tegucigalpa, se aplicó encuesta que contenía las variables correspondientes en 3 componentes: características socioeconómicas, componentes de salud sexual y reproductiva y el acceso a los servicios de salud. 73% ya no asistían al centro educativo, 27% por causa del embarazo, 70% estado civil unión libre, 63.3% ocupación amas de casa, 54% de los hogares sostenidos económicamente por sus parejas, con ingreso mensual menor de 5 mil lempiras en 50%, 46.7% iniciaron vida sexual entre los 14 -15 años, 87% recibió información sobre métodos anticonceptivos, el 36.7% centro educativo, pero el 63% no los utilizó en su primera relación sexual, por lo cual 60% refirió que ese fue el motivo de embarazo, 30% estaban en su segundo embarazo. 23% ha sufrido violencia, 33.3% ha hecho uso de los servicios de salud. Los determinantes sociales que prevalecieron: deserción escolar por causa del embarazo, unión libre, amas de casa, bajo nivel económico, inicio temprano de las relaciones sexuales, si ha recibido información sobre métodos anticonceptivos pero no los utilizó y ese fue el motivo de embarazo, un porcentaje significativo ha sufrido violencia, solo un tercio hizo uso de los servicios de salu

Maternal psychological distress in primary care and association with child behavioural outcomes at age three

Observational studies indicate children whose mothers have poor mental health are at increased risk of socio-emotional behavioural difficulties, but it is unknown whether these outcomes vary by the mothers’ mental health recognition and treatment status. To examine this question, we analysed linked longitudinal primary care and research data from 1078 women enrolled in the Born in Bradford cohort. A latent class analysis of treatment status and self-reported distress broadly categorised women as (a) not having a common mental disorder (CMD) that persisted through pregnancy and the first 2 years after delivery (N = 756, 70.1 %), (b) treated for CMD (N = 67, 6.2 %), or (c) untreated (N = 255, 23.7 %). Compared to children of mothers without CMD, 3-year-old children with mothers classified as having untreated CMD had higher standardised factor scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (d = 0.32), as did children with mothers classified as having treated CMD (d = 0.27). Results were only slightly attenuated in adjusted analyses. Children of mothers with CMD may be at risk for socio-emotional and behavioural difficulties. The development of effective treatments for CMD needs to be balanced by greater attempts to identify and treat women. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00787-015-0777-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Assessing and predicting adolescent and early adulthood common mental disorders using electronic primary care data:analysis of a prospective cohort study (ALSPAC) in Southwest England

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to examine agreement between common mental disorders (CMDs) from primary care records and repeated CMD questionnaire data from ALSPAC (the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children) over adolescence and young adulthood, explore factors affecting CMD identification in primary care records, and construct models predicting ALSPAC-derived CMDs using only primary care data. DESIGN AND SETTING: Prospective cohort study (ALSPAC) in Southwest England with linkage to electronic primary care records. PARTICIPANTS: Primary care records were extracted for 11 807 participants (80% of 14 731 eligible). Between 31% (3633; age 15/16) and 11% (1298; age 21/22) of participants had both primary care and ALSPAC CMD data. OUTCOME MEASURES: ALSPAC outcome measures were diagnoses of suspected depression and/or CMDs. Primary care outcome measure were Read codes for diagnosis, symptoms and treatment of depression/CMDs. For each time point, sensitivities and specificities for primary care CMD diagnoses were calculated for predicting ALSPAC-derived measures of CMDs, and the factors associated with identification of primary care-based CMDs in those with suspected ALSPAC-derived CMDs explored. Lasso (least absolute selection and shrinkage operator) models were used at each time point to predict ALSPAC-derived CMDs using only primary care data, with internal validation by randomly splitting data into 60% training and 40% validation samples. RESULTS: Sensitivities for primary care diagnoses were low for CMDs (range: 3.5%–19.1%) and depression (range: 1.6%–34.0%), while specificities were high (nearly all >95%). The strongest predictors of identification in the primary care data for those with ALSPAC-derived CMDs were symptom severity indices. The lasso models had relatively low prediction rates, especially in the validation sample (deviance ratio range: −1.3 to 12.6%), but improved with age. CONCLUSIONS: Primary care data underestimate CMDs compared to population-based studies. Improving general practitioner identification, and using free-text or secondary care data, is needed to improve the accuracy of models using clinical data