Quasi-integration in less-than-truckload trucking

This work studies the organization of less-than-truckload trucking from a contractual point of view. We show that the huge number of owner-operators working in the industry hides a much less fragmented reality. Most of those owner-operators are quasi-integrated in higher organizational structures. This hybrid form is generally more efficient than vertical integration because, in the Spanish institutional environment, it lessens serious moral hazard problems, related mainly to the use of the vehicles, and makes it possible to reach economies of scale and density. Empirical evidence suggests that what leads organizations to vertically integrate is not the presence of such economies but hold-up problems, related to the existence of specific assets. Finally, an international comparison hints that institutional constraints are able to explain differences in the evolution of vertical integration across countries.

Logistics-production, logistics-marketing and external integration: Their impact on performance

Highly competitive environments are leading companies to implement SupplyChain Management (SCM) to improve performance and gain a competitiveadvantage. SCM involves integration, co-ordination and collaborationacross organisations and throughout the supply chain. It means that SCMrequires internal (intraorganisational) and external (interorganisational)integration. This paper examines the Logistics-Production and Logistics-Marketing interfaces and their relation with the external integrationprocess. The study also investigates the causal impact of these internaland external relationships on the company s logistical service performance.To analyse this, an empirical study was conducted in the Spanish Fast MovingConsumer Goods (FMCG) sector.

HTPSELEX--a database of high-throughput SELEX libraries for transcription factor binding sites.

HTPSELEX is a public database providing access to primary and derived data from high-throughput SELEX experiments aimed at characterizing the binding specificity of transcription factors. The resource is primarily intended to serve computational biologists interested in building models of transcription factor binding sites from large sets of binding sequences. The guiding principle is to make available all information that is relevant for this purpose. For each experiment, we try to provide accurate information about the protein material used, details of the wet lab protocol, an archive of sequencing trace files, assembled clone sequences (concatemers) and complete sets of in vitro selected protein-binding tags. In addition, we offer in-house derived binding sites models. HTPSELEX also offers reasonably large SELEX libraries obtained with conventional low-throughput protocols. The FTP site contains the trace archives and database flatfiles. The web server offers user-friendly interfaces for viewing individual entries and quality-controlled download of SELEX sequence libraries according to a user-defined sequencing quality threshold. HTPSELEX is available from ftp://ftp.isrec.isb-sib.ch/pub/databases/htpselex/ and http://www.isrec.isb-sib.ch/htpselex.

Subcontracting and vertical integration in the Spanish cotton industry

This paper examines changes in the organization of the Spanish cotton industry from 1720 to 1860 in its core region of Catalonia. As the Spanish cotton industry adopted the most modern technology and experienced the transition to the factory system, cotton spinning and weaving mills became increasingly vertically integrated. Asset specificity more than other factors explained this tendency towards vertical integration. The probability for a firm of being vertically integrated was higher among firms located in districts with high concentration ratios and rose with size and the use of modern machinery. Simultaneously, subcontracting predominated in other phases of production and distribution where transaction costs appears to be less important.

Recent misconceptions about the "database search problem": a probabilistic analysis using Bayesian networks

This paper analyses and discusses arguments that emerge from a recent discussion about the proper assessment of the evidential value of correspondences observed between the characteristics of a crime stain and those of a sample from a suspect when (i) this latter individual is found as a result of a database search and (ii) remaining database members are excluded as potential sources (because of different analytical characteristics). Using a graphical probability approach (i.e., Bayesian networks), the paper here intends to clarify that there is no need to (i) introduce a correction factor equal to the size of the searched database (i.e., to reduce a likelihood ratio), nor to (ii) adopt a propositional level not directly related to the suspect matching the crime stain (i.e., a proposition of the kind 'some person in (outside) the database is the source of the crime stain' rather than 'the suspect (some other person) is the source of the crime stain'). The present research thus confirms existing literature on the topic that has repeatedly demonstrated that the latter two requirements (i) and (ii) should not be a cause of concern.

Methods for integration site distribution analyses in animal cell genomes.

The question of where retroviral DNA becomes integrated in chromosomes is important for understanding (i) the mechanisms of viral growth, (ii) devising new anti-retroviral therapy, (iii) understanding how genomes evolve, and (iv) developing safer methods for gene therapy. With the completion of genome sequences for many organisms, it has become possible to study integration targeting by cloning and sequencing large numbers of host-virus DNA junctions, then mapping the host DNA segments back onto the genomic sequence. This allows statistical analysis of the distribution of integration sites relative to the myriad types of genomic features that are also being mapped onto the sequence scaffold. Here we present methods for recovering and analyzing integration site sequences.

Financial integration, productivity and capital accumulation

Understanding the mechanism through which financial globalization affect economic performance is crucial for evaluating the costs and benefits of opening financial markets. This paper is a first attempt at disentangling the effects of financial integration on the two main determinants of economic performance: productivity (TFP)and investments. I provide empirical evidence from a sample of 93 countries observed between 1975 and 1999. The results suggest that financial integration has a positive direct effect on productivity, while it spurs capital accumulation only with some delay and indirectly, since capital follows the rise in productivity. I control for indirect effects of financial globalization through banking crises. Such episodes depress both investments and TFP, though they are triggered by financial integration only to a minor extent. The paper also provides a discussion of a simple model on the effects of financial integration, and shows additional empirical evidence supporting it.

