Domestic Rivalry and Export Performance: Theory and Evidence from International Airline Markets

The much-studied relationship between domestic rivalry and export performance consists of those supporting a national-champion rationale, and those supporting a rivalry rationale. While the empirical literature generally supports the positive effects of domestic rivalry, the national-champion rationale actually rests on firmer theoretical ground. We address this inconsistency by providing a theoretical framework that illustrates three paths via which domestic rivalry translates into enhanced international exports. Furthermore, empirical tests on the world airline industry elicit the existence of one particular path - an enhanced firm performance effect - that connects domestic rivalry with improved international exports

The use of mid-infrared spectrometry to predict body energy status of Holstein cows

Energy balance, especially in early lactation, is known to be associated with subsequent health and fertility in dairy cows. However, its inclusion in routine management decisions or breeding programs is hindered by the lack of quick, easy, and inexpensive measures of energy balance. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of mid-infrared (MIR) analysis of milk, routinely available from all milk samples taken as part of large-scale milk recording and milk payment operations, to predict body energy status and related traits in lactating dairy cows. The body energy status traits investigated included energy balance and body energy content. The related traits of body condition score and energy intake were also considered. Measurements on these traits along with milk MIR spectral data were available on 17 different test days from 268 cows (418 lactations) and were used to develop the prediction equations using partial least squares regression. Predictions were externally validated on different independent subsets of the data and the results averaged. The average accuracy of predicting body energy status from MIR spectral data was as high as 75% when energy balance was measured across lactation. These predictions of body energy status were considerably more accurate than predictions obtained from the sometimes proposed fat-to-protein ratio in milk. It is not known whether the prediction generated from MIR data are a better reflection of the true (unknown) energy status than the actual energy status measures used in this study. However, results indicate that the approach described may be a viable method of predicting individual cow energy status for a large scale of application

Adsorbate-induced surface stress, surface strain and surface reconstruction : S on Cu(100) and Ni(100)

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have been applied to investigate the known difference in behaviour of S adsorption on Cu(100) and Ni(100). Both surfaces form a 0.25 ML (2 × 2) adsorption phase, but while at higher coverage a 0.5 ML c(2 × 2) phase forms on Ni(100), on Cu(100) only a reconstructed 0.47 ML (√17 × √17)R14° structure occurs. Calculations of the energy, structure, and surface stress of (2 × 2) and c(2 × 2) phases on both substrates show there is an energy advantage on both surfaces to form the higher coverage phase, but that both surfaces show local surface strain around the S atoms in the (2 × 2) phase, a phenomenon previously investigated only on Cu(100). More than forty different structural models of the Cu(100)(√17 × √17)R14°-S phase have been investigated. The pseudo-(100)c(2 × 2) structure previously proposed, containing 16 Cu adatoms per unit mesh in the reconstructed layer, is found to be less energetically favourable than many other possible structures, even after taking account of local structural relaxations. Significantly more favourable is a structure with 12 Cu adatoms per (√17 × √17)R14° unit mesh, previously proposed on the basis of scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), and found to yield simulated STM images in good agreement with experiment. This model has all S atoms in local 4-fold coordinated hollows relative to the Cu atoms below, half being located above Cu adatoms with the remainder lying above the underlying outermost substrate layer. However, an alternative model with only 4 Cu adatoms and with half the S atoms at 3-fold coordinated sites on the periphery of the Cu adatom cluster, has an even lower energy and gives simulated STM images in excellent agreement with experiment

The local structure of SO2 and SO3 on Ni(1 1 1): a scanned-energy mode photoelectron diffraction study

O 1s and S 2p scanned-energy mode photoelectron diffraction (PhD) data, combined with multiple-scattering simulations, have been used to determine the local adsorption geometry of the SO2 and SO3 species on a Ni(1 1 1) surface. For SO2, the application of reasonable constraints on the molecular conformation used in the simulations leads to the conclusion that the molecule is centred over hollow sites on the surface, with the molecular plane essentially parallel to the surface, and with both S and O atoms offset from atop sites by almost the same distance of 0.65 Å. For SO3, the results are consistent with earlier work which concluded that surface bonding is through the O atoms, with the S atom higher above the surface and the molecular symmetry axis almost perpendicular to the surface. Based on the O 1s PhD data alone, three local adsorption geometries are comparably acceptable, but only one of these is consistent with the results of an earlier normal-incidence X-ray standing wave (NIXSW) study. This optimised structural model differs somewhat from that originally proposed in the NIXSW investigation

Phase Transitions of Hard Disks in External Periodic Potentials: A Monte Carlo Study

