495 research outputs found
Services diagnostic and needs assessment study
Liberalisation of trade in services and associated domestic reforms is fundamental to the realisation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). However, this requires real (âon the groundâ) liberalisation, not simply âon paperâ liberalisation in the form of commitments under the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS), a sideshow in services liberalisation. The decision by leaders to form an AEC covering also the free flow of services has put the emphasis very much on ensuring each ASEAN Member State (AMS) removes restrictions affecting trade in services (including related foreign investment) and implement related reforms.
However, the diagnostic analysis presented in this Services Diagnostic and Needs Assessment Study (SDNAS), including in the in-country reports, suggests this is not happening, or at least is going very slowly, especially when set against the adopted start date for the AEC of 2015. Hence, key and effective technical assistance and capacity building is needed to advance âon the groundâ liberalisation of services and related reforms. The in-country fieldwork and other analysis undertaken in the SDNAS helped identify constraints and provided a list of potential technical assistance and capacity building projects to help address them, both from a primarily cross-cutting but also a sectoral perspective.
The SDNAS has also adopted an economic framework based on the fundamental benefits of unilateral liberalisation and a strategic structured approach, to identify key areas (âumbrellasâ) needing technical assistance and capacity building activities, such as strengthening the evidence base, promoting transparency, developing strategies and planning, and raising understanding and awareness. Key activity clusters were also identified within these three âumbrellasâ, such as policy analysis, services policy visions, and organisations for dialogues, respectively.
Individual priority technical assistance and capacity building project proposals within these clusters were determined using a cost-benefit analytical approach.
The SNDAS importantly recommends the need to re-balance much of the technical assistance and capacity building activities away from being directed at servicing the AFAS trade negotiations and focusing on âon-paperâ liberalisation towards efforts to build transparency and fundamental support for services trade liberalisation and related reforms in AMS. This is what is required to achieve the necessary âon-the-groundâ changes to achieve the AEC. This is consistent with international experience that significant âon-the-groundâ services liberalisation and related reforms requires unilateral efforts, and that trade negotiations have generally failed to deliver such changes.
With this in mind, the SNDAS has developed and recommended a number of detailed proposed technical assistance and capacity building project templates
Advances in the homogenization of daily peak wind gusts: an application to the Australian series
PĂłster presentado en: EGU General Assembly 2018 celebrada del 8 al 13 de abril en Viena, Austria.Daily Peak Wind Gusts (DPWG) time-series are valuable data for evaluation of wind related hazard risk to the population and different economic sectors. Yet wind time-series are prone to be affected by inhomogeneities temporally and spatially (e.g. through change of instruments at a site compared to surrounding sites) that may mislead the studies of their variability and trends. The aim of this work is to present the advances in the homogenization of DPWG by analyzing 548 sites time-series across Australia covering the 1941-2016 time period. Due to the low correlation coefficients between these series, especially in the first decades when the station density is much lower, the average wind speed data from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis were tried as reference series. However, their lower correlations with the DPWG data suggests avoiding this approach. We proposed a robust monthly homogenization using the R package Climatol, which detected 353 break-points at the monthly scale. Some of them were supported by the history of the stations, but detailed analysis of the metadata of 35 selected stations did not find a good correspondence since many changes do not necessarily produce inhomogeneities. When NCEP/NCAR reanalysis are used as references, more break-points are detected around 2003, but it is not clear whether they are due to a general change of the DPWG algorithm in the observation network or rather an artifact due to inhomogeneities in the reanalysis series. The monthly dates of the detected break-points were used in a new application of the Climatol package to adjust the series at daily basis, yielding a homogenized and filled DPWG database for assessing the variability of extreme wind events. Resultant trends of the homogenized DPWG series showed the benefits of the homogenization in the form a much lower dispersion of their values.This work has been also supported by the Project âDetection and attribution of changes in extreme wind gusts ove rlandâ (2017-03780) funded by the Swedish Research Council, and the MULTITEST (Multiple verification of automatic software homogenizing monthly temperatura and precipitation series; CGL2014-52901-P) Project ,funded b ythe Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity
Design and characterization of AmLi neutron sources for the LZ experiment
In this paper we describe the development, testing, and characterization of
three low-emission rate AmLi neutron sources. The sources are used to calibrate
the nuclear recoil response of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter experiment. The
sources' neutron emission rate was measured using He proportional tubes.
