533 research outputs found
An oligopolistic theory of regional trade agreements
Why are trade agreements regional? I address this question in a model of oligopoly featuring
product variety. Tarifs have the effect of manipulating a country's terms of trade and shifting profits
towards the domestic market at the expense of foreign trade partners. Countries endogenously form
into regional trade agreements or global free trade in a framework where any agreement must be
sustained by repeated interaction. A crucial parameter determining the degree of regionalism is
product variety. I demonstrate that for a given trade cost and discount factor, increases in product
variety leads to greater scope for global free trade relative to regional trade agreements
Limitations of Cross-Lingual Learning from Image Search
Cross-lingual representation learning is an important step in making NLP
scale to all the world's languages. Recent work on bilingual lexicon induction
suggests that it is possible to learn cross-lingual representations of words
based on similarities between images associated with these words. However, that
work focused on the translation of selected nouns only. In our work, we
investigate whether the meaning of other parts-of-speech, in particular
adjectives and verbs, can be learned in the same way. We also experiment with
combining the representations learned from visual data with embeddings learned
from textual data. Our experiments across five language pairs indicate that
previous work does not scale to the problem of learning cross-lingual
representations beyond simple nouns
Method for High Accuracy Multiplicity Correlation Measurements
Multiplicity correlation measurements provide insight into the dynamics of
high energy collisions. Models describing these collisions need these
correlation measurements to tune the strengths of the underlying QCD processes
which influence all observables. Detectors, however, often possess limited
coverage or reduced efficiency that influence correlation measurements in
obscure ways. In this paper, the effects of non-uniform detection acceptance
and efficiency on the measurement of multiplicity correlations between two
distinct detector regions (termed forward-backward correlations) are derived.
An analysis method with such effects built-in is developed and subsequently
verified using different event generators. The resulting method accounts for
acceptance and efficiency in a model independent manner with high accuracy
thereby shedding light on the relative contributions of the underlying
processes to particle production.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures. Updated for having pseudorapidity dependent
efficiency gradient
Optimal resource allocation in General Cournot-competitive equilibrium
Conventional economic theory stipulates that output in Cournot competition is too low relative to that which is attained in perfect competition. We revisit this result in a General Cournot-competitive Equilibrium model with two industries that differ only in terms of productivity. We show that in general equilibrium, the more efficient industry produces too little and the less efficient industry produces too much compared to an optimal scenario with perfect competition
The RNA polymerase II C-terminal domain: its phosphorylation and interaction with the mediator complex
The submitted thesis describes a biochemical investigation within the field of gene transcription. In yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae ) and the metazoans, the conserved RNA polymerase II (RNAPTJ) protein complex carries out regulated transcription. The C-terminal domain (CTD) of Rpbl (the largest subunit of RNAPII) consists of 26 hepta-peptide (YSPTSPS) repeats that are targeted by specific CTD-kinases and - phosphatases to change the phosphorylation of Ser2 and Ser5 resulting in two electrophoretically different forms of RNAPII - a fast migrating hypo-phosphorylated form and a slower migrating hyper-phosphorylated form. The changing patterns of phosphorylation modulate the interaction of multiple factors involved in transcription initiation, RNA processing, transcription elongation and RNAPII ubiquitylation throughout the transcription cycle. Prior to transcription a preinitiation complex (PIC) is assembled on the promoters of regulated genes. A plethora of regulatory pathways converge on a protein complex named Mediator - a central, functionally conserved protein complex that incorporates into the PIC to physically interact with RNAPII and which can only interact with hypo-phosphorylated RNAPII. Mediator plays the crucial role of relaying repressive and activating signals from transcription factors bound on the promoter to RNAPII poised at the beginning of the coding sequence of the gene. As Mediator is only found associated with promoter regions on chromatin RNAPII must dissociate from Mediator when transcription initiates and promoter escape occurs. The mechanism leading to dissociation of RNAPII from Mediator is unknown. A large conformational change in Mediator accompanies the association with RNAPII and the interaction is dependent both on the C-terminal domain of Rpbl (CTD) and of other members of the RNAPII complex. If hypo-phosphorylation is needed for Mediator to interact with RNAPII does hyper-phosphorylation lead to the dissociation of the two complexes Are other factors needed to bring about the dissociation of the holopolymerase complex By using purified forms of Mediator and holopolymerase and purified specific CTD kinases the work presented addresses these questions in vitro
Undetected Common Mental Disorders in Long-Term Sickness Absence
