Competition, Innovation and Increasing Returns

This paper concerns the operation of competition in the presence of a high rate of innovation and increasing returns. Given free competition there is likely to exist, in this case, a tendency towards what may be called ‘dynamic equilibrium’, a tendency, that is to say, for the rate of investment in product development to rise or fall towards the level at which this investment yields only a normal return. Thus, competition, increasing returns and innovation may co-exist.Innovation, increasing returns, competition

Economic Analysis, Public Policy and the Software Industry

This paper focuses on three related matters. It analyses the process of competition in the software industry, this being important both in itself and for the light it throws on competition within all industries characterised by low or zero marginal costs and a high rate of technical development. The software industry, operating under private enterprise, is dependent on copyright, and the issues raised by intellectual property protection are therefore also considered. Given the need for inter-operability between different software products, and between these and associated hardware, standardisation is important within the industry, and the processes by which standards may be established are evaluated. Consideration is given to the public policy issues that are raised by these three topics.Software, competition, innovation, standardisation, intellectual property protection

First record of an Odontaspidid shark in Ascension Island waters

The occurrence of the poorly understood shark species Odontapsis ferox is reported at an oceanic seamount in the central south Atlantic, within the Exclusive Economic Zone of Ascension Island. The presence of the species at this location is confirmed by the discovery of a tooth embedded in scientific equipment, and footage of at least one animal on autonomous underwater video. The new record of this shark species at this location demonstrates the knowledge gaps which still exist at many remote, oceanic structures and their candidacy for status as important conservation areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Old Bailey proceedings and the representation of crime and criminal justice in eighteenth-century London

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, published accounts of felony trials held at London’s central criminal court, were a remarkable publishing phenomenon. First published in 1674, they quickly became a regular periodical, with editions published eight times a year following each session of the court. Despite the huge number of trial reports (some 50,000 in the eighteenth century), the Proceedings, also known as the “Sessions Papers”, have formed the basis of several important studies in social history, dating back to Dorothy George’s seminal London Life in the Eighteenth Century (1925). Their recent publication online, however, has not only made them more widely available, but also changed the way historians consult them, leading to greater use of both quantitative analysis, using the statistics function, and qualitative examination of their language, through keyword searching. In the context of recent renewed interest in the history of crime and criminal justice, for which this is the most important source available in this period, the growing use of the Proceedings raises questions about their reliability, and, by extension, the motivations for their original publication. Historians generally consider the Proceedings to present accurate, if often incomplete, accounts of courtroom proceedings. From this source, along with manuscript judicial records, criminal biographies (including the Ordinary’s Accounts), polemical pamphlets such as Henry Fielding’s Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers (1751), and of course the satirical prints of William Hogarth, they have constructed a picture of eighteenth-century London as a city overwhelmed by periodic crime waves and of a policing and judicial system which was forced into wide-ranging reforms in order to meet this challenge

Representative Farms Economic Outlook for the August 2005 FAPRI/AFPC Baseline

The farm level economic impacts of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 on representative crop and livestock operations are projected in this report. The analysis was conducted over the 2002-2009 planning horizon using FLIPSIM, AFPC’s whole farm simulation model. Data to simulate farming operations in the nation’s major production regions came from two sources: • Producer panel cooperation to develop economic information to describe and simulate representative crop, livestock, and dairy farms, and • Projected prices, policy variables, and input inflation rates from the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) August 2005 Baseline. The FLIPSIM policy simulation model incorporates the historical risk faced by farmers for prices and production. This report presents the results of the August 2005 Baseline in a risk context using selected simulated probabilities and ranges for annual net cash farm income values. The probability of a farm experiencing negative ending cash reserves and the probability of a farm losing real net worth are included as indicators of the cash flow and equity risks facing farms through the year 2009.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Livestock Production/Industries,

An immediate survival focus : linking substance abuse, fight, flight, and prosocial behavior.

