218 research outputs found
Replication data for: Ownership and Productivity in Vertically-Integrated Firms: Evidence from the Chinese Steel Industry
No full textBrandt, Loren, Jiang, Feitao, Luo, Yao, and Su, Yingjun, (2022) “Ownership and Productivity in Vertically Integrated Firms: Evidence from the Chinese Steel Industry.” Review of Economics and Statistics 104:1, 101–115
An automatic system for multidimensional integrated protein chromatography
No full textAn automatic system for multidimensional integrated protein chromatography was designed for simultaneous separation of multiple proteins from complex mixtures, such as human plasma and tissue lysates. This computer-controlled system integrates several chromatographic columns that work independently or cooperatively with one another to achieve efficient high throughputs. The pipelines can be automatically switched either to another column or to a collection container for each UV-detected elution fraction. Environmental contamination is avoided due to the closed fluid paths and elimination of manual column change. This novel system was successfully used for simultaneous preparation of five proteins from the precipitate of human plasma fraction IV (fraction IV). The system involved gel filtration, ion exchange, hydrophobic interaction, and heparin affinity chromatography. Human serum albumin (HSA), transferrin (TO, antithrombin-III (AT-III), alpha 1-antitrypsin (alpha 1-AT), and haptoglobin (Hp) were purified within 3 h. The following recovery and purity were achieved: 95% (RSD, 2.8%) and 95% for HSA, 80% (RSD, 2.0%) and 99% for Tf, 70% (RSD, 2.1%) and 99% for AT-III, 65% (RSD, 2.0%) and 94% for alpha 1-AT, and 50% (RSD, 1.0%) and 90% for Hp. The results demonstrate that this novel multidimensional integrated chromatography system is capable of simultaneously separating multiple protein products from the same raw material with high yield and purity and it has the potential for a wide range of multi-step chromatography separation processes. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
New Perspectives on Chinese Manufacturing Industries Using Microdata
No full textThis dissertation consists of three essays that study the industrial organization of China's manufacturing sector from an empirical perspective. It uses structural estimation to look into the performance of China's manufacturing sector with a particular emphasis on the steel industry - a key sector in China that produces half of the world's steel. This dissertation also examines the financial constraints that manufacturing firms face.
Chapter 1 documents the development of the steel industry in the past two decades. Chapter 2 studies productivity differences in vertically-integrated Chinese steel facilities, using a unique dataset that provides equipment-level information on inputs and output in physical units for each of the three main stages in the steel value chain, i.e., sintering, iron-making and steel making. We find that private integrated facilities are more productive than provincial state-owned facilities, followed by central state-owned facilities. This ranking lines up with our productivity estimates in the two downstream production stages, but central state-owned facilities outperform in sintering, most likely because of their superior access to high-quality raw materials. The productivity differential favoring private facilities declines with the size of integrated facilities, turning negative for facilities larger than the median. We attribute this pattern to differences in the internal configuration of integrated facilities, which reflect the greater constraints confronting expanding private facilities. Increasing returns to scale within each stage of production partially offset these costs, and rationalize the choice of larger facilities.
Chapter 3 draws on the Chinese Industrial Survey Data from 1998 to 2007 to examine financing constraints in the manufacturing sector. Building on the Euler Equation approach and applying the dynamic GMM estimation, we find that on average private firms face more obstacles in accessing credit than state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Contrary to the widely accepted view that China's private sector is largely excluded from formal credit allocation, we find that large firms, both state-owned and private, are not credit constrained. Medium and small SOEs are financially constrained, although to an extent less than their private counterparts of similar size. Moreover, the capabilities of firms in accessing external finance differ by economic region and across industries
Une expérience vécue : l’intersection des langues, du genre et de l'identité dans la traduction
No full text1 online resource (46 pages) : illustrationsIncludes abstract in English and French.Includes bibliographical references (pages 44-46).A saying goes that “to know another language is to possess a second soul.” Passionate about languages, translation and world cultures, the author is always on the way to learn more and decode the meaning of this quote. In this Honors essay, the author is going to explore the topic of gender and resistance in language translation based on her first experience as a translator. Working together with Dr. Bannerjee, Coupeuses d’Azur, an epic French anthology written by Mauritian poet Khal Torabully, is well translated. Based on this particular experience, the author first examines the inherent sexist components in the French language in its rules for grammatical gender, which influences French speakers' way of thinking. Furthermore, the author explores how translation practice, and the role of female translator may help change this current. Secondly, this thesis focuses particularly on the creole language and the musicality of poems in the process of translation from the postcolonial perspective. During the translation process,
the author came across many intricacies and nuances, but that’s what made this journey so challenging and rewarding at the same time. To summarize the highlights of this unique learning path, she also depicts her own lived experience in translation
The emerging regulatory state in China: a study of Shunde's experience
No full textpublished_or_final_versionPolitics and Social AdministrationMasterMaster of Philosoph
Efficient Jacobian-Based Inverse Kinematics With Sim-to-Real Transfer of Soft Robots by Learning
No full textThis article presents an efficient learning-based method to solve the <italic>inverse kinematic</italic> (IK) problem on soft robots with highly nonlinear deformation. The major challenge of efficiently computing IK for such robots is due to the lack of analytical formulation for either forward or inverse kinematics. To address this challenge, we employ neural networks to learn both the mapping function of forward kinematics and also the Jacobian of this function. As a result, Jacobian-based iteration can be applied to solve the IK problem. A sim-to-real training transfer strategy is conducted to make this approach more practical. We first generate a large number of samples in a simulation environment for learning both the kinematic and the Jacobian networks of a soft robot design. Thereafter, a sim-to-real layer of differentiable neurons is employed to map the results of simulation to the physical hardware, where this sim-to-real layer can be learned from a very limited number of training samples generated on the hardware.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Materials and ManufacturingMechatronic Desig
Exploring the Learning Difficulty of Data Theory and Measure
No full textAs learning difficulty is crucial for machine learning (e.g.,
difficulty-based weighting learning strategies), previous literature has
proposed a number of learning difficulty measures. However, no comprehensive
investigation for learning difficulty is available to date, resulting in that
nearly all existing measures are heuristically defined without a rigorous
theoretical foundation. In addition, there is no formal definition of easy and
hard samples even though they are crucial in many studies. This study attempts
to conduct a pilot theoretical study for learning difficulty of samples. First,
a theoretical definition of learning difficulty is proposed on the basis of the
bias-variance trade-off theory on generalization error. Theoretical definitions
of easy and hard samples are established on the basis of the proposed
definition. A practical measure of learning difficulty is given as well
inspired by the formal definition. Second, the properties for learning
difficulty-based weighting strategies are explored. Subsequently, several
classical weighting methods in machine learning can be well explained on
account of explored properties. Third, the proposed measure is evaluated to
verify its reasonability and superiority in terms of several main difficulty
factors. The comparison in these experiments indicates that the proposed
measure significantly outperforms the other measures throughout the
experiments.Comment: Ou Wu is the corresponding author of this wor
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