Russia's gas sector: the endless wait for reform?

The gas industry is perhaps Russia’s least reformed major sector. Prices are regulated, exports are monopolised and the domestic market is dominated by a state-controlled, vertically integrated monopolist, OAO Gazprom. Gazprom combines commercial and regulatory functions, and maintains tight control over the sector’s infrastructure and over information flows within it. The sector as it is currently constituted is highly unlikely to be able to sustain sufficient output growth to satisfy both rising export commitments and domestic demand. There is significant potential for accelerating the growth of non-Gazprom production and making gas supply in Russia more competitive, but this will require fundamental reform. The proposals for reform advanced in the paper address two sets of issues. First, there is an urgent need to increase transparency in the sector and transfer many of the regulatory functions now performed by Gazprom to state bodies. Secondly, there is a longer-term need for a considerable degree of unbundling of Gazprom. In particular, it would be desirable to remove control of the sector’s transport infrastructure from the company and to revise the arrangements governing gas exports to non-CIS states, which are currently monopolised by Gazprom. At the same time, recent increases in domestic gas tariffs must continue until internal gas prices rise above full, long-term cost-recovery levels

Unconventional gas: potential energy market impacts in the European Union

In the interest of effective policymaking, this report seeks to clarify certain controversies and identify key gaps in the evidence-base relating to unconventional gas. The scope of this report is restricted to the economic impact of unconventional gas on energy markets. As such, it principally addresses such issues as the energy mix, energy prices, supplies, consumption, and trade flows. Whilst this study touches on coal bed methane and tight gas, its predominant focus is on shale gas, which the evidence at this time suggests will be the form of unconventional gas with the most growth potential in the short- to medium-term. This report considers the prospects for the indigenous production of shale gas within the EU-27 Member States. It evaluates the available evidence on resource size, extractive technology, resource access and market access. This report also considers the implications for the EU of large-scale unconventional gas production in other parts of the world. This acknowledges the fact that many changes in the dynamics of energy supply can only be understood in the broader global context. It also acknowledges that the EU is a major importer of energy, and that it is therefore heavily affected by developments in global energy markets that are largely out of its control.JRC.F.3-Energy securit

Investigating the translation of metaphors used in diagnosis and treatment in Chinese medicine classics Neijing and Shanghan Lun

The language used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) depicts a world of human physiology, pathology, diagnosis and treatment, in which metaphors serve as an essential vehicle for readers to understand fundamental but often abstract concepts in TCM. While previous work has investigated strategies for translating the TCM classics, the metaphors used to describe diagnosis and treatment and their English translations are critical in understanding TCM, and require a more systematic exploration. This study investigates the diagnosis- and treatment-related metaphors selected from two TCM classics, Neijing and Shanghan Lun, and their English renditions by translators from different professional backgrounds. The thesis also focuses on the analysis of the effectiveness of different translation strategies in delivering pertinent health-related information conveyed by the metaphors of the original texts. A multidimensional framework that combines a conceptual approach with linguistic and cultural elements was established to capture the complexity of the metaphors, particularly from the perspective of translation. The linguistic metaphors in this study were first identified from a purpose-built corpus using a CMT-based metaphor identification procedure adapted from Steen (2010). Following the conceptual metaphor inference procedure developed by Steen (2011), various conceptual metaphors were inferred from the linguistic metaphors. Corresponding English translations were also collected to investigate which translation strategies have been used and which strategy can most effectively deliver the health-related information conveyed by the metaphors. Four main strategies were employed in the English translations: 1) equivalent mapping, by which the source domain is retained; 2) using a simile to translate a metaphor; 3) direct narrative equivalence, which abandons the metaphor and narrates the medical knowledge directly; and 4) complemented equivalent translation, whereby the metaphor is explained with additional content. From the perspective of conveying health-related knowledge, equivalent mapping was effective for metaphors universally understood by Chinese and English readers. For culturally specific metaphors, especially when the metaphor relates to an important TCM concept, complemented equivalent translation, which can reconfigure the cognitive context for the reader, was most suitable. For metaphors not related to important concepts, direct narrative equivalence was found to be effective

