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This paper aims to consider the effects of a merger on technology adoption and welfare in the presence of passive cross ownership. Merger increases investments in process technology and may increase welfare. The results are important for antitrust policies and suggest that the antitrust authorities may not need to be too concerned about mergers in industries with cross ownership.

Game-theoretic analysis.

Merger increases investments in process technology and may increase welfare.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is original.

Effective agricultural product price regulation policies depend on market integration and the degree of symmetry in the transmission of agricultural product price signals. This study analyzes the transmission and asymmetry of the price series between the Ouagadougou consumer market and assembly markets considering three primary cereal products in Burkina Faso.

This study applies the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) econometric model, which is an asymmetric extension of the ARDL cointegration model. The price series examined covers the period extending from January 2005 to December 2020.

Our analysis provides novel insights regarding short- and long-term asymmetric effects in the transmission of price signals between assembly markets and the consumer market. We also determine that the effects of negative shocks are more persistent than those of positive shocks in several markets.

For markets that exhibit symmetrical responses of assembly market prices to consumer market prices, the results could reflect the continuous efforts of market players, particularly the government, to eliminate market failures and ensure the long-term efficiency of cereal markets. To this end, an agricultural market information system can have a crucial role in easing information access for all market players.

This study provides new evidence regarding the nature of the transmission and asymmetry of price information on primary cereal products in the largest markets in Burkina Faso. Applying the NARDL model makes it possible to simultaneously estimate short- and long-term asymmetry.

Background: Hyperglycemia in pregnancy (HIP) is a common medical complication during pregnancy and is associated with several short and long-term maternal-fetal consequences. We aimed to determine the prevalence and factors associated with HIP among Ugandan women.

Methods: We consecutively enrolled eligible pregnant women attending antenatal care at Kawempe National Referral Hospital, Kampala, Uganda in September 2020. Mothers known to be living with diabetes mellitus or haemoglobinopathies and those with anemia (hemoglobin <11g/dl) were excluded. Random blood sugar (RBS) and glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA_1c) were measured on peripheral venous blood samples. HIP was defined as an HbA1c ≥5.7% with its subsets of diabetes in pregnancy (DIP) and prediabetes defined as HbA1c_1c of ≥6.5% and 5.7–6.4% respectively. ROC curve analysis was performed to determine the optimum cutoff of RBS to screen for HIP.

Results: A total of 224 mothers with a mean (±SD) age 26±5 years were enrolled, most of whom were in the 2^nd or 3^rd trimester (94.6%, n=212) with a mean gestation age of 26.6±7.3 weeks. Prevalence of HIP was 11.2% (n=25) (95% CI: 7.7–16.0). Among the mothers with HIP, 2.2% (n=5) had DIP and 8.9% (n=20) prediabetes. Patients with HIP were older (28 years vs. 26 years, p=0.027), had previous tuberculosis (TB) contact (24% vs. 6.5%, p=0.003) and had a bigger hip circumference (107.8 (±10.4) vs. 103.3 (±9.7) cm, p=0.032). However only previous TB contact was predictive of HIP (odds ratio: 4.4, 95% CI: 1.2–14.0; p=0.022). Using HbA_1c as a reference variable, we derived an optimum RBS cutoff of 4.75 mmol/L as predictive of HIP with a sensitivity and specificity of 90.7% and 56.4% (area under the curve=0.75 (95% CI: 0.70–0.80, p<0.001)), respectively.

Conclusions: HIP is common among young Ugandan women, the majority of whom are without identifiable risk factors.

Selecting and scheduling optimal project portfolio simultaneously is a complex decision-making problem faced by organizations to realize the strategy. However, dynamic synergy relationships among projects complicate this problem. This study aims at constructing a project portfolio selection and scheduling (PPSS) model while quantifying the dynamic synergetic effects to provide decision support for managing PPSS problems.

This study develops a mathematical model for PPSS with the objective of maximal project portfolio benefits (PPBs). To make the results align with the strategy, comprehensive PPBs are divided into financial and non-financial aspects based on the balanced scorecard. Then, synergy benefits evolve dynamically in the time horizon, and system dynamics is employed to quantify them. Lastly, a case example is conducted to verify the applicability of the proposed model.

The proposed model is an applicable model for PPSS while incorporating dynamic synergy. It can help project managers obtain the results that which project should be selected and when it should start while achieving optimal PPBs.

This study complements prior PPSS research in two aspects. First, financial and non-financial PPBs are designed as new criteria for PPSS, making the results follow the strategy. Second, this study illuminates the dynamic characteristic of synergy and quantifies the synergetic effect. The proposed model provides insights into managing a PPSS effectively.

Even if there is a wealth of research highlighting the key role of values and cultural significance for heritage management and, defining specific interventions on built heritage, seldom the relation to their leading values and values hierarchy have been researched. How do values and interventions relate? What values trigger most and least interventions on heritage? How do these values relate and characterize interventions? And what are the values hierarchy that make the interventions on built heritage differ?

This paper conducts a systematic content analysis of 69 international doctrinal documents – mainly adopted by Council of Europe, UNESCO, and ICOMOS, during 1877 and 2021. The main aim is to reveal and compare the intervention concepts and their definitions, in relation to values. The intensity of the relationship between intervention concepts and values is determined based on the frequency of mentioned values per intervention.

There were three key findings. First, historic, social, and aesthetical values were the most referenced values in international doctrinal documents. Second, while intervention concepts revealed similar definitions and shared common leading values, their secondary values and values hierarchy, e.g. aesthetical or social values, are the ones influencing the variation on their definitions. Third, certain values show contradictory roles in the same intervention concepts from different documents, e.g. political and age values.

This paper explores a novel comparison between different interventions concepts and definitions, and the role of values. The results can contribute to support further research and practice on clarifying the identified differences.