bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Rules of origin under US trade agreements with Arab countries
Authors: Malkawi Bashar H. 
Published: March 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the different kinds of rules of origin included in the US‐Arab countries free trade agreements (FTAs), and suggest reform measures that should be adopted to ease the complexity and costs of rules of origin in these agreements.Design/methodology/approachThe paper begins with a brief discussion of the concept of free trade, GATT/WTO, and the recently concluded FTAs between the USA and Arab countries. Then, the article analyzes in details rules of origin in the US‐Arab countries FTAs. The analysis includes, among other things, substantial transformation and value‐added tests, product‐specific processes, and other relevant rules of origin. The paper also addresses the documentations and procedures required to prove origin and the costs involved. Finally, the paper offers a set of conclusions and recommendations.FindingsThe paper argues that rules of origin in these FTAs are complex and protectionist and indeed could act barriers to trade. The paper suggests reforming these rules by liberalizing rules of origin for certain products that are subject to very low tariff rates, and implementation of – among other things, full cumulation andde minimisrules of origin.Originality/valueThe findings in the paper are important to policymakers, and any person interested in understanding the effects of rules of origin in trade agreements. It is hoped that the paper will assist officials in Arab countries who contemplate negotiating FTAs by providing them with insightful analysis of rules of origin in existing agreements.
Regional trade agreements and the new theory of trade
Authors: Gounder Neelesh , Chand Prasad Biman 
Published: March 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the two issues of regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the new theory of international trade and draw conclusions for Pacific Island countries (PICs). The authors provide a deeper conceptual treatment of the consequences of RTAs and analyse the new theory of international trade to explore its implications for trade policy in PICs.Design/methodology/approachWith regard to RTAs, the argument is developed in the context of the conjecture that questions the benefits from adopting more open trade policies with neighbours while maintaining restrictive policies towards the rest of the world. The authors draw on international and regional analytical literature and on recent modelling work to review critically the possible gains and losses of RTAs for PICs. In the latter issue, the focus is on the roles of imperfect competition and scale economies and their relevance to PICs.FindingsFreeing up trade gradually and unilaterally and realizing the benefits of comparative advantage remains the best way to maximise welfare. PICs could be worse off under a complex system of overlapping RTAs and existence of RTAs by Australia and New Zealand outside the region has the possibility of marginalizing weak PICs economies.Practical implicationsPICs are currently at a critical juncture in terms of trade policy making with various trade agreements being thrown in the region and this paper has the capacity to provide some answers to policy makers on the approach to take.Originality/valueThe paper offers insights into regional trade agreements and the new theory of trade.
Determinants of foreign direct investment in India
Authors: Singhania Monica , Gupta Akshay 
Published: March 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) in India.Design/methodology/approachUsing macroeconomic variables – GDP, inflation rate, interest rate, patents, money growth and foreign trade – the authors tried to find the best fit model (ARIMA (p,d,q)) to explain variation in FDI inflows into India. The authors tested for various assumptions taken before applying autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) such as heteroscedasticity, autocorrelations, etc. using standard tests and quantified FDI policy changes using dummy variables.FindingsIt was found that of all macroeconomic variables taken, only GDP, inflation rate and scientific research are significant and that FDI Policy changes during years 1995‐1997 have had a significant impact on FDI inflows into India.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors' econometric model explains 63 percent variation in FDI inflows into India. Implicitly, the balance 37 percent variation in FDI inflows is still unexplained and so further study should be undertaken with even wider scope in terms of macroeconomic variables such as exchange rate, etc.Practical implicationsAs a recommendation for future FDI policy planning and implementation, the authors suggest the Government of India gives resources towards variables that have been classified as significant in this paper, namely GDP growth and inflation rate and should open the economy further. Sectors not yet open to FDI investments should be opened and although inflation rate should be controlled but some inflation is beneficial.Originality/valueThere has been no authoritative study until now to find “Determinants of FDI inflow to India” and this paper also goes a step forward and presents accurate models that can be used to forecast FDI inflows based on the macroeconomic variables considered.
WTO remedies and developing countries
Authors: Pfumorodze J. 
