The Proposed U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA): Provisions and Implications

[Excerpt] On June 30, 2007, U.S. and South Korean trade officials signed the proposed U.S.-South Korean Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) for their respective countries. If approved, the KORUS FTA would be the second-largest FTA that South Korea has signed to date, after the agreement with the European Union (EU). It would be the second-largest (next to North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA) in which the United States participates. South Korea is the seventhlargest trading partner of the United States and the United States is South Korea’s third-largest trading partner. Various studies conclude that the agreement would increase bilateral trade and investment flows. The final text of the proposed KORUS FTA covers a wide range of trade and investment issues and, therefore, could have substantial economic implications for both the United States and South Korea. The agreement will not enter into force unless Congress approves implementation legislation. The negotiations were conducted under the trade promotion authority (TPA), also called fast-track trade authority, that Congress granted the President under the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-210). Under TPA the President has the discretion on when to submit the implementing legislation to Congress. President Bush did not submit the legislation because of differences with the Democratic leadership over treatment of autos and beef, among other issues. Early in his Administration, President Obama indicated the need to resolve those issues before he would submit the implementing legislation. On December 3, 2010, after a series of arduous negotiations and missed deadlines, President Obama and President Lee announced that their negotiators reached agreement on modifications in the KORUS FTA, and that they were prepared to move ahead to getting the agreement approved by the respective legislatures. The White House is expected to send implementing legislation to the 112th Congress and that it would like to see Congress approve the agreement by July 1 of this year. The modifications are in the form of changes in phase-out periods for tariffs on autos, a new safeguard provision on autos, and concessions by South Korea on allowing a larger number of U.S. cars into South Korea under U.S. safety standards than was the case under the original KORUS FTA provisions. The issue of full U.S. beef access was not resolved because of the political sensitivity of the issue in South Korea. In 2008, when President Lee reached a separate agreement with the United States to lift South Korea’s ban on U.S. beef imports, massive anti-South Korean government protests forced the two governments to renegotiate its terms. The U.S. beef sector has largely supported the KORUS FTA. A broad swath of the U.S. business community supports the KORUS FTA . With the modifications in the agreement reached in December, this group also includes the three Detroit-based auto manufacturers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. It still faces opposition from some labor unions and other groups, including Public Citizen. Many U.S. supporters view passage of the KORUS FTA as important to secure new opportunities in the South Korean market, while opponents claim that the KORUS FTA does not go far enough to break down South Korean trade barriers or that the agreement will encourage U.S. companies to move their production offshore at the expense of U.S. workers. Other observers have suggested the outcome of the KORUS FTA could have implications for the U.S.-South Korean alliance as a whole, as well as on U.S. Asia policy and U.S. trade policy, particularly in light of an FTA signed in by South Korea and the EU that is expected to go into effect on July 1, 2011

The EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement and Its Implications for the United States

