Noncooperative Collusion and Price Wars with Individual Demand Fluctuations

We analyze whether noncooperative collusive equilibria are harder to sustain when individual demand levels are not fixed but are able to fluctuate. To do this, we extend a Bertrand type model of price competition to allow for fluctuating market shares when prices are equal. We find that, the larger the market share fluctuations may be, the higher the discount factor should be to sustain a collusive equilibrium in trigger strategies. The intuition behind this is fairly straightforward. When individual demand in the collusive state is suddenly low, the gains from collusion go down. Moreover, the firm with the low demand can capture a larger share of the market by deviating from the collusive strategy. The incentive to deviate therefore becomes larger when the individual market share decreases. We also look at the existence of a specific type of semi-collusive equilibrium when individual market shares are either common knowledge or private knowledge. We find that there exist equilibria in which competitive periods (price wars) occur with probability 1 and on the equilibrium path.mathematical economics;

Competition versus Collusion: The Impact of Consumer Inertia

We consider a model of dynamic price competition to analyze the impact of consumer inertia on the ability of firms to sustain high prices. Three main consequences are identified, all of which contrast with predictions of the standard model of collusion: (i) maintaining high prices does not require punishment strategies when firms are sufficiently myopic, (ii) if buyers are sufficiently inert, then high prices can be sustained for all discount factors, and (iii) the ability to maintain high prices may depend non-monotonically on the level of the discount factor when the industry exhibits network externalities and demand is sufficiently viscous. These results provide a number of interesting insights with regard to competitive and collusive pricing behavior. In particular, we illustrate how direct communication between firms may facilitate collusion.microeconomics ;

Dynamic Competition with Consumer Inertia

We study a framework where two duopolists compete repeatedly in prices and where cho-sen prices potentially affect future market shares, but certainly do not affect current sales.This assumption of consumer inertia causes (noncooperative) coordination on high pricesonly to be possible as an equilibrium for low values of the discount factor. In particular,high discount factors increase opportunism and aggressiveness of competition to such anextent that high prices are no longer sustainable as an equilibrium outcome (not even intrigger strategies). In addition, we find that both monopolization and enduring marketshare and price fluctuations (price wars) can be equilibrium path phenomena withoutrequiring exogenous shocks in market or firm characteristics.microeconomics ;

Intentional Price Wars on the Equilibrium Path

In this paper we study the effect of information on the occurrence of intentional price wars on the equilibrium path. An episode of low prices is an intentional price war if it follows a period of high prices which was ended intentionally by one of the firms in the market (the price war leader). We show that for intentional price wars to exist on the equilibrium path, two elements are necessary regarding the information on which the firms base their decisions: (1) interperiod dynamics and (2) informational asymmetries. We illustrate this by means of a repeated price-setting game in which market shares fluctuate. Firms learn about the market share realizations at the beginning of each period. We show that intentional price wars on the equilibrium path are possible when firms have private information about their market share. When market shares are public information, we either see collusive price adjustment or episodes of low prices that do not classify as an intentional price war.microeconomics ;

Home-based exercise and support programme for people with dementia and their caregivers: study protocol of a randomised controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dementia affects the mood of people with dementia but also of their caregivers. In the coming years, the number of people with dementia will increase worldwide and most of them will continue to live in the community as long as possible. Home-based psychosocial interventions reducing the depressive symptoms of both people with dementia and their caregivers in their own home are highly needed.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>This manuscript describes the design of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) of the effects of a home-based exercise and support programme for people with dementia and their caregivers. The aim is to randomly assign 156 dyads (caregiver and dementia diagnosed person) to an intervention group or a comparison group. The experimental group receives a home programme in which exercise and support for the people with dementia and their caregivers are combined and integrated. The comparison group receives a minimal intervention. Primary outcomes are physical health (people with dementia) and mood (people with dementia and caregivers). In addition, to get more insight in the working components of the intervention and the impact of the intervention on the relationship of the dyads a qualitative sub-study is carried out.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>This study aims to contribute to an evidence-based treatment to reduce depressive symptoms among people with dementia and their caregivers independently living in the community.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>The study has been registered at the Netherlands National Trial Register (NTR), which is connected to the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform of the WHO. Trial number: <a href="http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/admin/rctview.asp?TC=2040">NTR1802</a>.</p

A new regime of nanoscale thermal transport: collective diffusion counteracts dissipation inefficiency

