NEW CHALLENGES FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN TEXTILE AND APPAREL INDUSTRIES IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

The full integration of the textile industry into GATT, which with some exceptions occurred on January 1, 2005, is likely to greatly impact the global textile and apparel industries. In particular, one prediction is that the South African industries are likely to be ¡°decimated.¡± The actual effect on these industries will depend at least partly on the ability to take advantage of economies of scale and to be internationally competitive. In an endeavor to gain more insights into the future of these industries in South Africa, this study uses a cost function to investigate the presence of scale economies and the nature of input interrelationships. The findings include statistically significant economies of scale present in both industries and cross price elasticity estimates indicating that most inputs are substitutes for one another. The first result offers an opportunity to reduce unit costs if these industries can grow their markets. However, lower prices on imported intermediate goods will likely decrease the demand for domestic inputs. The cross price elasticities of demand are relatively low in some cases, consistent with domestic input market rigidities and international trade restrictions.South Africa, Textile Industry, Apparel Industry

The South African Textile Industry: Challenges and Opportunities

The full integration of the textile industry into GATT, which with some exceptions occurred on January 1, 2005, is likely to greatly impact the global textile and apparel industries. In particular,one prediction is that the South African industries are likely to be "decimated." The actual effect on these industries in an individual country will depend at least partly on the ability to take advantage of economies of scale and to be internationally competitive. In an endeavor to gain more insights into the future of these industries in South Africa, this study uses a cost function to investigate the presence of scale economies and the nature of input interrelationships. The findings include statistically significant economies of scale present in both industries and cross price elasticity estimates indicating that most inputs are substitutes for one another. The first result offers an opportunity to reduce unit costs, if these industries can grow their markets. However, lower prices on imported intermediate goods will likely decrease the demand for domestic inputs. The cross price elasticities of demand are relatively low in some cases, consistent with domestic input market rigidities and international trade restrictions. More recent data might bring findings of higher cross elasticities in the new international environment.South Africa, Textile Industry

NAFTA¡¯S IMPACT ON THE MEXICAN AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR

The findings discussed here are the outcome of continuing research on the Mexican automotive industry and include data for several years during which the NAFTA was in effect. Key results include strong evidence of constant returns to scale in both the automotive industry as a whole as well as the vehicle assembly industry and a finding that the period after NAFTA was implemented has been associated with lower production costs. In addition, these data support the conclusion that capital, labor, and foreign intermediate goods are all substitutes for one another, as are capital and domestic intermediate goods, but that labor and domestic intermediate goods are complements. While evidence was found to suggest some increased responsiveness in domestic markets to both foreign and domestic input prices, other results give reason for concern about continuing market impediments in Mexico.Mexico, Automotive Industry, NAFTA

Public consciousness and willingness to embrace ethical consumption of textile products in Mexico

The Mexican economy has been showing a continuous and arguably remarkable growth in the last decade, and it is expected that this strong economic growth is based on a balance between social equity, fiscal growth and environmental protection. This composite situation requires us to have a clear understanding of changes in consumer behaviour and their attitudes towards ethical consumerism in this region. With the use of a semi-structured questionnaire, this pilot study presented a detailed analysis of the consumer attitudes towards ethical consumerism in relation to their socio economic class levels in this region, the public consciousness and willingness to embrace ethical consumption of textile products in Mexico were thus determined. It is hoped that this knowledge provides the basis for the initiation of a framework of activities and measures to develop sustainable consumption habits and to educate consumers on the subject of ethical consumption

System/subsystem specifications for the Worldwide Port System (WPS) Regional Integrated Cargo Database (ICDB)

A system is being developed by the Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC) to provide data integration and worldwide management and tracking of surface cargo movements. The Integrated Cargo Database (ICDB) will be a data repository for the WPS terminal-level system, will be a primary source of queries and cargo traffic reports, will receive data from and provide data to other MTMC and non-MTMC systems, will provide capabilities for processing Advance Transportation Control and Movement Documents (ATCMDs), and will process and distribute manifests. This System/Subsystem Specifications for the Worldwide Port System Regional ICDB documents the system/subsystem functions, provides details of the system/subsystem analysis in order to provide a communication link between developers and operational personnel, and identifies interfaces with other systems and subsystems. It must be noted that this report is being produced near the end of the initial development phase of ICDB, while formal software testing is being done. Following the initial implementation of the ICDB system, maintenance contractors will be in charge of making changes and enhancing software modules. Formal testing and user reviews may indicate the need for additional software units or changes to existing ones. This report describes the software units that are components of this ICDB system as of August 1995

Standards and conventions for the Worldwide Port System (WPS) regional Integrated Cargo Database (ICDB)

This document, prepared for the Worldwide Port System (WPS) Regional Integrated Cargo Database (ICDB), provides standards and conventions for the screens developed using ORACLE`s SQL*Menu, SQL*Forms, and SQL*Reportwriter; for the ORACLE keys; and for commenting ORACLE code. It also covers standards for database system transfers. The results of adherence to these standards and conventions by all developers at both geographically separated development sites, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and The Military Traffic Management Command`s Eastern Area (EA), will be a consistent appearance of ICDB to users, code that is easily maintained, and a system that will be quicker to develop and integrate. This final report of the Standards and Conventions contains general guidelines to be followed for the development of the ICDB user interface screens. Though additional ICDB user interface screens are being developed both at ORNL and EA, and existing screens may have fields added to or deleted from them, the standards and conventions presented in this document should remain unchanged

