Competitive Scheme Research Articles

Not So Fast: The Competition System Created by the PRC Anti-Monopoly Law and Recent Developments in its Implemetation

Culminating a two-decade long process, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted the PRC Anti-Monopoly Law on August 30, 2007 and the law entered into effect on August 1, 2008. The result was imperfect, overly general legislation which still potentially offers an improvement over the disparate set of rules and regulation that preceded it, if only by locating all of the confusion in one place.The 2008 Anti-Monopoly Law borrows important elements from American antitrust law as well as European Union and German competition law, but maintains unmistakably Chinese characteristics. The note below will attempt to show how the influences of foreign competition schemes and domestic policy agendas combined to create an Anti-Monopoly Law that, while improving on the previous framework, will require a series of implementing measures and structural and procedural reforms to be effectively enforced.

An efficient skip mode competition scheme based on vector clustering and object boundary detection

In video coding, a portion of skipped macroblocks is highly effective to the coding performance, especially, at low bitrates since, for a skip mode, no additional coding parameters are transmitted except mode index itself. To increase the skip mode occurrence, in this paper, we propose an efficient skip mode competition scheme based on vector clustering of multiple predictive motion vectors (PMV) and boundary detection of moving objects. The proposed scheme selects the best PMV of skip mode optimally among representative PMV candidates which are obtained after the clustering process and switches a more appropriate competition scheme adaptively according to object boundary conditions. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme reduces average 4.31% in BDRATE compared to the KTA 2.6 software.

Research capacity development in podiatry: the contribution of the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists

The development of a research culture within the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, and the research capacity building within the profession that must underpin this, is an essential element of both the ‘learn’ and ‘achieve’ themes of the conference. The role of professional bodies in developing professional practice and the maintenance of standards is unquestioned and is the main focus for the work of these bodies. However, research evidence is required to provide the evidence base for that professional practice. This need for evidence is becoming more urgent as, for example, funders of health-care services and fee-paying patients are increasingly requiring evidence of efficacy and effectiveness of interventions. In the UK, the move to commissioning of services for the National Health Service is accelerating this trend. Professional bodies should therefore have a role in developing that evidence base as a core part of their business. However, particularly for the smaller allied health professions, scarce resources and other competing priorities mitigate against this. This poster will look at how the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists have begun to tackle this problem and will illustrate how, in less than five years, they have moved from research being a special interest of a few, to it being a core part of the organisation, with major successes for podiatrists in prestigious, competitive national research schemes

Evaluation of a pervasive game for domestic energy engagement among teenagers

In this article, we present Power Agent —a pervasive game designed to encourage teenagers and their families to reduce energy consumption in the home. The ideas behind this mobile phone-based game are twofold; to transform the home environment and its devices into a learning arena for hands-on experience with electricity usage and to promote engagement via a team competition scheme. We report on the game's evaluation with six teenagers and their families who played the game for ten days in two cities in Sweden. Data collection consisted of home energy measurements before, during, and after a game trial, in addition to interviews with participants at the end of the evaluation. The results suggest that the game concept was highly efficient in motivating and engaging the players and their families to change their daily energy-consumption patterns during the game trial. Although the evaluation does not permit any conclusions as to whether the game had any postgame effects on behavior, we can conclude that the pervasive persuasive game approach appears to be highly promising in regard to energy conservation and similar fields or issues.

New rate-2 STBC design for 2 TX with reduced-complexity maximum likelihood decoding

We propose a new full-rate space-time block code (STBC) for two transmit antennas which can be designed to achieve maximum diversity or maximum capacity while enjoying optimized coding gain and reduced-complexity maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding. The maximum transmit diversity (MTD) construction provides a diversity order of 2Nr for any number of receive antennas Nr at the cost of channel capacity loss. The maximum channel capacity (MCC) construction preserves the mutual information between the transmit and the received vectors while sacrificing diversity. The system designer can switch between the two constructions through a simple parameter change based on the operating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal constellation size and number of receive antennas. Thanks to their special algebraic structure, both constructions enjoy low-complexity ML decoding proportional to the square of the signal constellation size making them attractive alternatives to existing full-diversity full-rate STBCs in [6], [3] which have high ML decoding complexity proportional to the fourth order of the signal constellation size. Furthermore, we design a differential transmission scheme for our proposed STBC, derive the exact ML differential decoding rule, and compare its performance with competitive schemes. Finally, we investigate transceiver design and performance of our proposed STBC in spatial multiple-access scenarios and over frequency-selective channels.

