Environment Related Trade Barriers and the WTO

This paper looks at some of the environment related trade measures which may appear to be trade barriers at times in the context of the WTO. It also briefly discusses WTO Agreements on environmental measures and the use of environment related trade measures. The paper finally articulates the interests of LDCs in the area of trade and environment and how their concerns can be protected.WTO, Environment, trade barriers

Accra Conference on Aid Effectiveness - Perspectives from Bangladesh

This paper seeks to articulate the perspectives from Bangladesh as an aid recipient country on the evolving international aid system and more particularly on the Accra agenda. Based on secondary information from various sources including the Economic Relations Division, Ministry of Finance (MoF), OECD DAC Survey and Economic Review of the Ministry of Finance this paper briefly discusses the changing aid scenario in the context of Bangladesh and highlights some of the key issues related to aid effectiveness during the run up to the Accra HLF3. The paper also draws information from interviews of Development Partners working in Bangladesh to understand their perspectives on the bottlenecks of implementation of Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness in Bangladesh.Bangladesh, Aid, Aid effectiveness, Accra, Accra Conference

Urban design and social capital: lessons from a case study in Braunstone, Leicester, UK

A valuable asset in sustainable regeneration is the ‘community’ with their developed networks, bonds and ties or in other words its social capital which is a useful resource. Braunstone in Leicester is typical of many disadvantaged areas in the UK, with persistent socio-economic problems exacerbated by a poor physical setting. With a large regeneration programme funded by the New Deal for Communities coming to a close, we conducted a case study to explore the impact of improved local facilities and the effect of walkability on social capital. The lessons learnt suggests that responding to needs at a finer grain is vital in developing neighbourhoods for social capital such as responding to the needs of different user groups, responding to local patterns of use and needs of micro localities, and improving the perceptions of neighbourhoods. Local facilities and neighbourhood walkablity provides incentives for longer term residency, and facilitates interaction which helps social capital to grow. Accessing services by walking and using public transport proves vital to engage in social activities, while a poor physical environment, lack of accessible services and public transport negatively affects participation in social and leisure activities. Facilities and buildings provide a mediating role in developing social capital in a community, providing opportunity for social interaction which encourages people to reside in an area for longer. Improving connections beyond the neighbourhood is important to help retain people for longer term residency to develop social capital

Effect of Coupling on the Epidemic Threshold in Interconnected Complex Networks: A Spectral Analysis

In epidemic modeling, the term infection strength indicates the ratio of infection rate and cure rate. If the infection strength is higher than a certain threshold -- which we define as the epidemic threshold - then the epidemic spreads through the population and persists in the long run. For a single generic graph representing the contact network of the population under consideration, the epidemic threshold turns out to be equal to the inverse of the spectral radius of the contact graph. However, in a real world scenario it is not possible to isolate a population completely: there is always some interconnection with another network, which partially overlaps with the contact network. Results for epidemic threshold in interconnected networks are limited to homogeneous mixing populations and degree distribution arguments. In this paper, we adopt a spectral approach. We show how the epidemic threshold in a given network changes as a result of being coupled with another network with fixed infection strength. In our model, the contact network and the interconnections are generic. Using bifurcation theory and algebraic graph theory, we rigorously derive the epidemic threshold in interconnected networks. These results have implications for the broad field of epidemic modeling and control. Our analytical results are supported by numerical simulations.Comment: 7 page