Determining a subsidy rate for Taiwan's recycling glass industry: an application of bi-level programming

[[abstract]]This study attempts to optimize the operations of the Recycling Fund Management Board (RFMB), founded by the Environmental Protection Administration of the R.O.C. Government (on Taiwan), through the decision of a subsidy rate for the domestic glass recycling industry. The hierarchical and interactive nature between the two parties is modelled by bi-level programming, where the RFMB plays the upper-level decision unit while the recycling industry is the lower-level counterpart. In order to solve the problem by optimization software, the bi-level formulation is transformed to a single-level problem via Karush-Kuhn-Tucker optimality conditions and is further transformed to a 0—1 mixed integer programming problem by variable substitution. The problem is solved with real-world data, and the obtained solutions are analysed and compared with the RFMB's current operations. The results suggest that the proposed approach can improve the operations of the RFMB.[[notice]]補正完畢[[journaltype]]國外[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[countrycodes]]GB

γ-ray spectroscopy of the A=23, T=1/2 nuclei 23Na and 23Mg: High-spin states, mirror symmetry, and applications to nuclear astrophysical reaction rates

Background: Obtaining reaction rates for nuclear astrophysics applications is often limited by the availability of radioactive beams. Indirect techniques to establish reaction rates often rely heavily on the properties of excited states inferred from mirror symmetry arguments. Mirror energy differences can depend sensitively on nuclear structure effects. Purpose: The present work sets out to establish a detailed comparison of mirror symmetry in the A=23, T=1/2 mirror nuclei 23Na and 23Mg both to high spin, and high excitation energy, including beyond the proton threshold. These data can be used to benchmark state-of-the-art shell-model calculations of these nuclei. Methods: Excited states in 23Na and 23Mg were populated using the 12C(12C,p) and 12C(12C,n) reactions at beam energies of 16 and 22 MeV, and their resulting γ decay was measured with Gammasphere. Results: Level schemes for 23Na and 23Mg have been considerably extended; highly excited structures have been found in 23Na, as well as their counterparts in 23Mg for previously known rotational structures in 23Na. Mirror symmetry has been investigated up to an excitation energy of 8 MeV and spin-parity of 13/2+. Excited states in the region above the proton threshold have been studied in both nuclei. Conclusions: A detailed exploration of mirror symmetry has been performed which heavily constrains expectations as to how mirror energy differences should evolve for different structures. Agreement with shell-model calculations provides confidence in using such estimations where real data are absent

Merlin controls the repair capacity of Schwann cells after injury by regulating Hippo/YAP activity

Loss of the Merlin tumor suppressor and activation of the Hippo signaling pathway play major roles in the control of cell proliferation and tumorigenesis. We have identified completely novel roles for Merlin and the Hippo pathway effector Yes-associated protein (YAP) in the control of Schwann cell (SC) plasticity and peripheral nerve repair after injury. Injury to the peripheral nervous system (PNS) causes a dramatic shift in SC molecular phenotype and the generation of repair-competent SCs, which direct functional repair. We find that loss of Merlin in these cells causes a catastrophic failure of axonal regeneration and remyelination in the PNS. This effect is mediated by activation of YAP expression in Merlin-null SCs, and loss of YAP restores axonal regrowth and functional repair. This work identifies new mechanisms that control the regenerative potential of SCs and gives new insight into understanding the correct control of functional nerve repair in the PNS

Conditional Transgenesis Using Dimerizable Cre (DiCre)

Cre recombinase is extensively used to engineer the genome of experimental animals. However, its usefulness is still limited by the lack of an efficient temporal control over its activity. We have recently developed a conceptually new approach to regulate Cre recombinase, that we have called Dimerizable Cre or DiCre. It is based on splitting Cre into two inactive moieties and fusing them to FKBP12 (FK506-binding protein) and FRB (binding domain of the FKBP12-rapamycin associated protein), respectively. These latter can be efficiently hetero-dimerized by rapamycin, leading to the reinstatement of Cre activity. We have been able to show, using in vitro approaches, that this ligand-induced dimerization is an efficient way to regulate Cre activity, and presents a low background activity together with a high efficiency of recombination following dimerization. To test the in vivo performance of this system, we have, in the present work, knocked-in DiCre into the Rosa26 locus of mice. To evaluate the performance of the DiCre system, mice have been mated with indicator mice (Z/EG or R26R) and Cre-induced recombination was examined following activation of DiCre by rapamycin during embryonic development or after birth of progenies. No recombination could be observed in the absence of treatment of the animals, indicating a lack of background activity of DiCre in the absence of rapamycin. Postnatal rapamycin treatment (one to five daily injection, 10 mg/kg i.p) induced recombination in a number of different tissues of progenies such as liver, heart, kidney, muscle, etc. On the other hand, recombination was at a very low level following in utero treatment of DiCre×R26R mice. In conclusion, DiCre has indeed the potentiality to be used to establish conditional Cre-deleter mice. An added advantage of this system is that, contrary to other modulatable Cre systems, it offers the possibility of obtaining regulated recombination in a combinatorial manner, i.e. induce recombination at any desired time-point specifically in cells characterized by the simultaneous expression of two different promoters