Higher education reform: getting the incentives right

This study is a joint effort by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) and the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies. It analyses a number of `best practices¿ where the design of financial incentives working on the system level of higher education is concerned. In Chapter 1, an overview of some of the characteristics of the Dutch higher education sector is presented. Chapter 2 is a refresher on the economics of higher education. Chapter 3 is about the Australian Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). Chapter 4 is about tuition fees and admission policies in US universities. Chapter 5 looks at the funding of Danish universities through the so-called taximeter-model, that links funding to student performance. Chapter 6 deals with research funding in the UK university system, where research assessments exercises underlie the funding decisions. In Chapter 7 we study the impact of university-industry ties on academic research by examining the US policies on increasing knowledge transfer between universities and the private sector. Finally, Chapter 8 presents food for thought for Dutch policymakers: what lessons can be learned from our international comparison

Towards the Standard Model spectrum from elliptic Calabi-Yau

We show that it is possible to construct supersymmetric three-generation models of Standard Model gauge group in the framework of non-simply-connected elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau, without section but with a bi-section. The fibrations on a cover Calabi-Yau, where the model has 6 generations of SU(5) and the bundle is given via the spectral cover description, use a different description of the elliptic fibre which leads to more than one global section. We present two examples of a possible cover Calabi-Yau with a free involution: one is a fibre product of rational elliptic surfaces $dP_9$; another example is an elliptic fibration over a Hirzebruch surface. There we give the necessary amount of chiral matter by turning on in the bundles a further parameter, related to singularities of the fibration and the branching of the spectral cover.Comment: 31 pages, 1 eps-figure, reference added, bundle parameters for dP9 model change

Renormalization Group theory outperforms other approaches in statistical comparison between upscaling techniques for porous media

Determining the pressure differential required to achieve a desired flow rate in a porous medium requires solving Darcy's law, a Laplace-like equation, with a spatially varying tensor permeability. In various scenarios, the permeability coefficient is sampled at high spatial resolution, which makes solving Darcy's equation numerically prohibitively expensive. As a consequence, much effort has gone into creating upscaled or low-resolution effective models of the coefficient while ensuring that the estimated flow rate is well reproduced, bringing to fore the classic tradeoff between computational cost and numerical accuracy. Here we perform a statistical study to characterize the relative success of upscaling methods on a large sample of permeability coefficients that are above the percolation threshold. We introduce a new technique based on Mode-Elimination Renormalization-Group theory (MG) to build coarse-scale permeability coefficients. Comparing the results with coefficients upscaled using other methods, we find that MG is consistently more accurate, particularly so due to its ability to address the tensorial nature of the coefficients. MG places a low computational demand, in the manner that we have implemented it, and accurate flow-rate estimates are obtained when using MG-upscaled permeabilities that approach or are beyond the percolation threshold.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, Physical Review

PMH14 HEALTH CARE EXPENDITURES OF PATIENTS WITH MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER AND POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

A computer model is presented that describes soleus H-reflex recruitment as a function of electric stimulus intensity. The model consists of two coupled non-linear transfer functions. The first transfer function describes the activation of muscle spindle (Ia) afferent terminals as a function of the electric stimulus intensity; whereas the second describes the activation of a number of motoneurons as a function of the number of active Ia afferent terminals. The effect of change in these transfer functions on the H-reflex recruitment curve is simulated. In spastic patients, a higher average maximal H-response amplitude is observed in combination with a decreased H-reflex threshold. Vibration of the Achilles tendon reduces the H-reflex amplitude, presumably by reducing the excitatory afferent input. Vibratory inhibition is diminished in spasticity. In the model, the afferent-motoneuron transfer function was modified to represent the possible alterations occurring in spasticity. The simulations show that vibratory suppression of the H-reflex is determined only in part by the inhibition level of the afferent input. With a constant level of presynaptic inhibition, the suppression of reflexes of different sizes may vary. A lowering of the motoneuron activation thresholds in spastic patients will directly contribute to a decrease of vibratory inhibition in spasticit