ISO 14000 STANDARDS: VOLUNTARY ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE AS A TRADE FACILITATION STRATEGY?

Environmental Economics and Policy,

ISO 9000 Standards: Implicit Barrier or Trade Facilitation Strategy?

International Relations/Trade,

Agriculture and the World Trade Organization: Does Membership Make a Difference?

Recent empirical studies have estimated the trade flow effect of membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). One important, although largely untested, conclusion from this literature is that the GATT/WTO has worked well if we ignore trade in agriculture – one of the institution’s seemingly apparent failures. This article investigates this conclusion using a large panel of agricultural and non-agricultural trade flows, the latter of which serves as our benchmark. The results are impressive: the multilateral institution has delivered significant positive effects on members’ agricultural trade relative to trade between non-members. Further, despite their special and differential treatment, membership has provided important trade flow benefits for developing and least-developed country agricultural exports. These findings are robust across a large number of specifications and slices of the data. Although there are few sectors as politically sensitive, participation in the GATT/WTO appears to be a significant determinant of agricultural trade flows.WTO, membership, trade, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Development, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy,

Does the World Trade Organization Promote Trade? An Empirical Assessment of Agricultural and Non‐Agricultural Trade Flows

In this paper we ask whether the GATT/WTO has actually failed to increase members’ agricultural trade. Surprisingly, there is very little empirical econometric support to shed light on this question despite the fact that agricultural trade is often at the forefront of multilateral negotiations. We address this issue by considering GATT/WTO effects across agricultural and non‐agricultural sectors. Despite much ‘hoopla and hype’ that the GATT/WTO has done nothing to boost members’ agricultural trade, our results suggest that the multilateral institution has delivered significant positive effects on agricultural trade over the period 1980‐2004. Moreover, in many cases the trade flow effect of membership in the GATT/WTO exceeds that of non‐agriculture, merchandise trade. The results have important policy implications when one considers the growing body of literature that often presumes that the GATT/WTO has done nothing to stimulate members' agricultural trade.International Relations/Trade,

A Soft touch: wearable dielectric elastomer actuated multi-finger soft tactile displays

PhDThe haptic modality in human-computer interfaces is significantly underutilised when compared to that of vision and sound. A potential reason for this is the difficulty in turning computer-generated signals into realistic sensations of touch. Moreover, wearable solutions that can be mounted onto multiple fingertips whilst still allowing for the free dexterous movements of the user’s hand, brings an even higher level of complexity. In order to be wearable, such devices should not only be compact, lightweight and energy efficient; but also, be able to render compelling tactile sensations. Current solutions are unable to meet these criteria, typically due to the actuation mechanisms employed. Aimed at addressing these needs, this work presents research into non-vibratory multi-finger wearable tactile displays, through the use of an improved configuration of a dielectric elastomer actuator. The described displays render forces through a soft bubble-like interface worn on the fingertip. Due to the improved design, forces of up to 1N can be generated in a form factor of 20 x 12 x 23 mm, with a weight of only 6g, demonstrating a significant performance increase in force output and wearability over existing tactile rendering systems. Furthermore, it is shown how these compact wearable devices can be used in conjunction with low-cost commercial optical hand tracking sensors, to cater for simple although accurate tactile interactions within virtual environments, using affordable instrumentation. The whole system makes it possible for users to interact with virtually generated soft body objects with programmable tactile properties. Through a 15-participant study, the system has been validated for three distinct types of touch interaction, including palpation and pinching of virtual deformable objects. Through this investigation, it is believed that this approach could have a significant impact within virtual and augmented reality interaction for purposes of medical simulation, professional training and improved tactile feedback in telerobotic control systems.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Doctoral Training Centre EP/G03723X/

Taking Place 8: Interstitial Breakfast

A contextualised presentation of an interstitial act by taking place at the AHRA conference Architecture and Feminisms: Ecologies, Economies, Technologies: 13th International Architectural Humanities Research Association Conference, KTH School of Architecture Stockholm 17-19 November 2016. Taking place (Jos Boys, Julia Dwyer, Teresa Hoskyns, Katie Lloyd Thomas and Helen Stratford) curated their 8th spatial intervention, tp8, a breakfast held early on the second conference day which addressed through conversation and evidence marked into table cloths , the conference participants' responses to an open call by taking place to the question “What are the relevant questions for architecture and feminism today

Long-range correlation energies calculations for π\pi electronic systems

A simple formula for correlation energy $E_c$ of the $\pi$ electron systems is obtained under an approximation for the electron-electron interactions. This formula is related directly to square of the bond order matrix and the nearest-neighbor Coulomb electron-electron interaction. The influence of the correlation energy on the band energy gap is discussed. The values of the correlation energy for polyacetylene (PA) are calculated and can be compared with those for PA obtained by other methods, including $ab$ $initio$ method.Comment: Preprint, Latex file, 9 pages, 1 Postscript figur

New representation of orbital motion with arbitrary angular momenta

A new formulation is presented for a variational calculation of $N$-body systems on a correlated Gaussian basis with arbitrary angular momenta. The rotational motion of the system is described with a single spherical harmonic of the total angular momentum $L$, and thereby needs no explicit coupling of partial waves between particles. A simple generating function for the correlated Gaussian is exploited to derive the matrix elements. The formulation is applied to various Coulomb three-body systems such as $e^-e^-e^+, tt\mu, td\mu$, and $\alpha e^-e^-$ up to $L=4$ in order to show its usefulness and versatility. A stochastic selection of the basis functions gives good results for various angular momentum states.Comment: Revte

Long-range three-body atom-diatom potential for doublet Li3{}_3

An accurate long-range {\em ab initio} potential energy surface has been calculated for the ground state ${}^2A'$ lithium trimer in the frozen diatom approximation using all electron RCCSD(T). The {\em ab initio} energies are corrected for basis set superposition error and extrapolated to the complete basis limit. Molecular van der Waals dispersion coefficients and three-body dispersion damping terms for the atom-diatomic dissociation limit are presented from a linear least squares fit and shown to be an essentially exact representation of the {\em ab initio} surface at large range