Inefficient Transfers Research Articles

2D covalent organic framework/reduced graphene oxide hybrid hydrogel for simultaneous power generation and organic contamination degradation in microbial fuel cell

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are promising devices that convert chemical energy into electrical energy via extracellular electron transfer between bacteria and electrodes. However, inefficient extracellular electron transfers and bacteria/electrode interactions often limit their performance. Herein, we demonstrate a hybrid hydrogel assembled by a 2D covalent organic framework (COF) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets as anode materials for MFCs. The 2D COF nanosheets effectively prevent the stacking of rGO nanosheets, resulting in the hybrid hydrogel with a high specific surface area (313.2 m2/g), abundant mesopores and macropores, and high electrical conductivity (492 S/m). The COF material also brings many quinone groups as redox mediators to facilitate electron transfer between bacteria and electrodes. The COF/rGO hybrid hydrogel enhances the growth of Shewanella decolorationis S12 cells, even under the influence of different organic dyes. Dense biofilms are formed on the hybrid hydrogel's surface and inside its macropores, further improving extracellular electron transfers. Assembled MFCs using COF/rGO anodes deliver a maximum power density of 905.1 mW/m2 and can operate for 600 h. They also enable simultaneous power generation and fast organic contamination degradation in electrolytes. This work shows the potential of using 2D nanoarchitectures to promote high-performance MFCs.

Media Co-Coverage and Overreaction in Cross-Industry Information Transfers

This study examines whether media co-coverage – a phenomenon where multiple firms are simultaneously mentioned in the same news article as contextual information – induces excessive inter-industry information transfers between two firms due to the increased saliency of their relationship. Using firms from different product market industries that are co-covered in the same Wall Street Journal article, we find that, after co-coverage, the stock price of a co-covered focal firm reacts positively to the earnings surprise of another early-announcing co-covered peer, followed by a reversal on the focal firm’s subsequent earnings announcement day, while there is no reaction to the peer’s earnings news in the pre-co-coverage period. Further analysis suggests that the transfer and the reversal are stronger when the co-coverage information is more salient to investors, and are concentrated among firms with more active retail trading. These findings suggest that co-coverage in financial media, through the saliency effect, can lead to inefficient cross-industry information transfers.

Chem-bio interface design for rapid conversion of CO2 to bioplastics in an integrated system

Chem-bio interface design for rapid conversion of CO2 to bioplastics in an integrated system

VOLUNTARY REGULATION: EVIDENCE FROM MEDICARE PAYMENT REFORM.

Government programs are often offered on an optional basis to market participants. We explore the economics of such voluntary regulation in the context of a Medicare payment reform, in which one medical provider receives a single, predetermined payment for a sequence of related healthcare services, instead of separate service-specific payments. This "bundled payment" program was originally implemented as a 5-year randomized trial, with mandatory participation by hospitals assigned to the new payment model; however, after two years, participation was made voluntary for half of these hospitals. Using detailed claim-level data, we document that voluntary participation is more likely for hospitals that can increase revenue without changing behavior ("selection on levels") and for hospitals that had large changes in behavior when participation was mandatory ("selection on slopes"). To assess outcomes under counterfactual regimes, we estimate a stylized model of responsiveness to and selection into the program. We find that the current voluntary regime generates inefficient transfers to hospitals, and that alternative (feasible) designs could reduce these inefficient transfers and raise welfare. Our analysis highlights key design elements to consider under voluntary regulation.

High-rate supercapacitor using magnetically aligned graphene

Graphene has been widely used as an electrode material for supercapacitors. However, parallelly-stacked graphene layers often result in inefficient ion diffusion and electron transfers that usually reduce the rate capability of a supercapacitor. In this study, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) composite films were prepared by a solvent evaporation method using PEDOT:PSS as the binder to fix aligned graphene for its good conductivity and strong π-π stacking interactions with the graphene sheets. Analyses using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), nitrogen adsorption-desorption, and small-angle X-ray scattering show that the graphene sheets were well aligned when a magnetic field was applied, though they were oriented randomly without the magnetic field. As a capacitor electrode material, the aligned rGO shows a specific capacitance of 169 F g−1 with a capacitance retention of about 70% at a current density of 50 A g−1 and its cyclic voltammetry (CV) loops maintained a rectangular shape at a voltage scan rate of 2 V s−1. The aligned rGO electrode can help break through the limitations of traditional supercapacitors and increase significantly their charge/discharge rate and power density.

