Regulation, competition, and liberalization

In many countries throughout the world, regulators are struggling to determine whether and how to introduce competition into regulated industries. This essay examines the complexities involved in the liberalization process. While stressing the importance of case-specific analyses, this essay distinguishes liberalization policies that generally are pro-competitive from corresponding anti-competitive liberalization policies

A new model for procuring e-books

This paper draws on a recent ground-breaking tender for e-books for higher education libraries in the UK. The strategy for the tender was informed by standard procurement practice and by the experience of acquiring other e-resources, particularly journals under the so-called big deal. Both are examined as background to the discussion of e-books in general and the tender in particular

Operating injection lasers by fast square current pulses of variable amplitude

A simple solid state circuit was used to drive GaAs injection lasers by fast (∼100 nsec) square pulses of variable amplitude (0–25 A). The amplitudes of the current pulses and the corresponding emitted light pulses were measured by a dual peak detector circuit. Using these circuits we were able to plot automatically the current vs light curve and determine the threshold current of the laser diodes

Numerical study of weakly unstable electron plasma oscillations

Vlasov equation for solving initial value problem for unstable electron plasm

Fast, high current, high repetition rate pulse generator for injection lasers

The circuit described is capable of generating high‐current (2–50 A), fast‐rise‐time (10 nsec), square‐wave pulses into a 50‐Ω load. This circuit may be used for driving injection lasers at high repetition rates (up to 1.5 kHz) when connected to coaxial cables

Predicting The Outcome of Marketing Negotiations: Role-Playing versus Unaided Opinions

Role -playing and unaided opinions were used to forecast the outcome of three negotiations. Consistent with prior re search, role-playing yielded more accurate predictions. In two studies on marketing negotiations, the predictions based on role-playing were correct for 53% of the predictions while unaided opinions were correct for only 7% (ppredicting, negotiations, marketing, role-playing, unaided opinion

Nano-Hertz Gravitational Waves Searches with Interferometric Pulsar Timing Experiments

We estimate the sensitivity to nano-Hertz gravitational waves of pulsar timing experiments in which two highly-stable millisecond pulsars are tracked simultaneously with two neighboring radio telescopes that are referenced to the same time-keeping subsystem (i.e. "the clock"). By taking the difference of the two time-of-arrival residual data streams we can exactly cancel the clock noise in the combined data set, thereby enhancing the sensitivity to gravitational waves. We estimate that, in the band ($10^{-9} - 10^{-8}$) Hz, this "interferometric" pulsar timing technique can potentially improve the sensitivity to gravitational radiation by almost two orders of magnitude over that of single-telescopes. Interferometric pulsar timing experiments could be performed with neighboring pairs of antennas of the forthcoming large arraying projects.Comment: Paper submitted to Phys. Rev. Letters. It is 9 pages long, and includes 2 figure

Longitudinal modes in a high-gain laser

In lasers employing high-gain narrow-linewidth transitions the theory predicts major departures of the mode-splitting frequencies from their low-gain values as well as a new type of mode splitting. The first of these effects consisting of a reduction by a factor of 2.5 of the mode splitting in a xenon 3.51-µm laser is observed experimentally

A study of experimental techniques for prealigning and clamping inertial measurement sensors without major system recalibration

Experimental techniques for prealigning and clamping inertial measurement sensors without major system recalibratio