Published: March 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse World Trade Organisation (WTO) remedies from a developing country perspective, with a view to suggest reforms in the system.Design/methodology/approachWTO members' proposals for reforming WTO remedies and WTO cases are reviewed in order to determine the need for reforms and the nature of reforms to be undertaken.FindingsWTO remedies are unfavourable to developing countries, most of which are unable to utilise them due to their weaker economies as compared to their developed country counterparts. There is no consensus on the nature of reforms to be undertaken. This paper suggests the need to synthesise the current proposals and develop various workable models.Originality/valueThis paper provides proposals which may improve WTO remedies for the benefit of developing countries, thereby not only strengthening the WTO enforcement mechanism but the multilateral trading system as a whole.
Embedded controlled low‐frequency AC to high‐frequency AC converter fed induction heater
Authors: Dhandapani Kirubakaran , Reddy Sathi Rama 
Published: March 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present, a novel boost‐active clamp bridge single stage high‐frequency zero voltage soft‐switching‐pulse width modulation (ZVS‐PWM) inverter, which converts the utility frequency AC power into high‐frequency AC power with an embedded controller. This single stage high‐frequency inverter is composed of a single‐phase diode bridge rectifier, a non‐smoothing filter, a boost‐active clamp bridge type ZVS‐PWM high‐frequency inverter, and an induction‐heated load with planar type litz wire working coil assembly. Also, the paper discusses how to extend the soft‐switching operation ranges and improve power conversion efficiency.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed converter is simulated and it is implemented using embedded controller.FindingsIt was found that the single stage high‐frequency induction heating (IH) inverter using boosted voltage function can eliminate the DC and low‐frequency components of the working coil current and reduce the power dissipation of the circuit components and switching devices.Originality/valueThe paper shows that the PWM HF inverter is preferred for IH, since it has reduced switching losses and switching stresses. The paper can be extended to PC‐based wireless control, which can be part of a distributed control system in major industrial heating systems.
Safety awareness of practitioners in the Cypriot manufacturing sector
Authors: Boustras Georgios , Bratskas Romaios , Tokakis Vasileios , Efstathiades Andreas 
Published: March 2011

PurposeIn the last few years a number of industrial catastrophes in the Cypriot manufacturing sector have taken place, resulting in losses of millions of Euro and disrupting the industrial production for days and, in a few cases, weeks and months. In the absence of official (or unofficial) statistics regarding the fire preparedness of small and medium enterprises in terms of policy, training and equipment, the purpose of this paper is to gather information and opinions about the current safety situation in the Cypriot manufacturing sector.Design/methodology/approachResults from a nationwide survey in Nicosia are presented in this paper. A closed questionnaire concentrating on industrial (manufacturing) premises affected and non‐affected by a previous fire incident was devised and used in a weighted sample of companies. An open questionnaire was employed for interviewing the managers of fire‐stricken companies. Four industrial areas in Nicosia are under investigation in this study and results are presented.FindingsThe findings of this paper suggest that although, in general, the safety situation is at a relatively good level, there is room for improvement.Originality/valueThis paper discusses the beliefs of the safety managers in relation to safety in their premises and attempts to create a comparison between their opinion and the existing safety cultures in the Cypriot manufacturing sector.
Factors influencing the adaptive re‐use of buildings
Authors: Bullen Peter , Love Peter 
Published: March 2011

PurposeAdaptive re‐use enables a building to suit new conditions. It is a process that reaps the benefit of the embodied energy and quality of the original building in a sustainable manner. Initiatives to improve the sustainability of buildings have tended to focus on new construction projects rather than existing ones. One reason is the tendency to regard old buildings as products with a limited useful life that have to be eventually discarded and demolished. Much of the existing building stock will still be in use for another 100 years. Thus, there is a need to develop policy and strategies that encourage adaptive re‐use and the ongoing sustainability of building stock. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the factors influencing the decision to adopt an adaptive re‐use strategy.Design/methodology/approachAdaptive re‐use is beginning to receive attention, yet there is a lack of consensus as to whether it is an appropriate strategy for meeting the changing needs and demands of developers, occupiers and owners for existing building stock. Considering the limited published research on adaptive re‐use in buildings, particularly in the context of sustainability, a comprehensive review of the normative literature is undertaken to determine the factors influencing the decision‐making process for its use.FindingsIt is revealed that the major drivers for adaptive focus on lifecycle issues, changing perceptions of buildings, and governmental incentives. The barriers to re‐use, on the other hand, include a perception of increased maintenance costs, building regulations, inertia of development criteria and the inherent risk and uncertainty associated with older building stock. The identification of drivers and barriers has enabled a balanced view of the adaptive re‐use debate to be presented.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper concludes that more empirical research is required to examine the role of adaptive re‐use in the context of its contribution to sustainability if it is to become an effective strategy that drives the formulation of public policy for addressing the issues associated with existing building stock.Practical implicationsThe research identifies key adaptive re‐use issues that need to be addressed by policy makers, developers and owners during the formative stages of the design process so that efforts toward sustainability can be ameliorated. Addressing a building's adaptive re‐use will significantly reduce whole life costs, waste and lead to the improved building functionality.Originality/valueThis paper provides policy makers and key decision makers with the underlying factors that need to be considered when implementing an adaptive re‐use policy as part of their sustainability strategy.
