Reciprocally Exclusive Contracts and Endogenous Quality

Our paper investigates exclusive dealing and purchasing in successive duopolies. First we show that using a limited set of feasible contracts, exclusive dealing and purchasing is going to be preferred, regardless of the level of product differentiation. In the next step, we make the choice of quality endogenous and derive the equilibrium conditions for qualities under the aforementioned contractual arrangement. Our final proposition shows that in this case the choice of quality depends exclusively on the valuation of the median consumer.

Endogenous Timing of Moves in Bertrand-Edgeworth Triopolies

We determine the endogenous order of moves in which the firms set their prices in the framework of a capacity-constrained Bertrand-Edgeworth triopoly. A three-period timing game that determines the period in which the firms announce their prices precedes the price-setting stage. We show for the non-trivial case (in which the Bertrand-Edgeworth triopoly has only an equilibrium in non-degenerated mixed-strategies) that the firm with the largest capacity sets its price first, while the two other firms set their prices later. Our result extends a finding by Deneckere and Kovenock (1992) from duopolies to triopolies. This extension was made possible by Hirata's (2009) recent advancements on the mixed-strategy equilibria of Bertrand-Edgeworth games.

Endogenous Risk Perception, Geospatial Characteristics and Temporal Variation in Hurricane Evacuation Behavior

The main focus of this thesis was to gain a better understanding about the dynamics of risk perception and its influence on people’s evacuation behavior. Another major focus was to improve our knowledge regarding geo-spatial and temporal variations of risk perception and hurricane evacuation behavior. A longitudinal dataset of more than eight hundred households were collected following two major hurricane events, Ivan and Katrina. The longitudinal survey data was geocoded and a geo-spatial database was integrated to it. The geospatial database was composed of distance, elevation and hazard parameters with respect to the respondent’s household location. A set of Bivariate Probit (BP) model suggests that geospatial variables have had significant influences in explaining hurricane risk perception and evacuation behavior during both hurricanes. The findings also indicated that people made their evacuation decision in coherence with their risk perception. In addition, people updated their hurricane evacuation decision in a subsequent similar event.

Recovering Natural History: Modeling Cardiovascular Biomarkers in the Presence of Endogenous Medication Use

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Dimethyl Acetals, an Indirect Marker of the Endogenous Antioxidant Plasmalogen Level, are Reduced in Blood Lipids of Sudanese Pre-eclamptic Subjects whose Background Diet is High in Carbohydrate

In Sudanese women with (n = 60) and without (n = 65) pre-eclampsia, circulating lipids, plasma and red cell saturated and monounsaturated fatty (MUFA) acids and dimethyl acetals (DMAs) were investigated. DMAs are an indirect marker of levels of plasmalogens, endogenous antioxidants, which play a critical role in oxidative protection, and cholesterol homeostasis. The pre-eclamptics had higher C18:1n-9 (p < 0.001) and ΣMUFA (p < 0.01) in plasma free fatty acids, C16:1n-7, C18:1n-9, ΣMUFA; 16:0/16:1n-7 (p < 0.01) in erythrocyte choline phosphoglycerides (ePC) and 16:1n-7, 18:1n-7 and 16:0/16:1n-7 (p < 0.01) in erythrocyte ethanolamine phosphoglycerides (ePE). In contrast, the DMAs 18:0, 18:1 and ΣDMAs in ePE, and 16:0, 18:0 and ΣDMAs in ePC were reduced (p < 0.001) in the pre-eclamptic women. This study of pregnant women with high carbohydrate and low fat background diet suggests pre-eclampsia is associated with oxidative stress and enhanced activity of the microsomal enzyme stearyl-CoA desaturase (delta 9 desaturase), as assessed by palmitic/palmitoleic (C16:0/C16:n-1) and stearic/oleic (C18/C18:1n-9) ratios.

Optimizing Western Blots for the Detection of Endogenous α-Synuclein in the Enteric Nervous System

International audience

Diseño de un modelo administrativo para la eficiente gestión empresarial del centro de recolección, acopio y tratamiento de desechos sólidos de la Fundación ABA.