[Excerpt] On October 6,2010, the 27 member European Union (EU) and South Korea signed a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA). The agreement is expected to go into effect on July 1, 2011, pending approval by the European Parliament and the South Korean National Assembly. If enacted, the South Korea-EU FTA (KOREU FTA) would be the largest FTA in terms of market size that South Korea has entered into. The KOREU FTA reflects the EU and South Korean trade strategies to use FTAs to strengthen economic ties outside their home regions. It also builds upon the surge in trade and investment flows between South Korea and the EU over the past decade. This agreement has possible implications for U.S. trade with South Korea and congressional action on the proposed U.S.-South Korea FTA (KORUS FTA). The proposed KOREU FTA is very comprehensive. It would reduce and eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers in manufactured goods, agricultural products and services and would also cover such trade-related activities as government procurement, intellectual property rights, labor rights and environmental issues. Most studies done on the potential impact of the KOREU FTA estimate that the agreement will have a small but positive effect on the economies of the EU and South Korea as a whole and that the larger relative impact would be on the South Korean economy. The greatest economic impact of the KOREU FTA would be on specific sectors in each economy. EU services providers would be expected to experience gains from the agreement, especially in the areas of retail and wholesale trade, transportation services, financial services, and business services. In terms of trade in goods, EU exporters of pharmaceuticals, auto parts, industrial machinery, electronics parts, and some agricultural goods and processed foods would be expected to gain from the KOREU FTA\u27s implementation. At the same time, South Korean manufacturers of cars, ships, wireless telecommunications devices, chemical products, and imaging equipment would be expected to increase their exports to the EU market. The KOREU FTA is similar to the proposed KORUS FTA in many respects. Both agreements are comprehensive and both would eliminate tariffs on most trade in goods soon after they enter into force. However, they differ in other respects. Phase-out periods for tariffs on some manufactured goods differ. In addition, the KOREU FTA does not cover foreign direct investment. Unlike the KORUS FTA, the KOREU FTA would not allow trade sanctions to be applied where violations of the workers\u27 rights, and environment provisions have been deemed to occur. In addition, the KORUS FTA would cover a broader range of trade in services than would the KOREU FTA. It is not clear whether these differences in the structures of the FTAs would result in appreciable differences in outcomes in terms of economic gains and losses. U.S. and European firms are close competitors in a number of sectors and industries, particularly autos. Some business representatives argue that enactment of the KOREU FTA before enactment of the KORUS FTA would give European competitors commercial first mover advantages, since EU firms, such as those in the auto industry or the services sector, could gain greater market opportunities in South Korea not afforded to US. firms. On the other hand, other factors could also mitigate such advantages. For example, U.S. multinational firms operating in the EU could benefit from the KOREU FTA. Nevertheless, the content and fate of the KOREU FTA could influence the pace and tone of any debate in the United States on the KORUS FTA in the 112th Congress

Quantification of reachable attractors in asynchronous discrete dynamics

Motivation: Models of discrete concurrent systems often lead to huge and complex state transition graphs that represent their dynamics. This makes difficult to analyse dynamical properties. In particular, for logical models of biological regulatory networks, it is of real interest to study attractors and their reachability from specific initial conditions, i.e. to assess the potential asymptotical behaviours of the system. Beyond the identification of the reachable attractors, we propose to quantify this reachability. Results: Relying on the structure of the state transition graph, we estimate the probability of each attractor reachable from a given initial condition or from a portion of the state space. First, we present a quasi-exact solution with an original algorithm called Firefront, based on the exhaustive exploration of the reachable state space. Then, we introduce an adapted version of Monte Carlo simulation algorithm, termed Avatar, better suited to larger models. Firefront and Avatar methods are validated and compared to other related approaches, using as test cases logical models of synthetic and biological networks. Availability: Both algorithms are implemented as Perl scripts that can be freely downloaded from http://compbio.igc.gulbenkian.pt/nmd/node/59 along with Supplementary Material.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures, 2 algorithms and 2 table

Possible explanations for different surface quality in laser cutting with 1 micron and 10 microns beams

In laser　cutting　of　thick　steel　sheets,　quality　difference　is　observed　between　cut　surfaces　obtained　with 1 micron and 10 micron laser beams. This paper investigates physical mechanisms for this interesting and important problem of the wavelength dependence. First, striation generation process is described, based on a 3D structure of melt flow on a kerf front, which was revealed for the first time by our recent experimental observations. Two fundamental processes are suggested to explain the difference in the cut surface quality: destabilization of the melt flow in the central part of the kerf front and downward displacement of discrete melt accumulations along the side parts of the front. Then each of the processes is analyzed using a simplified analytical model. The results show that in both processes, different angular dependence of the absorptivity of the laser beam can result in the quality difference. Finally we propose use of radial polarization to improve the quality with the 1 micron wavelength

Fragmentation Instability of Molecular Clouds: Numerical Simulations

We simulate fragmentation and gravitational collapse of cold, magnetized molecular clouds. We explore the nonlinear development of an instability mediated by ambipolar diffusion, in which the collapse rate is intermediate to fast gravitational collapse and slow quasistatic collapse. Initially uniform stable clouds fragment into elongated clumps with masses largely determined by the cloud temperature, but substantially larger than the thermal Jeans mass. The clumps are asymmetric, with significant rotation and vorticity, and lose magnetic flux as they collapse. The clump shapes, intermediate collapse rates, and infall profiles may help explain observations not easily fit by contemporary slow or rapid collapse models.Comment: 25pp, 20 small eps figures, in press ApJ, April 1, 200

A Branch-and-Price Approach for a Ship Routing Problem with Multiple Products and Inventory Constraints

