Media, Aggregators and the Link Economy: Strategic Hyperlink Formation in Content Networks

A key property of the World Wide Web is the possibility for firms to place virtually costless links to third-party content as a substitute or complement to their own content. This ability to hyperlink has enabled new types of players, such as search engines and content aggregators, to successfully enter content ecosystems, attracting traffic and revenues by hosting links to the content of others. This, in turn, has sparked a heated controversy between content producers and aggregators regarding the legitimacy and social costs/benefits of uninhibited free linking. This work is the first to model the implications of interrelated and strategic hyper-linking and content investments. Our results provide a nuanced view of the much-touted 'link economy', highlighting both the beneficial consequences and the drawbacks of free hyperlinks for content producers and consumers. We show that content sites can reduce competition and improve profits by forming links to each other; in such networks one site makes high investments in content and other sites link to it. Interestingly, competitive dynamics often preclude the formation of link networks, even in settings where they would improve everyone's profits. Furthermore, such networks improve economic efficiency only when all members have similar abilities to produce content; otherwise the less capable nodes can free-ride on the content of the more capable nodes, reducing profits for the capable nodes as well as the average content quality available to consumers. Within these networks, aggregators have both positive and negative effects. By making it easier for consumers to access good quality content they increase the appeal of the entire content ecosystem relative to the alternatives. To the extent that this increases the total traffic flowing into the content ecosystem, aggregators can help increase the profits of the highest quality content sites. At the same time, however, the market entry of aggregators takes away some of the revenue that would otherwise go to content sites. Finally, by placing links to only a subset of available content, aggregators further increase competitive pressure on content sites. Interestingly, this can increase the likelihood that such sites will then attempt to alleviate the competitive pressure by forming link networks

Algorithmic Trading and Information

We examine algorithmic trades (AT) and their role in the price discovery process in the 30 DAX stocks on the Deutsche Boerse. AT liquidity demand represents 52% of volume and AT supplies liquidity on 50% of volume. AT act strategically by monitoring the market for liquidity and deviations of price from fundamental value. AT consume liquidity when it is cheap and supply liquidity when it is expensive. AT contribute more to the efficient price by placing more efficient quotes and AT demanding liquidity to move the prices towards the efficient price

Integrated superhard and metallic coatings for MEMS : LDRD 57300 final report.

Two major research areas pertinent to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) materials and material surfaces were explored and developed in this 5-year PECASE LDRD project carried out by Professor Roya Maboudian and her collaborators at the University of California at Berkeley. In the first research area, polycrystalline silicon carbide (poly-SiC) was developed as a structural material for MEMS. This material is potentially interesting for MEMS because compared to polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon), the structural material in Sandia National Laboratories' SUMMiTV process, it may exhibit high wear resistance, high temperature operation and a high Young's modulus to density ratio. Each of these characteristics may extend the usefulness of MEMS in Sandia National Laboratories' applications. For example, using polycrystalline silicon, wear is an important issue in microengines, temperature degradation is of concern in thermal actuators and the characteristics of resonators can be extended with the same lithography technology. Two methods of depositing poly-SiC from a 1,3-disilabutane source at 650 C to 800 C by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) were demonstrated. These include a blanket method in which the material is made entirely out of poly-SiC and a method to coat previously released and fabricated polysilicon MEMS. This deposition method is much simpler to use than previous methods such as high temperature LPCVD and atmospheric CVD. Other major processing issues that were surmounted in this LDRD with the poly-SiC film include etching, doping, and residual strain control. SiC is inert and as such is notoriously difficult to etch. Here, an HBr-based chemistry was demonstrated for the first time to make highly selective etching of SiC at high etch rates. Nitrogen was incorporated from an NH3 gas source, resulting in high conductivity films. Residual strain and strain gradient were shown to depend on deposition parameters, and can be made negative or positive. The tribology of poly-SiC was also investigated. Much improved release stiction and in-use stiction performance relative to polysilicon MEMS was found. Furthermore, wear of poly-SiC-coated MEMS was much reduced relative to uncoated polysilicon MEMS. A prototype baseline process flow now exists to produce poly-SiC in the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator (BSAC) facility. In the second project, galvanic deposition of metals onto polysilicon surfaces has been developed. The possible applications include reflective and optical coatings for optical MEMS, microswitches and microrelays for radio frequency MEMS and catalytic surfaces for microchemical reactors. In contrast to electroless deposition, galvanic displacement deposition requires no prior activation of the surface and is truly selective to silicon surfaces. This approach was used to deposit copper, gold and rhodium onto polysilicon MEMS. A method to study the adhesion of these metals to polysilicon was developed. It was also shown that the surfaces could be rendered hydrophobic by applying thiol-based self-assembled monolayers. This procedure also lowered their surface energy to {approx}3 {micro}J/m{sup 2}, consistent with monolayer-coated polysilicon MEMS