Efficient and Inefficient Sales of Corporate Control: The Case of Going Private

Abstract I analyze the legal rules governing the sale-of-corporate-control in the case of going private transactions and examine whether a controlling shareholder must share the premium associated with sale-of-control. I rely on the framework developed in (Bebchuk, L.A. 1994. “Efficient and Inefficient Sales of Corporate Control,” 109 Quarterly Journal of Economics 957–993) regarding these transactions under the adjusted market rule (AMR) enabling different rights for the controlling and minority shareholders, and under the adjusted equal opportunity rule (AEOR) providing equal rights to the minorities and controller. My main findings are that both rules prevent inefficient transfers, since under both the new controller fully internalizes the externality imposed by extracting private benefits of control. However, the AMR is superior in facilitating efficient transfers. This is because the AEOR can prevent efficient transfers, due to the higher price demanded from the buyer in order to compensate both controller and minorities. In consequence, overall, the AMR dominates the AEOR for transactions in which a company is taken private.

Exchange rate targeting in the presence of foreign debt obligations

We study the impact of foreign debt on the optimal degree of trade-off between the three open economy objectives of the central bank—the desire to smooth exchange rate fluctuations to promote consumption risk sharing, the need for exchange rate flexibility to facilitate expenditure-switching in the face of sticky prices, and the incentive to tilt international prices so as to lower the labor effort of domestic households (terms-of-trade externality)—in a two-country productivity-shock-driven DSGE model with incomplete asset markets and deviations from purchasing power parity. We find that high levels of net foreign debt call for a policy with a significant degree of exchange rate management, which can constrain the extent of otherwise inefficient cross-border wealth transfers that arise due to debt valuation and risk premium effects. In particular, the central bank can improve consumer welfare by up to 0.1% of steady state consumption by responding to exchange rate fluctuations when domestic debt-to-GDP ratio reaches 100%. We also find that the ranking of optimal policy rules depends on the elasticity of import-export substitution. When home and foreign goods are complements, the responsiveness of the real exchange to shocks is muted, in turn mitigating the excessive cross-country wealth transfer associated with the debt valuation effect. In this case, CPI targeting outperforms the nominal peg at high levels of debt by improving international risk sharing.

DianNao family

Machine Learning (ML) tasks are becoming pervasive in a broad range of applications, and in a broad range of systems (from embedded systems to data centers). As computer architectures evolve toward heterogeneous multi-cores composed of a mix of cores and hardware accelerators, designing hardware accelerators for ML techniques can simultaneously achieve high efficiency and broad application scope.While efficient computational primitives are important for a hardware accelerator, inefficient memory transfers can potentially void the throughput, energy, or cost advantages of accelerators, that is, an Amdahl's law effect, and thus, they should become a first-order concern, just like in processors, rather than an element factored in accelerator design on a second step. In this article, we introduce a series of hardware accelerators (i.e., the DianNao family) designed for ML (especially neural networks), with a special emphasis on the impact of memory on accelerator design, performance, and energy. We show that, on a number of representative neural network layers, it is possible to achieve a speedup of 450.65x over a GPU, and reduce the energy by 150.31x on average for a 64-chip DaDianNao system (a member of the DianNao family).<!-- END_PAGE_1 -->

A Novel Leu92 Mutant of HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase with a Selective Deficiency in Strand Transfer Causes a Loss of Viral Replication

