Local Protectionism, Market Structure, and Social Welfare: China’s Automobile Market

This study documents the presence of local protectionism and quantifies its impacts on market competition and social welfare in the context of China’s automobile market. A salient feature of China’s auto market is that vehicle models by joint ventures and state-owned enterprises command much higher market shares in their headquarter provinces than at the national level. Through county border analysis, falsification tests, and a consumer survey, we uncover protectionist policies such as subsidies to local brands as the primary contributing factor to the observed home bias. We then set up and estimate a market equilibrium model to quantify the impact of local protection, controlling for other demand and supply factors. Counterfactual analysis shows that local protection leads to significant consumer choice distortions and results in 21.9 billion yuan of consumer welfare loss, amounting to 41 percent of total subsidy. Provincial governments face a prisoner’s dilemma: local protection reduces aggregate social welfare, but provincial governments have no incentive to unilaterally remove local protection. (JEL L24, L32, L62, O14, O18, P25, R12)

Multilayer radiation shield for satellite electronic components protection

In this paper, various multi-layer shields are designed, optimized, and analyzed for electron and proton space environments. The design process is performed for various suitable materials for the local protection of sensitive electronic devices using MCNPX code and the Genetic optimization Algorithm. In the optimizations process, the total ionizing dose is 53.3% and 72% greater than the aluminum shield for proton and electron environments, respectively. Considering the importance of the protons in the LEO orbits, the construction of the shield was based on designing a proton source. A sample shield is built using a combination of Aluminum Bronze and molybdenum layers with a copper carrier to demonstrate the idea. Comparisons of radiation attenuation coefficient results indicate a good agreement between the experimental, simulation, and analytical calculations results. The good specifications of the proposed multi-layer shield prove their capability and ability to use in satellite missions for electronic device protection.

Part 1 Refugees, 2 Refugees Defined and Described

This chapter defines and describes refugees. The term ‘refugee’ is a term of art, that is, a term with a content verifiable according to principles of general international law. In ordinary usage, it has a broader, looser meaning, signifying someone in flight, who seeks to escape conditions or personal circumstances found to be intolerable. For the purposes of international law, States have further limited the concept of the refugee. Defining refugees may appear an unworthy exercise in legalism and semantics, obstructing a prompt response to the needs of people in distress. On the one hand, States have nevertheless insisted on fairly restrictive criteria for identifying those who benefit from refugee status and asylum or local protection. On the other hand, the definition or description may facilitate and justify aid and protection, while satisfying the relevant criteria ought in practice to indicate entitlement to the pertinent rights or benefits. In determining the content in international law of the class of refugees, therefore, the traditional sources—treaties and the practice of States—must be examined, also taking into account the normative impact of the practice and procedures of the various bodies established by the international community to deal with the problems of refugees.

Structural Attack (and Repair) of Diffused-Input-Blocked-Output White-Box Cryptography

In some practical enciphering frameworks, operational constraints may require that a secret key be embedded into the cryptographic algorithm. Such implementations are referred to as White-Box Cryptography (WBC). One technique consists of the algorithm’s tabulation specialized for its key, followed by obfuscating the resulting tables. The obfuscation consists of the application of invertible diffusion and confusion layers at the interface between tables so that the analysis of input/output does not provide exploitable information about the concealed key material.Several such protections have been proposed in the past and already cryptanalyzed thanks to a complete WBC scheme analysis. In this article, we study a particular pattern for local protection (which can be leveraged for robust WBC); we formalize it as DIBO (for Diffused-Input-Blocked-Output). This notion has been explored (albeit without having been nicknamed DIBO) in previous works. However, we notice that guidelines to adequately select the invertible diffusion ∅and the blocked bijections B were missing. Therefore, all choices for ∅ and B were assumed as suitable. Actually, we show that most configurations can be attacked, and we even give mathematical proof for the attack. The cryptanalysis tool is the number of zeros in a Walsh-Hadamard spectrum. This “spectral distinguisher” improves on top of the previously known one (Sasdrich, Moradi, Güneysu, at FSE 2016). However, we show that such an attack does not work always (even if it works most of the time).Therefore, on the defense side, we give a straightforward rationale for the WBC implementations to be secure against such spectral attacks: the random diffusion part ∅ shall be selected such that the rank of each restriction to bytes is full. In AES’s case, this seldom happens if ∅ is selected at random as a linear bijection of F322. Thus, specific care shall be taken. Notice that the entropy of the resulting ∅ (suitable for WBC against spectral attacks) is still sufficient to design acceptable WBC schemes.

