The illiberal trading state

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quddus Z Snyder

Liberal systemic theory is built on the assumption that the system’s dominant configuration is a Kantian confederation of major powers. In addition to being a democratic cluster, the liberal core is also a capitalist club. This article pushes systemic and socialization theory forward by introducing the mechanism of economic competition as an important driver of socialization. The article develops a theory of system-level competition, arguing that it is a distinct and co-equal mechanism of socialization to the established mechanisms of persuasion, inducement, and coercion. The article proposes a three-staged model of socialization that explains how prominent rising powers such as Turkey, India, Brazil, and China are being socialized into the liberal system. At the first phase, competitive pressure, outsiders are led to orient themselves toward the core out of a fear of falling behind and a desire to access network benefits. At the second phase, rushing, outsiders behave in pro-norm ways and make significant concessions in order to gain inclusion in the core’s institutional complex. At the third phase, internalization, external norms become embedded in domestic legal institutional structures and a robust pro-norm domestic coalition emerges. The article uses the case of China to illustrate the model and lend it some initial empirical support in one hard case.

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
QUDDUS Z. SNYDER

AbstractWhy have non-Western powers, such as China, pursued a grand strategy of commercial integration into the liberal system? In developing a general theory of competitive pressure, this article builds upon a growing body of literature that seeks to develop a liberal systemic theory. Powerful network externalities – system-level pressures and incentives – have emerged as a by-product of the highly integrated liberal core. Outsiders have been moved by an interest in accessing these network benefits as well as a fear of falling behind in the struggle for relative power. In a plausibility probe, the article explores China's decision to join the world.


Shore & Beach ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 92-101
Author(s):  
Richard Raynie ◽  
Syed Khalil ◽  
Charles Villarrubia ◽  
Ed Haywood

The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) of Louisiana was created after the devastating hurricanes of 2005 (Katrina and Rita) and is responsible for planning and implementing projects that will either reduce storm-induced losses (protection) or restore coastal ecosystems that have been lost or are in danger of being lost (restoration). The first task of the CPRA board was to develop Louisiana’s first Coastal Master Plan (CPRA 2007), which formally integrates and guides the protection and restoration of Louisiana’s coast. The System-Wide Assessment and Monitoring Program (SWAMP) was subsequently developed as a long-term monitoring program to ensure that a comprehensive network of coastal data collection activities is in place to support the planning, development, implementation, and adaptive management of the protection and restoration program and projects within coastal Louisiana. SWAMP includes both natural-system and human-system components and also incorporates the previously-developed Coastwide Reference Monitoring System (CRMS), the Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring (BICM) program, and fisheries data collected by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) in addition to other aspects of system dynamics, including offshore and inland water-body boundary conditions, water quality, risk status, and protection performance, which have historically not been the subject of CPRA-coordinated monitoring. This program further facilitates the integration of project-specific data needs into a larger, system-level design framework. Monitoring and operation of restoration and protection projects will be nested within a larger hydrologic basin-wide and coast-wide SWAMP framework and will allow informed decisions to be made with an understanding of system conditions and dynamics at multiple scales. This paper also provides an update on the implementation of various components of SWAMP in Coastal Louisiana, which began as a Barataria Basin pilot implementation program in 2015. During 2017, the second phase of SWAMP was initiated in the areas east of the Mississippi River. In 2019, development of SWAMP design was completed for the remaining basins in coastal Louisiana west of Bayou Lafourche (Figure 1). Data collection is important to inform decisions, however if the data are not properly managed or are not discoverable, they are of limited use. CPRA is committed to ensuring that information is organized and publicly available to help all coastal stakeholders make informed, science-based decisions. As a part of this effort, CPRA has re-engineered its data management system to include spatial viewers, tabular download web pages, and a library/document retrieval system along with a suite of public-facing web services providing programmatic access. This system is collectively called the Coastal Information Management System (CIMS). CPRA and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are also developing a proposal to create an interface for CIMS data to be exported to a neutral template that could then be ingested into NOAA’s Data Integration Visualization, Exploration and Reporting (DIVER) repository, and vice versa. DIVER is the repository that the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) program is using to manage NRDA-funded project data throughout the Gulf of Mexico. Linking CIMS and DIVER will make it easier to aggregate data across Gulf states and look at larger, ecosystem-level changes.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin HG Maich ◽  
Rana Abu-Jazar ◽  
Rachael Burnett ◽  
Carly Cosgrove ◽  
William Maich ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Sleep difficulties are prevalent and concerning for many North Americans. Despite strong empirical support for insomnia treatment, lack of access presents a significant barrier to treatment dissemination. This is particularly true amongst teens and young adults. Mobile applications (‘apps’) are uniquely suited to address this need. OBJECTIVE We conducted a scoping review to identify and appraise commercially available apps for AYAs with sleep difficulties. METHODS Proceeding in 3 phases, a comprehensive search of commercially available apps was conducted between August 2016 and January 2017. The initial phase involved a search of app stores using relevant search terms (sleep; sleeping; insomnia; sleep aid; night). In the second phase, apps were assessed for eligibility using the following inclusion criteria: 1) Goal is to provide education, tools, or advice related to management of insomnia symptoms. 2) Primary intended users are AYAs. Exclusion criteria were: 1) App is classified as an ‘e-book.’ 2) Primary utility is meditation, hypnosis, or relaxation for sleep. 3) Primary function is background sleep music or sounds. 4) Primary function is alarm clock. 5) Sole sleep aid function is tracking/monitoring, with no education, tools, or advice for insomnia. In the third phase, apps were culled for functionality information, including: A) Self-monitoring of symptoms; B) Tracking sleep; C) Education related to insomnia; D) Advice or intervention for managing insomnia symptoms. Finally, the primary investigator conducted a final review of phase 3 apps, closely examining the functionality of these apps, based on app descriptions, app content, and developer website (where available). RESULTS The initial search yielded 2036 apps; after eligibility criteria were applied, functionality information was extracted for 48 apps. Twenty-three of these were later excluded. Of the final 25 apps, 24% included self-monitoring of symptoms; 28% included a sleep tracking function; 56% provided insomnia education; and 92% provided advice or intervention for managing sleep difficulties. The majority (80%) were free. Several (20%) provided sleep interventions that are not supported by research. In the final evaluation, only 6 apps met all four of the functionality criteria; of these, none were geared towards AYA users specifically. The purported and examined functionality of these six apps are discussed. CONCLUSIONS Insomnia is a unique problem among AYAs, as non-insomnia factors must also be considered when designing an appropriate intervention (e.g., AYAs are more delayed in sleep schedule, require more sleep than adults). There are currently 6 apps that are appropriate for self-management of adult insomnia. There are 0 apps designed for AYA users. Development of an evidence-based app for managing insomnia in this population is critical. Once an appropriate app becomes available, future studies should test its usability and efficacy in AYA samples.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Verschooren ◽  
Sebastian Schindler ◽  
Rudi de Raedt ◽  
Gilles Pourtois