The process of reverse transcription (RTN) in retroviruses is essential to the viral life cycle. This key process is catalyzed exclusively by the viral reverse transcriptase (RT) that copies the viral RNA into DNA by its DNA polymerase activity, while concomitantly removing the original RNA template by its RNase H activity. During RTN, the combination between DNA synthesis and RNA hydrolysis leads to strand transfers (or template switches) that are critical for the completion of RTN. The balance between these RT-driven activities was considered to be the sole reason for strand transfers. Nevertheless, we show here that a specific mutation in HIV-1 RT (L92P) that does not affect the DNA polymerase and RNase H activities abolishes strand transfer. There is also a good correlation between this complete loss of the RT's strand transfer to the loss of the DNA clamp activity of the RT, discovered recently by us. This finding indicates a mechanistic linkage between these two functions and that they are both direct and unique functions of the RT (apart from DNA synthesis and RNA degradation). Furthermore, when the RT's L92P mutant was introduced into an infectious HIV-1 clone, it lost viral replication, due to inefficient intracellular strand transfers during RTN, thus supporting the in vitro data. As far as we know, this is the first report on RT mutants that specifically and directly impair RT-associated strand transfers. Therefore, targeting residue Leu92 may be helpful in selectively blocking this RT activity and consequently HIV-1 infectivity and pathogenesis. Reverse transcription in retroviruses is essential for the viral life cycle. This multistep process is catalyzed by viral reverse transcriptase, which copies the viral RNA into DNA by its DNA polymerase activity (while concomitantly removing the RNA template by its RNase H activity). The combination and balance between synthesis and hydrolysis lead to strand transfers that are critical for reverse transcription completion. We show here for the first time that a single mutation in HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (L92P) selectively abolishes strand transfers without affecting the enzyme's DNA polymerase and RNase H functions. When this mutation was introduced into an infectious HIV-1 clone, viral replication was lost due to an impaired intracellular strand transfer, thus supporting the in vitro data. Therefore, finding novel drugs that target HIV-1 reverse transcriptase Leu92 may be beneficial for developing new potent and selective inhibitors of retroviral reverse transcription that will obstruct HIV-1 infectivity.

Developing Interaction Shrinkage Parameters for the Liu Estimator — with an Application to the Electricity Retail Market

In this article we examine multicollinearity in the standard OLS interaction-term model--a problem often disregarded by practitioners and in previous research. As a remedy we propose a number of new shrinkage parameters based on the Liu (Commun Stat 22:393---402, 1993) estimator. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we evaluate the robustness of all models for different data-generating processes under varying conditions such as altered sample sizes and error distributions. In the simulation study it is demonstrated that the Liu estimator, which is robust to multicollinearity, systematically outperforms the traditionally applied OLS approach. The simple reason is that interaction models by definition always induce substantial multicollinearity, which in turn distorts the inference of OLS. Conversely, the Liu estimator is robust against multicollinearity in interaction-term models. The advantages of our Liu-based method are also demonstrated in practice when examining the efficiency of the Swedish power retailing market. By the use of this unique data set we find strong evidence of positive asymmetric price transmission effects. Increases in Nord Pool electricity wholesale spot prices lead to immediate and full increases in the electricity retail prices, but decreases in Nord Pool prices are not completely passed down or are delayed before being passed down to consumers. This finding suggests evidence of inefficient and unjust wealth transfers from consumers to retailers in the Swedish power market.

Productivity affects the density–body mass relationship of soil fauna communities

The productivity of ecosystems and their disturbance regime affect the structure of animal communities. However, it is not clear which trophic levels benefit the most from higher productivity or are the most impacted by disturbance. The density–body mass (DBM) relationship has been shown to reflect changes in the structure of communities subjected to environmental modifications, so far, mainly in aquatic systems. We tested how different seawater inundation frequencies and cattle grazing, which both disturbed and impacted the productivity of a terrestrial system, a salt marsh, affected the size structure of soil fauna communities, expressed by their DBM relationship. We hypothesized that either: (1) all the trophic levels of soil fauna would benefit from higher productivity (i.e., amount of litter mass), reflected by a higher Y-intercept of the DBM relationship; (2) only smaller animals would benefit, reflected by a lower slope of the relationship; (3) or only larger animals would benefit, reflected by a higher slope of the relationship. We collected a large range of soil fauna from different elevation levels in grazed and ungrazed areas, thence subjected to different levels of productivity, represented by litter mass, with the most inundated and grazed area as the least productive one. Considering that pore size must be smaller in inundated and grazed areas, productivity seemed to be a greater factor influencing species distribution than soil structure. We found slopes lower than −0.75, showing that large animals dominated the community. However, a difference between the DBM relationships of the most and least frequently inundated ungrazed sites indicated that higher productivity benefited the smaller animals. Our findings show that high productivity does not equally affect the different trophic levels of this soil fauna community, suggesting inefficient transfers of energy from one trophic level to another, as smaller species benefitted more from higher productivity.