In the oil industry, different oil components are blended in a refinery to fuel products. These products are transported to different harbors by ship. Due to the limited storage capacity at the harbors and the undesirability of a stock-out, inventory levels at the harbors have to be taken into account during the construction of the ship routes. In this paper, we give a detailed description of this problem, which we call the ship routing problem with multiple products and inventory constraints. Furthermore, we formulate this problem as a generalized set-covering problem, and we present a Branch-and-Price algorithm to solve it. The pricing problems have a very complex nature. We discuss a dynamic programming algorithm to solve them to optimality

Physical conditions in the gas phases of the giant HII region LMC-N11 unveiled by Herschel - I. Diffuse [CII] and [OIII] emission in LMC-N11B

(Abridged) The Magellanic Clouds provide a nearby laboratory for metal-poor dwarf galaxies. The low dust abundance enhances the penetration of UV photons into the interstellar medium (ISM), resulting in a relatively larger filling factor of the ionized gas. Furthermore, there is likely a hidden molecular gas reservoir probed by the [CII]157um line. We present Herschel/PACS maps in several tracers, [CII], [OI]63um,145um, [NII]122um, [NIII]57um, and [OIII]88um in the HII region N11B in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Halpha and [OIII]5007A images were used as complementary data to investigate the effect of dust extinction. Observations were interpreted with photoionization models to infer the gas conditions and estimate the ionized gas contribution to the [CII] emission. Photodissociation regions (PDRs) are probed through polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). We first study the distribution and properties of the ionized gas. We then constrain the origin of [CII]157um by comparing to tracers of the low-excitation ionized gas and of PDRs. [OIII] is dominated by extended emission from the high-excitation diffuse ionized gas; it is the brightest far-infrared line, ~4 times brighter than [CII]. The extent of the [OIII] emission suggests that the medium is rather fragmented, allowing far-UV photons to permeate into the ISM to scales of >30pc. Furthermore, by comparing [CII] with [NII], we find that 95% of [CII] arises in PDRs, except toward the stellar cluster for which as much as 15% could arise in the ionized gas. We find a remarkable correlation between [CII]+[OI] and PAH emission, with [CII] dominating the cooling in diffuse PDRs and [OI] dominating in the densest PDRs. The combination of [CII] and [OI] provides a proxy for the total gas cooling in PDRs. Our results suggest that PAH emission describes better the PDR gas heating as compared to the total infrared emission.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Fixed inverted line ratio in Sect. 5.

Spitzer View of Massive Star Formation in the Tidally Stripped Magellanic Bridge

The Magellanic Bridge is the nearest low-metallicity, tidally stripped environment, offering a unique high-resolution view of physical conditions in merging and forming galaxies. In this paper we present analysis of candidate massive young stellar objects (YSOs), i.e., {\it in situ, current} massive star formation (MSF) in the Bridge using {\it Spitzer} mid-IR and complementary optical and near-IR photometry. While we definitely find YSOs in the Bridge, the most massive are $\sim10 M_\odot$, $\ll45 M_\odot$ found in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The intensity of MSF in the Bridge also appears decreasing, as the most massive YSOs are less massive than those formed in the past. To investigate environmental effects on MSF, we have compared properties of massive YSOs in the Bridge to those in the LMC. First, YSOs in the Bridge are apparently less embedded than in the LMC: 81% of Bridge YSOs show optical counterparts, compared to only 56% of LMC sources with the same range of mass, circumstellar dust mass, and line-of-sight extinction. Circumstellar envelopes are evidently more porous or clumpy in the Bridge's low-metallicity environment. Second, we have used whole samples of YSOs in the LMC and the Bridge to estimate the probability of finding YSOs at a given \hi\ column density, N(HI). We found that the LMC has $\sim3\times$ higher probability than the Bridge for N(HI) $>10\times10^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$, but the trend reverses at lower N(HI). Investigating whether this lower efficiency relative to HI is due to less efficient molecular cloud formation, or less efficient cloud collapse, or both, will require sensitive molecular gas observations.Comment: 41 pages, 20 figures, 6 tables; accepted for publication in ApJ; several figures are in low resolution due to the size limit here and a high resolution version can be downloaded via http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~cc5ye/ms_bridge20140215.pd