A Whole-of-Society Approach to the Rohingya Refugee Crisis: Strengthening Local Protection Capacity in South and South-East Asia

In 2020, Rohingya men, women, and children continue to embark across the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, and States continue to lack safe and predictable disembarkation protocols and standards. From a protection perspective, the situation in 2020 has played out as it did in 2015 showing a lack of progress. After decades of discriminatory policies, denial of basic human rights, and targeted violence, at least 1.5 million stateless Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine State to seek refuge in the region and scattered locations around the globe, often surviving horrendous journeys by sea in the hope of disembarking with even marginally better prospects. The reception of the Rohingya in each of their places of refuge has been mixed, but it has rarely if ever been one of unqualified welcome. How do we engage with challenges that seem so intractable? The academic literature looking at refugee protection in the Asian region has largely dealt with its absence or inadequacy. Yet if we look more closely at any specific context in Asia, we can see that States may have laws, policies, or practices that can be utilised to recognise or respond to protection needs; international institutions like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (unhcr) are often recognised and permitted to conduct protection activities; civil society actors in every jurisdiction have developed substantial capacity for operationalising protection in practice; and refugees themselves are coping and contributing to their own protection in every case. It is at the national and local levels where protection capacity must be built towards implementation of a ‘whole-of-society’ approach.

Perencanaan Pengembangan Prasarana Kawasan Ekowisata Situ Gede Kota Bogor

Situ Gede area includes a local protection area, functioning as a water catchment area and protected area that will be developed into an ecotourism area based on RTRW and RTBL Situ Gede area and CIFOR fiscal year 2014. The research was conducted to evaluate the existing infrastructure and to make the planning of its development special on environmental roads, waste systems, and parking buildings. The research method begins with the creation of the basic map of Situ Gede area, the retrieval of existing data using secondary data, infrastructure planning in the form of environmental roads, waste management system, and parking building planning, and the creation of infrastructure development planning map Situ Gede area as an external expected from this research. Planning to observe the conservation aspects of water resources by conducting zoning utilization. The zoning arrangement was conducted to provide protection, use, and control of existing resources, especially the creation of a lake boundary of 50 m wide from the body.

CELLULAR COMPOSITION STATE AND MICROFLORA OF ORAL MUCOSAL EPITHELIUM OF PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC CEREBRAL ISCHEMIA

The cell composition and microflora of oral mucosal epithelium smearsand the hormonal composition of oral fluid in patients with chronic cerebral ischemiawere studied. We examined 54 patientsaged 45-65 years suffering from cerebral blood circulation disorders caused by atherosclerosis of cerebral vessels and under outpatient observation. In patients with chronic cerebral ischemia, a decrease in the size of the neutrophil pool and epithelial cell pool was noted in saliva smears, against the background of an increase in the number of lymphocytes (threefold) and “bare nuclei” -more than ten times, which indicates a weakening of local protection and is considered as a pathogenetically significantindicator. Smears of buccal epithelial cells revealed yeast-like fungi of the Candida genus (C.albicans), whose content reached 105CFU/ml in 61.44% of cases and averaged 82.5±6.4% of strains in CCI patients. Free progesterone increased 1.9-fold in oral fluid, whereas estradiol levels decreased 5-fold and cortisol increased 1.6-fold.Keywords: chronic cerebral ischemia, buccal cells, candidiasis, sex hormones.

Discipline in Stages: Regulating CD8+ Resident Memory T Cells

Resident memory CD8+ T (TRM) cells are a lymphocyte lineage distinct from circulating memory CD8+ T cells. TRM lodge within peripheral tissues and secondary lymphoid organs where they provide rapid, local protection from pathogens and control tumor growth. However, dysregulation of CD8+ TRM formation and/or activation may contribute to the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. Intrinsic mechanisms, including transcriptional networks and inhibitory checkpoint receptors control TRM differentiation and response. Additionally, extrinsic stimuli such as cytokines, cognate antigen, fatty acids, and damage signals regulate TRM formation, maintenance, and expansion. In this review, we will summarize knowledge of CD8+ TRM generation and highlight mechanisms that regulate the persistence and responses of heterogeneous TRM populations in different tissues and distinct microenvironments.

Ionic Nitriding of Certain Parts Protected on Nonfunctional Surfaces With Special Paints. Electric Energy Consumed

The experimental researches on the promotion of new technologies for the local protection of metallic parts against plasma nitriding, led to two types of special paints for protection in ionic nitriding, paints elaborated on the basis of copper lamellar powder in combination with magnesium oxide and carbon tetrachloride. In the created context, it was considered that the elaborated paints could be used not only for preventing the hardening during ionic nitriding of certain technological surfaces of the parts on which they are applied, but also for coating certain nonfunctional surfaces, their degasification taking such a long time. These nonfunctional areas could be: surfaces resulted from casting, fragments with macroirregularities, surfaces that contain slag, residues, soot, other oxides, impurities, etc. and are the cause for a very large number of transitions of the glow discharges in electric arcs. The use of special protecting paints for the plasma nitriding of the parts that present nonfunctional surfaces leads to a major reduction in the energy consumption. This paper presents the ways of determining the consumed electric energy on the basis of absorbed power in the case of ionic nitriding of certain parts protected on nonfunctional surfaces with special paints.