Competition, quality and contract compliance: evidence from compulsory competitive tendering in local government in Great Britain, 1987-2000

The introduction of competition has frequently been found to cause costs to fall. There has, however, been a question as to whether this was partly achieved at the cost of quality. Auction theory predicts prices would fall more the greater the competition to provide the service. There has been some debate about whether the smaller budgets would make contract compliance more difficult. Evidence is found in support of this hypothesis. We also find some evidence that the better recorded performance of the in-house direct service organisations (DSOs) during this period was due to the information advantage they had from being incumbents

An analysis of break-even prices and yields between dryland and irrigated cropping in Saskatchewan

Non-Peer Reviewe

Modelling Parkinson’s Disease Using Human iPSC-derived Neurons

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by progressive neurodegeneration that primarily depletes dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta, resulting in the PD quintessential motor symptoms. Animal models for PD have replicated many features of the neurodegeneration and LB pathology; however, there is no model that fully reproduces the human disease. Therefore, a human model of PD neurons is needed to accurately investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms. Recent advancements in the field of stem cell research have opened up new possibilities for modelling of difficult-to-obtain cell types. In 2006, Yamanaka et al. were the first to dedifferentiate fibroblasts into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and thereby identifying the necessary transcription factors to express that mediate dedifferentiation. With an improved delivery method these factors remain the basis for today’s iPSCs. Combined with a directed differentiation, it is possible to create a new replenishable source of human derived neurons. This is especially important for PD, as research suffers from lack of access and availability of affected human midbrain dopaminergic neurons. Research in this thesis applies these new techniques to set up models based on patients with familial PD and aims to find affected cellular mechanisms in PD

Mechanism of polymer drag reduction using a low-dimensional model

Theoretical Physic

The effect of birch pollen immunotherapy on apple and rmal d 1 challenges in adults with apple allergy

Background: A proportion of patients allergic to birch pollen are also allergic to pit fruit. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of immunotherapy with birch pollen on birch-pollen-related apple allergy. Method: Patients with birch pollen immunotherapy underwent a skin-prick test with birch pollen, apple and rMal d 1, global assessments and nasal challenges with birch pollen, open food challenge with apple and a double-blind, placebo-controlled test with rMal d 1 at the start of and during the immunotherapy. Measurements of specific IgE in response to Bet v 1 and rMal d 1 and IgG4 in response to Bet v 1 and rMal d 1 took place. Results: Six of eight patients demonstrated an improvement of nasal challenge test results and all patients improved on global assessment during the immunotherapy. The median oral dose of apple required to elicit a reaction increased but was not statistically significant. The patients showed a decrease in skin-prick test values in response to birch pollen (1.05 to 0.36), apple (0.78 to 0.25) and rMal d 1 (0.51 to 0.10) with p-values of 0.04, 0.03 and 0.06, respectively and a decrease of specific IgE in response to Bet v 1 (10.66 kU/L to 5.19 kU/L) and rMal d 1 (0.99 to 0.61 kU/L) with p-values of 0.01 and 0.05, respectively. Only the median specific IgG4 value to Bet v 1 increased from 0.05 to 1.85 mg/L (p-value of 0.02) and not to IgG4 rMal d 1 (0.07 to 0.08 kU/L). Conclusion: The beneficial effects of immunotherapy for birch pollen were accompanied by a limited effect on apple allergy

Three Generations in Type I Compactifications

Generalizing the recent work on three-family Type I compactifications, we classify perturbative Type I vacua obtained via compactifying on the T^6/Z_2 X Z_2 X Z_3 orbifold with all possible Wilson lines. In particular, we concentrate on models with gauge groups containing the Standard Model gauge group SU(3)_c X SU(2)_w X U(1)_Y as a subgroup. All of the vacua we obtain contain D5-branes and are non-perturbative from the heterotic viewpoint. The models we discuss have three-chiral families. We study some of their phenomenological properties, and point out non-trivial problems arising in these models in the phenomenological context.Comment: 16 pages, revtex, minor misprints correcte

Comment on "Evolution of a Quasi-Stationary State"

Approximately forty years ago it was realized that the time development of decaying systems might not be precisely exponential. Rolf Winter (Phys. Rev. {\bf 123}, 1503 (1961)) analyzed the simplest nontrivial system - a particle tunneling out of a well formed by a wall and a delta-function. He calculated the probability current just outside the well and found irregular oscillations on a short time scale followed by an exponential decrease followed by more oscillations and finally by a decrease as a power of the time. We have reanalyzed this system, concentrating on the survival probability of the particle in the well rather than the probability current, and find a different short time behavior.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, RevTex

More on Penrose limits and non-local theories

We obtain the Penrose limit of six dimensional Non-Commutative Open String (NCOS$_6$) theory and show that in the neighborhood of a particular null geodesic it leads to an exactly solvable string theory (unlike their counterparts in four or in other dimensions). We describe the phase structure of this theory and discuss the Penrose limit in different phases including Open D-string (OD1) theory. We compute the string spectrum and discuss their relations with the states of various theories at different phases. We also consider the case of general null geodesic for which the Penrose limit leads to string theory in the time dependent pp-wave background and comment on the renormalization group flow in the dual theory.Comment: latex, 22 pages, minor corrections, references added, published versio

Laminar natural convection over a slender vertical frustum of a cone

The problem of laminar, natural convection flow over a slender frustum of a cone is treated in this paper. The governing differential equations are solved by a combination of quasi-linearization and finite-difference methods. Numerical solutions are obtained for Pr=0.7 and for a range of values of the transverse curvature parameter. It is shown that the effect of transverse curvature is of great significance in such flows. In diesem Bericht ist das Problem der laminaren natürlichen Konvektionsströmung an einem dünnen Kegelstumpf behandelt. Die maßgebliche Differentialgleichung ist durch eine Verbindung von Quasilinearisation und Differenzenverfahren gelöst. Eine numerische Lösung für Pr=0.7 wird für verschiedene Werte eines Krümmungsparameters angegeben. Es ist gezeigt, daß in solchen Strömungen dieser Krümmungsparameter eine große Bedeutung besitzt.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46649/1/231_2005_Article_BF01002323.pd

An exact solution to determination of an open orbit

We present an exact solution of the equations for orbit determination of a two body system in a hyperbolic or parabolic motion. In solving this problem, we extend the method employed by Asada, Akasaka and Kasai (AAK) for a binary system in an elliptic orbit. The solutions applicable to each of elliptic, hyperbolic and parabolic orbits are obtained by the new approach, and they are all expressed in an explicit form, remarkably, only in terms of elementary functions. We show also that the solutions for an open orbit are recovered by making a suitable transformation of the AAK solution for an elliptic case.Comment: 28 pages, text improved, references added; version accepted by Celestial Mec