Preferential trading in South Asia

The authors examine the economic case for the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) Agreement signed on January 6, 2004 by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives. They start with a detailed analysis of the preferential trading arrangements in South Asia to look at the region's experience to date and to draw lessons. Specifically, they examine the most effective free trade area in existence-the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Area-and evaluate the developments under the South Asian Preferential Trade Area (SAPTA). The authors conclude that, considered in isolation, the economic case for SAFTA is weak. When compared with the rest of the world, the region is tiny both in terms of economic size as measured by GDP (and per capita incomes) and the share in world trade. It is argued that these facts make it unlikely that trade diversion would be dominant as a result of SAFTA. This point is reinforced by the presence of high levels of protection in the region and the tendency of the member countries to establish highly restrictive"sectoral exceptions and sensitive lists"and stringent"rules of origin."The authors argue that the SAFTA makes sense only in the context of a much broader strategy of creating a larger preferential trade area in the region that specifically would encompass China and the member nations of the Association of South East Asian Nations. In turn, the case for the latter is strategic: the pursuit of regionalism in the Americas and Europe has created increasing discrimination against Asian exports to those regions, which must inevitably affect the region's terms of trade adversely. An Asian bloc could be a potential instrument of changing incentives for the trade blocs in the Americas and Europe and forcing multilateral freeing of trade. Assuming that the SAFTA Agreement is here to stay, the authors suggest steps to ensure that the Agreement can be made more effective in promoting intra-regional trade, while minimizing the likely trade-diversion costs and maximizing the potential benefits.Free Trade,Trade Policy,Trade Law,Economic Theory&Research,Trade and Regional Integration

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Many new methods have been developed for the recycling of waste tires. Among these developed methods, bio-desulfurization takes attention with its low energy requirement, selectively breaking S bonds without damaging the rubber main chain and being an environmentally friendly application. This thesis aims to investigate the enrichment and use of sulfur-driven autotrophic denitrifiers for bio-desulphurization of ground tire rubber (GTR). In the first part of the study, sulfur-based autotrophic denitrifiers were enriched from seed sludges, taken from three different treatment plants. Elemental sulfur (S0) and thiosulfate (S2O32-) were selected as sulfur sources for the enrichment operation. Average nitrate removal efficiencies of the enrichment reactors (ERs), namely ER1, ER2, ER3 and ER4 were 96.0%, 96.9%, 97.6% and 87.2%, respectively. It was observed that ER4, the only one fed with S0, was more sensitive to shock loads and had relatively lower nitrate removal efficiency. In the second part of the study, bio-desulphurization of GTR was investigated using enriched autotrophic denitrifiers, namely, EC1, EC2, EC3 and EC4 obtained from ER1 to ER4, respectively. Thus the effects of seed sludge type in addition to electron donor were also investigated. An increase in the sulfate concentration was used as a bio-desulphurization indicator. Results revealed that abiotic nitrate removal via GTR was a significant process and zinc oxide content of GTR could react with the sulfate being produced through bio-desulfurization, as also stated in the literature. Bio-desulphurization was only obtained with EC3, enriched from biological nutrient removal sludge of the Leather Organized Industrial Zone Wastewater Treatment Plant, as 3.9%, when the possible zinc sulfate formation was not taken into account, which could cause an under-estimation of the desulfurization ratio. Considering the possible zinc sulfate formation, bio-desulphurization by EC2 (enriched from anaerobic digester) and EC3 were calculated as 3.6% and 8.2%, respectively, which are comparable to the literature data. Not considering the possible zinc sulfate formation could cause an underestimation of the desulfurization ratio. Electron donor effect on bio-desulfurization could not be detected because bio-desulfurization was not obtained by EC1 (S2O32--fed) and EC4 (S0-fed) cultures. It can be concluded that it is possible to achieve bio-desulfurization of GTR with autotrophic denitrifiers, when excess nitrate was fed.-M.S. - Master of Scienc

Solving MDPs with thresholded lexicographic ordering using reinforcement learning

Includes bibliographical references.2022 Fall.Multiobjective problems with a strict importance order over the objectives occur in many real-life scenarios. While Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a promising approach with a great potential to solve many real-life problems, the RL literature focuses primarily on single-objective tasks, and approaches that can directly address multiobjective with importance order have been scarce. The few proposed approach were noted to be heuristics without theoretical guarantees. However, we found that their practical applicability is very limited as they fail to find a good solution even in very common scenarios. In this work, we first investigate these shortcomings of the existing approaches and propose some solutions that could improve their practical performance. Finally, we propose a completely different approach based on policy optimization using our Lexicographic Projection Optimization (LPO) algorithm and show its performance on some benchmark problems

