COVID-19: LESSONS LEARNED IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT. TIME FOR A NEW NORMAL?

The COVID-19 crisis upended markets and assumptions in public procurement, and posed an almost existential threat to traditional procurement systems. Seismic changes in economic relationships – governments were no longer monopsonists, government officials failed as economic intermediaries between suppliers and the public, and supplies that were traditionally treated as private (such as medical equipment) suddenly became “public” goods under worldwide demand. Traditional trade rules were rendered irrelevant, as the goal was no longer simply to open individual procurements but rather to open borders to intense global demand. Although the disruption was revolutionary, ironically the solution is to return to first principles of transparency and integrity to preserve governments’ fragile legitimacy in a crisis. The press of the pandemic also showed the need for governments to reduce transaction costs by buying cooperatively and effectively across borders. These lessons highlight the need (and the opportunity) to rethink public procurement systems, to craft a “new normal” against the dark background of a worldwide pandemic

Will Protectionism Prevail in Global Public Procurement?

For public procurement, the pendulum of trade policy seems to be swinging back towards protectionism. Governments can have a profoundly important impact on their home economies when they raise barriers to foreign competition. Recent protectionist efforts by major economic powers, including the United States and the European Union, suggest a new world order—of new import and export barriers, tight technology controls and “friend-shoring” to limit public procurement trade to a closed circle of aligned nations. Will this be the new economic order in public procurement? This article, originally published in Concurrences Review, concurrences.com, argues not. Open international trade in procurement was not an historical accident or a quixotic adventure; instead, the current legal order reflects the economics of globalization and geopolitical realities. At the same time, the question of a new kind of protectionism in public procurement is being raised by novel public policies, such as goals for “sustainability” (social, economic and environmental advancement), played out through public procurement, which can in practice be quite protectionist. Drawing in part on long U.S. experience with accommodating social and economic goals in public procurement, this piece argues that the apparently contradictory goals of competition and sustainability can, in fact, be reconciled. In this respect, and without becoming a mere pawn of protectionism, public procurement law can provide viable solutions for reconciling competition with the new demands of sustainability

Full Quantum Analysis of Two-Photon Absorption Using Two-Photon Wavefunction: Comparison with One-Photon Absorption

For dissipation-free photon-photon interaction at the single photon level, we analyze one-photon transition and two-photon transition induced by photon pairs in three-level atoms using two-photon wavefunctions. We show that the two-photon absorption can be substantially enhanced by adjusting the time correlation of photon pairs. We study two typical cases: Gaussian wavefunction and rectangular wavefunction. In the latter, we find that under special conditions one-photon transition is completely suppressed while the high probability of two-photon transition is maintained.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

The ghost sex-life of the paedogenetic beetle Micromalthus debilis

Genetic and sexual systems can be evolutionarily dynamic within and among clades. However, identifying the processes responsible for switches between, for instance, sexual and asexual reproduction, or cyclic and non-cyclic life histories remains challenging. When animals evolve parthenogenetic reproduction, information about the sexual mating system becomes lost. Here we report an extraordinary case where we have been able to resurrect sexual adults in a species of beetle that reproduces by parthenogenetic paedogenesis, without the production of adults. Via heat treatment, we were able to artificially induce adult beetles of Micromalthus debilis in order to describe its pre-paedogenetic mating system. Adults showed a highly female biased sex ratio, out-breeding behaviour, and sex-role reversal. Paedogenetic larvae of Micromalthus are infected with the endosymbiotic bacteria Rickettsia and Wolbachia. Clear signs of vestigialization in adults are concurrent with the loss of adults. Our data suggest an ancient female sex ratio bias that predated the loss of adults, perhaps associated with endosymbionts. We propose a model for the transition from a haplodiploid cyclical parthenogenetic life history to parthenogenetic paedogenesis. Paedogenetic development induces a new mechanism of sex ratio bias in midges, wasps and beetles

COVID-19: Lessons Learned in Public Procurement. Time for a New Normal?

The COVID-19 crisis upended markets and assumptions in public procurement, and posed an almost existential threat to traditional procurement systems. Seismic changes in economic relationships – governments were no longer monopsonists, government officials failed as economic intermediaries between suppliers and the public, and supplies that were traditionally treated as private (such as medical equipment) suddenly became “public” goods under worldwide demand. Traditional trade rules were rendered irrelevant, as the goal was no longer simply to open individual procurements but rather to open borders to intense global demand. Although the disruption was revolutionary, ironically the solution is to return to first principles of transparency and integrity to preserve governments’ fragile legitimacy in a crisis

COVID-19: LESSONS LEARNED IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT. TIME FOR A NEW NORMAL?

The COVID-19 crisis upended markets and assumptions in public procurement, and posed an almost existential threat to traditional procurement systems. Seismic changes in economic relationships – governments were no longer monopsonists, government officials failed as economic intermediaries between suppliers and the public, and supplies that were traditionally treated as private (such as medical equipment) suddenly became “public” goods under worldwide demand. Traditional trade rules were rendered irrelevant, as the goal was no longer simply to open individual procurements but rather to open borders to intense global demand. Although the disruption was revolutionary, ironically the solution is to return to first principles of transparency and integrity to preserve governments’ fragile legitimacy in a crisis. The press of the pandemic also showed the need for governments to reduce transaction costs by buying cooperatively and effectively across borders. These lessons highlight the need (and the opportunity) to rethink public procurement systems, to craft a “new normal” against the dark background of a worldwide pandemic

Two-dimensional electron systems in inversion layers of p-type Hg

Strong oscillations on capacitance and conductance have been observed in p-type $\mathrm{Hg_{0.8}Zn_{0.2}Te}$ metal-insulator-semiconductor structures, made by using a recent process for the interface passivation. This behaviour is attributed to a two-dimensional electron gas in the n-inversion layer and the variation of the conductance maximums with temperature indicates that the dominant perpendicular transport mechanism for electrons is an incoherent two-step tunnelling through deep levels in the gap. Three models have been used to describe the quantum confinement: the simple variational method, the triangular potential approximation and the propagation matrix method. The later approach takes into account the non parabolicity of the conduction band structure and uses a finite height barrier at the insulator-semiconductor interface. A very good agreement between experimental and calculated values for the two lowest subband energy is obtained

Early effects of gossypol on the testis and epididymis in the rat

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