The Prospects of TRIPS-Plus Protection in Future Mega-Regionals

This chapter argues for the necessity of inclusiveness of all stakeholders and the balance between public and private interests in the negotiation of future intellectual property clauses in regional and mega-regional trade and investment agreements. Since the conclusion of the TRIPS agreements in 1994, negotiations of trade and investment agreements have resulted in a series of ‘plus’ clauses that point towards overwhelming lobbying success of corporations in defending private commercial agendas while the interests of the public, be it as consumers, citizens or states are neglected. Driven by curiosity as to what might be in store for future mega-regionals such as the TTIP, we trace the emergence of these plus-clauses, sketch their development, and advise negotiators of future intellectual property clauses in trade and investment agreements to make use of the academic discourse and to deliver on democratic values. This chapter essentially reflects the text of the presentation given at the Dresden Mega Regionals Conference in October 2014. References have been updated as of December 2015

Geography and history matter: International business and economic geography perspectives on the spatial and historical development of multinational enterprises

Situated within the broader conference theme of historical change, this panel session brought together international business and economic geography perspectives on multinational enterprise (MNE) evolutionary trajectories. The panel session follows a series of past conference sessions aimed to increase dialogue and interaction between economic geographers and international business scholars. These included several sessions at the Royal Geographical Society and Institute of Geographer’s Annual Conference in 2010 and the Association of International Business in 2012. The aim for this conference panel session was for panellists to offer a range of empirical and conceptual observations to interrogate our existing understandings of the spatial and historical development of MNEs. While space and time often provide distinct lenses on the operations of MNEs, the panel discussed the ways in which the two can be combined to provide more nuanced conceptualisations and frameworks for analysis, which can powerfully complement existing conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches in international business. This chapter is a record of the panel session and, as such, offers a direct representation of the speakers’ presentations, their discussions and their question and answer session. The chapter begins with Martin Hess’ discussion of continuity and change in MNEs and global production networks, followed by Rudolf Sinkovics’ analysis of the uptake of economic geography work on global sourcing by international business

Single-molecule chemo-mechanical unfolding reveals multiple transition state barriers in a small single-domain protein

A fundamental question in protein folding is whether proteins fold through one or multiple trajectories. While most experiments indicate a single pathway, simulations suggest proteins can fold through many parallel pathways. Here, we use a combination of chemical denaturant, mechanical force and site-directed mutations to demonstrate the presence of multiple unfolding pathways in a simple, two-state folding protein. We show that these multiple pathways have structurally different transition states, and that seemingly small changes in protein sequence and environment can strongly modulate the flux between the pathways. These results suggest that in vivo, the crowded cellular environment could strongly influence the mechanisms of protein folding and unfolding. Our study resolves the apparent dichotomy between experimental and theoretical studies, and highlights the advantage of using a multipronged approach to reveal the complexities of a protein's free-energy landscape