THE FUTURE OF GATS ARTICLE XV: SERVICE SUBSIDY REGULATIONS UNDER THE WTO

The General Agreement on Trades in Services (GATS) is a multilateral framework of principles and rules for trade in services under the World Trade Organization (WTO). This dissertation aims to provide regulatory structure for Article XV of the GATS. GATS Article XV targets subsidies in service trades, but does not stipulate any detailed rules. Currently, GATS Article XV only contains guidelines for Members in future negotiations. Little progress has been made in those negotiations. I propose a service subsidy definition based on the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCMA), with some adjustments to adapt rules applicable to trade in goods to service trades. With respect to the subsidy categorization system, I propose a hybrid mechanism for Members to consider. Traffic-light categorization under the SCMA and the Amber/Blue/Green Box System under the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) are two existing categorization systems under the WTO. The hybrid system of categorization I propose aims to associate the advantages of the two existing systems for trade in goods, taking into account the four modes by which services are supplied across borders. In the end, I do not propose to solve all of the problems in determining the appropriateness of countervailing duty procedures. The lack of available data is a key obstacle. However, I do propose several collection procedures based on the VAT/RST tax systems. The problem of collecting countervailing duties on service subsidies is not without a solution. I will identify the problems and suggest some models for a workable solution. My research also indicates that WTO Members will need to give service subsidies greater attention as the Doha Round moves forward. I believe that effort can be successful and that WTO Members can create a more comprehensive legal system for the global market, including rules on service subsidie

Where to Display What? Using AR to Improve Work Performance

Augmented reality (AR) is emerging as a next-generation interactive technology with the ability to display information in the immediate field of vision (i.e., near-eye display). This study investigates the interplay between information provision channels and information types on worker performance. A field experiment reveals that workers who follow instructions shown on AR glasses achieve higher work attentiveness and work performance than workers who receive this information on a mobile phone. Moreover, the effects of AR on work performance are moderated by information type. When the instructional information is highly dependent on the physical context, AR is more helpful in improving work performance. However, when the information is highly complex, the superiority of AR is weakened. This work contributes to the IS and HCI literature by revealing the value of AR in industrial organizations, and the boundary conditions for which AR affects worker performance

Detection of Gray Hole Attack in Software Defined Networks

Gray Hole Attack is an advanced transformation of black hole attack. Both of them are a common type of attack in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Malicious nodes may constantly or randomly drop packets and therefore reduce the efficiency of the networking system. Furthermore Software Define Network (SDN) has been highly developed in recent years. In this type of networks switch/router functionality is separated into the control plane and data plane. Network managers can select control policies and build operating rules according to their own preferences. In addition, network protocols and packet fields are also programmable. Because the switch/router only implements the data transmission and executes the switching/routing decisions based on commends coming from control plane. Compromised switches/routers themselves or malicious control instructions both can result in selectively dropped packets. This makes a gray hole attack possible in the infrastructure of SDN. Therefore, this paper would like to discuss time-base and random-base gray hole attack in SDN, and then propose a useful detection method based on weighted K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). The simulation data collected from switches/routers indicate that our method does demonstrate pretty good performance

OPTIMAL REASSIGNMENT OF FLIGHTS TO AIRPORT BAGGAGE UNLOADING CAROUSELS IN RESPONSE TO TEMPORARY MALFUNCTIONS

Being able to efficiently reassign outbound flights to baggage unloading carousels (BUCs) following temporary malfunctions is very important for airport operators. This study proposes an optimization model with a heuristic to solve the carousel reassignment problem. The objective is to minimize the total disturbance and overlapping time caused by the reassignment of outbound flights. A heuristic is developed to efficiently solve large-sized instances. The proposed approach is then applied to solve real-world instances of the problem at a major international airport in Taiwan. The computation time is about two minutes. The objective value obtained with the heuristic is more than 15% better than that obtained by the manual approach currently used by the operator. The improvement is gained mostly from the reduction in total temporal disturbance and overlapping time. The proposed approach could assist the operator in reassigning outbound flights to BUCs in response to malfunctions

Mechanism of thermal field and electric field in resistive random access memory using the high/low-k side wall structure

In the Internet of things (IoT) era, low power consumption memory will be a critical issue for further device development. Among many kinds of next-generation memories, resistive random access memory (RRAM) is considered as having the most potential due to its high performance. To prevent unrecoverable hard break-down of a RRAM device, the RRAM should be collocated with a transistor for external current compliance. With decreasing device cell size, however, the operating voltage of the transistor will become smaller and smaller. Previous study has determined that the forming voltage of RRAM increases when device cell size is reduced, which is a very crucial issue especially when the device is scaled down. We have proposed a high-k sidewall spacer structure in RRAM to solve the dilemma of increasing forming voltages for device cell scaling down. Based on the COMSOL-simulated electrical field distributions in the high-k RRAM. In addition, thermal conductivity of sidewall spacer influenced resistive switching behavior. Suitable thermal conductivity of sidewall materials can enhance resistive switching behavior. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Ownership structure, organization stability and biotechnology company performance

In this paper, the authors use the method of quantile regression to analyze the effect of different ownership structure and organization stability on the performance of biotechnology company. Data from the 2004 and 2015 Taiwan listed biotechnology companies are the research samples to find out the relationship of ownership structure, organization stability and corporate performance. The results show that the ownership structure and the organization stability have a positive effect on firm performanc