Shifting responsibility for social services as enterprises privatize in Belarus

In Belarus, divestiture of social assets, a misnomer for fringe benefits that comprise a part of wages, is needed to transform enterprises so they can function appropriately in a market economy. Maintaining supply of these services after enterprise divestiture is an important public policy problem in transition economies. These fringe benefits, issued mainly in the form of housing and kindergarten services, were cut by at least two-thirds as a proportion of employee remuneration between 1994 and 1995 because of the economic downturn. This report debates whether most of these fringe benefits should continue to be subsidized or receive preferential tax treatment. A strong case is made for some government funding of the public health and kindergarten services, and public utility and housing services divested by enterprises. The reasons for assigning services such as education and health to local governments is debated and financing arrangements such as revenue sharing are examined. Among the problems cited with the latter are interregional imbalances caused by unequal resources distribution, tax breaks given to agriculture which has reduced payments to rural local governments, the absence of close links between beneficiaries and payers justifying extrabudgetary funding, and inadequate subnational government taxation raising insignificant amounts of revenue. Where transfers to local governments are required, formula financing is suggested for unconditional grants to low-income local governments and conditional grants to support specific objectives.Municipal Financial Management,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

Fiscal decentralization and intergovernmental finances in the Republic of Albania

Economic decentralization emerged as an issue in Albania following the first election of a noncommunist government in Albania in 1992. It is one of many challenges in creating a fiscal system that supports reform. Decentralization has begun with the central government's transferring spending responsibilities primarily for some local infrastructure services to local governments. But, given Albania's small size, it is unclear whether"people"services such as education and health care need to be delegated to local governments. Although the destruction of local health and education facilities accompanying the demise of the old regime argues for giving communities a greater sense of ownership of these facilities, they should not be handed down without mechanisms to ensure uniform service standards. Draft laws focus on the transfer of assets (schools and clinics) to local jurisdictions but are vague about responsibilities for recurrent spending. And because local spending responsibilities are expanding, local governments need increased revenues to finance them. Providing an adequate social safety net is vital in Albania - the poorest of the economies in transition - and the government has taken steps to ensure that parts of it are locally administered, though centrally funded. The key to a well-designed intergovernmental financial system is to clearly define spending responsibilities so that a revenue system can be designed to accommodate them. Such a system would combine revenue-sharing, own-source revenues, and intergovernmental transfers. Tax-sharing of central government revenues based on district of origin cannot be the only means of local finance in Albania, as most revenues are collected in only a few districts. To meet financial needs, local governments need some authority over significant own-source revenues (such as user charges and property and vehicle taxes). Privatization revenues can also help local governments but only in the short run, as they are nonrecurrent. Matching grants with spillover effects may be appropriate. And for low-income regions incapable of meeting their spending needs alone, a transparent, equalizing transfer system should be developed. Albania's draft laws allow for this possibility, having established constituent and independent budgets for the local level.National Governance,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Public&Municipal Finance

The Biological Impact of High Throughput Continuous Bioprocessing

Micro scale, high throughput perfusion technology is under-developed and not widely utilised in academic or industrial settings for the development of CHO based mAb bioprocesses. Work within this thesis highlights the design and characterisation of a sedimentation method of cell retention and its application in a fed batch designed ambr® micro scale bioreactor system. The work identifies periods of up to one hour required to perform the necessary sedimentation and media exchanges. In comparison, bench scale equivalent culture reaches comparable cell densities as their microscale counterparts, highlighting suitability for screening development activities in this high throughput system that was previously unattainable with the high media demands of a perfusion process. The comparison of scales highlighted a lag in growth between the two perfusion methods that was thought to be a combination of periods of uncontrolled parameters at microscale (while cells were undergoing sedimentation) and small but frequent removal of cells from the microscale cultures, as retention efficiency was below 100%. In addition to this, the execution of the perfusion method highlighted CHO cell insensitivity to high levels of pH and DO variation that would normally elicit a severe decline in culture performance. Potential control strategies that focused on cellular sensitivity at inoculation were investigated and their application highlighted. Whilst applicable to fed batch cultures, it is in perfusion (or other continuous methods) where a significant benefit will be realised as they can attain high performance through tight control during inoculation and allowing flexibility during extended periods of cultivation. Combining the functionality and capacity offered by the sedimentation method in the ambr® system with the highlighted potential control strategy for perfusion equips the bioprocessing industry to explore the benefits of perfusion culture to meet increasing global demand for mAbs.AstraZeneca (formerly MedImmune

Rations for growing and finishing beef cattle (1993)

Formulating a ration is a matter of combining feeds to make a ration that will be eaten in the amount needed to supply the daily nutrient requirements of the animal

Principal Trade-off Analysis

How are the advantage relations between a set of agents playing a game organized and how do they reflect the structure of the game? In this paper, we illustrate "Principal Trade-off Analysis" (PTA), a decomposition method that embeds games into a low-dimensional feature space. We argue that the embeddings are more revealing than previously demonstrated by developing an analogy to Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PTA represents an arbitrary two-player zero-sum game as the weighted sum of pairs of orthogonal 2D feature planes. We show that the feature planes represent unique strategic trade-offs and truncation of the sequence provides insightful model reduction. We demonstrate the validity of PTA on a quartet of games (Kuhn poker, RPS+2, Blotto, and Pokemon). In Kuhn poker, PTA clearly identifies the trade-off between bluffing and calling. In Blotto, PTA identifies game symmetries, and specifies strategic trade-offs associated with distinct win conditions. These symmetries reveal limitations of PTA unaddressed in previous work. For Pokemon, PTA recovers clusters that naturally correspond to Pokemon types, correctly identifies the designed trade-off between those types, and discovers a rock-paper-scissor (RPS) cycle in the Pokemon generation type - all absent any specific information except game outcomes.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure