Aid for Trade: An Action Agenda Looking Forward

The current postcrisis environment—and fragile economic recovery—increases the importance of aid for trade. Global rebalancing and tightened fiscal budgets in the short to medium term also place renewed emphasis on aid effectiveness. This note identifies four options to enhance the effectiveness of the multilateral aid for trade initiative: (i) expanding market access for least-developed countries (LDCs) through leadership by middleincome G-20 members; (ii) creating a mechanism to identify good practices in domestic regulation of service markets and other “behind-the-border” trade-related policies; (iii) leveraging the dynamism and knowledge of the private sector to improve trade facilitation and build capacity; and (iv) making a concerted effort to expand data collection and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of aid for trade.aid, trade, aid for trade, economic recovery, aid effectiveness, market access, least-developed countires, G-20, monitoring and evalutaion, M&E, middle-income

Aid for trade : building on progress today for tomorrow's future

Since 2005, donors and development agencies have increased the overall value of aid for trade and put in place several mechanisms to channel such aid and to ensure that it targets national priorities. This paper reviews recent trends in the allocation of aid for trade and analyses of its effectiveness. It identifies a number of opportunities for concerted action to enhance the impact of aid for trade initiatives, including greater involvement by middle-income countries in the initiative (through improved market access, investment flows, and knowledge transfers); deeper engagement with the private sector -- a key source of information on what works and what does not; a stronger focus on improving the"behind the border"policies that affect the efficiency of key services sectors and help determine firm-level competitiveness; and a stronger focus on monitoring and evaluation of results.Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets,Free Trade,Trade Policy,Trade Law

Effects of solar radiation on buildings and thermal comfort

This work was undertaken to investigate the perceived problem of Thermal Discomfort in Malawi. One observable effect of thermal discomfort was the amount of foreign exchange that was spent to import air conditioning devices. The purpose of the work was to find out, and quantify the problem of thermal discomfort and outline its effects to the people and country. In order to investigate the problem of thermal discomfort in depth in a place where the necessary data hardly existed a lot of work had to be done. The work has been outlined in four stages of research, analysis and documentation and these are as follows 1 Literature Review The subject of Thermal Comfort appears to be location specific, but the general principles are universal. In that context it was necessary to read widely on both historical and contemporary current work. The problem of thermal comfort in general was being discussed as early as 1758 and still remains a big area of research and discussion today. A considerable number of literature that specifically relate to the problem of thermal comfort in the tropics has been reviewed. The problem of scales for thermal comfort measurement has been discussed in detail. It is still not possible to quote a scale that is satisfactory. However, the recent approach of Adaptive Thermal Comfort Model seems to be closer to the answer than the others 2 Analysing Existing Relevant Information And Data In Malawi In the course of this work it was found out that quite a large amount of useful data existed in Malawi. However, this data was not standardised. Most of this data had to be cleaned and updated. Some of the old formulae are quoted in their original formats in order not to confuse the referencing. The data that exists in Malawi has been recorded on three types of instruments; namely the Gunn Bellum Spherical Pyranometer, the Camp Bell Stoke Sunshine Recorder and the Eppley Pyranometer. Most of the data was recorded using the Camp Bell Stokes Sunshine Recorder. The data recorded on the Gunn Bellum Spherical Pyranometer had to be related to that from the Camp Bell Stokes Sunshine Recorder. The former gave data that was more accurate as was found out when a comparison was made with data recorded on an Eppley Pyranometer. A paper on this subject was accepted for publication in the Renewable Energy Journal of WREN. Wind speeds, air temperatures, and humidity have been analysed to investigate the severity of thermal discomfort relative to locations in Malawi. This has resulted in the identification of three climatic zones. A tool for testing Thermal Discomfort severity of a location by calculating number Degree Days (D. d) if the altitude (AL) has been developed; as D. d = -575.994 In AL + 4226.6 3 Field Measurements In order to investigate some of the issues that came out of this work, it was felt simpler to conduct field measurements. For example it would have been possible to build typical experimental houses, and extract performance data on Thermal Comfort from these buildings. However, this approach would have been very expensive. On the other hand it was felt that it was possible to find in the field that were representative of typical buildings and could be prepared and tested to extract performance data for use in the work. The latter approach was adopted and has proved to be more realistic than the former. 4 Field Surveys There were certain areas where the only way to find information was not to conduct experiments but to conduct field conduct surveys. This was done once to find the Preferred Bath Water Temperature (PBWT) and deduce the Neutral Temperature Range for Malawi. This yielded very useful results. The first published paper on this work was in this area (copy of this publication is attached). The second area of field survey was to survey traditional buildings in seven selected districts stretching from latitude 9°S to 17°S; covering a terrestrial distance of over 1000 km; over altitudes from 52 to over 1600 metres above mean sea level (m. a. m. s. l). This again yielded very useful environmental data that explained why traditional buildings have certain structural elements as functions of the environment and the need to achieve Thermal Comfort. A number of useful equations have been developed. From that sub routine of this research of PBWT survey an equation was developed that related the bath temperature (h) to the air temperature (tab) as; tb =0.3772 tab + 36.4401. Part of this work was also published separately in 2001. From this equation the Thermal Comfort Temperature Range for Malawi was deduced as 22-27°C. From the survey of the traditional buildings, a number of structural elements were that are functions of Thermal Comfort were identified as derivatives of the desire to have Thermal Comfort in the buildings. A regression equation that can give values of irradiation of the locality in MJm 1 Day' was developed. Lastly the results have been extracted as recommendations directed at policy makers, and both Architects and Engineers to use this data and the results in their design work. It is also further recommended that the national buildings regulations could be updated and revised to incorporate some of the findings. It is strongly believed that some of the findings will be incorporated to update the two main Laws that regulate Public Health in Malawi. These are the Public Health Act; Cap. 34.01, and the Health and Safety at Work Act, 1977; of the Malawi Laws. All data that has been cleaned up or measured specifically for this work has been organised and tabulated into ready-to-use tables and are included

The Charm Quark on the Lattice

We formulate lattice fermions in a way that encompasses Wilson fermions as well as the static and non-relativistic approximations. In particular, we treat $m_qa$ systematically ($m_q$ is the fermion mass) showing how to understand the Wilson action as an effective action for systems with \vek{p}\ll m_q. The results show how to extract matrix elements and the spectrum from simulations with $m_qa\approx1$, which is relevant for the charm quark.Comment: 4 pages LaTeX using espcrc2.sty and epsf.sty. FERMILAB-CONF-92/329-

Deflation and Reflation: The Pre-WW I Impact on NYSE Trading Volumes and Seat Prices

The study analyzes a unique time period of sustained deflation from 1867 to 1896, followed by sustained reflation after 1896. We use these periods to test two hypotheses concerning the impact on NYSE trading volumes and seat prices. The first is the “liquidity-trading” hypothesis, which hypothesizes that liquidity trading, a component of total trading volume, is positively correlated with interest rates. The second is the price-volume relationship, which hypothesizes a positive relationship between stock prices returns and changes in trading volume. These hypotheses suggest that NYSE trading volume should fall (rise) with falling (rising) stock prices and interest rates. We find strong support for both hypotheses, and additionally show that the impact of stock market prices on trading volumes is highly asymmetrical. As well, the study argues and finds evidence that the high level of systematic risk found in the pricing of NYSE seats is another reflection of the price-volume relationship. Therefore, the study finds strong evidence of a link between deflation, reflation and market liquidity as reflected in trading volumes and the pricing of NYSE seats

Dissociation of Cerebral Blood Flow and Femoral Artery Blood Pressure Pulsatility After Cardiac Arrest and Resuscitation in a Rodent Model: Implications for Neurological Recovery.

Background Impaired neurological function affects 85% to 90% of cardiac arrest (CA) survivors. Pulsatile blood flow may play an important role in neurological recovery after CA. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) pulsatility immediately, during, and after CA and resuscitation has not been investigated. We characterized the effects of asphyxial CA on short-term (<2 hours after CA) CBF and femoral arterial blood pressure (ABP) pulsatility and studied their relationship to cerebrovascular resistance (CVR) and short-term neuroelectrical recovery. Methods and Results Male rats underwent asphyxial CA followed by cardiopulmonary resuscitation. A multimodal platform combining laser speckle imaging, ABP, and electroencephalography to monitor CBF, peripheral blood pressure, and brain electrophysiology, respectively, was used. CBF and ABP pulsatility and CVR were assessed during baseline, CA, and multiple time points after resuscitation. Neuroelectrical recovery, a surrogate for neurological outcome, was assessed using quantitative electroencephalography 90 minutes after resuscitation. We found that CBF pulsatility differs significantly from baseline at all experimental time points with sustained deficits during the 2 hours of postresuscitation monitoring, whereas ABP pulsatility was relatively unaffected. Alterations in CBF pulsatility were inversely correlated with changes in CVR, but ABP pulsatility had no association to CVR. Interestingly, despite small changes in ABP pulsatility, higher ABP pulsatility was associated with worse neuroelectrical recovery, whereas CBF pulsatility had no association. Conclusions Our results reveal, for the first time, that CBF pulsatility and CVR are significantly altered in the short-term postresuscitation period after CA. Nevertheless, higher ABP pulsatility appears to be inversely associated with neuroelectrical recovery, possibly caused by impaired cerebral autoregulation and/or more severe global cerebral ischemia

The Nature of the Low-Metallicity ISM in the Dwarf Galaxy NGC 1569

We are modeling the spectra of dwarf galaxies from infrared to submillimeter wavelengths to understand the nature of the various dust components in low-metallicity environments, which may be comparable to the ISM of galaxies in their early evolutionary state. The overall nature of the dust in these environments appears to differ from those of higher metallicity starbursting systems. Here, we present a study of one of our sample of dwarf galaxies, NGC 1569, which is a nearby, well-studied starbursting dwarf. Using ISOCAM, IRAS, ISOPHOT and SCUBA data with the Desert et al. (1990) model, we find consistency with little contribution from PAHs and Very Small Grains and a relative abundance of bigger colder grains, which dominate the FIR and submillimeter wavelengths. We are compelled to use 4 dust components, adding a very cold dust component, to reproduce the submillimetre excess of our observations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 postscript figures. Proceedings of "Infrared and Submillimeter Astronomy. An International Colloquium to Honor the Memory of Guy Serra" (2002

Analysis of Rocky Mountain snail (Oreohelix sp.) dietary preference

Rocky Mountain snails in the genus Oreohelix go mostly unnoticed beneath layers of leaf litter in the western Mountain ranges. These snails are most common in rocky foothill habitat that consists of high-density deciduous groves of maple and oak. It is in this habitat where a great number of unobserved feeding behaviors occur. While some research indicates that terrestrial snails may prefer to feed on living plants, it is thought that Oreohelix are detritivores, feeding primarily on decomposing plant matter. In this study we investigated Oreohelix diet by designing a food preference experiment. We provided two food sources (Boxelder maple leaf litter and fresh Romaine lettuce) to groups of 10 snails. Dietary preference was determined by collecting and examining fecal matter. Our results indicate that Oreohelix preferred leaf litter over fresh greens. This study provides an insight into the lesser-known ecology of Oreohelix snails and may aid in future conservation efforts as their habitat continues to be threatened by development