Innovation for an inclusive future

This workshop will focus on setting the agenda for research, practice and policy in support of inclusive design for third generation computer-based products. The next generation of technology represents an unprecedented opportunity to improve the quality of life for groups of users who have previously faced exclusion, such as those with impairments and older citizens. At the same time it risks creating a greater digital divide and further exclusion. How we approach design for this new generation will determine whether or not the third wave will provide positive advances towards an inclusive digital world. We therefore need to put forward both a rationale for inclusive design and provide pointers towards technical development and design practice in support of inclusion. It is our belief that there is not only a strong moral case for design for inclusion but also significant commercial incentive, which may be key to persuading influential players to focus on inclusion. Therefore one of our key objectives is to describe and promote the advantages of designing ‘in from the edges’ of the user population rather than designing for a notional ‘average’ user

Barriers to Coordination? Examining the Impact of Culture on International Mediation Occurrence and Effectiveness

‘Culture’ features prominently in the literature on international mediation: if belligerents share cultural characteristics, they are likely to have a common understanding and norms. This creates a common identity and makes coordination less costly, which ultimately facilitates mediation occurrence and effectiveness. Surprisingly, existing quantitative research largely neglects any cultural ties the antagonists might share with the mediator. This article addresses this gap by offering one of the first joint analyses of fighting parties’ and mediators’ culture – and the interaction thereof. Based on existing work, a theoretical framework for mediation occurrence and effectiveness is developed and innovative measures for belligerents’ cultural ties and the links to the mediator are used. Contrary to expectations the results suggest that larger cultural distances between antagonists make mediation more likely, while cultural dissimilarities between them and the mediator have the opposite effect. Evidence is also found for a conditional effect between the two culture variables on mediation occurrence

Reconsidering the adjustment costs of the Europe agreements

The paper argues that vertical intra-industry trade (IIT) should be separated from horizontal IIT to have a better judgement about adjustment costs of a trade liberalization, contrary to the assumption in the literature that all IIT changes are costless. A simple method to decompose IIT is presented. Using this method, it is seen that, contrary to expectations, after the Europe Agreements, share of vertical IIT has not increased much between Germany and Central and Eastern European countries. However, when adjustment costs are analysed, it is seen that the resulting labour displacement has been substantial, explaining partly the EU's reluctant approach in these agreements.

Trade Creation and Diversion Effects of Europe's Regional Liberalization Agreements

After a short review of recent developments in gravity modeling and an overview of the liberalization agreements in Europe, this paper measures the trade creation and diversion effects of major European agreements based on the results of a correctly specified triple-indexed gravity model with bilateral fixed effects. Discussion of the resulting trade creation and diversion focuses on the role of partner and non-partner country characteristics including size and relative factor endowments, as well as date, reciprocity, industry coverage, and rate of liberalization characteristics of the agreement.Gravity model, fixed effects,

Large Eddy simulation of hydrodynamic instabilities in gaseous detonations

Abstract. This paper investigates the problem of using free-text queries as an alternative means for searching `behind ' web forms. We introduce a novel speci cation language for specifying free-text interfaces, and report the results of a user study where we evaluated our prototype in a travel planner scenario. Our results show that users prefer this free-text interface over the original web form and that they are about 9 % faster on average at completing their search tasks

On trade creation and regional trade agreements: does depth matter?

Trade, Regionalism, F10, F15,