The political economy of Hong Kong's "open skies" legal regime: an empirical and theoretical exploration

Copyright 2009 San Diego International Law Journal. Reprinted with the permission of the San Diego International Law Journal.The article presents an empirical and theoretical research which describes the functions of the international legal regime through powerful economic forces in Hong Kong, China. The government applied aviation policies with respect to open skies platform to provide a basis for a thorough understanding of government's legitimacy based on neoclassical logic and analysis. Conceptual perspectives of realists, liberals and cognitivists were acknowledged by the economically-inspired nationalists

Structural Power and Emotional Processes in Negotiation: A Social Exchange Approach

This chapter focuses in the abstract on when and how repeated negotiations between the same actors foster positive feelings or emotions and, in turn, an affective commitment to their relationship. However, we have in mind applications to pivotal dyads within organizations and also to the emergence of friction” or stickiness” in market relations. Implicit in the idea that negotiations in pivotal dyads shape institutional patterns is the notion that repeated negotiations between the same two actors are likely to become more than instrumental ways for the particular actors to get work done. We suggest a simple process by which dyadic negotiations give rise to incipient affective commitments that make the relationship an expressive object of attachment in its own right. When such transformations occur, future negotiations are not just efforts to solve yet another concrete issue or problem that the particular actors face; they come to symbolize or express the existence of a positive, productive relationship. Commitments that have an emotional/affective component tend to make the exchange relation an objective reality with intrinsic value to actors. In Berger and Luckmann\u27s (1967) terms, the relation becomes a third force.

The co-movement of asset returns and the micro-macro focus of prudential oversight

The integration of micro-prudential oversight with the macro-approach to financial stability -- long in the making -- raises several issues of coordination of regulatory responsibilities. This paper argues that a decomposition of the covariance of asset returns into an endogenous volatility component -- which can be reduced -- and an exogenous volatility component -- which we have to live with -- helps address these coordination issues and provides the basis for financial health diagnostics and supervisory responses to observed symptoms of financial instability. By linking risk origination and risk control, the paper may also contribute to the search for an operational definition of the term"macro-prudential."Mutual Funds,Debt Markets,Markets and Market Access,Emerging Markets,Labor Policies

Human Ipsilateral Motor Physiology and Neuroprosthetic Applications in Chronic Stroke

Improving the recovery of lost motor function in hemiplegic chronic stroke survivors is a critical need to improve the lives of these patients. Over the last several decades, neuroprosthetic systems have emerged as novel tools with the potential to restore function in a variety of patient populations. While traditional neuroprosthetics have focused on using neural activity contralateral to a moving limb for device control, an alternative control signal may be necessary to develop brain-computer interface (BCI) systems in stroke survivors that suffer damage to the cortical hemisphere contralateral to the affected limb. While movement-related neural activity also occurs in the hemisphere ipsilateral to a moving limb, it is uncertain if these signals can be used within BCI systems. This dissertation examines the motor activity ipsilateral to a moving limb and the potential use of these signals for neuroprosthetic applications in chronic stroke survivors. Patients performed three-dimensional (3D) reaching movements with the arm ipsilateral to an electrocorticography (ECoG) array in order to assess the extent of kinematic information that can be decoded from the cortex ipsilateral to a moving limb. Additionally, patients performed the same task with the arm contralateral to the same ECoG arrays, allowing us to compare the neural representations of contralateral and ipsilateral limb movements. While spectral power changes related to ipsilateral arm movements begin later and are lower in amplitude than power changes related to contralateral arm movements, 3D kinematics from both contralateral and ipsilateral arm trajectories can be decoded with similar accuracies. The ability to decode movement kinematics from the ipsilateral cortical hemisphere demonstrates the potential to use these signals within BCI applications for controlling multiple degrees of freedom. Next we examined the relationship between electrode invasiveness and signal quality. The ability to decode movement kinematics from neural activity was significantly decreased in simulated electroencephalography (EEG) signals relative to ECoG signals, indicating that invasive signals would be necessary to implement BCI systems with multiple degrees of freedom. For ECoG signals, the human dura also causes a significant decrease in signal quality when electrodes with small spatial sizes are used. This tradeoff between signal quality and electrode invasiveness should therefore be taken into account when designing ECoG BCI systems. Finally, chronic stroke survivors used activity associated with affected hand motor intentions, recorded from their unaffected hemisphere using EEG, to control simple BCI systems. This demonstrates that motor signals from the ipsilateral hemisphere are viable for BCI applications, not only in motor-intact patients, but also in chronic stroke survivors. Taken together, these experiments provide initial demonstrations that it is possible to develop BCI systems using the unaffected hemisphere in stroke survivors with multiple degrees of freedom. Further development of these BCI systems may eventually lead to improving function for a significant population of patients