Experimental Evidence on Inequity Aversion and Self-Selection between Incentive Contracts

This paper reports on the results of an experiment testing whether the agents selfselect between a competitive payment scheme and a revenue-sharing scheme depending on their inequity aversion. Average efficiency should be increased when these payment schemes are endogenously chosen by agents. We show that the choice of the competition is negatively affected by disadvantageous inequity aversion and risk aversion. In the second half of the experiment, the effect of individual preferences is indirect through the effect of past results. The self-selection of agents increases the efficiency of the competitive scheme but not that of the revenue-sharing scheme, due to a heterogeneity of behaviors.

Pruning and Matching Scheme for Rotation Invariant Leaf Image Retrieval

For efficient content-based image retrieval, diverse visual features such as color, texture, and shape have been widely used. In the case of leaf images, further improvement can be achieved based on the following observations. Most plants have unique shape of leaves that consist of one or more blades. Hence, blade-based matching can be more efficient than whole shape-based matching since the number and shape of blades are very effective to filtering out dissimilar leaves. Guaranteeing rotational invariance is critical for matching accuracy. In this paper, we propose a new shape representation, indexing and matching scheme for leaf image retrieval. For leaf shape representation, we generated a distance curve that is a sequence of distances between the leaf’s center and all the contour points. For matching, we developed a blade-based matching algorithm called rotation invariant - partial dynamic time warping (RI-PDTW). To speed up the matching, we suggest two additional techniques: ⅰ) priority queue-based pruning of unnecessary blade sequences for rotational invariance, and ⅱ) lower bound-based pruning of unnecessary partial dynamic time warping (PDTW) calculations. We implemented a prototype system on the GEMINI framework [1][2]. Using experimental results, we showed that our scheme achieves excellent performance compared to competitive schemes.

A method to estimate block values through competitive bidding

The bidding process is a mechanism that has been widely used by different countries to optimally distribute their oil exploratory acreages. One of the big challenges for both companies and government agencies is the estimation of the block values. Considering that the bid value is by and large a fraction of the estimated unknown reserve, the objective of this article is to reach a set of proxies of unknown values of the blocks through the successful bids. The estimation value of the block is calculated through a stochastic simulation of bid fractions using a compound probability distribution. The model was tested and validated using the public data available from the Brazilian seven licensing rounds. For these competitive bids, areas widespread in 22 sedimentary basins were offered to more than 50 oil companies that retained 610 blocks, paying $1.4 billion as a cash bonus. The model output was restricted to the Campos Basin because it is one of the most attractive areas for oil and gas opportunities, concentrating approximately 80% of the Brazilian national oil production with a supply of 1.8 million bbl/day. The simulation model indicated that this approach can be used as an auxiliary decision framework by oil companies for new investments and bidding strategies as well as by the regulatory agency to evaluate bid performance in different world regions and geological settings possessing similar competitive bidding schemes.

Competition schemes and investment in network infrastructure under uncertainty

This paper compares two specific types of competition schemes—service-based and facility-based competition—by focusing on a firm’s incentive to invest in network infrastructure. We show that when monopoly rent is large, facility-based competition means that the initial introduction of infrastructure is made earlier than under service-based competition. However, when monopoly rent and the degree of uncertainty are both small, service-based competition brings about the earlier initial introduction of infrastructure than facility-based competition. The paper includes discussion of the policy implications of these findings.

