Search results for "TRADE"
showing 10 items of 1475 documents
Manufacturing export performance and public capital: an analysis by country technology position
2021
The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between public capital and manufacturing export performance. It also aims at investigating whether this relationship depends on the proximity of a country's technology frontier. To achieve this, we adopted a methodology that estimates the elasticities of public capital as a non-rival factor in a model that considers factor intensity as a mechanism of industrial development. We use an interaction model with panel data from 1999 to 2014 across 35 advanced and less advanced countries. Our results show that in countries far from the technology frontier, public capital accumulation is an element of industrial development as opposed to co…
Motor imagery in unipolar major depression.
2014
Background: Motor imagery is a potential tool to investigate action representation, as it can provide insights into the processes of action planning and preparation. Recent studies suggest that depressed patients present specific impairment in mental rotation. The present study was designed to investigate the influence of unipolar depression on motor imagery ability. Methods: Fourteen right-handed patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for unipolar depression were compared to 14 matched healthy controls. Imagery ability was accessed by the timing correspondence between executed and imagined movements during a pointing task, involving strong spatiotemporal constraints (speed/accuracy trade-off par…
Optimizing management to enhance multifunctionality in a boreal forest landscape
2017
The boreal biome, representing approximately one-third of remaining global forests, provides a number of crucial ecosystem services. A particular challenge in forest ecosystems is to reconcile demand for an increased timber production with provisioning of other ecosystem services and biodiversity. However, there is still little knowledge about how forest management could help solve this challenge. Hence, studies that investigate how to manage forests to reduce trade-offs between ecosystem services and biodiversity are urgently needed to help forest owners and policy makers take informed decisions. We applied seven alternative forest management regimes using a forest growth simulator in a la…
Evolutionary trade-offs in a small mammal : a quantitative genetics approach
2017
Limited resources force individuals to trade-off between life-history traits. A vast diversity of life-history strategies, which optimally combine life history traits, can be found. Knowledge of the genetic basis of this phenotypic variation is key to understanding evolutionary processes. I approached life-history evolution by estimating quantitative genetic parameters for a set of life-history traits in the bank vole (Myodes glareolus). The work is based on a laboratory-kept colony subjected to two-way selection for litter size (High- (H) and Low- (L) lines). Costs of the created reproductive strategies were observed in natural conditions. Selection increased the difference in litter size …
A Stochastic Decision Process Model for Optimization of Railway and Tramway Track Maintenance by means of Image Processing Technique
2013
One of the key targets for an efficient transport network management is the search for proper maintenance policies to guarantee acceptable safety and quality standards in the travel and to optimize available resource allocation. Methodologically, the proposed model presented in this paper uses the stochastic dynamic programming and in particular Markov decision processes applied to the rail wear conditions for the railway and tramway network. By performing the integrated analysis of the classes of variables which characterize the rail quality (in terms of safety), the proposed mathematical approach allows to find the solutions to the decision-making process related to the probability of det…
Ravintoresurssin ajallisen vaihtelun vaikutus saaliin (Serratia marcescens -bakteeri) ja pedon (Tetrahymena thermophila -alkueläin) evolutiiviseen ja…
2010
Resurssit ovat yksi tärkeimmistä eliöiden evoluutioon vaikuttavista ympäristötekijöistä. Esimerkiksi eliöiden kyky kilpailla ja puolustautua voivat kehittyä erilailla ravintoympäristöstä ja sen muutoksista riippuen: hyvä resurssisaatavuus voi mahdollistaa kalliisiin puolustusominaisuuksiin allokoimisen, kun taas resurssien puute voi estää saaliin puolustusominaisuuksien evoluution. Tutkin saalistuksen ja ympäristön vaihtelun vaikutusta faktoriaalisessa mikrokosmos kokeessa, jossa saalisbakteereita (Serratia marcescens) kasvatettiin joko yksin (kontrollit) tai yhdessä alkueläinpedon (Tetrahymena thermophila) kanssa vakaassa tai vaihtelevassa ravintoresurssiympäristössä 8 viikon ajan. Petojen…
Integración y transformación económica en África: potencial y limitaciones del Área de Libre Comercio Continental Africana
2021
In March 2018, the African Union gave way to the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area, the largest area of economic integration in the world by number of countries involved. As of June 2020, 54 out of 55 African Union member countries have already signed the agreement, thus showing an almost complete unanimity on this topic. AfCFTA comes up when industrialisation strategies and economic transformation in Africa seem to have taken over orthodox structural adjustment and post-adjustment approaches. AfCFTA aims to increase the scarce intra-African trade, boost economic transformation, create the regional value chains and help African firms to join the global value chains. I…
Regional Economic Integration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC): Analysing the Dynamics and Performance
2020
This article analyses the dynamics and performance of regional economic integration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It proposes an innovative theoretical approach to the analysis of regionalism that refers to cooperation theory and takes the impact of external actors explicitly into account. The motivation for this research stems from the observation of a new wave of regionalism in the Global South. Many of these new or reformed regional integration organisations (RIOs) comprise of developing countries, particularly in Africa. In contrast to expectations of most mainstream integration theories, new regionalisms in the Southern Hemisphere have come into existence and sh…
Metabotropic glutamate receptors activate phospholipase D in astrocytes through a protein kinase C-dependent and Rho-independent pathway.
2003
Metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) are G protein-coupled receptors that mediate phospholipase D (PLD) activation in brain, but the mechanism underlying this response remains unclear. Here we used primary cultures of astrocytes as a cell model to explore the mechanism that links mGluRs to PLD. Glutamate activated both phospholipase C (PLC) and PLD with equal potency and this effect was mimicked by L-cysteinesulfinic acid, a putative neurotransmitter previously shown to activate mGluRs coupled to PLD, but not PLC, in adult brain. PLD activation by glutamate was dependent on Ca(2+) mobilization and fully blocked by both protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitors and PKC down-regulation, suggesti…
A multidisciplinary approach using LCCA and micro-simulation 10 model for the management of the urban pavements
2013
The maintenance and the rehabilitation of the urban road pavements are not often based on systematic program and scheduling but rather on emergency or on other not identified reasons. Moreover the Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA), the only peculiar procedure for the management pavement, finds its own application for highway and motorway, even if it is possible to search the best investment for the urban interstate and arterials. By the light of the quantity of the involved resources, it seems necessary to define an operative methodology for programming the maintenance and rehabilitation activities for the urban pavement. The paper is oriented towards the development of a multidisciplinary ap…