Despite its everyday ubiquity, not much is currently known about cognitive processes involved in flexible shifts of attention between external and internal information. An important model in the task-switching literature, which can serve as a blueprint for attentional flexibility, states that switch costs correspond to the time needed for a serial control mechanism to reallocate a limited resource from the previous task context to the current one. To formulate predictions from this model when applied to a switch between perceptual attention (external component) and working memory (WM; internal component), we first need to determine whether a single, serial control mechanism is in place and, subsequently, whether a limited resource is shared between them. Following a review of the literature, we predicted that a between-domain switch cost should be observed, and its size should be either similar or reduced compared to the standard, within-domain, switch cost. These latter two predictions derive from a shared resource account between external and internal attention, or partial independence among them, respectively. In a second phase, we put to the test these opposing predictions in four successive behavioral experiments by means of a new paradigm suited to compare directly between- (internal to external) and within-domain (external to external) switch costs. Across them, we demonstrated the existence of a reliable between-domain switch cost whose magnitude was similar to the within-domain one, thereby lending support to the resource sharing account.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Cai ◽  
Yi Lu ◽  
Hugo Sheward

Objectives: To provide a historical review on the evolution of contemporary Chinese nursing unit design and contextual factors that drive the design and changes. Background: China is undergoing a major healthcare construction boom. A systematic investigation of the characteristics and development of Chinese nursing unit design is warranted to help U.S. healthcare designers to provide design that fits the local context. Methods: The investigation is developed in two phases. The first phase is a large-scale spatial analysis of 176 Chinese acute care unit layouts from three periods: 1989–1999, 1999–2004, and 2005–2015. In addition to qualitative descriptions of the nursing unit typologies, the percentage of various typologies, patient room (PR) types, the number of beds, visibility from nurse station (NS) to PRs, and access to natural light during each period were evaluated quantitatively. The second phase defined key factors that shape Chinese nursing unit design through expert interviews. Results: Significant differences were found between design in these three periods. Chinese nursing unit size has continuously grown in the number of beds. Most PRs have shifted from three-bed to double-bed rooms. Most Chinese hospitals use single corridor, racetrack, and mutated racetrack layouts. Mutated racetrack has taken over single corridor as the dominant configuration. The access to southern sunlight remains important. The average visibility from NS to some PRs is restricted by the preferences of allocating most PRs on the south side of a unit. Conclusions: Chinese nursing unit design has undergone transformations to fit the local cultural, socioeconomic context and staffing model.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-55
Author(s):  
Ioannis-Prodromos Belikaidis ◽  
Andreas Georgakopoulos ◽  
Kostas Tsagkaris ◽  
Zwi Altman ◽  
Sana Ben Jemaa ◽  
...  