Railroad crossing of Nevel’skogo Strait from the mainland to Sakhalin Island — alternate scheme with a dead-end dike and navigation canal

Historically, two alternate schemes of a crossing of Nevel’skogo Strait have been considered for the Selikhin – Nysh Railroad between the mainland and Sakhalin Island, which is now under design: tunnel and bridge. Considering the high seismicity of the construction site, and the large stratum of slightly cohesive soils, which resides in the bottom of the strait, the extremely severe climatic conditions (significant wind action, large temperature gradients, loads due to ice floes drifting against bridge supports, and icing-over of span structures), as well as high current velocities in the easily scoured channel, which result in its deformation, it can additionally be presumed that construction of the crossing and, in particular, its operation will be rather difficult and expensive. In 2001, the JSC MIGG in conjunction with a branch of the JSC TsNIIS — NITs “Mosty” developed a new scheme for a railroad crossing of the strait [1], which will more reliable in service and less capital-intensive to construction as compared with the alternatives. The essence of this scheme consists in the fact that the Nevel’skogo Strait is completely spanned by a dead-end dike, and water flows and shipping are passed through a navigation canal cut into the scour-resistant bedrock of the eastern extremity of Cape Nevel’skogo. The canal is crossed by single-span suspension bridge, the length of which in this case will not be measured in kilometers, as in a competitive scheme, but in hundreds of meters. As compared with the bridge scheme, the dead-end dike is safer with respect to ice loads, and less sensitive to seismic effects. The supports of the suspension bridge areto be placed on a durable rock bed, will not come in contact with the water, and will not be subjected to either channel deformations, or ice effects. In contrast to the alternatives, this crossing scheme is characterized by maximum utilization of local construction materials and a minimum demand for imported materials (metal, cement, timber, etc.); this will satisfy in the best way possible the construction and economic conditions of the region, which is remote from industrially developed areas. Drilling-blasting, loading-transporting, and bottom-deepening operations, which have been rigorously mastered in domestic practice, will prevail in its construction. They can be rapidly deployed, and do not require the purchase of expensive foreign equipment, and also the importation of foreign specialists. The bridge, the cost of which will be approximately 20% of the total expenditures, and for the case in question, will not situated on a critical route, can be completely assembled even before the earth-and-rock work is completed. The rock sheared from the shaped depression of the canal will be placed in the dike, and the closeness of the waterway to Cape Nevel’skogo dictates a minimum of deepening work (in the sandy channel) involving its connection with the canal. This, of course, is also explained by the economy of the proposed scheme for a railroad crossing, which will require lower capital expenditures than the competitive schemes. As for the ecological aspects of the plan, the emotionally proposed alternate scheme for the crossing may be perceived as extremely radical. The hydraulic analyses and mathematical modeling that have been performed, however, have indicated that in terms of the degree of influence exerted on the environment and hydrological conditions of the strait, it does not differ appreciably from the bridge scheme, and is feasible for implementation from the standpoint of nature management. An expert council functioning on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation considered all three schemes for a railroad crossing of the Nevel’skogo Strait (conclusion No. 4 from 10 February 2002), acknowledged them to be technically feasible, concurred with the fact that the cost of the crossing scheme with a dead-end dike and navigation canal may be lower as compared with the other schemes, and proposed to finalize the “Provisions for Investment” with Power Technology and Engineering Vol. 42, No. 3, 2008

Multicell Optimization for Diversity and Interference Mitigation

We study diversity and interference mitigation with an emphasis on the interaction between the transmitter-receiver (Tx-Rx) pairs in a two-user, two-cell system in which the performance at each Rx depends on the actions of the both desired and the interfering Txs. We will propose two techniques. The first scheme is a greedy or competitive algorithm in which each Tx-Rx pair employs an orthogonal space-time (ST) block code combined with a multimode beamformer (a generalized ST code) to minimize the error probability to its own Rx till an equilibrium is reached. The second scheme is a cooperative algorithm, also based on a generalized ST code in which each Tx-Rx pair minimizes its error probability at its desired Rx but cooperates by limiting the amount of interference to the second pair's Rx. We will model and characterize the equilibrium of the competitive scheme (called the Nash equlibrium). We will then show that by using the cooperative algorithm, it is possible to find Pareto dominant actions where both Tx-Rx pairs either equal or improve their performance when compared with the NE actions. We will analyze the conditions for Pareto dominance of the cooperative scheme and finally demonstrate the performance improvements of both schemes over the single Tx-Rx pair generalized ST code.