Design and construction of a low‐cost economical thermal vacuum chamber for spacecraft environmental testing
Authors: Jayaram Sanjay , Gonzalez Eliu 
Published: March 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the design and construction of a custom‐built low‐cost thermal vacuum chamber (TVC) for spacecraft environmental testing and verification. The paper provides detailed analysis and an insight into the design and development of the chamber. The chamber was specifically constructed for carrying out the thermal and vacuum environmental tests in a 16″ dia × 16″ long horizontal thermal vacuum chamber. The chamber is constructed using a combination of mechanical (roughing) pump and turbo‐molecular pump, used to pump the chamber down to 10−5 Torr and a combination of radiation heaters and nitrogen gas is used to vary the temperature within the chamber from +80 to −50°C.Design/methodology/approachThe TVC equipment is built as part of the picosatellite and nanosatellite program at Space Systems Research Laboratory of Saint Louis University. The equipment is built at a low cost and is suited for testing an entire picosatellite and several components and subsystems of nanosatellite simulating thermal and vacuum conditions similar to space environment. The different main parts of the equipment are described in a way which explains the choice of construction and partly makes it possible to replicate similar equipment.FindingsThe TVC equipment is successfully used to simulate the thermal and vacuum conditions of space similar to the conditions experienced by a picosatellite or nanosatellite in low earth orbit.Research limitations/implicationsThe design and construction of TVC in this paper have broader implications and can be a platform for future research on low‐cost TVC. This equipment can be utilized in the research areas of electronics and communications, biology and medicine to name a few. Thermal and vacuum experiments on several astro‐biological experiments can be performed.Practical implicationsThe paper is intended to be a source of inspiration for industrial or academic space research laboratories which would like to design and construct a similar test‐equipment, instead of investing expensive commercially available alternatives.Originality/valueThe paper discusses in detail, the simplified cost‐effective approach of constructing TVC and also outlines the various issues to be considered. The TVC equipment is custom‐built and is described in an easily understandable way, which makes this a helpful paper for those who wish to produce similar equipment. This will be the only known manuscript in the literature to detail the design and construction of low‐cost, economical TVC.
VLSI interconnects and their testing: prospects and challenges ahead
Authors: Sharma D.K. , Kaushik B.K. , Sharma R.K. 
Published: March 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the functioning of very‐large‐scale integration (VLSI) interconnects and modeling of interconnects and evaluate different approaches of testing interconnects.Design/methodology/approachIn the past, on‐chip interconnect wires were not considered in circuit analysis except in high precision analysis. Wiring‐up of on‐chip devices takes place through various conductors produced during fabrication process. The shrinking size of metal‐oxide semiconductor field effect transistor devices is largely responsible for growth of VLSI circuits. With deep sub‐micron (DSM) technology, the interconnect geometry is scaled down for high wiring density. The complex geometry of interconnects and high operational frequency introduce wire parasitics and inter‐wire parasitics. These parasitics causes delay, power dissipation, and crosstalk that may affect the signal integrity in VLSI system. Accurate analysis, sophisticated design, and effective test methods are the requirement to ensure the proper functionality and reliability of VLSI circuits. The testing of interconnect is becoming important and a challenge in the current technology.FindingsThe effects of interconnect on signal integrity, power dissipation, and delay emerges significantly in DSM technology. For proper performance of the circuit, testing of interconnect is important and emerging challenge in the nanotechnology era. Although some work has been done for testing of interconnect, however, it is still an open area to test the parasitics effects of VLSI/ultra‐large‐scale integration interconnects. Efforts are required to analyze and to develop test methods for crosstalk, delay and power dissipation in current technology with solutions to minimize this effect.Originality/valueThis paper reviews the functioning of VLSI interconnects from micrometer to nanometer technology. The development of various interconnect models from simple short circuit to latest resistance inductance capacitance transmission line model are discussed. Furthermore, various methodologies such as built‐in self test and other techniques for testing interconnect for crosstalk and delay are discussed.