Efficient and Inefficient Sales of Corporate Control: The Case of Going Private

This paper analyzes the legal rules governing the sale of corporate control in the specific case of going private transactions and examines whether a controlling shareholder must share the premium associated with a sale-of-control. The paper is based on the framework developed in Bebchuk (1994) for analysis of these sale-of-control transactions under the adjusted market rule (AMR) that enables constitution of different rights for the controlling shareholder and the minority shareholders and under the adjusted equal opportunity rule (AEOR) that provides equal rights to the minorities and the controlling shareholder. The paper’s main findings are that both the AMR and the AEOR prevent inefficient transfers, since the new controller fully internalizes the externality imposed by extracting private benefits of control under both rules. However, the AMR is superior to the AEOR in facilitating efficient transfers. This is because the AEOR can prevent efficient transfers, due to the higher price demanded from the buyer in order to compensate both majority and minority shareholders. As a consequence, overall, the AMR dominates the AEOR for transactions in which a company is taken private.

The Mandatory Bid Rule: Efficient, After All?

The mandatory bid rule has its origins in the UK and now applies throughout the EU and in many other jurisdictions. Under a mandatory bid, an acquirer of a controlling stake in a listed company has to offer to the remaining shareholders a buy‐out of their minority stakes at a price equal to the consideration received by the incumbent controller. While the rule warrants that no value‐destroying control transfers take place, it is often criticised for preventing value‐increasing transactions. This paper challenges some of the claims made by critics of mandatory bids. Highlighting the effects of synergy gains in private sale‐of‐control transactions, it is shown that mandatory bids prevent inefficient control transfers, where minority shareholder protection rules provide inadequate protection. Furthermore, mandatory bids help facilitate transfers to the most efficient bidders in multi‐bidder settings. The mandatory bid is justifiable, on economic grounds, in wider circumstances than is commonly assumed by law and economics scholars.

A Hospital-to-Nursing Home Transfer Process Associated With Low Hospital Readmission Rates While Targeting Quality of Care, Patient Safety, and Convenience: A 20-Year Perspective

Safe patient transfer from hospitals to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) is one of the most logistically challenging safety problems in the US medical system. The authors describe a community that experienced inefficient transfers in the 1990s, spurring development of continuous quality improvement (CQI) methods to develop transfer forms and processes to improve efficiency. The community established a Geriatric Forum for educational and process improvement purposes. Attendees consist of anyone involved with care of older patients in the community. Over the years, minor environmental changes forced periodic adjustments to transfer processes. The need for adjustment is identified by asking the simple question, "Have any problems occurred with transfers lately?" When problems are identified, forum attendees make process changes. The current forms and processes are discussed in detail. Initial improvement in efficiency of transfers also produced improvements in patient safety and quality of medical care according to periodic internal surveys. During 2009, this community's 30-day rehospitalization rate of patients discharged to a SNF was 14.75%, lower than any national or state average reported rate. Developing hospital-to-SNF transfer methods focusing on the traditional CQI goals of efficiency, patient safety, and quality of care also yields lower hospital readmission rates. Because themethodology is that of CQI, a widely taught skill, similar programs could be established between any hospital and the SNFs to which it discharges patients. The particular examples of transfer forms and processes described might be helpful to other programs.

Time to Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer in National Comprehensive Cancer Network Institutions

High-quality care must be not only appropriate but also timely. We assessed time to initiation of adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer as well as factors associated with delay to help identify targets for future efforts to reduce unnecessary delays. Using data from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Outcomes Database, we assessed the time from pathological diagnosis to initiation of chemotherapy (TTC) among 6622 women with stage I to stage III breast cancer diagnosed from 2003 through 2009 and treated with adjuvant chemotherapy in nine NCCN centers. Multivariable models were constructed to examine factors associated with TTC. All statistical tests were two-sided. Mean TTC was 12.0 weeks overall and increased over the study period. A number of factors were associated with a longer TTC. The largest effects were associated with therapeutic factors, including immediate postmastectomy reconstruction (2.7 weeks; P < .001), re-excision (2.1 weeks; P < .001), and use of the 21-gene reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction assay (2.2 weeks; P < .001). In comparison with white women, a longer TTC was observed among black (1.5 weeks; P < .001) and Hispanic (0.8 weeks; P < .001) women. For black women, the observed disparity was greater among women who transferred their care to the NCCN center after diagnosis (P (interaction) = .008) and among women with Medicare vs commercial insurance (P (interaction) < .001). Most observed variation in TTC was related to use of appropriate therapeutic interventions. This suggests the importance of targeted efforts to minimize potentially preventable causes of delay, including inefficient transfers in care or prolonged appointment wait times.