Understanding thermal transport from nanoscale heat sources is important for a fundamental description of energy flow in materials, as well as for many technological applications including thermal management in nanoelectronics, thermoelectric devices, nano-enhanced photovoltaics and nanoparticle-mediated thermal therapies. Thermal transport at the nanoscale is fundamentally different from that at the macroscale and is determined by the distribution of carrier mean free paths in a material, the length scales of the heat sources, and the distance over which heat is transported. Past work has shown that Fourier's law for heat conduction dramatically over-predicts the rate of heat dissipation from heat sources with dimensions smaller than the mean free path of the dominant heat-carrying phonons. In this work, we uncover a new regime of nanoscale thermal transport that dominates when the separation between nanoscale heat sources is small compared with the dominant phonon mean free paths. Surprisingly, the interplay between neighboring heat sources can facilitate efficient, diffusive-like heat dissipation, even from the smallest nanoscale heat sources. This finding suggests that thermal management in nanoscale systems including integrated circuits might not be as challenging as projected. Finally, we demonstrate a unique and new capability to extract mean free path distributions of phonons in materials, allowing the first experimental validation of differential conductivity predictions from first-principles calculations.Comment: Main text: 18 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary Information: 13 pages, 9 figure

Transcriptional and Epigenetic Consequences of DMSO Treatment on HepaRG Cells

Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is used to sustain or favor hepatocyte differentiation in vitro. Thus, DMSO is used in the differentiation protocol of the HepaRG cells that present the closest drug-metabolizing enzyme activities to primary human hepatocytes in culture. The aim of our study is to clarify its influence on liver-specific gene expression. For that purpose, we performed a large-scale analysis (gene expression and histone modification) to determine the global role of DMSO exposure during the differentiation process of the HepaRG cells. The addition of DMSO drives the upregulation of genes mainly regulated by PXR and PPARα whereas genes not affected by this addition are regulated by HNF1α, HNF4α, and PPARα. DMSO-differentiated-HepaRG cells show a differential expression for genes regulated by histone acetylation, while differentiated-HepaRG cells without DMSO show gene signatures associated with histone deacetylases. In addition, we observed an interplay between cytoskeleton organization and EMC remodeling with hepatocyte maturation

Extending the IMQ Model:Deep Characterization of the Human TLR7 Response for Early Drug Development

Imiquimod (IMQ; brand name Aldara®) is a registered topical agent that has been proven to induce local inflammation via the Toll-like receptor (TLR)7 pathway. The purpose of this study was to characterize TLR7-mediated inflammation following 7 days (168 h) of topical IMQ exposure in healthy volunteers, and to compare the effects of short exposure (48 h-72 h) with prolonged exposure (120 h-168 h). IMQ (100mg) was applied under occlusion to 5 different tape-stripped treatment sites on the back of 10 healthy participants for a maximum of 7 consecutive days. Erythema and skin perfusion were measured daily up to 168h. Biopsies for immunohistochemical staining and RNA sequencing were collected at 0h, 48h, 72h, 120h and 168h post IMQ application. IMQ triggered an inflammatory response starting at 48h after application, including erythema and perfusion of the skin. At the transcriptomic level, IMQ induced TLR7 signalling, IRF involvement and activation of TNF signalling via NF-κB. Furthermore, an enhanced inflammatory response at the cellular level was observed after prolonged IMQ exposure, with cellular infiltration of dendritic cells, macrophages and T cells which was also corroborated by transcriptomic profiles. No difference was found in the erythema and perfusion response after 168h of IMQ exposure compared to 72h. Prolonged IMQ exposure revealed enhanced cellular responses and additional pathways with modulated activity compared to short exposure and can therefore be of interest as a model for investigational compounds targeting innate and adaptive immune responses.</p

Characterization of ultrathin films by laser-induced sub-picosecond photoacoustics with coherent extreme ultraviolet detection

ABSTRACT Photoacoustic spectroscopy is a powerful tool for characterizing thin films. In this paper we demonstrate a new photoacoustic technique that allows us to precisely characterize the mechanical properties of ultrathin films. We focus an ultrafast laser onto a nano-patterned thin film sample, launching both surface acoustic waves (SAWs) and longitudinal acoustic waves (LAWs). Coherent extreme ultraviolet pulses are then used to probe the propagation dynamics of both the SAWs and LAWs. The resulting photoacoustic signal on both short (picosecond) and long (nanosecond) time scales yields important information. In the first 100ps, a fast oscillation followed by an echo signal corresponds to LAWs traveling inside the nanostructures and the thin film, from which the LAW velocities in the two materials can be extracted. On longer time-scales, SAW oscillations are observed. By combining the measured SAW frequency with the wavelength (determined by the nanostructure period) the SAW velocity can be accurately determined, even for very short wavelength surface acoustic waves with very small penetration depths. Using this technique, the elastic properties, including the Young&apos;s modulus and Poisson ratio for the thin film, can be obtained in a single measurement, this technique can be extended to sub-10nm thin films