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

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