U.S. Foreign Trade in Services: Trends and U.S. Policy Challenges

[Excerpt] This report provides background information and analysis on U.S. foreign trade in services. The focus of the report is an analysis of the policy challenges that the United States confronts, especially the challenge of negotiating a set of international disciplines on trade in services and dealing with the complexity of measuring trade in services. The report also focuses on emerging issues and current negotiations, especially those pertaining to the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement

Lessons Learned from Electronic Business: An Educational Model of Innovation, Conceptual Change, and Collaboration

As business races to embrace the new technology of the Internet, education, too, must electronically foster the development of resources by people who live and work in diverse locations and educational environments. The goal of this paper is to discuss an educational philosophy that serves a sundry population seeking educational excellence. Lessons learned from Electronic Business and current tools available for accomplishing this task will also be reviewed. To meet the rigors of the New World Community concept, education, like Electronic Commerce and Electronic Business, must embrace the virtual environment and provide a holistic platform that will allow its products to be delivered through enhanced and non-traditional methods

Recognizing the Importance of an Understanding of Autopoietic and Complexity Theories Within the Electronic Commerce Model for Competitive Advantage

Traditionally, management has viewed the organization as a very mechanistic, linear system characterized by a simple and predictable cause and effect. However, complexity theory brings to management an organic, nonlinear, and holistic way of viewing organizational systems. Within the business context in general and the electronic commerce model in specific, the selfproducing and self-organizing nature of the organization combined with the interaction between the autonomous agents of the system, produces emerging patterns and an intrinsic order that flies in the face of the traditional problem-solving techniques. The application of the autopoietic and complexity theories to the virtual systems that exist within the electronic commerce model can assist business management in understanding the nature of the unpredictable, dynamic forces continuously driving forward the dynamics of these New Economy systems. The focus of this research will center on: · identifying the interactive nature of complexity theory within the electronic commerce model;· understanding the virtual society of the electronic commerce model as being functionally differentiated into autonomous autopoietic subsystems, or “meaning worlds” (Teubner & Willke, 1997), which can influence each other only indirectly; · accepting that functional differentiation, complexity theory, and autopoiesis mean it is no longer possible to direct and control these virtual social systems to move along the traditionally predetermined paths through interventions from external systems, such as external entities, business alliances, internal customers, or external customers; · appreciating the creative dynamism unleashed through complexity theory and the autopoietic processes in which the new hyper-extended communication acts to produce new artificial structures within the electronic commerce model that have dynamics of their own and can self-reproduce and self-regulate through autopoiesis; · being aware that these social autopoietics do not give primacy either to the individual or the collective within the virtual social system, but to the emergent new hyper-extended communication system which results from discourses involving the dynamic systemic structures and real people. Hypothesized outcomes of this research also include a better understanding of the emergent behavior of the systems within the electronic commerce model. The application of the autopoietic and complexity theories to these virtual systems can be positively related to organizational success that comes from the networked combinations of freely acting agents. Competitive advantages can be maximized and organizational missions can be achieved though an understanding and application of complexity and autopoietic theories

Avoidance of Completed Real Estate Foreclosures in Bankruptcy

The Eighth Circuit has ruled that in certain situations noncollusive real estate foreclosures can be set aside as fraudulent conveyances. This theory has generated considerable debate, but even if it is reversed legislatively trustees may be able to obtain comparable results under a preference theory

Constraining the Noncommutative Spectral Action via Astrophysical Observations

The noncommutative spectral action extends our familiar notion of commutative spaces, using the data encoded in a spectral triple on an almost commutative space. Varying a rather simple action, one can derive all of the standard model of particle physics in this setting, in addition to a modified version of Einstein-Hilbert gravity. Thus, noncommutative geometry provides a geometric interpretation of particle physics coupled to curvature. In this letter we use observations of pulsar timings, assuming that no deviation from General Relativity has been observed, to constrain the gravitational sector of this theory. Thus, we directly constrain noncommutative geometry, a potential grand unified theory of physics, via astrophysical observations. Whilst the bounds on the coupling constants remain rather weak, they are comparable to existing bounds on deviations from General Relativity in other settings and are likely to be further constrained by future observations.Comment: 5 pages; slightly shorter version to match the one will appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Summary Report on the High-Speed Characteristics of Six Model Wings Having NACA 65sub1-Series Sections

A summary of the results of wind-tunnel tests to determine the high-speed aerodynamic characteristics of six model wings having NACA 65sub1-series sections is presented in this report. The 8-percent-thick wings were superior to the 10-percent and 12-percent-thick wings from the standpoint of power economy during level flight for Mach numbers above 0.76. However, airplanes that are to fly at Mach numbers below 0.76 will gain aerodynamically if the percentage thickness of the wing and the aspect ratio are both increased. The lift-curve slopes for the 8-percent-thick wings at 0.85 Mach number were roughly twice their low-speed values

Three-Dimensional Structure of the Armadillo Repeat Region of β-Catenin

Abstractβ-catenin is essential for cadherin-based cell adhesion and Wnt/Wingless growth factor signaling. In these roles, it binds to cadherins, Tcf-family transcription factors, and the tumor suppressor gene product Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (APC). A core region of β-catenin, composed of 12 copies of a 42 amino acid sequence motif known as an armadillo repeat, mediates these interactions. The three-dimensional structure of a protease-resistant fragment of β-catenin containing the armadillo repeat region has been determined. The 12 repeats form a superhelix of helices that features a long, positively charged groove. Although unrelated in sequence, the β-catenin binding regions of cadherins, Tcfs, and APC are acidic and are proposed to interact with this groove