El diseño del Modelo Administrativo propuesto para el personal que dirige el Centro de Acopio de la Fundación ABA tiene como objetivo principal lograr que la gestión administrativa se realice en forma ordenada y que todos los recursos disponibles y necesarios para el buen desarrollo de las actividades que ahí se ejecutan, sean orientados hacia el logro de los objetivos organizacionales de una manera eficiente. La actividad principal a que se dedica la Fundación ABA, es la recolección, acopio y tratamiento de los desechos sólidos a través de una red de Empresas Cooperativas, identificando cómo se organiza y que procesos utiliza para llevar a cabo tal actividad; todo esto se determinó a través de un diagnostico interno que se hizo al Centro de Acopio de la Fundación, mediante la aplicación de las fases del Proceso Administrativo. La información se obtuvo haciendo uso de dos instrumentos (cuestionarios) de los cuales uno se dirigió al personal operativo y otro al personal de dirección, obteniéndose como resultado de las diferentes opiniones, una serie de deficiencias tanto administrativas como operativas, detallándose así: No poseen un documento escrito que establezca las políticas, procedimientos, manuales de descripción de puestos y reglamento interno para el personal; la mayoría de los empleados no conocen los objetivos, visión y misión, razón por la cual se les dificulta tener un panorama real de lo que la Fundación ABA es y lo que pretende ser en el futuro, además no existen métodos de control sobre el trabajo realizado, no existe unidad de mando, ni tampoco se ha dado a conocer una estructura organizativa que muestre de qué manera está organizado el Centro de Acopio, no existe integración de las Cooperativas miembro, sumando a todo esto que los recursos financieros son insuficientes para generar inversión y obtener mayor producción. Lo anterior conduce a presentar la propuesta final denominada “Diseño de un modelo Administrativo para la Eficiente Gestión Empresarial del Centro de Recolección, Acopio y Tratamiento de Desechos Sólidos de la Fundación ABA”. Este Modelo ofrece una guía para establecer los planes necesarios para obtener los mejores resultados de acuerdo a los objetivos requeridos y a los recursos disponibles, con relación a la Organización, se establece una estructura organizativa que define claramente las líneas de acción y un manual de puestos que describe brevemente las características, requisitos y funciones de cada uno de los puestos para que cada empleado tenga por escrito y conozca cuál es su papel y lo que se espera de ellos, con el propósito de obtener el menor margen de error posible en desempeño de las distintas tareas. Finalmente se sugiere un sistema de Dirección y Control que ayude a mejorar el rendimiento, la comunicación y las relaciones personales entre los empleados.

Optical redox ratio and endogenous porphyrins in the detection of urinary bladder cancer:a patient biopsy analysis

Bladder cancer is among the most common cancers in the UK and conventional detection techniques suffer from low sensitivity, low specificity, or both. Recent attempts to address the disparity have led to progress in the field of autofluorescence as a means to diagnose the disease with high efficiency, however there is still a lot not known about autofluorescence profiles in the disease. The multi-functional diagnostic system "LAKK-M" was used to assess autofluorescence profiles of healthy and cancerous bladder tissue to identify novel biomarkers of the disease. Statistically significant differences were observed in the optical redox ratio (a measure of tissue metabolic activity), the amplitude of endogenous porphyrins and the NADH/porphyrin ratio between tissue types. These findings could advance understanding of bladder cancer and aid in the development of new techniques for detection and surveillance.

Correcting for bias when estimating the cost of hospital-acquired infection : an analysis of lower respiratory tract infections in non-surgical patients

Hospital acquired infections (HAI) are costly but many are avoidable. Evaluating prevention programmes requires data on their costs and benefits. Estimating the actual costs of HAI (a measure of the cost savings due to prevention) is difficult as HAI changes cost by extending patient length of stay, yet, length of stay is a major risk factor for HAI. This endogeneity bias can confound attempts to measure accurately the cost of HAI. We propose a two-stage instrumental variables estimation strategy that explicitly controls for the endogeneity between risk of HAI and length of stay. We find that a 10% reduction in ex ante risk of HAI results in an expected savings of £693 ($US 984).

Why do so few hold stocks : theory and evidence

This study develops a life-cycle model where investors make investment decisions in a realistic environment. Model results show that personal illiquid projects (housing and children), fixed costs (once-off/per-period participation costs plus variable/fixed transaction costs) and endogenous risky human capital (with permanent, transitory and disastrous shocks) together are able to address both the non-participation puzzle and the age-effects puzzle. Empirical implications of the model are examined using Heckman’s two-step method with the latest five Surveys of Consumer Finance (SCF). Regression results show that liquidity, informational cost and human capital are indeed the major determinants of participation and asset allocation decisions at different stages of an investor’s life.

Algebraic Analysis of LEX

LEX is a stream cipher that progressed to Phase 3 of the eSTREAM stream cipher project. In this paper, we show that the security of LEX against algebraic attacks relies on a small equation system not being solvable faster than exhaustive search. We use the byte leakage in LEX to construct a system of 21 equa- tions in 17 variables. This is very close to the require- ment for an efficient attack, i.e. a system containing 16 variables. The system requires only 36 bytes of keystream, which is very low.