Background. Undetected Common Mental Disorders (CMDs) amongst people on sick leave complicate rehabilitation and return to work because appropriate treatments are not initiated. Aims. The aim of this study is to estimate (1) the frequencies of CMD, (2) the predictors of undetected CMD, and (3) the rate of return to work among sick listed individuals without a psychiatric disorder, who are registered on long-term sickness absence (LSA). Methods. A total of 2,414 incident individuals on LSA with a response rate of 46.4%, were identified for a two-phase study. The subsample of this study involved individuals registered on LSA who were sick-listed without a psychiatric sick leave diagnosis. In this respect, Phase 1 included 831 individuals, who were screened for mental disorders. In Phase 2, following the screening of Phase 1, 227 individuals were thoroughly examined by a psychiatrist applying Present State Examination. The analyses of the study were carried out based on the 227 individuals from Phase 2 and, subsequently, weighted to be representative of the 831 individuals in Phase 1. Results. The frequencies of undetected mental disorders among all sick-listed individuals were for any psychiatric diagnosis 21%, depression 14%, anxiety 4%, and somatoform disorder 6%. Conclusions. Undetected CMD may delay the initiation of appropriate treatment and complicate the rehabilitation and return to work
Survey design, survey maintenance and grossing up in the IIP and balance of payments system
Balance of payments systems all over the world can roughly be cate-gorised in two - settlement-based systems and survey-based systems such as the Danish. This paper deals with the selection of the Danish survey and the grossing-up estimation. Focus, however, is on the Danish methods of survey maintenance over the medium term insuring both high total survey coverage and broad coverage in terms of instruments and sectors. Many countries with survey-based systems confront similar challenges and the working paper can hopefully be of inspiration and generate discussion. In the Danish system equity, intercompany debt, etc., loans and deposits, other investments, trade credits and financial derivatives are survey-covered for the sectors non-financial corporations, other financial intermediaries and insurance and pension funds. Using a dynamic register on financial account data and simple statistical methods the survey coverage on equity is maintained and the grossing-up is dynamically re-estimated. For intercompany debt, etc., loans and deposits, and other investments a method has been developed to maintain coverage over time while grossing-up is assumed constant. Trade credit coverage and grossing-up is maintained by a very sim-ple method using foreign trade statistics. Derivatives and financial leasing are assumed covered by the survey
The effects of entry in oligopolistic trade with bargained input prices
Firms which face the threat of import competition from foreign rivals are conventionally seen as favouring import protection. We show that this is not necessarily the case when domestic firms' in-put prices are determined endogenously. In a framework where the input price is determined through bargaining with an (upstream) input supplier, the relationship between a domestic (downstream) firm's
profits and the number of foreign competitors depends on trade costs. If trade costs are sufficiently high, then an increase in the number of foreign entrants can raise the profits of a downstream firm in a home market characterised by Cournot competition. The intuition for this result is that increased product market competition through the entry of foreign firms is mirrored by profit-enhancing moderation of the bargained input price. We examine a number of tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade and identify conditions under which import-competing firms will favour the removal of barriers to foreign competition
Contents of α-tocopherol and β-carotene in grasses and legumes harvested at different maturities
Concentrations of α-tocopherol and β-carotene in forage species at various maturities were studied in Scandinavia. Red clover (RC)/timothy (TI), RC/meadow fescue (MF), and
birdsfoot trefoil (BT)/TI mixtures were grown in Skara and Umeå, Sweden. RC/TI,RC/perennial ryegrass (PR), white clover/PR and BT/TI were grown in Foulum, Denmark. Forages in Sweden were cut one week before heading (BH), at heading and one week after heading of TI. The regrowth was cut six and eight weeks after each harvest in the spring growth cycle. In Denmark, one first harvest and three regrowths were taken. Results from Skara and Foulum are presented. Highest concentrations of α-tocopherol and β-carotene (mg
kg-1 DM) in legumes were found in BT grown in Skara (49.8 and 69.6 in spring growth cycle,48.1 and 79.8 in regrowth) and in Foulum (81.3 and 89.2). MF had more α-tocopherol and β-carotene than TI in the spring growth cycle (73.5 and 54.2 vs. 46.9 and 43.0 mg kg-1 DM). Highest concentrations of vitamins in the regrowth were found six weeks after BH with 71.8 and 104.8 mg α-tocopherol and 99.6 and 73.1 mg β-carotene kg-1 DM in legumes and grasses,respectively
Brexit has already hurt EU and non-EU exports by up to 13% – new research
Over the past few months, Terence Huw Edwards (Loughborough University, left), Christian Soegaard (Warwick University) and Mustapha Douch (Aston University) have been investigating how the vote of June 23 2016 has since affected the values and patterns of Britain’s trade with major trading partners inside and outside the European Union. By comparing trade flows with a model of what UK trade flows would have looked like had the UK voted to stay in the EU, we can clearly see that British exports to both EU and non-EU countries have taken a hit
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