International co-ordination of e-commerce

Despite the world-wide stock market breakdown of the internet economy in the year 2001, the new information and communication technologies will enable firms to integrate world-wide e-commerce in their business. This will facilitate the entry of firms in every connected country into international markets and perhaps value up their market position. Therefore, the world-wide use of information and communications technology, in particular e-commerce is fostered. To attain this, there are lot of attempts to regulate the e-economy on an international level as there are uncertainties in legal certainty, data protection or the digital divide between industrialised and development countries. The paper addresses this topic and shows which playing fields of co-ordination in e-commerce are relevant in general and how they are recently implemented in international co-ordination activities by various organisations and states e.g., the European Union, the United States or the WTO.e-commerce; internatioal coordination

ABSENCE OF REENTRANCE IN THE TWO-DIMENSIONAL XY-MODEL WITH RANDOM PHASE SHIFT

We show, that the 2D XY-model with random phase shifts exhibits for low temperature and small disorder a phase with quasi-long-range order, and that the transition to the disordered phase is {\it not} reentrant. These results are obtained by heuristic arguments, an analytical renormalization group calculation, and a numerical Migdal-Kadanoff renormalization group treatment. Previous predictions of reentrance are found to fail due to an overestimation of the vortex pair density as a consequence of independent dipole approximations. At positions, where vortex pairs are energetically favored by disorder, their statistics becomes effectively fermionic. The results may have implications for a large number of related models.Comment: 5 pages, latex, with 2 figures, one author added, minor text changes, to be published in J. de Physique

Consumer behavior in augmented shopping reality: A review, synthesis, and research agenda

The application of augmented reality (AR) is receiving great interest in e-commerce, m-commerce, and brick-and-mortar-retailing. A growing body of literature has explored several different facets of how consumers react to the upcoming augmented shopping reality. This systematic literature review summarizes the findings of 56 empirical papers that analyzed consumers’ experience with AR, acceptance of AR, and behavioral reactions to AR in various online and offline environments. The review synthesizes current knowledge and critically discusses the empirical studies conceptually and methodologically. Finally, the review outlines the theoretical basis as well as the independent, mediating, moderating, and dependent variables analyzed in previous AR research. Based on this synthesis, the paper develops an integrative framework model, which helps derive directives for future research on augmented shopping reality

Elektronischer Handel im Lichte der Bestreitbarkeit von Märkten

Information and communication technologies are transforming economies and societies around the world. In this respect, E-Commerce has the capability to build a new global economy. That is why government, industries, non-profit organisations, trade unions and consumers would like to come together to set up a regulatory framework. As set out in our paper competition effects have to be considered when doing so. We identify and discuss various regulatory and private entry barriers to electronic markets and answer the question wether or not there is any need for international policy cordination in E-Commerce.E-Commerce; competition; regulation

Concurrency in a System for Symbolic and Algebraic Computations

As miniaturization of computer components is approaching the limits of physics, researchers in computer architecture are looking for less conventional means to perpetuate Moore's law. Recent trends in hardware ve been adding more cores. Consequently multicore machines are now commodity. To help programmers benefit from Moore's dividend, researchers in programming techniques, tools and languages have been exploring several venues. A dominant theme is the design and implementation of parallel algorithms. Several programming models have been proposed, but none at the moment seem to be substantially better than others. While general parallel programming is a distinctively challenging task, we believe that scientific computation algorithms display algebraic structures, thanks to the rich mathematical objects they manipulate. The present work aims at exploring the extent to which algebraic properties displayed by computer algebra algorithms may be automatically exploited to take advantage of parallelism in the OpenAxiom scientific computation platform. We designed a runtime system that exploits the ubiquitous parallelism of modern CPUs; the system is also scaled to many-system clusters. By taking advantage of the existing InputForm domain in OpenAxiom and connecting of the standard input channel to sockets, we were able to minimize potentially hazardous modifications to the OpenAxiom source while still implementing desired functionality. Additionally, we designed and implemented FFI extensions to the OpenAxiom core to take advantage of SIMD instructions, particularly SSE2 (SIMD Streaming Extensions). The extension allowed us to nearly double the speed of common operations such as multiplying arrays of doubles. We also defined and implemented a foreign function interface for the OpenAxiom system. All of these additions were benchmarked using Berlekamp's algorithm for factorization of polynomials over integers. While much still remains to be done in parallelizing the algebra to work over many calculation nodes, mathematical annotations remain viable in unloading the burden of parallelizing code from the programmer by substituting a simpler activity

Capacity development platform for promoting efficient urban water management: Event Report

