TRIPS Agreement and Economic Development: Implications and Challenges for Least-Developed Countries like Bangladesh

Least-developed countries (LDCs) like Bangladesh could benefit from increasing demand and appropriate intellectual property rigths (IPRs) especially for patented agricultural and pharmaceutical goods. IPRs protection could be used as a vehicle for economic development through trade.1 By appropriating rights, the country could use its comparative advantage of reverse-engineering, adding value through adaptation of existing technology goods (knowledge goods) accessed in formal and non-formal means. However, as a part of ensuring economic benefits to innovators, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS)2 obliges its members, irrespective of their level of development, to offer strict IPRs protection in knowledge goods, including comprehensive control on technology diffusion. In theory, protection aims to foster beneficial technological development furthering innovation and increasing economic growth.

Collaborative Data Access and Sharing in Mobile Distributed Systems

The multifaceted utilization of mobile computing devices, including smart phones, PDAs, tablet computers with increasing functionalities and the advances in wireless technologies, has fueled the utilization of collaborative computing (peer-to-peer) technique in mobile environment. Mobile collaborative computing, known as mobile peer-to-peer (MP2P), can provide an economic way of data access among users of diversified applications in our daily life (exchanging traffic condition in a busy high way, sharing price-sensitive financial information, getting the most-recent news), in national security (exchanging information and collaborating to uproot a terror network, communicating in a hostile battle field) and in natural catastrophe (seamless rescue operation in a collapsed and disaster torn area). Nonetheless, data/content dissemination among the mobile devices is the fundamental building block for all the applications in this paradigm. The objective of this research is to propose a data dissemination scheme for mobile distributed systems using an MP2P technique, which maximizes the number of required objects distributed among users and minimizes to object acquisition time. In specific, we introduce a new paradigm of information dissemination in MP2P networks. To accommodate mobility and bandwidth constraints, objects are segmented into smaller pieces for efficient information exchange. Since it is difficult for a node to know the content of every other node in the network, we propose a novel Spatial-Popularity based Information Diffusion (SPID) scheme that determines urgency of contents based on the spatial demand of mobile users and disseminates content accordingly. The segmentation policy and the dissemination scheme can reduce content acquisition time for each node. Further, to facilitate efficient scheduling of information transmission from every node in the wireless mobile networks, we modify and apply the distributed maximal independent set (MIS) algorithm. We also consider neighbor overlap for closely located mobile stations to reduce duplicate transmission to common neighbors. Different parameters in the system such as node density, scheduling among neighboring nodes, mobility pattern, and node speed have a tremendous impact on data diffusion in an MP2P environment. We have developed analytical models for our proposed scheme for object diffusion time/delay in a wireless mobile network to apprehend the interrelationship among these different parameters. In specific, we present the analytical model of object propagation in mobile networks as a function of node densities, radio range, and node speed. In the analysis, we calculate the probabilities of transmitting a single object from one node to multiple nodes using the epidemic model of spread of disease. We also incorporate the impact of node mobility, radio range, and node density in the networks into the analysis. Utilizing these transition probabilities, we construct an analytical model based on the Markov process to estimate the expected delay for diffusing an object to the entire network both for single object and multiple object scenarios. We then calculate the transmission probabilities of multiple objects among the nodes in wireless mobile networks considering network dynamics. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed scheme is efficient for data diffusion in mobile networks

Implications of the TRIPS Agreement in Bangladesh : prospects and concerns

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Protection of public interests through a human rights framework in the TRIPS Agreement: realities and challenges

10 page(s

TRIPS' protection of IPRs as private rights : implications on the right to health

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) are privatised in the TRIPS Agreement. In such premise, these private rights get protection in the form of positive obligations, and public interest issues are protected by way of negative or exceptional rights. This has long been a subject of human rights debate between IPRs-owning developed countries and IPRs-using developing countries. In making their case, the points of human rights and public interests in the sense of economic and other utilitarian standards have been brought into play to defend and discard the privatisation of IPRs since the beginning of international IPRs systems. This article argues that through protectionist regulations, the TRIPS recognition of IPRs as private and exclusive rights leads to monopolisation, makes IPRs inaccessible to the people and causes human rights concerns, in particular the right to public health in developing and least developed countries is affected.25 page(s

TRIPs Agreement and public health : implications and challenges for Bangladesh

29 page(s

TRIPS agreement and economic development : implications and challenges for least-developed countries like Bangladesh

The article claims that the TRIPS standard-setting, i.e. strengthening IPRs in agriculture and pharmaceuticals carries mixed economic prospects and concerns for an agriculture-prone and densely populated least-developed country (LDC) like Bangladesh. With the lack of R&D due to low income, the standard-setting does not help the country to fulfil subsistence needs or promote economic development through innovations. However, exception clauses and special and differential treatment in terms of the compliance deadline coupled with technology transfer promises, carry economic development prospects for the country that is already known as a promising finished product manufacturer reverse-engineering existing seeds and pharmaceuticals. During the TRIPS transition period and afterwards the privileged position of an LDC is likely to serve both the ends of meeting survival needs and making economic progress with the supply of reverse-engineered products to home and abroad. However, to capitalize on such privileges, Bangladesh needs to streamline its existing IPR legislation, especially in defining patentable inventions with rigid qualifying clauses, broadening the extent of compulsory licensing and sticking with the TRIPS by adopting flexible interpretation and not going beyond the TRIPS. Similarly, the TRIPS needs to be more specific on technology transfer arrangements, which are currently 'best endeavour' nature objectives and principles. Therefore, LDCs should push for specific rules in WTO negotiations.45 page(s

Assessment of the Influence of Hydrogen Share on Performance, Combustion, and Emissions in a Four-Stroke Gasoline Engine

This study aims to develop a one-dimensional model to investigate the effect of hydrogen share in gasoline fuel on the performance, combustion, and exhaust emissions of a gasoline direct-injection engine. Iso-octane was used as a reference fuel to compare performance, combustion, and emission parameters. The model was developed using commercial GT-Suite and ANSYS software. The simulation results using GT-Suite were validated with the published data and ANSYS results. The hydrogen fractions were varied from 0% to 11.09% to validate the simulation results with the published results. The investigation continued with three higher hydrogen fractions (15%, 20% and 25%) to study the performance, combustion, emissions, and sustainability parameters. Compared to neat gasoline, hydrogen-shared fuels show a maximum 2% higher exergy efficiency, 51% higher exergy and 42% energy rates while reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 51% with a penalty of nitrogen oxide emissions (NOx) by 62% at an excess ratio of 1.3. Other novel findings, including higher sustainability indices, lower depletion potentials, and lower unitary cost indices with higher-fraction hydrogen fuels, suggest that they are environmentally and economically sustainable. In the second part of this study, the NOx formation mechanism and its associated factors, including in-cylinder temperature, heat transfer rate, cumulative heat release, and burned rate, were confirmed and compared with gasoline and neat ethylene.This research work was supported in part by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, Kuwait, under Grant CR19-45EM-01; in part by Central Queensland University, Australia, under Grant RSH/5221. The publication of this article was funded by Qatar National Library

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of serum adiponectin (a) and interleukin-8 (b) among the study population.

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of serum adiponectin (a) and interleukin-8 (b) among the study population.</p

Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of serum adiponectin and interleukin-8.

Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of serum adiponectin and interleukin-8.</p