Effect of residential parking policy derogations on sustainability of streets: The case of Gaziantep, Turkiye

Rapid urbanization causes severe parking problems in developing cities. Parking policies cannot be strictly applied in some cases because of varying claims by developers. The variables such as household density, car ownership, and availability of public transport, and the new challenges such as sustainability, climate change, and sustainable mobility still remain insignificant in parking policies. The appropriate parking policies are immediately needed; however, the question is "which policy is appropriate for which city?" In this study, the evolution of residential parking policies is analyzed through the policy analysis process and parking survey methods. In conclusion, maintaining the status quo and not monitoring the applied policy results during the peak period of urbanization caused an irreversible spillover problem. In particular, some exemptions, such as the derogation payment and lack of public district parking lots, increased the pressure on the on-street parking capacity and sustainability of streets. A case study parking survey in a large-city center shows that parking demand is exceeding the capacity by 166% for average daily occupancy on weekdays and 111% on weekends in 2022, compared to 61% in 2015. Five policy alternatives are developed and the "zone parking policy" is concluded to be the most appropriate one for districts while the "mobility level of zones" needs more action at the city level

A Mixed-Method Research on Digital Literacy of Middle School Students

The purpose of this study was to reveal middle school students’ digital literacy levels and their opinions about digital literacy. Convergent parallel design, one of the mixed-method designs, was used in the study. Quantitative part involved survey while qualitative part included case-study model. Digital literacy scale and semi-structured interview form were used to collect the data. The participants in the quantitative part involved 367 students studying at a state middle school in Kırşehir while 12 students took part in the qualitative part. The data analysis was conducted separately, and general conclusions were drawn and combined during interpretation. Although students had high scores from the digital literacy scale, the in-depth qualitative analyses showed that they did not have adequate information about the concept of digital literacy. Moreover, the quantitative results showed that students, who used digital technologies for research purposes, had higher scores from the security dimension of digital literacy scale than the students who used digital technologies for studying. However, the qualitative results revealed that students used digital technologies most commonly for entertainment. It was found that students’ digital literacy was significantly differed by their gender, grade level, book-reading duration, and internet-use duration while it did not significantly differ by their purpose of using digital technologies. Additionally, based on the qualitative results, students agreed that social studies course contributed to their digital literacy

PRESERVICE HISTORY AND SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF OUTDOOR HISTORY TEACHING

Creating positive attitude and behaviors in individuals towards the environment he/she lives in, outdoor teaching aims at bringing the individual together with unwritten evidences by making use of historical environment and resources when considered especially within the scope history and social studies teaching. Using relational screening model, this study aimed at investigating preservice history and social studies teachers’ perceptions of outdoor history teaching in terms of different variables. The participants were composed of 265 preservice teachers studying at two different universities in Turkey during 2016-2017 academic year. Outdoor History Teaching Perceptions Scale (OHTPS), which was developed by Yazıcı and Yıldırım (2017) and aimed at determining the teachers’/preservice teachers’ perceptions of outdoor history teaching, was used as the data collection tool. Within the framework of this study, preservice history and social studies teachers’ perceptions of outdoor history teaching were investigated in terms of gender, university, department, GPA, and appointment status after graduation. As a result of the study, it was found that preservice social studies teachers obtained higher scores from the subscales of outdoor history teaching awareness, knowledge, and competency, and from the complete scale than preservice history teachers.   Article visualizations

6,6-[Ethyl­enebis(sulfanediyl)]-2-(2-methoxy­ethyl)-1,2,3,4,5,6-hexa­hydro-1,5-methano-1H-azocino[4,3-b]indol-3-one

The title compound, C19H22N2O2S2, consists of a tetra­cyclic ring system containing an azocine skeleton with methoxy­ethyl and dithiol­ane groups as substituents. The benzene and five-membered N-heterocyclic rings are nearly coplanar, making a dihedral angle of 0.81 (12)°. The dithiol­ane ring adopts an envelope conformation. Inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen-bonding and weak C—H⋯π inter­actions are present in the crystal structure

