Search results for "COMPETITION"
showing 10 items of 1409 documents
A practical solution to the problem of automatic part-of-speech induction from text
2005
The problem of part-of-speech induction from text involves two aspects: Firstly, a set of word classes is to be derived automatically. Secondly, each word of a vocabulary is to be assigned to one or several of these word classes. In this paper we present a method that solves both problems with good accuracy. Our approach adopts a mixture of statistical methods that have been successfully applied in word sense induction. Its main advantage over previous attempts is that it reduces the syntactic space to only the most important dimensions, thereby almost eliminating the otherwise omnipresent problem of data sparseness.
Effects of the Blair/Brown NHS Reforms on Socioeconomic Equity in Health Care
2012
The central objectives of the ‘Blair/Brown’ reforms of the English NHS in the 2000s were to reduce hospital waiting times and improve the quality of care. However, critics raised concerns that the choice and competition elements of reform might undermine socioeconomic equity in health care. By contrast, the architects of reform predicted that accelerated growth in NHS spending combined with increased patient choice of hospital would enhance equity for poorer patients. This paper draws together and discusses the findings of three large-scale national studies designed to shed empirical light on this issue. Study one developed methods for monitoring change in neighbourhood level socioeconomic…
Legislative reforms and market dynamics in the provision of urban water service by private contract operators in Spain
2022
Abstract This paper studies the dynamics of concentration in the Spanish market for the provision of urban water service by private contract operators in the 2000–2020 period. The market is highly concentrated. Concentration increased until 2007, at which point it started to decline when Law 30/2007 on Public Sector Contracts and Organic Law 8/2007 on Political Party Financing were passed; before rising again from 2016 onwards. This latter trend results from strategic behaviour by the two leading operators, acquiring smaller companies with a notable presence in some regional markets. Further legislative reforms aimed at safeguarding space for competition are thus proposed.
Competition and horizontal integration in maritime freight transport
2010
This paper develops a theoretical model for freight transport characterized by competition between means of transport (the road and maritime sectors), where modes are perceived as differentiated products. Competitive behavior is assumed in the road freight sector, and there are constant returns to scale. In contrast, the freight maritime sector is characterized by oligopolistic behavior, where shipping lines enjoy economies of scale. The market equilibrium where the shipping lines behave as profit maximizers, provides a first approximation to the determinants of market shares, profits, and user welfare. We then characterize the equilibrium when horizontal integration of shipping lines occur…
Analysis of different key behavioral patterns to score in elite taekwondoists according to the weight category and gender
2021
Traditionally, research in taekwondo has focused on athletes' overall performance considering the entire sample of the tournament or analyzed selected bouts while ignoring behavioral differences of athletes according to their gender and weight category. Thus, the aim of this study was to analyze the behavioral patterns used to score points in the London Olympic Games according to gender and weight category [fin (FW), feather (FTW), light (LW), and heavy (HW)] of the athletes. A total of 24,940 actions were analyzed by using observational methodology, a mixed method methodology where lag sequential and polar coordinate analysis were applied. Different patterns could be seen in the actions pe…
Showdown in South America: James Scrymser, John Pender, and United States–British Cable Competition
2004
The British dominated the world's submarine cable business over the second half of the nineteenth century, but they encountered significant challenges in the 1880s and 1890s—especially from James Scrymser, an upstart entrepreneur from New York. Scrymser exploited a strategic gap in the cable system in the Western Hemisphere and became locked in a confrontation along the west coast of South America with John Pender, the leading British cable magnate. Scrymser gained the upper hand in Chile by outmaneuvering Pender and used this victory to expand his operations with the telegraph network that linked South America, North America, and Europe.
Food Caching By Willow and Crested Tits: A Test of Scatterhoarding Models
1995
In coniferous forests of Central Finland, Willow (Parus montanus) and Crest- ed Tits (P. cristatus) store seeds in a scattered distribution within their territory during the autumn. Individuals cache and recover food items while moving together as members of mixed-species flocks. The purpose of this study was to test certain predictions of scatter- hoarding models (Stapanian and Smith 1978, Clarkson et al. 1986), which predict how the animal should hoard food items from a superabundant source to maximize the number of caches recovered. Our field experiments gave support to most of the predictions of the models. Individual tits stored seeds closer to the food source when food had been availa…
Intraspecific biodiversity and 'spoilage potential' of Brettanomyces bruxellensis in Apulian wines
2015
Abstract The yeast Brettanomyces bruxellensis, generally considered the main oenological spoilage microbe, is able to survive during the winemaking process and it confers off-odors to wine, in reason of its ability to produce considerable amounts of volatile phenols. Forty-eight isolates of B. bruxellensis, obtained from several wines collected in Apulia (Southern Italy), were genetically characterized using an integrated approach, including a strain biodiversity analysis by Sau-PCR. Furthermore, the production of volatile phenols was assessed in wine and in synthetic medium, confirming the oenological spoilage potential of the analysed strains. Our findings indicate a remarkable genetic va…
Interspecific territoriality in Calopteryx damselflies: the role of secondary sexual characters
2006
Interspecific territoriality is usually interpreted to result from interspecific interference competition, although it may also originate from mistaken species recognition. In the latter case, it may be based on similarity of secondary sexual characters. In the damselfly Calopteryx splendens, males have pigmented wing spots as a sexual character, and males with the largest spots resemble males of another species, Calopteryx virgo. Probably because of this resemblance, C. virgo males are more aggressive towards large- than small-spotted C. splendens males. We examined whether wing spot size of C. splendens males affects territorial interactions between the species. In a removal experiment, t…
Sex roles during conspecific territorial defence in the Zenaida dove, Zenaida aurita
2012
Social monogamy in vertebrates often involves the joint defence of an all-purpose territory by pair members. Although both sexes presumably benefit from holding a territory, sex-related variation is often observed in territory defence at the interspecific level, particularly in birds. Most studies of territorial defence in monogamous birds, however, have been conducted on songbirds or on bird species living in temperate areas. In contrast, data on nonoscine tropical bird species remain scarce. We experimentally studied territorial defence in 20 pairs of Zenaida doves, a tropical and territorial monogamous bird species that maintains year-round pair bonds. Overall, males responded to intrusi…