Investment Options and Bargaining Power the Eurasian Supply Chain for Natural Gas

We use cooperative game theory to analyze how the architecture of the pipeline network determines the power structure in the supply chain for Russian gas. If the assessment is narrowly focused on the abilities to obstruct flows in the existing system, the main transit countries, Belarus and Ukraine, appear to be strong. If investment options are accounted for, however, Russia achieves clear dominance. We show that options to bypass one of the transit countries are of little strategic importance compared to Russia's direct access to its customers through the Baltic Sea. Comparing the results of our calibrated model with empirical evidence obtained from transit and import agreements we find that the Shapley value explains the power of major transit countries better than the core and the nucleolus.Bargaining Power, Supply Chain, Shapley Value, Gas Transport

Baltic Sea Pipeline: The Profits Will Be Distributed Differently

In late 2005, the German energy companies E.ON and Wintershall and Russian Gazprom reached an agreement to build a new huge pipeline Nord Stream through the Baltic Sea. This pipeline will provide Russia for the first time ever with the direct access to its Western European customers. This pipeline will contribute to the security of the Western Europe's energy supply through creating an alternative supply opportunity for the case when conflicts with the current transit states lead to disruptions in supply. The realization of the project will also shift the bargaining power from the transit states to the benefit of both Russia and the Western European natural gas importers. Particularly, White Russia as well as the Ukraine will have to accept lower transit fees in the future and have fewer means left to enforce special conditions for their own natural gas imports. The decision to construct the pipeline can be viewed as a consequence of institutional and political weaknesses in the transit states.Multilateral bargaining, Hold-up, Irreversible investment, Collusion

Strategic Investment in International Gas-Transport Systems: A Dynamic Analysis of the Hold-up Problem

We develop a dynamic model of strategic investment in a transnational pipeline system. In the absence of international contract enforcement, countries may distort investment in order to increase their bargaining power, resulting in overinvestment in expensive and underinvestment in cheap pipelines. With repeated interaction, however, there is a potential to increase efficiency through dynamic collusion. In the theoretical part we establish a fundamental asymmetry: it is easier to avoid overinvestment than underinvestment. Calibrating the model to fit the Eurasian pipeline system for natural gas, we find that the potential to improve efficiency through dynamic cooperation is large. In reality, however, only modest improvements over the non-cooperative solution have been achieved.Multilateral bargaining, Hold-up, irreversible investment, collusion

Simulation of magnetic active polymers for versatile microfluidic devices

We propose to use a compound of magnetic nanoparticles (20-100 nm) embedded in a flexible polymer (Polydimethylsiloxane PDMS) to filter circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The analysis of CTCs is an emerging tool for cancer biology research and clinical cancer management including the detection, diagnosis and monitoring of cancer. The combination of experiments and simulations lead to a versatile microfluidic lab-on-chip device. Simulations are essential to understand the influence of the embedded nanoparticles in the elastic PDMS when applying a magnetic gradient field. It combines finite element calculations of the polymer, magnetic simulations of the embedded nanoparticles and the fluid dynamic calculations of blood plasma and blood cells. With the use of magnetic active polymers a wide range of tunable microfluidic structures can be created. The method can help to increase the yield of needed isolated CTCs

Study on the Effect of Levulinic Acid on Whey-Based Biosynthesis of Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) by Hydrogenophaga pseudoflava

Background and Objective: Production of polyhydroxyalkanoate copolyesters consisting of 3-hydroxybutyrate and 3-hydroxyvalerate units was for the first time studied using the production strain Hydrogenophaga pseudoflava based on sustainable raw materials. This strategy provides for increased cost efficiency in PHA production and in enhanced material quality.Material and Methods: As a particularity, production of these poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3- hydroxyvalerate) copolyesters was based on a novel substrate/co-substrate combination: whey permeate from dairy industry, on the one hand, acted as substrate for biomass and 3HB biosynthesis; on the other hand, levulinic acid, accessible from various renewable resources, was used as 3HV-related precursor compound. The experiments were carried out on shaking flask scale using defined nutrient media.Results and Conclusion: Applied during nutritionally balanced growth of H. pseudoflava, levulinicacid displays drastic growth inhibition at rather low concentrations of 0.2 g l-1 (growth inhibition constant Ki = 0.032), which suggests the careful supply of this compound in the first phase of cultivation. Under nitrogen-free cultivation conditions, inhibition of the strain´s metabolism by levulinic acid was less pronounced. Here, poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co- 3-hydroxyvalerate) concentrations up to 4.2 g l-1 and volumetric poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3- hydroxyvalerate) productivities up to 0.06 g l-1 h -1 were achieved in dependence on the precursor supply. Investigating poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) composition in setups supplied with differently composed whey/levulinic acid mixtures revealed 3- hydroxyvalerate fractions in the polymer between 0 and 0.6 mol mol-1 . This study successfully demonstrates the feasibility of combined utilization of different waste- and by-products from food industry and agriculture for generation of value-added 2nd generation biopolymers. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest

Investment Options and Bargaining Power the Eurasian Supply Chain for Natural Gas

We use cooperative game theory to analyze how the architecture of the pipeline network determines the power structure in the supply chain for Russian gas. If the assessment is narrowly focused on the abilities to obstruct flows in the existing system, the main transit countries, Belarus and Ukraine, appear to be strong. If investment options are accounted for, however, Russia achieves clear dominance. We show that options to bypass one of the transit countries are of little strategic importance compared to Russia's direct access to its customers through the Baltic Sea. Comparing the results of our calibrated model with empirical evidence obtained from transit and import agreements we find that the Shapley value explains the power of major transit countries better than the core and the nucleolus

Investment Options and Bargaining Power the Eurasian Supply Chain for Natural Gas

We use cooperative game theory to analyze how the architecture of the pipeline network determines the power structure in the supply chain for Russian gas. If the assessment is narrowly focused on the abilities to obstruct flows in the existing system, the main transit countries, Belarus and Ukraine, appear to be strong. If investment options are accounted for, however, Russia achieves clear dominance. We show that options to bypass one of the transit countries are of little strategic importance compared to Russia's direct access to its customers through the Baltic Sea. Comparing the results of our calibrated model with empirical evidence obtained from transit and import agreements we find that the Shapley value explains the power of major transit countries better than the core and the nucleolus

Syntheses of terminally substituted conjugated polyenes

Von besonderem Interesse sind Donor-Acceptor-substituierte Polyene, da sie für einen intramolekularen Energietransport geeignet sein könnten. Zu Beginn unserer Untersuchungen waren Polyene dieses Typs nicht bekannt; inzwischen ist die Darstellung einiger Donor-Acceptor-substituierter, konjugierter Polyene beschrieben worden. Wir berichten hier über die präparativen Aspekte der Herstellung dieser Verbindungen, wobei der Struktur-Zuordnung und der Trennung der - durch die Synthese bedingt - anfallenden EI Z-Isomeren besondere Bedeutung beigemessen wurde.Polyenes and polyenals of the carotenoid type with five, nine and thirteen conjugated double bonds and a variety of terminally substituents like benzenes, naphthalenes, anthracenes, and tetraphenyl porphyrines are synthesized via Wittig reactions starting from crocetin dialdehyde or 2,7-dimethyloctatriendial, respectively. The characterization, and in most cases also the separation, of the E/Z-isomers of the polyenes is possible

Controlled vortex core switching in a magnetic nanodisk by a rotating field

The switching process of the vortex core in a Permalloy nanodisk affected by a rotating magnetic field is studied theoretically. A detailed description of magnetization dynamics is obtained by micromagnetic simulations.Comment: REVTeX, 5 pages, 5 figure