Is IT enough? Evidence from a natural experiment in India's agriculture markets

Access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as mobile phone networks is widely known to improve market efficiency. In this paper, we examine whether access to timely and accurate information provided through ICT applications has any additional impact. Using a detailed data set from Reuters Market Light (RML), a text message service in India that provides daily price information to market participants, we find that this information reduces the geographic price dispersion of crops in rural communities by an average of 12%, over and above access to mobile phone technology and other means of communication. To identify the effect of information on price dispersion, we exploit a natural experiment where bulk text messages were banned unexpectedly across India for 12 days in 2010. We find that besides reducing geographic price dispersion, RML also increases the rate at which prices converge across India over time. We discuss the implications of this for development organizations and information providers

Robust scheduling practices in the U.S. airline industry: Costs, returns, and inefficiencies

Airlines use robust scheduling to mitigate the impact of unforeseeable disruptions on profits. We examine how effectively three common practices—flexibility to swap aircraft, flexibility to reassign gates, and scheduled aircraft downtime—accomplish this goal. We first estimate a multiple-input, multiple-outcome production frontier, which defines the attainable set of outcomes from given inputs. We then recover unobserved input costs and calculate how expenditure on inputs affects outcomes and revenues. We find that the per-dollar return from expenditure on gates, or more effective management of existing gate capacity, is three times larger than the per-dollar returns from other inputs. Next, we use the estimated trade-offs faced by carriers along the frontier to measure the value to carriers of reducing delays. Finally, we calculate the improvement in carriers’ outcomes and profits if their operational inefficiencies are eliminated. On average, we estimate that operational inefficiencies cost carriers about $1.7 billion in revenue annually

Exchange in silicon-based quantum computer architecture

The silicon-based quantum computer proposal has been one of the intensely pursued ideas during the past three years. Here we calculate the donor electron exchange in silicon and germanium, and demonstrate an atomic-scale challenge for quantum computing in Si (and Ge), as the six (four) conduction band minima in Si (Ge) lead to inter-valley electronic interferences, generating strong oscillations in the exchange splitting of two-donor two-electron states. Donor positioning with atomic scale precision within the unit cell thus becomes a decisive factor in determining the strength of the exchange coupling--a fundamental ingredient for two-qubit operations in a silicon-based quantum computer.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Gems: Objects of aesthetic beauty and scientific curiosity

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Pressure tuning of strain in CdTe/InSb epilayer: A photoluminescence and photomodulated reflectivity study

doi:10.1063/1.354415The heavy‐hole and light‐hole excitons of a CdTe epilayer, pseudomorphically grown on an InSb epilayer by molecular beam epitaxy, are studied with a diamond anvil cell as a function of applied hydrostatic pressure via photoluminescence (PL) and photomodulated reflectivity (PR) spectroscopies. They are compared with the excitonic features in the simultaneously measured PL spectra of a sample of bulk CdTe. Under applied pressure, the lattice mismatch‐induced splitting between the light‐hole and heavy‐hole related transitions increases in a continuous and reversible manner because of the additional pressure‐induced compression due to the difference in the compressibilities of CdTe and InSb. The unusually large strain sustained by the CdTe epilayer under pressure is discussed in the light of various models. The PR signal vanishes after the InSb epilayer goes through a structural phase transition at approximately 20 kbar, while the PL signal persists until it is irreversibly quenched by the CdTe epilayer undergoing a structural phase transition at approximately 30 kbar. For pressures between 20 and 30 kbar, the behavior of the CdTe epilayer is similar to that of the bulk sample; the strain appears to have been relaxed due to the structural phase transition which has taken place in InSb. Values of the first‐ and second‐order pressure coefficients for bulk CdTe and for the CdTe epilayer as well as values of the hydrostatic and shear deformation potentials are obtained at 14 and 80 K and compared with previously quoted values.The work by H.R.C. was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG02-89ER45402. M.C. acknowledges partial support from the Research Corporation and the U.S. Army Grant No. DAAL-03-92-G-038 1. M.S.B. acknowledges partial support by the G. Ellsworth Huggins Fellowship. A.K.R. and R.L.G. acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation (Materials Research Group No. DMR89-13706)

Experimental evidence of strong phonon scattering in isotopical disordered systems: The case of LiH_xD_{1-x} crystals

The observation of the local - mode vibration, the two - mode behavior of the LO phonons at large isotope concentration, as well as large line broadening in LIH - D mixed crystals directly evidence strong additional phonon scattering due to the isotope - induced disorder.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Temperature dependence of strain in ZnSe(epilayer)/GaAs(epilayer)

doi:10.1063/1.360477A study of biaxial strain as a function of temperature in a ZnSe epilayer grown on a GaAs substrate is presented. The strains are determined by measuring the heavy‐ and light‐hole related excitonic transitions via photomodulated spectroscopy. The strain is found to increase with increasing temperature. The data are compared with a calculation using a previously determined elastic constant and thermal expansion coefficients. The temperature dependence determined here allows a comparison of various other optical measurements performed at different temperatures.The work by H. R. C. was supported in part by the U. S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG02-89ER45402. M. C. acknowledges the support from the U.S. Army Research Office DAAL-03-92-G0381. A. K.. R. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (Materials Research Group No. DMR89-13706) and R. L. G. from AFOSR-89-0438; both A. K. R. and R. L. G. also acknowledge support from DARPA-URI Grant No. 218-25015. We thank Lok C. Lew Yan Voon and L. R. Ram-Mohan for many stimulating discussions

Photoluminescence of short-period GaAs/AlAs superlattices: A hydrostatic pressure and temperature study

URL:http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.58.7222 DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.58.7222The temperature and pressure dependence of type-I and -II transitions from photoluminescence (PL) spectra in a series of (GaAs)m/(AlAs)m superlattices show that the temperature dependence of energy bands can be described very well with a Bose-Einstein-type equation. From these measurements the parameters that describe the temperature dependence of excitonic transition energies and the corresponding broadening of the PL line are deduced. The pressure dependence of the PL linewidths of the type-I exciton as a function of pressure and temperature yield the intervalley deformation potential. Beyond the type-I-type-II crossover, the PL linewidth increases as a function of both pressure and temperature. The electron-phonon deformation potential for Γ-X scattering is found to be temperature dependent.We thank S. Satpathy and S. Zollner for valuable discussions. One of us ~H.R.C.! acknowledges support by the NSF under Grant No. DMR-9633107. M.C. thanks the U.S. Army for support through Grant No. DAAL03-92-0381. The work at Purdue University was supported by the National Science Foundation: Materials Research Science and Engineering Center Grant Nos. DMR 94-00415 and DMR 93-03186

Heats of Formation of Solid Solutions of CsCl with CsBr

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