Complex dynamics in a transactional model of societal transitions

Article accepted for publucation in InterJournal 2006Transitions are structural innovations of societal systems in reaction to wicked problems threatening development. In this paper we develop a transactional model of transitions based on Coleman’s linear system of action. The model implemented has the characteristics of a dissipative system. A variation and selection algorithm favoring the selection of relatively dependent actors into the social system forces the system away from equilibrium. Exchange of control, according to Coleman the driving force behind social action, accounts for dissipation and brings the social system back to equilibrium. We expect the Transactional Model of Transitions to show complex dynamics. Power law behavior and punctuated equilibrium are of special interest, as these are closely connected to hypotheses on social dynamics developed in the literature on societal transitions and system innovations. We present simulation results for various variation and selection procedures, interpret their meaning in the light of societal transitions and system innovations and discuss their conformity with actual social processes. Our results show that the Transactional Model of Transitions indeed shows complex dynamics, mirrors some of the characteristics of transition dynamics and is promising for further research on Transition Management. We did not yet find conclusive evidence of evolution to the edge of chaos, self-organized criticality and/or power law behavior

Chronic neural probe for simultaneous recording of single-unit, multi-unit, and local field potential activity from multiple brain sites

Drug resistant focal epilepsy can be treated by resecting the epileptic focus requiring a precise focus localization using stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) probes. As commercial SEEG probes offer only a limited spatial resolution, probes of higher channel count and design freedom enabling the incorporation of macro and microelectrodes would help increasing spatial resolution and thus open new perspectives for investigating mechanisms underlying focal epilepsy and its treatment. This work describes a new fabrication process for SEEG probes with materials and dimensions similar to clinical probes enabling recording single neuron activity at high spatial resolution. Polyimide is used as a biocompatible flexible substrate into which platinum electrodes and leads are... The resulting probe features match those of clinically approved devices. Tests in saline solution confirmed the probe stability and functionality. Probes were implanted into the brain of one monkey (Macaca mulatta), trained to perform different motor tasks. Suitable configurations including up to 128 electrode sites allow the recording of task-related neuronal signals. Probes with 32 and 64 electrode sites were implanted in the posterior parietal cortex. Local field potentials and multi-unit activity were recorded as early as one hour after implantation. Stable single-unit activity was achieved for up to 26 days after implantation of a 64-channel probe. All recorded signals showed modulation during task execution. With the novel probes it is possible to record stable biologically relevant data over a time span exceeding the usual time needed for epileptic focus localization in human patients. This is the first time that single units are recorded along cylindrical polyimide probes chronically implanted 22 mm deep into the brain of a monkey, which suggests the potential usefulness of this probe for human applications

Cavity Optomechanics of Topological Spin Textures in Magnetic Insulators

Collective dynamics of topological magnetic textures can be thought of as a massive particle moving in a magnetic pinning potential. We demonstrate that inside a cavity resonator this effective mechanical system can feel the electromagnetic radiation pressure from cavity photons through the magneto-optical inverse Faraday and Cotton-Mouton effects. We estimate values for the effective parameters of the optomechanical coupling for two spin textures -- a Bloch domain wall and a chiral magnetic soliton lattice. The soliton lattice has magnetic chirality, so that in circularly polarized light it behaves like a chiral particle with the sign of the optomechanical coupling determined by the helicity of the light and chirality of the lattice. Most interestingly, we find a level attraction regime for the soliton lattice, which is tunable through an applied magnetic field.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, published versio

New era of cystic fibrosis: full mutational analysis and personalized therapy

Despite its apparently simple genetics, cystic fibrosis (CF) is a rather complex genetic disease. A lot of variability in the steps of the path from the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR ) gene to the clinical manifestations originates an uncertain genotype - phenotype relationship. A major determinant of this uncertainty is the incomplete knowledge of the CFTR mutated genotypes, due to the high number of CFTR mutations and to the higher number of their combinations in trans and in cis. Also the very limited knowledge of functional effects of CFTR mutated alleles severely impairs our diagnostic and prognostic ability. The final phenotypic modulation exerted by CFTR modifier genes and interactome further complicates the framework. The next generation sequencing approach is a rapid, lowcost and high-throughput tool that allows a near complete structural characterization of CFTR mutated genotypes, as well as of genotypes of several other genes cooperating to the final CF clinical manifestations. This powerful method perfectly complements the new personalized therapeutic approach for CF. Drugs active on specific CFTR mutational classes are already available for CF patients or are in phase 3 trials. A complete genetic characterization has been becoming crucial for a correct personalized therapy. However, the need of a functional classification of each CFTR mutation potently arises. Future big efforts towards an ever more detailed knowledge of both structural and functional CFTR defects, coupled to parallel personalized therapeutic interventions decisive for CF cure can be foreseen