Dominant feedback practices: shaping engineer literacy perceptions
Authors: Harran Marcelle 
Published: March 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe how dominant social practices embedded in situated report‐writing activities in an automotive discourse community in South Africa causally shape component engineers' perceptions of literacy. The study explores how the dominant practices of supervisor feedback and report acceptance causally impact on effective report‐writing perceptions during report text production.Design/methodology/approachCritical ethnography is the preferred methodology as it explores cultural orientations of local practice contexts and incorporates multiple understandings to provide a holistic understanding of the complexity of writing practices. This study focuses on data collected during two interviews and a focus group discussion with four L2 component engineers as well as the questionnaires their two L1 supervisors completed.FindingsThe engineers tended to measure or associate literacy and effective writing standards with supervisor feedback practices. These feedback practices interacted causally with the meanings or associations, the participants gave to or associated with literacy and their report‐writing competency. As a consequence, literacy was often described in terms of correct wording or terminology, grammatical correctness, spelling, sentence structures or styles in reports as determined by their supervisors during feedback practices, rather than report content, structure or technical details.Research limitations/implicationsThe participants constructed literacy in terms of correct language, word and spelling use and focused on linguistic errors in their report writing. They tended to perceive rhetoric and engineering discourse as separate entities rather than rhetorically constructed contextual knowledge. Language problems were usually attributed to human being inefficiencies and L1 standards rather than the individual creation of knowledge.Practical implicationsThis paper not only impacts causally on engineering workplace writing practices but on higher education and future report‐writing practices. Digital technologies and systems will increasingly impact on report‐writing practices, what constitutes contextual knowledge and acceptable literacies as varied and different audiences define acceptable writing practices.Originality/valueThe paper shows that on‐the‐job writing research is limited and research that has been done often focuses on criteria for good writing as defined by experts in the field. If all workplace writing‐practice research adopts this expert view, it offers no insight and understanding into what implicitly and explicitly guides writers. Writing‐practice research also needs to focus on the voices of writers so that the influence of human social behaviour on these practices can be understood.
Risk management overview of tunnels using numerical modeling
Authors: Ghiasi Vahed , Omar Husaini , Kim Huat Bujang B. , Muniandi Ratnasamy , Zainuddin B. 
Published: March 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce the numerical methods in tunnel engineering and their capabilities to indicate the fracture and failure in all kinds of tunneling methods such as New Austrian Tunneling Method, tunnel boring machine and cut‐cover. An essential definition of numerical modeling of tunnels to determine the interaction between geo‐material (soil and rock) surrounding the tunnel structure is discussed.Design/methodology/approachTunnel geo‐material (soil and rock) interaction requires advanced constitutive models for the numerical simulation of linear, nonlinear, time‐dependent, anisotropic, isotropic, homogenous and nonhomogeneous behaviors. The numerical models discussed in this paper are developed in finite element method (FEM), finite deference method (FDM), boundary element method and discrete element method and these tools are used to illustrate the behavior of tunnel structure deformation under different loads and in complicated conditions. The disadvantage of this method is the tunnel lining assumed an independent structure under fixed load which is unable to model soil‐lining interaction. Predicting the effect of all natural factors on tunnels is the most difficult method. The above‐mentioned numerical methods are very simple and quick to use and the results are conservative and practical for users. One of the most significant advantages of the numerical method is in predicting the critical area surrounding the tunnel and the tunnel structure before making the tunnel construction due to different loads.FindingsNumerical modeling is used as control method in reducing the risk of tunnel construction failures. Since some factors such as settlement and deformation are not completely predictable in rock and soil surrounding the tunnel, using numerical modeling is a very economical and capable method in predicting the behavior of tunnel structures in various complicated conditions of loading. Another benefit of using numerical simulation is in the colorful illustrations predicting the tunnel behavior before, during and after construction and operation.Originality/valueThere are not many conducted studies using numerical models to tunnel structures that estimate the critical zones. As some of the methods available have limitation in simulating and modeling the whole tunnel design factors, numerical modeling seems to be the best option, because it is fast, economical, accurate and more interesting in predicating critical zones in tunnel. However, what softwares predict are not always the same as real ground nature conditions in which there is tunnel.