It has long been argued in scholarly research that powerful third parties make excellent third parties due to their superior economic and military capabilities, yet surprisingly little scholarly attention has been paid to superpower mediation and bias, and how it affects post-conflict levels of bias. While it is expected that powerful mediators, with their leverage and ability to enforce peace agreements with military force will be biased mediators, cases of mediation by superpowers shows this is often not the case. By exploring the phenomenon of post-conflict levels of violence and how it is correlated with great power mediation bias, this study focuses on specific cases of superpower mediation, while allowing for the idiosyncracies of each conflict to be integrated. Guided by previous empirircal findings, this study argues that levels of post-conflict violence will be lower in countries mediated by biased superpowers due to the leverage, influence and credibility they bring to the mediation process, and ability to 'deliver their side' in negotiations. This study will employ a structured focused comparison to provide a systemic comparison to test the hypothesis on three selected conflicts, the 2001/02 India-Pakistan standoff, the Dayton Agreement and Oslo peace process.

No description available.

The CB1 cannabinoid receptor is a G-protein coupled receptor highly expressed throughout the central nervous system, that has been suggested as a target for the treatment of various disorders, including anxiety, pain and neurodegeneration. Despite the wide therapeutic potential of CB1, development of potential drug candidates has long been hindered by concerns about adverse effects, rapid tolerance development and abuse potential. Ligands that produce biased signaling have been proposed as a strategy to dissociate therapeutic and adverse effects for a variety of G-protein coupled receptors. Biased signaling involves selective activation of a signaling transducer in detriment of another, mainly involving selective activation of G-protein signaling or b-arrestin signaling. However, biased signaling at the CB1 receptor is poorly understood due to the lack of strongly biased agonists. The development of biased agonists would be aided by understanding the molecular mechanism that leads to biased signaling. Although the structure of CB1 has been resolved in the inactive state and in the canonical active state, which allows G-protein signaling, little is known about the alternative active state that allows b-arrestin biased signaling. Therefore, we set out to investigate molecular and pharmacological tools that could shed light on the mechanism of CB1 biased signaling and to characterize novel allosteric ligands with a biased signaling profile. Using molecular dynamics stimulation of CB1 bound to a ORG27569, an allosteric ligand that stimulates b-arrestin signaling and inhibits G-protein signaling, we proposed single amino acid mutations that were predicted to impact b-arrestin signaling, and expressed wild-type and mutated CB1 receptor in HEK293 cells to measure signaling through different signaling transducers. We found that N7.49 and Y7.53, two amino acids in the highly conserved NPXXY motif, were essential for b-arrestin recruitment and signaling, but mutating them to Ala and Phe, respectively, did not impact G-protein signaling. We also found that I2.43, a functionally conserved amino acid on transmembrane helix 2, negatively regulates a switch in the rotameric position of Y7.53, as mutating I2.43 to Ala reduced steric hindrance upon Y7.53 and enhanced b-arrestin1 recruitment and signaling, while mutating it to Thr, a polar residue that would further hinder Y7.53, partially inhibited b-arrestin recruitment. Therefore, we concluded that N7.49 and Y7.53 form a hydrogen bond network along with D2.50 that is essential for the alternative active state that stimulates b-arrestin biased signaling. N7.49 acts as a fulcrum on which transmembrane helix 7 can bend, and Y7.53 acts as a rotamer toggle switch, stabilizing conformational changes on the intracellular end of transmembrane helix 7. This is the first record of a molecular mechanism for CB1 b-arrestin biased signaling involving the NPXXY motif. Due to the highly conserved character of these residues, it is possible that this mechanism can also be applied to other class A G-protein coupled receptors. In addition, we characterized novel biased allosteric ligands that stimulate or inhibit b-arrestin1 signaling. Two ORG27569 analogs were found to enhance orthosteric agonist induced b-arrestin1 recruitment and extracellular-signal regulated kinase 1/2 phosphorylation (pERK), with no effect on G-protein signaling. Two pregnenolone analogs absent of the steroid scaffold were found to inhibit pERK signaling independent of Gprotein signaling, indicating that they hinder b-arrestin dependent signaling. Since these analogs are believed to mediate their effects via stimulation or inhibition of conformational changes on transmembrane helix 7, our findings support a role for this domain on the alternative active state of CB1. In contrast, a GAT211 analog, GAT1601, had no effect on recruitment of b-arrestin1, but stimulated G-protein signaling and slightly enhanced barrestin2 recruitment. This compound binds to an allosteric site, where it stimulates the canonical active state of CB1 by facilitating the outward movement of transmembrane helix 6. Altogether, the results presented in this dissertation suggest that CB1 b-arrestin biased signaling is regulated by the NPXXY motif, which stimulates conformational changes on the transmembrane helix 7/helix 8 elbow, and that stimulating or hindering these conformational changes can enhance or disrupt CB1 b-arrestin biased signaling. However, facilitating the movement of transmembrane helix 6 favors G-protein biased signaling. Our findings provide molecular and pharmacological tools that will be of great importance to structure guided drug design and to future studies on the functional consequences of biased signaling at the CB1 receptor.