In the United States substance abuse takes a toll that is costly in both economic and human terms. In 2005 we paid 467.7 billion dollars to address the consequences of substance abuse, and each year we have lost an estimated 537,000 of our fellows to substance abuse related causes. It is important that we identify and intervene upon the mechanisms translating risk factors for substance abuse into the related behaviors. This study synthesized life history theory and dual process models of cognition to produce an adaptive and cognitive framework for explaining substance abuse. An immediate survival focus was proposed as a construct representing reliance on implicit cognitive processing for the purpose of quick evaluation and short-term strategy use in dangerous or unpredictable environments. This immediate survival focus was suggested as contributing to false positives in the detection of resources and threats critical to survival (i.e., irrational beliefs), and thus vulnerability to substance abuse. This study tested for an immediate survival focus and produced results consistent with the existence of the construct. A factor theorized to represent the ISF was extracted from constructs known to rely on implicit cognitive processing, and this factor was positively associated with both substance abuse and neighborhood danger, as predicted by the adaptive and cognitive framework advanced. In addition, this construct was negatively associated with prosocial behavior, which is known to operate to the relative exclusion of implicit cognitive processes. The strength of the relationships between the ISF and the study\u27s constructs was substantial for both sexes, though its relative importance to substance abuse was less for females. For the sample as a whole, the ISF accounted for 38% of the variance in substance abuse, therefore representing an important construct in efforts to learn about, treat, and prevent substance abuse

Representative Farms Economic Outlook for the December 2005 FAPRI/AFPC Baseline

The Agricultural and Food Policy Center (AFPC) at Texas A&M University develops and maintains data to simulate 102 representative crop and livestock operations in major production areas in 28 states. The chief purpose of this analysis is to project those farms’ economic viability for 2005 through 2011. The data necessary to simulate the economic activity of these operations is developed through ongoing cooperation with panels of agricultural producers in each of these states. The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) provided projected prices, policy variables, and input inflation rates in their December 2005 Baseline. Under the December 2005 Baseline, 12 of the 66 crop farms are considered in good liquidity condition (less than a 25 percent chance of negative ending cash during 2005-2011). Five crop farms have between a 25 percent and a 50 percent likelihood of negative ending cash. The remaining 49 crop farms have greater than a 50 percent of negative ending cash. Additionally, 22 of the 66 crop farms are considered in good equity position (less than a 25 percent chance of decreasing real net worth during 2005-2011). Ten crop farms have between a 25 percent and 50 percent likelihood of losing real net worth, and 34 crop farms have greater than a 50 percent probability of decreasing real net worth.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Livestock Production/Industries,

Representative Farms Economic Outlook for the January 2005 FAPRI/AFPC Baseline

The farm level economic impacts of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 on representative crop and livestock operations are projected in this report. The analysis was conducted over the 2002-2009 planning horizon using FLIPSIM, AFPC’s whole farm simulation model. Data to simulate farming operations in the nation’s major production regions came from two sources:•Producer panel cooperation to develop economic information to describe and simulate representative crop, livestock, and dairy farms, and•Projected prices, policy variables, and input inflation rates from the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) January 2005 Baseline. The FLIPSIM policy simulation model incorporates the historical risk faced by farmers for prices and production. This report presents the results of the January 2005 Baseline in a risk context using selected simulated probabilities and ranges for annual net cash farm income values. The probability of a farm experiencing negative ending cash reserves and the probability of a farm losing real net worth are included as indicators of the cash flow and equity risks facing farms through the year 2009.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Livestock Production/Industries,

Self-similarity and Reynolds number invariance in Froude modelling

This review aims to improve the reliability of Froude modelling in fluid flows where both the Froude number and Reynolds number are a priori relevant. Two concepts may help to exclude significant Reynolds number scale effects under these conditions: (i) self-similarity and (ii) Reynolds number invariance. Both concepts relate herein to turbulent flows, thereby excluding self-similarity observed in laminar flows and in non-fluid phenomena. These two concepts are illustrated with a wide range of examples: (i) irrotational vortices, wakes, jets and plumes, shear-driven entrainment, high-velocity open channel flows, sediment transport and homogeneous isotropic turbulence and (ii) tidal energy converters, complete mixing in contact tanks and gravity currents. The limitations of self-similarity and Reynolds number invariance are also highlighted. Many fluid phenomena with the limitations under which self-similarity and Reynolds number invariance are observed are summarised in tables, aimed at excluding significant Reynolds number scale effects in physical Froude-based models

System Size, Energy, Pseudorapidity, and Centrality Dependence of Elliptic Flow

This paper presents measurements of the elliptic flow of charged particles as a function of pseudorapidity and centrality from Cu-Cu collisions at 62.4 and 200 GeV using the PHOBOS detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The elliptic flow in Cu-Cu collisions is found to be significant even for the most central events. For comparison with the Au-Au results, it is found that the detailed way in which the collision geometry (eccentricity) is estimated is of critical importance when scaling out system-size effects. A new form of eccentricity, called the participant eccentricity, is introduced which yields a scaled elliptic flow in the Cu-Cu system that has the same relative magnitude and qualitative features as that in the Au-Au system