A Jumping Gene Paradigm for Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization

A new evolutionary computing algorithm on the basis of the ldquojumping genesrdquo (JG) phenomenon is proposed in this paper. It emulates the gene transposition in the genome that was discovered by Nobel Laureate, Barbara McClintock, in her work on the corn plants. The principle of JGs that is adopted for evolutionary computing is outlined. The procedures for executing the computational optimization are provided. A large number of constrained and unconstrained test functions have been utilized to verify this new scheme. Its performances on convergence and diversity have been statistically examined and comparisons with other evolutionary algorithms are carried out. It has been discovered that this new scheme is robust and able to provide outcomes quickly and accurately. A stringent measure of binary-indicator is also applied for algorithm classification. The outcome from this test indicates that the JG paradigm is a very competitive scheme for multiobjective optimization and also a compatible evolutionary computing scheme when speed in convergence, diversity, and accuracy are simultaneously required.

Experimental Evidence on Inequity Aversion and Self-Selection Between Incentive Contracts

This paper reports on the results of an experiment testing whether the agents selfselect between a competitive payment scheme and a revenue-sharing scheme depending on their inequity aversion. Average efficiency should be increased when these payment schemes are endogenously chosen by agents. We show that the choice of the competition is negatively affected by disadvantageous inequity aversion and risk aversion. In the second half of the experiment, the effect of individual preferences is indirect through the effect of past results. The self-selection of agents increases the efficiency of the competitive scheme but not that of the revenue-sharing scheme, due to a heterogeneity of behaviors.

Referring To a Frame? Some Reflections on the European Contract Law Project

In 2005 the Joint Network on European Private Law was entrusted by the European Commission with drafting a Common Frame of Reference (CFR) for European contract law. In the Commission’s own words, the CFR is to be ‘a tool box for the Commission when preparing proposals, both for the existing acquis and for new instruments’. The Commission could not have emphasised more often that the CFR is not to become a new European Civil Code. Nevertheless, and perhaps paradoxically, the expected outcome of the Network’s efforts is indeed a model law, ie a code, which is to be presented by the end of 2007. This article focuses on two aspects of the overall harmonisation project. First, the constitutional setting for harmonising private law is highlighted. Are there limits to the internal market mandate? It would seem that the post-Maastricht challenge of setting such limits has not yet been resolved. The EC Treaty’s post-Tobacco Advertising Article 95 does not provide unlimited competence to adopt a comprehensive European contract law. However, the lack of concrete criteria leaves much room for activity by the EC legislator. The article describes the criteria stipulated by the European Court of Justice, and also critically discusses the use of empirical data in this respect. In the second part, the meaning of the frame of reference and the first statements on the work in progress are examined. The new instrument will assume a concrete form very soon, and the paradox of drafting a CFR code while making ‘no-code’ claims demands attention. The Commission has defined what the Network should elaborate for the CFR as ‘best solutions’. The article outlines the scope of the CFR and discusses the necessity of such an instrument, as well as the idea of finding ‘best solutions’. In this respect, the idea of a regulatory competition scheme for European contract law is supported. Differences between national legal systems are the essential precondition for a learning process within the Community. At the same time, detecting inconsistencies within the existing acquis is a reasonable concern. One possible role of the CFR is to serve as a quality control instrument when drafting European legislation.

A Study on the Competitive Status and Cooperative Schemes of Korea-China ports

A Study on the Competitive Status and Cooperative Schemes of Korea-China ports

Verslo socialinės atsakomybės teorijų raida

Straipsnyje nagrinėjama verslo socialinės atsakomybės sampratos ir įtakos kaita paplitusių ekonomikos ir vadybos teorijų kontekste. Analizuojami valstybės institucijų, piliečių ir jų organizacijų verslo santykiai, atskleidžiamos verslo socialinių funkcijų traktuotės evoliucionuojant rinkos ūkiui. Korporacijų socialinės atsakomybės koncepcija buvo išplėtota antrojoje XX amžiaus pusėje, tačiau verslo socialinių funkcijų klausimo ištakos - anglų klasikinės politinės ekonomijos atstovų darbai. Svarbiu įmonių socialinės atsakomybės tyrinėjimo etapu tapo suinteresuotųjų grupių teorijos plėtra ir raida. Įmonės išteklių požiūrio teorijoje išryškėjo tendencija verslo socialinį atsakingumą grįsti finansine nauda. Net tradicinės neoklasikinės ekonominės minties atstovų darbuose gausėja argumentų, pateisinančių įmonių socialinių programų kaštus ilgą laikotarpį. Lietuvoje socialinės atsakomybės tyrimai plėtojami žmoniškųjų išteklių teorijos kontekste.