The sources' gamma emissions were characterized using a high-purity germanium
(HPGe) detector. Source-validated GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulations allowed to
calibrate the Ge and neutron detector responses.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables, revised manuscripts after
accommodating the reviewer's comment
Veterinary practitionersâ selection of diagnostic tests for the primary evaluation of colic in the horse
The aim of this study was to survey veterinary practitionersâ selection of diagnostic tests for horses with clinical signs of abdominal pain. A questionnaire was distributed to veterinary surgeons involved in the primary evaluation of horses with abdominal pain, including the respondent's demographics, selection of diagnostic tests and factors affecting decision-making. Data analysis included descriptive analysis, categorisation of free text and simple univariable correlations to explore the relationships between independent variables and the relative self-estimated frequency that diagnostic tests were performed. A total of 228 responses were analysed. Participants worked in mixed practice (55.7 per cent), first opinion equine (22.8 per cent), first and second opinion equine (17.9 per cent) and referral practice (3.1 per cent). The majority (48.2 per cent, 105/218) were very confident managing a colic case (confidence level 4/5). The most frequently used diagnostic tests were âresponse to analgesiaâ (87.2±24.0 per cent cases), rectal examination (75.9±21.2 per cent) and nasogastric intubation (43.8±27.6 per cent). Approach varied between practitioners, and for all diagnostic tests with frequency of use ranging from 0 to 100 per cent of cases. âRisk to personal safetyâ was the most common reason for not using rectal examination. Practitioner's opinion of their confidence level in managing a colic case was associated with how frequently they used different diagnostic tests. There was marked variation in practitionersâ approaches, highlighting the need for further evidence to support decision-making
An approach to homogenize daily peak wind gusts: an application to the Australian series
Daily Peak Wind Gust (DPWG) time series are important for the evaluation of wind-related hazard risks to different socioeconomic and environmental sectors. Yet, wind time series analyses can be impacted by several artefacts, both tempo-rally and spatially, which may introduce inhomogeneities that mislead the study of their decadal variability and trends. The aim of this study is to present a strategy in the homogenization of a challenging climate extreme such as the DPWG using 548 time series across Australia for 1941â2016. This automatic homogenization of DPWG is implemented in the recently developed Version 3.1 of the R package Climatol. This approach is an advance in homogenization of climate records as it identifies 353 break points based on monthly data, splits the daily series into homo- geneous subperiods, and homogenizes them without needing the monthly corrections. The major advantages of this homogenization strategy are its ability to: (a) automatically homogenize a large number of DPWG series, including short-term ones and without needing site metadata (e.g., the change in observational equipment in 2010/2011 was correctly identified); (b) use the closest reference series even not sharing a common period with candidate series or presenting missing data; and (c) supply homogenized series, correcting anomalous data (quality control by spatial coherence), and filling in all the missing data. The NCEP/NCAR reanalysis wind speed data were also trialled in aiding homogenization given the station density was very low during the early decades of the record; however, reanalysis data did not improve the homogenization. Application of this approach found a reduced range of DPWG trends based on site data, and an increased negative regional trend of this climate extreme, compared to raw data and homogenized data using NCEP/NCAR. The analysis produced the first homogenized DPWG dataset to assess and attribute long-term variability of extreme winds across Australia.C.A.-M. received funding from the European Unionâs Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie SkĆodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 703733 (STILLING project). This work was also supported by the project âDetection and attribution of changes in extreme wind gusts over landâ (2017-03780) funded by the VetenskapsrĂ„det, and the MULTITEST (Multiple verification of automatic software homogenizing monthly temperature and precipitation series; CGL2014-52901-P) project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity
A new approach to homogenize daily peak wind gusts: an application to the Australian series
PĂłster presentado en: EMS Annual Meeting - European Conference for Applied Meteorology and Climatology 2018, celebrado en Budapest del 3 al 7 de septiembre de 2018.Daily Peak Wind Gusts (DPWG) time-series are valuable data for the evaluation of wind related hazard risks to different socioeconomic and environmental sectors. Yet wind time-series analyses can be impacted by several artefacts, both temporally and spatially, that may introduce inhomogeneities that mislead the studies of their decadal variability and trends. The aim of this study is to present a new strategy in the homogenization of a challenging climate extreme such as the DPWG using 548 time-series across Australia for 1941-2016. This automatic homogenization of DPWG is implemented in the recently developed Version 3.0 of the R package Climatol. The new approach is an advance in homogenization of climate records as identifies 353 breakpoints based on monthly data, splits the daily series into homogeneous sub-periods, and homogenizes them without needing the monthly corrections. The major advantages of this homogenization strategy are its ability to: (i) automatically homogenize a large number of DPWG series, including short-term ones and without needing site metadata (e.g., the change in observational equipment in 2010/2011 was correctly identified); (ii) use the closest reference series even not sharing a common period with candidate series or presenting missing data; and (iii) supply homogenized series, correcting anomalous data (quality control by spatial coherence), and filling in all the missing data. The NCEP/NCAR reanalysis wind speed data was also trialled in aiding homogenization given the station density was very low during the early decades of the record; however, reanalysis data did not improve the homogenization. Application of the new approach found a reduced range of DPWG trends based on site data, and an increased negative regional trend of this climate extreme, compared to raw data and homogenized data using NCEP/NCAR. The analysis produced the first homogenized DPWG dataset to assess and attribute long-term variability of extreme winds across Australia.This work has been also supported by the Project âDetection and attribution of changes inextreme wind gusts over land â(2017-03780) funded by the Swedish Research Council, and the MULTITEST (Multiple verification of automatic software homogenizing monthly temperatura and precipitation series; CGL2014-52901-P) project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity
Hemispheric and large-scale land surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2010
Trends of daily peak wind gusts in Australia, 1948-2016
PĂłster presentado en: EGU General Assembly 2019 celebrada del 7 al 12 de abril en Viena, Austria.Daily Peak Wind Gust (DPWG) time series are important for the evaluation of wind-related hazard risks to different socioeconomic and environmental sectors. Yet wind time series analyses can be impacted by several artefacts, such as anemometer changes and site location changes, both temporally and spatially, that may introduce inhomogeneities that mislead the study of their decadal variability and trends. A previous study (EGU2018-14546 and Azorin-Molina et al. 2019. Int. J. Climatol. 39(4), 2260-2277) presented a strategy in the homogenization of this challenging climate extreme such as the DPWG. The automatic homogenization of this DPWG dataset was implemented in the recently developed version 3.1 of the R package Climatol which: (i) represents an advance in homogenization of this extreme climate record; and (ii) produced the first homogenized DPWG dataset to assess and attribute long-term variability of extreme winds across Australia. Given the inconsistencies of wind gust trends under the widespread decline in near-surface wind speed (stilling), the aim of this poster presentation is to show DPWG trends in 35 Bureau of Meteorology operated stations for 1948-2016, with particular focus on the spatiotemporal magnitude (wind speed maxima) of DPWG at annual, seasonal and monthly timescales.This work has been supported by the project âDetection and attribution of changes in extreme wind gusts over landâ (2017-03780) funded by the Swedish Research Council
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