The Doubtful Profitability of Foggy Pricing* A particular tariff option is said to be foggy when another option or a combination of other tariff options offered by the same firm is always less expensive regardless of the usage profile of any customer. Alternatively, tariff fogginess may refer to the whole set of tariff options and it is related to the low likelihood that a particular tariff opt...

Bactericidal testing historically has exhibited variable reproducibility, even when prior standardized methods were employed. Several modifications to the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) broth macrodilution method are proposed to improve reproducibility. Recommended changes from the approved NCCLS guidelines (M21-A and M26-A) include omitting serum supplementation o...

Because both Rhodamine 123 (R123) and hyperthermia have been shown to be cytotoxic, we examined their effect, independently and in combination, on five different human malignant cell lines in vitro and on cultured melanoma cells grown intradermally in nude mice. The cell lines examined include two human melanomas, UCLA-SO-M14 and UCLASO-M21, the colon cancer cell line HT29, the human lung cance...

This paper explores the development of Cote d’Ivoire’s formal private sector in the years preceding and immediately following the political crises in 1999-2000 and the Civil War that began in 2002. Notably, during the conflict politicians exploited and ex­ acerbated anti-foreigner sentiments, tolerating increasing number of attacks targeting foreigners. We use a unique database from the Registr...

A conventional wisdom in economics posits that more intense market competition, measured in almost any way, reduces firm profit. In this paper, we challenge this conventional wisdom in a simple Cournot model with strategic R&D investments wherein an efficient firm (dominant firm) competes against less efficient firms (fringe firms). We find that an increase in the number of fringe firms can sti...

Thermal expansion coefficients play an important role in the design and analysis of composite structures. A detailed analysis of thermo-mechanical distortion can be performed on microscopic level of a structure. However, for a design and analysis of large structures, the knowledge of effective material properties is essential. Thus, either a theoretical prediction or a numerical estimation of t...

An isoenzyme of transketolase, transketolase-like (TKTL)-1, has been hypothesized to play a pivotal role in the pathophysiology of malignant tumors. Available data are based on the detection of the putative TKTL-1 protein with one particular mouse monoclonal anti-TKTL-1 antibody, clone JFC12T10. In this study it was demonstrated that a) JFC12T10 detects multiple unspecific bands in Western blot...

There have been several experiments 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 which suggest neutrino oscillations. It has been known in the two flavor framework that the solar neutrino deficit can be explained by neutrino oscillation with the set of parameters (∆m⊙, sin 2 2θ⊙) ≃ (O(10−5eV),O(10−2)) (small angle MSW solution), (O(10−5eV),O(1)) (large angle MSW solution), or (O(10−10eV),O(1)) (vacuum oscillation s...

Seven of the approximately 40 subunits of the mammalian respiratory NADH dehydrogenase (Complex I) are encoded in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Their function is almost completely unknown. In this work, a novel selection scheme has led to the isolation of a mouse A9 cell derivative defective in NADH dehydrogenase activity. This cell line carries a near-homoplasmic frameshift mutation in the mtDNA ...

We discuss several new ideas for reactor neutrino oscillation experiments with a Large Liquid Scintillator Detector. We consider two different scenarios for a measurement of the small mixing angle θ13 with a mobile ν̄e source: a nuclear-powered ship, such as a submarine or an icebreaker, and a land-based scenario with a mobile reactor. The former setup can achieve a sensitivity to sin 2θ13 . 0.0...