Heuristic modelling of traffic accident characteristics

Due to the complex structure of observation based traffic accident data and the absence of an analytic model to define their characteristics, different models are required. Accident characteristics have been modeled for different road segments with two different methods: evolutionary data clustering method and resilient neural networks. In the first method, observation data was clustered using an evolutionary search-based clustering algorithm. The first method is based on determining whether observation based test data have the conditions of a possible death or injury accident based on the distance to the cluster centers obtained. The second one is a regression method that predicts whether an accident will cause death or injury according to observation based traffic data in test road segments by using resilient neural networks. Experiment results show that data analysis methods are very effective in determining the existence of the conditions that may cause accidents resulting in death or injury.No sponso

Eventually semisimple weak FIFI-extending modules

summary:In this article, we study modules with the weak $FI$-extending property. We prove that if $M$ satisfies weak $FI$-extending, pseudo duo, $C_3$ properties and $M/{\rm Soc} M$ has finite uniform dimension then $M$ decomposes into a direct sum of a semisimple submodule and a submodule of finite uniform dimension. In particular, if $M$ satisfies the weak $FI$-extending, pseudo duo, $C_3$ properties and ascending (or descending) chain condition on essential submodules then $M=M_1\oplus M_2$ for some semisimple submodule $M_1$ and Noetherian (or Artinian, respectively) submodule $M_2$. Moreover, we show that a nonsingular weak $CS$ (or weak $C_{11}^*$, or weak $FI$) module has a direct summand which essentially contains the socle of the module and is a $CS$ (or $C_{11}$, or $FI$-extending, respectively) module

CS-Modules and Generalizations

As a generalization of the divisibility of an abelian group, injectivity was defined for modules by Baer in 1940. Since then this concept has attracted much interest. The starting point of this thesis is that for any torsion-free abelian group A (Z-module) let B ≤ A such that A / B is torsion-free, can any homomorphism ϕ : B → A be lifted to A (i.e. does there exist a homomorphism theta : A → A such that theta | B = ϕ)? Since the answer is no, it is decided to investigate lifting homomorphisms from submodules to M and relationships with one (or two) of the following properties: (C1) Every submodule of M is essential in a direct summand of M. Equivalently, every complement submodule of M is a direct summand of M. (C2) Every submodule isomorphic to a direct summand of M is itself a direct summand of M. (C ) If M1 and M2 are direct summands of M with M1 ∩ M2 = 0 then M1 ⊕ M2 is a direct summand of M. A module with the property (C1) is called a CS-Module and a CS-module with the property (C2) ((C3)) is called continuous (quasi-continuous) module. In particular Kamal and Muller's result: "MR satisfies (C1) if and only if M = Z2(M) ⊕ N and Z2(M) is N-injective", allows us to consider nonsingular modules. Special rings are then considered and it is investigated when they are CS-rings for nonsingular cases. In particular, let where S, T are rings and SMT bimodule such that SM is faithful. Then the necessary and sufficient conditions for R to be a right nonsingular right CS-ring are given. In general, the full matrix ring over a CS-ring needs not be a CS-ring. This thesis contains the equivalent conditions for a full matrix ring being CS over a domain. Kamal and Muller proved that over a commutative integral domain, any torsion-free reduced CS-module is a finite direct sum of uniform modules. This result is generalized to nonsingular modules over a commutative ring with finitely many minimal prime ideals. This thesis also deals with the characterization of continuous and quasi-continuous modules in terms of lifting homomorphisms. Since the direct sum of two CS-modules need not be a CS-module (C1) is weakened to (C11) as follows: (C11) Every submodule of M has a complement which is a direct summand of M. In contrast to CS-modules it is observed that any direct sum of modules with (C11) satisfies (C11). However, it is not possible to determine whether any direct summand of a module with (C11) satisfies (C11) or not. A module M satisfies (C11+) if any direct summand of M satisfies (C11). Moreover the weaker condition than (C11) is given as follows: (C12) For every submodule N of M there exists a direct summand K of M and a monomorphism a : N 4 K such that a(N) is essential in K. It is worth knowing whether any direct summand of M is a direct sum of uniform modules whenever M is itself a direct sum uniform modules. It was shown that this is true for modules over Z. The work was completed by considering conditions on a module M which imply that M is a direct sum of uniform modules and chain conditions with (C11+)