It turns out that twos complement is just one of many ways to use binary to represent negative numbers. In this episode, we examine the use of offset or biased notation to represent signed integers.

The essay consists of three chapters. In chapter 1, I find that wages in U.S. regions have been diverging instead of converging from 1975 onward. This coincides with the period of accelerating skill-biased technological change. A decomposition of the divergence rate indicates three channels underlying the divergence: (1) an ever-widening wage gap between college graduates and high school graduates, (2) an increasing within-education group wage differential across regions, and (3) a concentration of skill composition across local labor markets. I then developed an endogenous skill-biased technology adoption model in which firms invest capital more intensively in regions with higher employment share of college graduates, explaining these three channels jointly. Finally I quantitatively assess the model by separately calibrating the regional aggregate production function; the results show that the relative skilled-labor efficiency has been persistently higher in skill-abundant regions, nevertheless the countrywide skill-biased technological change, is the main force making divergence happening. Chapter 2 studies energy-saving technological change in U.S. manufacturing sector, whose intensive margin and extensive margins are identified. I find that energy and capital are mostly complementary to each other, while labor is substitutive to energy-capital composite. However, a Cobb-Douglas nesting of labor is rejected. Quantitative exercise shows that in the post-crisis period, within in industry energy-saving technological change accounts for the largest proportion of the aggregate sectoral energy efficiency promotion in the long run. In contrast, in the short run, factor adjustment combined with sectoral shift accounts for the largest proportion of energy intensity reduction. Lastly, I provide evidence that structural change has taken place around the oil crisis in 1970s, which is consistent with the existing literature. In chapter 3, I documented the increasing dispersion of skill composition across different areas in the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. Housing Market has experienced a dramatic increase in the housing price, as well as a similarly increase in its dispersion across metropolitan areas. A set of related stylized facts are documented in this paper. First, the real wage goes similarly as real housing prices, but quantitatively different. Second, the rents and housing prices have not been going in the exactly same way, in terms of first two moments. Third, we find that local income inequality is positively correlated to the local housing price level. Based on these observations, we build a model where a dispersed skill-biased technology change can account for all the phenomena at the same time. / Ph. D.

No description available.

In epidemiological studies, subjects with disease (prevalent cases) differ from newly diseased (incident cases). They tend to survive longer due to sampling bias, and related covariates will also be biased. Methods for regression analyses have recently been proposed to measure the potential effects of covariates on survival. The goal is to extend the dependence measure of Kent (1983), based on the information gain, in the context of length-biased sampling. In this regard, to estimate information gain and dependence measure for length-biased data, we propose two different methods namely kernel density estimation with a regression procedure and parametric copulas. We will assess the consistency for all proposed estimators. Algorithms detailing how to generate length-biased data, using kernel density estimation with regression procedure and parametric copulas approaches, are given. Finally, the performances of the estimated information gain and dependence measure, under length-biased sampling, are demonstrated through simulation studies.

Income inequalities have become a matter of major concern following reports that the working class and lower middle class of developed economies have income levels that are falling behind. Few studies have been conducted on the regional level even though this perspective might better capture the development of income inequalities, since national averages might hide local differences. This study uses panel data for 286 Swedish municipalities in between 1991-2017 and fixed effect regressions, to examine if the theory of a skill-biased technological change could be used to explain resent developments. We find an labor income divergence for Swedish municipalities within the studied time period. The share of high skilled workers is found to be a good predictor of the growth in regional labor income inequalities, while an ageing population of the regions falling behind counteracts the growth of inequality, possibly leading to an underestimation of the size of regional labor income divergence. These results are in support of a skill-biased technological change at work and a job polarization transforming regional labor markets and regional societies. We conclude that adopting a regional perspective in the analysis and development of future economic growth policies is necessary to ensure long term economic growth, equality of opportunity and social cohesion.

