Reconciling social and industrial goals: a bargaining model to pricing pharmaceuticals

The issues at stake for determining the price of a drug are related to finding an "equitable" trade-off between the legitimate need for the pharmaceutical industry to make a profit and full exploitation of the consumer’s surplus in a market with asymmetry of information. This paper develops a bargaining process where the regulator sets the price of drug in order to maximise the society’s net benefit while the pharmaceutical industry maximises its profit. The resulting price is a weighted average of willingness to pay and cost of the new drug. The weights are represented by the relative strength of the two actors which we show to depend on the importance of the drug for society (other alternatives on the market, the degree of innovation and effectiveness), and on the sustainability of the threat by the pharmaceutical industry to sell the drug only on the private market (medicaments not reimbursed by public healthcare system). Our proposed method allows to set the price of new drugs in different market contexts, i.e. where less effective alternatives are already sold or in new therapeutic areas. Keywords: Pharmaceutical Industry, Regulation, Health Care

Solution of the one-dimensional Dirac equation with a linear scalar potential

We solve the Dirac equation in one space dimension for the case of a linear, Lorentz-scalar potential. This extends earlier work of Bhalerao and Ram [Am. J. Phys. 69 (7), 817-818 (2001)] by eliminating unnecessary constraints. The spectrum is shown to match smoothly to the nonrelativistic spectrum in a weak-coupling limit.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, RevTE

Local renormalizable gauge theories from nonlocal operators

The possibility that nonlocal operators might be added to the Yang-Mills action is investigated. We point out that there exists a class of nonlocal operators which lead to renormalizable gauge theories. These operators turn out to be localizable by means of the introduction of auxiliary fields. The renormalizability is thus ensured by the symmetry content exhibited by the resulting local theory. The example of the nonlocal operator $\int A \frac{1}{D^2} A$ is analysed in detail. A few remarks on the possible role that these operators might have for confining theories are outlined.Comment: 16 page

Two observers calculate the trace anomaly

We adapt a calculation due to Massacand and Schmid to the coordinate independent definition of time and vacuum given by Capri and Roy in order to compute the trace anomaly for a massless scalar field in a curved spacetime in 1+1 dimensions. The computation which requires only a simple regulator and normal ordering yields the well-known result $\frac{R}{24\pi}$ in a straightforward manner.Comment: RevTeX, 13 pages, some typos corrected and an appendix added, this is the version to appear in Class. and Quantum Gavit

Massive particle creation in a static 1+1 dimensional spacetime

We show explicitly that there is particle creation in a static spacetime. This is done by studying the field in a coordinate system based on a physical principle which has recently been proposed. There the field is quantized by decomposing it into positive and negative frequency modes on a particular spacelike surface. This decomposition depends explicitly on the surface where the decomposition is performed, so that an observer who travels from one surface to another will observe particle production due to the different vacuum state.Comment: 17 pages, RevTeX, no figure

The Gap Between Policy and the People: A Case Study of the Buikwe Fishing Communities

To examine the implementation of Local Government development planning in periphery and hard to reach communities in Uganda, the fishing villages of the Buikwe District were used as a case study. The objective of the study was to explore how Local Government development planning is implemented in the fishing villages to identify gaps. Implementation was broken down into three areas: consultations, needs and services, and service delivery. The study mimicked the bottom-up approach to decentralized development planning in Uganda, beginning with seven focus group discussions in five fishing villages of Buikwe. Eleven key informant interviews were then conducted with Local Government officials in the political and technical wing at the LC1, LC3, and LC5 level. General observations were also made throughout the qualitative data collection. From the results, gaps between the responses of government officials and that of community members were apparent in each area of implementation. While clear consultation procedures were described by key informants, community members felt that consultations were insufficient. In addition, despite the implementation of several government projects in the fishing villages, many of the services did not meet community expectations and several unmet needs remained. Finally, key informants most commonly attributed issues to service delivery as a lack of funds, community mindsets, and issues with follow ups. Conversely, community members viewed corruption and poor community engagement as the major issues. From observations, a lack of information sharing and communication between upper-level Local Government and the community was a major hindrance to adequate consultations, services that meet the needs of the people, and effective service delivery. Increased community engagements (i.e. follow ups, sensitizations, and consultations) were recommended to improve implementation, and suggestions were also made to community members on how to support implementation at the community level