The present paper summarizes the results of an application initiated within the framework of 35 years celebration of diplomatic relations between Germany and Vietnam. Within this context, the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD) and the Academy of Managers for Construction and Cities (AMC) jointly organized in 2010 a series of four thematic workshops. The one-day events have had similar structures and focused on main subjects of interest in the water sectors of both countries. In Vietnam, the workshops took place in Ha Noi, Hai Phong, Nha Trang and Vung Tau. Best practice examples about conceptualization, operation and maintenance of municipal water works provided an insight view into the challenges currently faced by the water service providers. TUD and AMC, together with their German and Vietnamese partners, addressed these issues by organizing the consecutive workshops under the umbrella of Vietnamese Water Supply and Sewerage Association (VWSA) and in coordination with the German Water Partnership (GWP).Bài báo trình bày tóm tắt các kết quả của một đề xuất trong khuôn khổ kỷ niệm 35 năm quan hệ ngoại giao giữa CHLB Đức và Việt Nam. Theo đó, Trường Đại học Tổng hợp Kỹ Thuật Dresden (TUD) và Học viện Quản lý Xây dựng và Đô thị (AMC) đã phối hợp tổ chức một chuỗi bốn hội thảo chuyên đề trong năm 2010. Mỗi hội thảo thực hiện trong một ngày chương trình giống nhau và tập trung vào các chủ đề chính mà cả hai quốc gia đều quan tâm trong lĩnh vực nước. Phía Việt Nam, các hội thảo được tổ chức ở các thành phố Hà Nội, Hải Phòng, Nha Trang và Vũng Tàu. Nhiều bài thuyết trình về khái niệm hóa, vận hành và bảo dưỡng các công trình cấp nước đô thị đã thảo luận sâu về những thách thức mà các dịch vụ cấp nước đang gặp phải. TUD và AMC, kết hợp với các đối tác CHLB Đức và Việt Nam, đã ghi nhận các vấn đề phát sinh thông qua việc tổ chức nhiều hội thảo liên tục dưới sự bảo trợ của Hiệp hội Cấp thoát nước Việt Nam (VWSA) và Hiệp hội nước CHLB Đức (GWP)

Modulation Linearity Characterization of Si Ring Modulators

Modulation linearity of Si ring modulators (RMs) is investigated through the numerical simulation based on the coupled-mode theory and experimental verification. Numerical values of the key parameters needed for the simulation are experimentally extracted. Simulation and measurement results agree well. With these, the influence of input optical wavelength and power on the Si RM linearity are characterized

Negative Pressure Wound Therapy for the Treatment of the Open Abdomen and Incidence of Enteral Fistulas: A Retrospective Bicentre Analysis

Introduction. The open abdomen (OA) is often associated with complications. It has been hypothesized that negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) in the treatment of OA may provoke enteral fistulas. Therefore, we analyzed patients with OA and NPWT with special regard to the occurrence of intestinal fistulas. Methods. The present study included all consecutive patients with OA treated with NWPT from April 2010 to August 2011 in two hospitals. Patients’ demographics, indications for OA, risk factors, complications, outcome and incidence of fistulas before, during and after NPWT were recorded. Results. Of 81 patients with OA, 26 had pre-existing fistulas and 55 were free from a fistula at the beginning of NPWT. Nine of the 55 patients developed fistulas during () or after NPWT (). Seventy-five patients received ABThera therapy, 6 patients other temporary abdominal closure devices. Only diverticulitis seemed to be a significant predisposing factor for fistulas. Mortality was slightly lower for patients without fistulas. Conclusion. The present study revealed no correlation between occurrence of fistulas before, during, and after NWPT, with diverticulitis being the only risk factor. Fistula formation during NPWT was comparable to reports from literature. Prospective studies are mandatory to clarify the impact of NPWT on fistula formation

Extending the animosity model in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-national validation of the health animosity scale

The concept of consumer animosity encompasses factors that influence consumers’ negative attitudes and feelings toward other countries, which decrease consumers' buying behavior concerning foreign products. However, the impact of health concerns has been widely neglected in the literature on consumer animosity. To fill this void, this paper extends the established animosity models by introducing the new concept of health animosity and by developing a health animosity scale. The paper empirically validates the new scale in a multi-national study in the U.S., Germany, Brazil, and India. The scale measures the respondents’ health animosity toward China, as many consumers worldwide blame China for the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) pandemic and criticize the government’s misbehavior during the outbreak. The analyses confirm suitable convergent and discriminant validity of the newly developed scale for most of the countries. The paper extends the understanding on consumer animosity, as not only incidents due to single nations' concrete purposes (e.g., military, economic or political actions) but also natural catastrophes and the reactions of single nations can cause feelings of animosity. The research implications outline directions for future studies, which could investigate the consequences of health animosity