Media, Aggregators and the Link Economy: Strategic Hyperlink Formation in Content Networks

A key property of the World Wide Web is the possibility for firms to place virtually costless links to third-party content as a substitute or complement to their own content. This ability to hyperlink has enabled new types of players, such as search engines and content aggregators, to successfully enter content ecosystems, attracting traffic and revenues by hosting links to the content of others. This, in turn, has sparked a heated controversy between content producers and aggregators regarding the legitimacy and social costs/benefits of uninhibited free linking. This work is the first to model the implications of interrelated and strategic hyper-linking and content investments. Our results provide a nuanced view of the much-touted 'link economy', highlighting both the beneficial consequences and the drawbacks of free hyperlinks for content producers and consumers. We show that content sites can reduce competition and improve profits by forming links to each other; in such networks one site makes high investments in content and other sites link to it. Interestingly, competitive dynamics often preclude the formation of link networks, even in settings where they would improve everyone's profits. Furthermore, such networks improve economic efficiency only when all members have similar abilities to produce content; otherwise the less capable nodes can free-ride on the content of the more capable nodes, reducing profits for the capable nodes as well as the average content quality available to consumers. Within these networks, aggregators have both positive and negative effects. By making it easier for consumers to access good quality content they increase the appeal of the entire content ecosystem relative to the alternatives. To the extent that this increases the total traffic flowing into the content ecosystem, aggregators can help increase the profits of the highest quality content sites. At the same time, however, the market entry of aggregators takes away some of the revenue that would otherwise go to content sites. Finally, by placing links to only a subset of available content, aggregators further increase competitive pressure on content sites. Interestingly, this can increase the likelihood that such sites will then attempt to alleviate the competitive pressure by forming link networks

Does Anyone Read the Fine Print? Testing a Law and Economics Approach toStandard Form Contracts

A cornerstone of the law and economics approach to standard form contracts is the 'informed minority' hypothesis: in competitive markets, a minority of term-conscious buyers is enough to discipline sellers from offering unfavorable boilerplate terms. The informed minority argument is widely invoked to limit intervention in consumer transactions, but there has been little empirical investigation of its validity. We track the Internet browsing behavior of 45,091 households with respect to 66 online software companies to study the extent to which potential buyers access the standard form contract associated with software purchases, the end user license agreement. We find that only one or two out of every thousand retail software shoppers chooses to access the license agreement, and those that do spend too little time, on average, to have read more than a small portion of the license text. The results cast doubt on the relevance of the informed minority mechanism in a specific market where it has been invoked by both theorists and courts and, to the extent that comparison shopping online is relatively cheap and easy, suggest limits to the mechanism more generally

New Safety UTC Envisions Safe Systems Approach for U.S. Roadways

The Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS), the new University Transportation Center (UTC) at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC) is taking a fresh approach to road safety. This national safety UTC is focused on implementing a collaborative, multidisciplinary, safe systems approach to reducing transportation-related injuries and fatalities and to helping traffic safety become recognized as a public health priority in the United States

Recent developments on the STAR detector system at RHIC

The STAR detector system is designed to provide tracking, momentum analysis and particle identification for many of the mid-rapidity charged particles produced in collisions at the RHIC collider. A silicon vertex detector (SVT) provides three layers of tracking near the interaction point. This is followed by the main time projection chamber (TPC), which continues tracking out to 200 cm radial distance from the interaction region. The detector design also includes an electromagnetic calorimeter, various trigger detectors, and radial TPCs in the forward region. The entire system is enclosed in a 0.5 T solenoid magnet. A progress report is given for the various components of the STAR detector system. The authors report on the recent developments in the detector proto-typing and construction, with an emphasis on the main TPC, recent TPC cosmic ray testing and shipping to Brookhaven National Laboratory

Electron cloud effects on an intense ion beam in a four solenoid lattice

The Solenoid Transport Experiment (STX) at LBNL successfully demonstrated the transport of a space-charge dominated ion beam in a two-solenoid lattice. Initial experiments showed a strong dependence of electron cloud effects on solenoid field strength. A current-reducing aperture, two solenoids and in-bore diagnostics were added to the two-solenoid lattice in order to study electron cloud effects more closely. Experiments were conducted with a 10 {micro}s, singly charged potassium ion bunch at an ion energy of 0.3 MeV and currents of 26 mA and 45 mA. A qualitative comparison of experimental and calculated results are presented, including a comparison of the effects of manipulating electrons on the beam dynamics, quantifying beam-induced gas desorption, ionization, and electron effects