Database construction and Peptide identification strategies for proteogenomic studies on sequenced genomes.

Since the advent of high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies, the ever-increasing rate at which genomes have been published has generated new challenges notably at the level of genome annotation. Even if gene predictors and annotation softwares are more and more efficient, the ultimate validation is still in the observation of predicted gene product( s). Mass-spectrometry based proteomics provides the necessary high throughput technology to show evidences of protein presence and, from the identified sequences, confirmation or invalidation of predicted annotations. We review here different strategies used to perform a MS-based proteogenomics experiment with a bottom-up approach. We start from the strengths and weaknesses of the different database construction strategies, based on different genomic information (whole genome, ORF, cDNA, EST or RNA-Seq data), which are then used for matching mass spectra to peptides and proteins. We also review the important points to be considered for a correct statistical assessment of the peptide identifications. Finally, we provide references for tools used to map and visualize the peptide identifications back to the original genomic information.

Permanent Genetic Resources added to Molecular Ecology Resources Database 1 August 2010-30 September 2010

This article documents the addition of 229 microsatellite marker loci to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Acacia auriculiformis x Acacia mangium hybrid, Alabama argillacea, Anoplopoma fimbria, Aplochiton zebra, Brevicoryne brassicae, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, Bucorvus leadbeateri, Delphacodes detecta, Tumidagena minuta, Dictyostelium giganteum, Echinogammarus berilloni, Epimedium sagittatum, Fraxinus excelsior, Labeo chrysophekadion, Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi, Paratrechina longicornis, Phaeocystis antarctica, Pinus roxburghii and Potamilus capax. These loci were cross-tested on the following species: Acacia peregrinalis, Acacia crassicarpa, Bruguiera cylindrica, Delphacodes detecta, Tumidagena minuta, Dictyostelium macrocephalum, Dictyostelium discoideum, Dictyostelium purpureum, Dictyostelium mucoroides, Dictyostelium rosarium, Polysphondylium pallidum, Epimedium brevicornum, Epimedium koreanum, Epimedium pubescens, Epimedium wushanese and Fraxinus angustifolia.

Economic integration and corruption: The corrupt soul of the European Union

We study the link between corruption and economic integration. We show that if an economic union establishes a common regulation for public procurement, the country more prone to corruption benefits more from integration. However, if the propensities to corruption are too distinct, the less corrupt country will not be willing to join the union. This difference in corruption propensities can be offset by a difference in efficiency. We also show that corruption is lower if integration occurs. A panel data analysis for the European Union confirms that more corrupt countries are more favorable towards integration but less acceptable as potential new members.

Integration of high-resolution geophysical data for the characterization of alluvial aquifers : new approaches and implications for hydrological predictions

Abstract Accurate characterization of the spatial distribution of hydrological properties in heterogeneous aquifers at a range of scales is a key prerequisite for reliable modeling of subsurface contaminant transport, and is essential for designing effective and cost-efficient groundwater management and remediation strategies. To this end, high-resolution geophysical methods have shown significant potential to bridge a critical gap in subsurface resolution and coverage between traditional hydrological measurement techniques such as borehole log/core analyses and tracer or pumping tests. An important and still largely unresolved issue, however, is how to best quantitatively integrate geophysical data into a characterization study in order to estimate the spatial distribution of one or more pertinent hydrological parameters, thus improving hydrological predictions. Recognizing the importance of this issue, the aim of the research presented in this thesis was to first develop a strategy for the assimilation of several types of hydrogeophysical data having varying degrees of resolution, subsurface coverage, and sensitivity to the hydrologic parameter of interest. In this regard a novel simulated annealing (SA)-based conditional simulation approach was developed and then tested in its ability to generate realizations of porosity given crosshole ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and neutron porosity log data. This was done successfully for both synthetic and field data sets. A subsequent issue that needed to be addressed involved assessing the potential benefits and implications of the resulting porosity realizations in terms of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. This was investigated synthetically assuming first that the relationship between porosity and hydraulic conductivity was well-defined. Then, the relationship was itself investigated in the context of a calibration procedure using hypothetical tracer test data. Essentially, the relationship best predicting the observed tracer test measurements was determined given the geophysically derived porosity structure. Both of these investigations showed that the SA-based approach, in general, allows much more reliable hydrological predictions than other more elementary techniques considered. Further, the developed calibration procedure was seen to be very effective, even at the scale of tomographic resolution, for predictions of transport. This also held true at locations within the aquifer where only geophysical data were available. This is significant because the acquisition of hydrological tracer test measurements is clearly more complicated and expensive than the acquisition of geophysical measurements. Although the above methodologies were tested using porosity logs and GPR data, the findings are expected to remain valid for a large number of pertinent combinations of geophysical and borehole log data of comparable resolution and sensitivity to the hydrological target parameter. Moreover, the obtained results allow us to have confidence for future developments in integration methodologies for geophysical and hydrological data to improve the 3-D estimation of hydrological properties.