Calculating the Cost of the Universal Service Obligation: The Need for a Global Approach

The paper presents the basic approaches to calculate the cost of the USO and compares them with the requirements of the 3rd postal directive. We conclude that the profitability cost approach will lead to consistent estimations if it is applied in a global way. We illustrate our findings with an econometric estimation of the net costs of Swiss Post’s obligation to provide a nationwide post office network for postal and financial services. We finally illustrate that the financing mechanism in place must be considered as well as there are important drawbacks on the cost of the USO.USO, net costs, cost of the universal service obligation, financing, Post Office Network, Global Approach

Postal Markets and Electronic Substitution: Implications for Regulatory Practices and Institutions in Europe

There is an increasing convergence between postal products and telecom applications which suggests the need for a co-evolution of regulation. But there is hardly any discussion in academia or in practice about the consequences for regulation. Relevant questions are: Which parts of current regulation will become redundant? Is there additional regulation needed due to new bottlenecks or changes in consumer behavior? In our qualitative analysis, we investigate the implications of intermodal competition and growing convergence between postal and telecommunications services on regulatory institutions and regimes. We set up a comparison between the networks and compare the scope of universal services and issues concerning market power regulation in the two different industries.Convergence, Regulation, Post, Telecommunication, Universal service obligation, Access

Trapping Set Enumerators for Repeat Multiple Accumulate Code Ensembles

The serial concatenation of a repetition code with two or more accumulators has the advantage of a simple encoder structure. Furthermore, the resulting ensemble is asymptotically good and exhibits minimum distance growing linearly with block length. However, in practice these codes cannot be decoded by a maximum likelihood decoder, and iterative decoding schemes must be employed. For low-density parity-check codes, the notion of trapping sets has been introduced to estimate the performance of these codes under iterative message passing decoding. In this paper, we present a closed form finite length ensemble trapping set enumerator for repeat multiple accumulate codes by creating a trellis representation of trapping sets. We also obtain the asymptotic expressions when the block length tends to infinity and evaluate them numerically.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in proc. IEEE ISIT, June 200

Comparison of airborne spore concentrations and fungal allergen content

The exposure to spores causing health effects is usually assessed by determining the concentration of viable spores per cubic meter of air (CFU/m3).Since allergens might also be present in dead spores or smaller particles, the objective of this study was to investigate the correlation between the viable spores of Alternaria and Cladosporium at different indoor and outdoor sites and the corresponding allergen concentration detected with a specially developed ELISA (Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay). In outdoor air, the results show a strong correlation between the different sampling techniques applied for viable spores (Slit-Sampler and Multistage Liquid Impinger) and between the viable spores and the allergen concentrations detected in the liquid samples of the impingers. Indoors, the number of viable spores and the allergen concentration do not correlate and the allergen load is underestimated if colony counting methods are use

Determination of birch pollen allergens in different aerosol sizes

Allergens in fine particles may cause symptoms inallergic asthmatics. In order to assess the exposureof susceptible persons, a method to measure theallergen load in fine and coarse particles wasdeveloped. Aerosols are collected with a high-volume air samplerby multistage impaction. They are separated into fivesize classes, ranging from >10 μm to 10 μm). In smallersized fractions, the allergen load is often close tothe detection limit. When clearly detectable amountsof allergen are present, in the fine size fraction theallergen load shows only a weak correlation to thepollen counts and the allergen concentrations in thecoarse particle fractio