Chinese Medicine Student Clubs in Taipei, Taiwan

This thesis focuses on a communal form of transmission of Chinese medicine in contemporary Taiwan: Chinese medicine university student clubs. Offering fundamental Chinese medicine curricula to students and the interested public, the student clubs used to serve as a direct educational steppingstone towards licensed practice. Recent changes in medical education policy, however, made a university degree in Chinese medicine a requirement, thereby pushing informal ways of knowledge transmission into the realm of lay activity. Nevertheless, the clubs remain active and still serve as a community for people interested in Chinese medicine, including those wanting to pursue it professionally. Based on field research conducted in two such university clubs in Taipei in early 2018, this thesis first outlines the challenges and tensions faced and negotiated by those club members with professional ambitions. Not (yet) enrolled in “official” Chinese medicine programs at university but already deeply engaged in learning, they constitute a group of people rarely represented in academic literature, namely those just orienting themselves towards becoming Chinese medicine physicians. These processes of orientation and becoming are shaped by organizational, economic, and epistemological pressures and embedded in transnational movements, imaginaries, and regulatory regimes. Secondly, the thesis examines the function and position of the clubs in the changing landscape of Chinese medical education in Taiwan, as well as in the wider field of transmission of Chinese medicine. I argue that they foster continued interest in Chinese medicine in an environment that has favored biomedicine since the Japanese colonial era and that they, although through paths more winded than before, still contribute to the reproduction of professional Chinese medical expertise. In addition, they provide space for communal forms of healthcare. Lastly, they contribute to the maintenance of everyday healthcare competence in the wider public, or what Arthur Kleinman (1980) has called the “popular sector of healthcare.

Zheng-syndrome differentiation (Bian zheng in Mandarin) of TCM or a disease diagnosis of conventional medicine (bian bing in Mandarin), Which is more important in TCM practice?

With my own TCM practitioner’s knowledge and experience, I do not think different opinion have obvious correctness or wrong. Only efficacy really matter. It relies on the individual’s situation and whichever method with better effectiveness than the other should be brought to application. I personally believe that if it is a simple case, we stress the importance of diagnosis of Zheng-syndrome in TCM with support of disease diagnosis of conventional medicine. Takes common cold as example, it does matter if it is a wind-heat type or wind-cold type, we usually apply Daqingye or Banglangen because its anti-virus effect. Last issue I recommend Ganmao Qingre Keli plus Banglanggen Chongji for common cold and flu, which is on basis of this theory. When we treat a very complicated case or condition or syndrome without biomedical diagnosis, we should follow TCM Zheng-syndrome differentiation. It is not uncommon that for some cases there is no diagnosis in conventional medicine. This is where we need to rely on our knowledge and experience of TCM. Takes a patient with main complain of eczema, accompanying with hay fever, asthma and IBS, we should deal with all four condition in one prescription, rather than dealing the four conditions separately like conventional medicine, in order to achieve the best result. >(Neijing) tells us to ‘search a cure from the root of illness’. The root is usually identified by TCM Zheng-syndrome differentiation, which enables us to establish a treatment principles. On basis of the treatment principle we are able to decide formulae and choice of medicines or acupoints. Dealing with this kind of complicated cases by applying TCM syndrome differentiation shows the strengths of TCM. Not only me, but all well qualified TCM practitioner, are armed with this strength. In addition, we should mainly rely on disease diagnosis of conventional medicine if it is definite but without any symptoms. For example, hepatitis B virus carrier or pre-clinical diabetes patient, we have no choice but to deal with it on basis of the diagnosis from conventional medicine. Take common cold as an example. To a child, an old, a young strong me or a young pregnancy women catching a cold, the treatment should be different for them, also cold occurring in different season or different region should be treated differently. Although we can apply formula to cover most cases of cold, we still need to take individual’s condition into consideration to tailor our prescription. To simplify a complicated case, we should apply four diagnostic techniques and eight principle differentiation to lead to a unique syndrome pattern, i.e. Zheng of bian zheng lun zhi. In one word, syndrome differentiation is core of TCM practice and the essence of art in TCM system. 　 In essential, this is a question how to deal with the relationship between TCM and conventional medicine. I remembered when I participated in editorial work of a TCM pediatrics textbook in 1990s’, a question was raised to my supervisor Prof. Shaochuan Li on whether the contents of the book should be categorized by diseases of conventional medicine or TCM syndromes. Professor Li’s answer was using diseases of conventional medicine as titles and supplemented by TCM syndromes. As a famous clinician in TCM for sixty years, Profs Li had an open-mind to accept conventional medicine as main stream. In practice he always applied TCM theory into practice and he never gave up TCM principles and techniques. He always believed that TCM and conventional medicine should learn from each other in order to achieve best result for our patients. As early as in 1960s, Mr Li had published research reports about TCM treatment on children’s acute nephritis and nephritic syndrome. Both of acute nephritis and nephritic syndrome belongs to edema-syndrome in TCM but their treatment is quite different. There are so many different methods of TCM syndrome differentiation based on eight principles, zang-fu-theory, Channels (Jingluo), six-channel syndromes (liujing), defence-qi-nutriention-blood system (wei qi ying xue system), three-warmers. If we add a new method like selection of treatment on basis of diagnosis from conventional medicine, I believe it would be a good way for TCM to further develop. This is actually from ancient tradition reflected in Dr Zhang Zhongjing’s > 1800 years ago. Eight and half years ago, when I came to the UK, this is the first question I asked Dr Junkun Bai. Coincidentally, my friend Dr Mingjing Cai, he asked me the same question when he came to the UK one and half years ago. I am hoping my answer have a little help to Dr Cai and my reader who are interested in this topic