Combinatorial Reverse Auction based Scheduling in Multi-Rate Wireless Systems

Opportunistic scheduling algorithms are effective in exploiting channel variations and maximizing system throughput in multirate wireless networks. However, most scheduling algorithms ignore the per-user quality-of-service (QoS) requirements and try to allocate resources (for example, the time slots) among multiple users. This leads to a phenomenon commonly referred to as the exposure problem, wherein the algorithms fail to satisfy the minimum slot requirements of the users due to substitutability and complementarity requirements of user slots. To eliminate this exposure problem, we propose a novel scheduling algorithm based on two-phase combinatorial reverse auction, with the primary objective of maximizing the number of satisfied users in the system. We also consider maximizing the system throughput as a secondary objective. In the proposed scheme, multiple users bid for the required number of time slots and the allocations are done to satisfy the two objectives in a sequential manner. We provide an approximate solution to the proposed scheduling problem, which is NP-complete. The proposed algorithm has an approximation ratio of (1 + log m) with respect to the optimal solution, where m is the number of slots in a schedule cycle. Simulation results are provided to compare the proposed scheduling algorithm with other competitive schemes.

THE SHINING LIGHTS? PUBLIC SERVICE AWARDS AS AN APPROACH TO SERVICE IMPROVEMENT

Award schemes have proliferated in the public sector worldwide – yet there is little analysis of their role in improving public services through celebrating performance and sharing good practice. This paper theorizes this development, establishing a research agenda to examine the functioning, attractiveness and effectiveness of award schemes, which may be classified as being threshold or competitive schemes. The paper examines a major English competitive award, the Beacon Scheme, and focuses initially on its attractiveness to applicants. The research constructed a database of applications and awards of all English local authorities over six years as well as using interviews and observation. The analysis examined trends over a changing policy context, along with differences in application rates across eligible authorities and perceptions of the scheme. The analysis is used inductively to construct criteria by which the attractiveness of award schemes and their effectiveness in service improvement can be conceptualized.

A versatile technique for visual enhancement of medical ultrasound images

The paper presents a versatile wavelet domain despeckling technique to visually enhance the medical ultrasound (US) images for improving the clinical diagnosis. The method uses the two-sided generalized Nakagami distribution (GND) for modeling the speckle wavelet coefficients and the signal wavelet coefficients are approximated using the generalized Gaussian distribution (GGD). Combining these statistical priors with the Bayesian maximum a posteriori (MAP) criterion, the thresholding/shrinkage estimators are derived for processing the wavelet coefficients of detail subbands. Consequently, two blind speckle suppressors named as GNDThresh and GNDShrink have been implemented and evaluated on both the artificial speckle simulated images and real US images. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the suggested technique both quantitatively and qualitatively as compared to other competitive schemes reported in the image denoising literature, e.g., the proposed method yields a gain of more than 0.36 dB over the best state-of-the-art despeckling method (GenLik), 0.93 dB over SRAD filter, 2.35 dB over Lee filter, and 1.34 dB over Kuan filter in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, when tested on the realistic US images. The visual comparison of despeckled US images and the higher values of quality metrics (coefficient of correlation, edge preservation index, quality index, and structural similarity index) indicate that the new method suppresses the speckle noise well while preserving the texture and organ surfaces. Further, the proposed method will be evaluated on other class of images as well as by employing multiple observer evaluation.

Utility-based downlink power allocation in multicell wireless packet networks

This paper introduces a utility-based radio resource management technique in multicell wireless packet networks. In terms of allocation of base station (BS) downlink transmit power and assignment of resource to users in each cell, we formulate a problem of maximizing system utility which is defined as the sum of cell utilities. The problem, however, is not solvable due to its non-convex property. Thus, we propose a heuristic algorithm based on an intuition obtained from analyzing a simple two-cell problem. Though the heuristic approach also incurs signaling overhead for power coordination between neighboring base stations, it is much less than that of the original approach. Simulation results show the performance of our proposed algorithm compared with two competitive schemes: optimal and maximum power allocation schemes. As expected, the optimal allocation scheme shows the best performance but can not be employed in a real network due to intractable complexity. Our heuristic algorithm performs reasonably well with very low complexity.