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Grofman

Dodd is generally credited with providing clear empirical support for the proposition that, in the period after the Second World War, minimal winning coalitions in European party governments will tend to last longer in office than non-minimal winning coalitions. There has been a considerable body of research on this and related questions. Dodd, as well as most other authors treating cabinet coalition formation, has attempted to model features of cabinet formation such as cabinet duration or cabinet type (e.g. minimal winning v. minority government v. oversized coalitions) largely or entirely using data pooled from all cabinets in each of a number of different countries over some considerable time period. One difficulty with this method is that system-level variables (such as number of parties, or the presence of large anti-system parties), which might be able to explain aggregate-level between-county variations in cabinet type or cabinet durability, are not likely to be the same variables that are useful in explaining within-country differences. A second difficulty is that certain system-level characteristics such as effective number of parties or number of cleavage dimensions are highly correlated with both cabinet type and cabinet duration and, as a consequence, these variables are highly correlated with one another when pooled cross-national data are used. Thus, if the analyst is not very careful, results of pooled cross-national data may lead to mistakes about causal structure and a confusion of within-country and between-country effects.


2014 ◽  
Vol 307 (7) ◽  
pp. H1073-H1091 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Fonoberova ◽  
Igor Mezić ◽  
Jennifer F. Buckman ◽  
Vladimir A. Fonoberov ◽  
Adriana Mezić ◽  
...  

Heart rate variability biofeedback intervention involves slow breathing at a rate of ∼6 breaths/min (resonance breathing) to maximize respiratory and baroreflex effects on heart period oscillations. This intervention has wide-ranging clinical benefits and is gaining empirical support as an adjunct therapy for biobehavioral disorders, including asthma and depression. Yet, little is known about the system-level cardiovascular changes that occur during resonance breathing or the extent to which individuals differ in cardiovascular benefit. This study used a computational physiology approach to dynamically model the human cardiovascular system at rest and during resonance breathing. Noninvasive measurements of heart period, beat-to-beat systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and respiration period were obtained from 24 healthy young men and women. A model with respiration as input was parameterized to better understand how the cardiovascular processes that control variability in heart period and blood pressure change from rest to resonance breathing. The cost function used in model calibration corresponded to the difference between the experimental data and model outputs. A good match was observed between the data and model outputs (heart period, blood pressure, and corresponding power spectral densities). Significant improvements in several modeled cardiovascular functions (e.g., blood flow to internal organs, sensitivity of the sympathetic component of the baroreflex, ventricular elastance) were observed during resonance breathing. Individual differences in the magnitude and nature of these dynamic responses suggest that computational physiology may be clinically useful for tailoring heart rate variability biofeedback interventions for the needs of individual patients.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianing Hou ◽  
Shih-Chih Chen ◽  
De Xiao

China has shifted its focus from export-led growth to technology-driven growth. The “One Belt, One Road” initiative (OBOR) is aimed at promoting economic integration with the rest of the world that might boost China’s ability to upgrade its manufacturers. We evaluate the impact of the OBOR initiative on the manufacturing industries of China. In other words, we examine whether the greater openness entailed by the initiative has been a catalyst for upgrading China’s export portfolio. We demonstrate that the proposition has been such a catalyst formally and adduce some empirical support for the proposition by using a panel of the top 80 exporting countries in the world during the period from 2002–2017 to evaluate the impact of the economic integration brought by the OBOR in terms of upgrades to Chinese manufacturers. Meanwhile, when domestic R&D generates knowledge spillover, the benefits of greater openness become partly indeterminate, thus counterfactual analysis was adopted to preclude potential endogeneity. By relating the values of exports at the two-digit harmonized system level to data on sectors to conduct integration within global production networks, we find that the greater openness brought by the OBOR initiative has actively increased manufacturing complexity and facilitated industrial upgrading in China.


1995 ◽  
Vol 06 (04) ◽  
pp. 573-594
Author(s):  
SPYROS TRAGOUDAS

We present a two phase board level partitioning scheme for improved partial scan on the resulting Integrated Circuits (ICs). The first phase clusters the nodes of the synchronous sequential PCB system into sets of bounded capacity. Each set represents an IC. The main objective function is to minimize the maximum number of inputs to a set. This considerably affects the test generation and response verification phases while testing the ICs. The second phase repositions the flip-flops so that we minimize the partial scan related hardware overhead for each IC, maintain a small sequential depth for all chips, and minimize the period of the global clock. We present an efficient iterative improvement heuristic for the partitioning problem of the first phase whose performance is tested on benchmarks. We also employ provably good algorithms for the second phase which result to reduced hardware overhead for partial scan. The proposed tool may also be applied to the system level partitioning problem where we partition the input circuit into Printed Circuit Boards or Multi-Chip Modules.


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