Fog-supported delay-constrained energy-saving live migration of VMs over multiPath TCP/IP 5G connections

The incoming era of the fifth-generation fog computing-supported radio access networks (shortly, 5G FOGRANs) aims at exploiting computing/networking resource virtualization, in order to augment the limited resources of wireless devices through the seamless live migration of virtual machines (VMs) toward nearby fog data centers. For this purpose, the bandwidths of the multiple wireless network interface cards of the wireless devices may be aggregated under the control of the emerging MultiPathTCP (MPTCP) protocol. However, due to the fading and mobility-induced phenomena, the energy consumptions of the current state-of-the-art VM migration techniques may still offset their expected benefits. Motivated by these considerations, in this paper, we analytically characterize and implement in software and numerically test the optimal minimum-energy settable-complexity bandwidth manager (SCBM) for the live migration of VMs over 5G FOGRAN MPTCP connections. The key features of the proposed SCBM are that: 1) its implementation complexity is settable on-line on the basis of the target energy consumption versus implementation complexity tradeoff; 2) it minimizes the network energy consumed by the wireless device for sustaining the migration process under hard constraints on the tolerated migration times and downtimes; and 3) by leveraging a suitably designed adaptive mechanism, it is capable to quickly react to (possibly, unpredicted) fading and/or mobility-induced abrupt changes of the wireless environment without requiring forecasting. The actual effectiveness of the proposed SCBM is supported by extensive energy versus delay performance comparisons that cover: 1) a number of heterogeneous 3G/4G/WiFi FOGRAN scenarios; 2) synthetic and real-world workloads; and, 3) MPTCP and wireless connections

The gas chain: influence of its specificities on the liberalisation process. NBB Working Papers. No. 122, 16 November 2007

Like other network industries, the European gas supply industry has been liberalised, along the lines of what has been done in the United Kingdom and the United States, by opening up to competition the upstream and downstream segments of essential transmission infrastructure. The aim of this first working paper is to draw attention to some of the stakes in the liberalisation of the gas market whose functioning cannot disregard the network infrastructure required to bring this fuel to the consumer, a feature it shares with the electricity market. However, gas also has the specific feature of being a primary energy source that must be transported from its point of extraction. Consequently, opening the upstream supply segment of the market to competition is not so obvious in the European context, because, contrary to the examples of the North American and British gas markets, these supply channels are largely in the hands of external suppliers and thus fall outside the scope of EU legislation on the liberalisation and organisation of the internal market in gas. Competition on the downstream gas supply segment must also adapt to the constraints imposed by access to the grid infrastructure, which, in the case of gas in Europe, goes hand in hand with the constraint of dependence on external suppliers. Hence the opening to competition of upstream and downstream markets is not "synchronous", a discrepancy which can weaken the impact of liberalisation. Moreover, the separation of activities necessary for ensuring free competition in some segments of the market is coupled with major changes in the way the gas chain operates, with the appearance of new markets, new price mechanisms and new intermediaries. Starting out from a situation where gas supply was in the hands of vertically-integrated operators, the new regulatory framework that has been set up must, on the one hand, ensure that competitive forces can be given free rein, and, on the other hand, that free and fair competition helps the gas chain to operate coherently, at lower cost and in the interests of consumers, for whom the stakes are high as natural gas is an important input for many industrial manufacturing processes, even a "commodity" almost of basic necessity