INCORPORATING SPEED INTO CRASH MODELING FOR RURAL TWO-LANE HIGHWAYS

Rural two-lane highways account for 76% in mileages of the total paved roads in the US. In Kentucky, these roads represent 85 % of the state-maintained mileages. Crashes on these roads account for 40% of all crashes, 47% of injury crashes, and 66% of fatal crashes on state-maintained roads. These statistics draw attention to the need to investigate the crashes on these roads. Several factors such as road geometries, traffic volume, human behavior, etc. contribute to crashes on a road. Recently, studies have identified speed as one of the key factors of crashes as well as the severity associated with them and indicated the need to incorporate speed into predicting crashes and severity. Such studies are limited for rural two-lane highways due to the lack of measured speed data in the past. This study fills this gap by utilizing widely available measured speed data on these roads and investigates the relationship between speed and crashes on rural two-lane highways. This study collected crash, speed, traffic, and road geometric data for rural two-lane highways in Kentucky. Particularly for the speed, this study utilized GPS-based probe data. The speed data was integrated with the crash data and road attributes for the rural two-lane highways. This study utilized the speed measures directly calculated from the measured speed data and evaluated the effect of speed on the crashes of these roads. At first, this study investigated the effect of speed by incorporating average speed along with traffic volume and length in the crash prediction model for total number of crashes. A zero-inflated negative binomial model was utilized to account for the overdispersion from excess zero crashes in the dataset. From the model, a negative relationship was identified between average speed and number of crashes. One possible explanation is that rural two-lane roads with higher speeds tend to be those main corridors with better geometric conditions. Furthermore, the significance of speed in the model varies with the operating speed on these roads. This suggested considering speed as a categorizer to develop separate models for different speed ranges. Separating models based on speed provided improved prediction performance compared to an overall model. Operating speed often reflects geometric conditions. Therefore, this study also evaluated how the change in the 85th percentile speed from one section to another road section affects the crashes of a road. The analysis showed that more crashes tend to occur when the 85th percentile speed differential between consecutive segments increases. However, further investigation showed that speed differential may not be a suitable indicator of identifying the locations with a high risk of crashes, rather it can be applied for design improvement of the roads. Later, this study investigated spatial heterogeneity of the effect of speed in addition to other factors utilizing a geographically weighted regression model. The model accounted for the geographical location of the data and helped to investigate the spatially varying effect of speed. The results from this model showed that the significance of speed can vary at different locations, which is not observed in the global model. In some regions, speed actually reflects the local geometric conditions of the roads. On the road with poor geometric conditions, crashes tend to be higher. The safety improvement strategies for these roads can focus on improving the geometric conditions such as providing shoulders, realigning the sharp curves, etc. Furthermore, speed seemed to increase crashes in some locations with good geometric conditions and low traffic volume. Speed was indeed a critical factor for these locations and safety countermeasures should be recommended considering the operating condition. Utilizing measured speed data, this study also explored the effect of speed separately on KABC and PDO crashes for these roads. Separate models were developed for KABC and PDO crashes using a zero-inflated Poisson model form. Results from the models showed that speed had a positive relationship with KABC crashes, but a negative relationship with PDO crashes. For the KABC crashes, more KABC crashes tend to occur on high-speed roads. In contrast, PDO crashes tend to be higher on low-speed roads with poor geometric conditions. Furthermore, this study separated the models for each severity level using speed as a categorizer. The models developed at individual speed ranges revealed a varying effect of speed over the different speed ranges of these roads. For example, speed had a positive effect on KABC crashes of low and medium-speed roads, whereas it had a negative influence on crashes of high-speed roads. Further investigation of the study data showed that most of the low and medium-speed roads had poor geometric conditions (narrow shoulder and lane widths with the presence of sharp curves), whereas, high-speed roads had standard geometric conditions. Especially on low-speed roads, it is understandable that a crash can be severe when speed goes up under such restrictive geometric conditions of the roads. In contrast, on high-speed roads, the number of severe crashes tends to be low under standard geometric conditions. Additionally, separating models considering speed ranges provided 19% and 6.5% improvement respectively for KABC and PDO crashes compared to the overall models. Such models can help the agencies to adopt strategies for minimizing crashes at different severity levels based on the speed condition of the road. This study further looked at the effect of speed using Random Forest model since it can deal with multicollinearity between explanatory variables and requires no assumptions on the functional form. After including all the traffic and geometric variables in the model, speed showed 11.5% importance. Compared to the traditional count model, the model provided a better fit with an improved performance of 13%. For better predictability, planning level safety analysis can utilize such machine learning model

‘Jibon Thekey Neya' (Glimpses of Life, 1970) : The First Political Film in Pre- Liberation Bangladesh and a Cinematic Metaphor for Nationalist Concerns’

The year 1970 was significant for Bangladeshi cinema. It was the time when the collective aspirations to construct a new national and cultural identity appeared on Bangladeshi screens, in tandem with the contemporary political situation. Just a few years earlier, in 1966, a new wave of a militant movement had swept over Pakistan when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman announced the Six Point programme. The Six Point, which was widely referred to as the Magna Carta of the Bengalis, drew strength from secular consciousness of the Bengali people and from the economic deprivation of East Pakistan. Slowly it cemented the struggle for a new nation. Jibon Thekey Neya (Glimpses of life, 1970), a film by Zahir Raihan, captures the crucial moment of Pakistani repression by presenting the national experiences and exploitation of Bengalis under the military dictatorship of Ayub Khan. This paper explores how the film, within a family melodrama, introduced a new cinematic style by transforming personal stories into collective and symbolic narratives. The paper argues that by presenting contemporary facts and the identifiable shared narrative of Bengalis through a metaphoric form of fiction, Jibon Thekey Neya can be seen as the first instance of ‘national cinema’ in Bangladesh, even before its emergence as an independent state. The author also looks at how gender difference is constructed, interpreted and entangled with the concept of nation in the crisis moment of history