論文摘要 本論文由兩篇獨立的文章所構成，第一篇文章從個體角度出發，探討臺灣產業出口與成長之間的關聯性；第二篇文章則以總體的角度，分析世界各主要國家經濟成長的型態(包括出口偏向型的成長與進口偏向型的成長)對該國貿易條件的影響。 長久以來，出口與產出之間的相互影響向來是廣受重視的議題。在國際經濟領域中，多數研究均專注於兩者間理論之建立，關於實證方面的探討並不多見，而個體角度來探討產業出口與成長之間的文獻更是稀少，以臺灣產業出口與成長之間因果關係為對象的研究則付之闕如。臺灣的經濟成就向來被歸功於出口擴張政策的成功，但出口導向的影響範圍究竟擴及多少產業的效果仍不明朗，因此第一篇文章關心的重點，在於探討對我國的產業而言出口擴張是否是個有效的政策？而究竟出口導向和產出導向哪一種政策的效果較好，也是本文所關心的目標。 第二篇文章討論成長型態對貿易條件的影響。由於出口偏向型的成長會使本國願意以更多出口財來換取進口財，將會使本國出口財的國際價格相對下降，進而惡化本國的貿易條件，改善外國的貿易條件；反之，在進口偏向型成長的情況下，出口財的減少則會使本國貿易條件改善，外國貿易條件惡化。是以一國的經濟成長對該國貿易條件的影響，將取決於其生產可能曲線外移的方向。本文嘗試以八個工業化國家和七個開發中國家為對象，在加入成長偏向政策、物價、匯率、所得移轉、對外投資、貿易平衡、貿易開放程度等因素的考慮下，來驗證成長型態對其貿易條件的影響效果是否符合理論的規範。 / The purpose of first paper is to investigate the empirical relationships between exports and domestic production in 22 Taiwan main industries, using time series data for the period 1982:01~2002:07. Different from the previous literatures, this paper examines the relations by taking into account industrial data because we are wondering whether the causal links between exports and outputs still sustain in individual industry, and either export promotion or production-led policies are more effective for industrial production. Hence, three related topics will be discussed: to recognize the incidence of export promotion policy in Taiwan industries, to explore either export promotion or production-led policies is more effective for industrial production, and to detect whether all exportation-oriented industries would simultaneously support export promotion hypothesis. The findings of the econometric analysis employing Granger causality test do not have enough evidence to support that the proportion of exports to production is a necessary condition for generating export promotion. Nevertheless, this study suggests that production makes great influence on exports in Taiwan individual industry but the effects of exports on production is not so prevailing as we thought before. Therefore, the influence of production to exports in Taiwan industry is more prevalent than that of exports to outputs. The purpose of the second paper is to examine the impacts of growth types on terms of trade by making a comparison between 8 industrial countries and 7 developing countries (involving 3 NICs countries). This paper finds that the theories seems not be supported because evidence shows the occurrence of positive effects of export-biased growth to terms of trade are more prevalent than negative ones. Moreover, the empirical results of negative incidence shown by import-biased growth come into conflict with theories, and the impacts of import-biased growth on terms of trade are indefinite. In addition, most results reveals that export-biased growth and import-biased growth policies in industrial countries are invalid, and most results in NICs and developing countries are ambiguous while export-biased growth or import-biased growth policies are adopted. Furthermore, the empirical results reveal that income transferring have great or opposite influence in NICs and developing countries, and trade openness is advantageous to NICs and developing countries but is disadvantageous to developed ones.

In peace and conflict research the study of peace agreement implementation has often focussed on the duration of peace. This however risks overlooking the implementation of the peace agreement as a whole. Simultaneously, the relationship between biased versus neutral mediators and the degree of agreement implementation has not been systematically investigated. This study addresses this gap by asking: how does biased mediation affect the implementation of peace agreements? I apply the logic of theories on artificial incentives for peace (Beardsley 2008) and argue that biased mediators will create and use more temporary incentives to induce the warring parties towards a negotiated settlement. Once a peace agreement is signed and the mediator’s influence wanes, it is argued that these artificial incentives ultimately result in reduced momentum for implementation and a lower degree of implementation overall. This leads to the expected hypothesis that if a mediator is biased peace agreements will be implemented to a lower degree. Using the methods of structured, focussed comparison and process tracing, this paper will compare the mediation and implementation processes in the Tajikistan and Burundian civil wars. The findings display partial support for the hypothesised causal mechanism, although the hypothesis overall is not supported.