The nature of freezing and melting transitions for a system of hard disks in a spatially periodic external potential is studied using extensive Monte Carlo simulations. Detailed finite size scaling analysis of various thermodynamic quantities like the order parameter, its cumulants etc. are used to map the phase diagram of the system for various values of the density and the amplitude of the external potential. We find clear indication of a re-entrant liquid phase over a significant region of the parameter space. Our simulations therefore show that the system of hard disks behaves in a fashion similar to charge stabilized colloids which are known to undergo an initial freezing, followed by a re-melting transition as the amplitude of the imposed, modulating field produced by crossed laser beams is steadily increased. Detailed analysis of our data shows several features consistent with a recent dislocation unbinding theory of laser induced melting.Comment: 36 pages, 16 figure

Eimeria species occurrence varies between geographic regions and poultry production systems and may influence parasite genetic diversity

Coccidiosis is one of the biggest challenges faced by the global poultry industry. Recent studies have highlighted the ubiquitous distribution of all Eimeria species which can cause this disease in chickens, but intriguingly revealed a regional divide in genetic diversity and population structure for at least one species, Eimeria tenella. The drivers associated with such distinct geographic variation are unclear, but may impact on the occurrence and extent of resistance to anticoccidial drugs and future subunit vaccines. India is one of the largest poultry producers in the world and includes a transition between E. tenella populations defined by high and low genetic diversity. The aim of this study was to identify risk factors associated with the prevalence of Eimeria species defined by high and low pathogenicity in northern and southern states of India, and seek to understand factors which vary between the regions as possible drivers for differential genetic variation. Faecal samples and data relating to farm characteristics and management were collected from 107 farms from northern India and 133 farms from southern India. Faecal samples were analysed using microscopy and PCR to identify Eimeria occurrence. Multiple correspondence analysis was applied to transform correlated putative risk factors into a smaller number of synthetic uncorrelated factors. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to identify poultry farm typologies, revealing three distinct clusters in the studied regions. The association between clusters and presence of Eimeria species was assessed by logistic regression. The study found that large-scale broiler farms in the north were at greatest risk of harbouring any Eimeria species and a larger proportion of such farms were positive for E. necatrix, the most pathogenic species. Comparison revealed a more even distribution for E. tenella across production systems in south India, but with a lower overall occurrence. Such a polarised region- and system-specific distribution may contribute to the different levels of genetic diversity observed previously in India and may influence parasite population structure across much of Asia and Africa. The findings of the study can be used to prioritise target farms to launch and optimise appropriate anticoccidial strategies for long-term control

The Capaciousness of No: Affective Refusals as Literacy Practices

© 2020 The Authors. Reading Research Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Literacy Association The authors considered the capacious feeling that emerges from saying no to literacy practices, and the affective potential of saying no as a literacy practice. The authors highlight the affective possibilities of saying no to normative understandings of literacy, thinking with a series of vignettes in which children, young people, and teachers refused literacy practices in different ways. The authors use the term capacious to signal possibilities that are as yet unthought: a sense of broadening and opening out through enacting no. The authors examined how attention to affect ruptures humanist logics that inform normative approaches to literacy. Through attention to nonconscious, noncognitive, and transindividual bodily forces and capacities, affect deprivileges the human as the sole agent in an interaction, thus disrupting measurements of who counts as a literate subject and what counts as a literacy event. No is an affective moment. It can signal a pushback, an absence, or a silence. As a theoretical and methodological way of thinking/feeling with literacy, affect proposes problems rather than solutions, countering solution-focused research in which the resistance is to be overcome, co-opted, or solved. Affect operates as a crack or a chink, a tiny ripple, a barely perceivable gesture, that can persist and, in doing so, hold open the possibility for alternative futures

Saturn's icy satellites and rings investigated by Cassini - VIMS. III. Radial compositional variability

In the last few years Cassini-VIMS, the Visible and Infared Mapping Spectrometer, returned to us a comprehensive view of the Saturn's icy satellites and rings. After having analyzed the satellites' spectral properties (Filacchione et al. (2007a)) and their distribution across the satellites' hemispheres (Filacchione et al. (2010)), we proceed in this paper to investigate the radial variability of icy satellites (principal and minor) and main rings average spectral properties. This analysis is done by using 2,264 disk-integrated observations of the satellites and a 12x700 pixels-wide rings radial mosaic acquired with a spatial resolution of about 125 km/pixel. The comparative analysis of these data allows us to retrieve the amount of both water ice and red contaminant materials distributed across Saturn's system and the typical surface regolith grain sizes. These measurements highlight very striking differences in the population here analyzed, which vary from the almost uncontaminated and water ice-rich surfaces of Enceladus and Calypso to the metal/organic-rich and red surfaces of Iapetus' leading hemisphere and Phoebe. Rings spectra appear more red than the icy satellites in the visible range but show more intense 1.5-2.0 micron band depths. The correlations among spectral slopes, band depths, visual albedo and phase permit us to cluster the saturnian population in different spectral classes which are detected not only among the principal satellites and rings but among co-orbital minor moons as well. Finally, we have applied Hapke's theory to retrieve the best spectral fits to Saturn's inner regular satellites using the same methodology applied previously for Rhea data discussed in Ciarniello et al. (2011).Comment: 44 pages, 27 figures, 7 tables. Submitted to Icaru