Tax Motivated Takings

Tax motivated takings are takings by a local government aimed purely at increasing its tax base. Such an action was justified by the Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. New London, which allowed the use of eminent domain for a private redevelopment project on the grounds that the project promised spillover public benefits in the form of jobs and taxes. This paper argues that tax motivated takings can lead to inefficient transfers of land for the simple reason that assessed values understate owners' true values. We, therefore, propose a reassessment scheme that may reduce the risk of this sort of inefficiency.

Favoritism and reverse discrimination

We analyze the inefficiency that may arise in the form of reverse discrimination in the presence of favoritism or nepotism. Favoritism is typically associated with inefficient transfers to the core support of the incumbent government. But inefficiency that is opposite in nature may also arise through the electoral process in a political environment where favoritism is pervasive. We show that if the policy maker is sufficiently office seeking, a socially efficient action may never be taken if it yields benefits to his core support due to reputational concerns. Hence, the core support of the incumbent may fare worse than other groups. We also consider the implications of policies such as anti-nepotism laws or term limits in the presence of favoritism.

Causation By Presumption? Why the Supreme Court Should Reject Phantom Losses and Reverse Broudo

The Supreme Court is about to hear Dura Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Broudo, a case in which the Ninth Circuit significantly liberalized the standards applicable to federal securities litigation. In response to a companion article by Professor Merritt Fox, which favors such a liberalization and even the abandonment of loss causation as a necessary element, Professor Coffee argues that any change in causation standards that permits a plaintiff to escape showing a decline in the security's stock price attributable to the material misstatement or omission gives rise to perverse incentives, which would likely result in the award of phantom losses that may have been caused instead by other factors, such as a bubble. More generally, he argues that the securities class action against the corporate defendant in cases of secondary stock drops appears to serve little legitimate function, advancing neither compensatory nor deterrent ends. Instead, such actions against the corporation (as opposed to actions against gatekeepers, controlling persons or the corporation in the primary setting) principally effect inefficient wealth transfers among largely diversified shareholders. Given the legal and other transaction costs involved, shareholders appear likely to be net losers from such actions. As a result, he concludes that further minimization of the causation requirement should await policy clarification of the role of the fraud on the market action against a non-trading issuer defendant.

WHITE ELECTROLUMINESCENT DEVICES USING POLYMER BLENDS

White light-emitting devices were fabricated using the blends of blue, green, red emissive polymers of poly[9,9-(2′-ethylhexyl)fluorene] (PEHF), poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-2,7-vinylene) (POFV), poly(2-(3′,7′-dimethyloctyloxy)-5-methoxy-1,4-phenylene-1-cyanovinylene) (CN-PPV) and poly(2-(2′-ethylhexyloxy)-5-methoxy-1,4-phenylenevinylene) (MEH-PPV). Inefficient energy transfers between the blue polymer and the green or the red polymer, which was observed in PL spectra of the blend films, provides a good advantage to get a white light emission due to better blend ratio controllability. The EL devices were fabricated with ITO/PEDOT/blend/Ca/Al configuration and good white light-emission was obtained for a certain blend ratio. The light-emission was observable from 4 V and the maximum brightness of 400 cd/m2was obtained with the device.

White Electroluminescent Devices Using Polymer Blends

AbstractWhite light-emitting devices were fabricated using the blends of blue, green, red emissive polymers of poly[9,9-(2'-ethylhexyl)fluorene] (PEHF), poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-2,7-vinylene) (POFV), poly(2-(3',7'-dimethyloctyloxy)-5-methoxy-1,4-phenylene-1-cyanovinylene) (CNPPV) and poly(2-(2'-ethylhexyloxy)-5-methoxy-1,4-phenylenevinylene) (MEH-PPV). Inefficient energy transfers between the blue polymer and the green or the red polymer, which was observed in PL spectra of the blend films, provides a good opportunity to get white light emission due to better blend ratio controllability. The EL devices were fabricated with ITO/PEDOT/blend/Ca/Al configuration and good white light-emission was obtained for a certain blend ratio. The light-emission was observable from 4V and a maximum brightness of 400 cd/m2 was obtained with the device.