18,185 research outputs found
The political economy of trade protection: the determinants and welfare impact of the 2002 US emergency steel safeguard measures
This paper analyses the political economy of trade protection in the context of the factors determining the US Emergency Safeguard Measures for steel imposed March 2002. The paper identifies several factors in addition to the official justification stated problems of global over-capacity and the penetration of imports in the US market, namely the continued failure to restructure poorly performing firms, failure of previous attempts at protection and the influence of the domestic steel lobby and short-term political gains to the Bush Administration of protectionist action. The paper also reviews several ex ante and ex post empirical studies of the impact of the steel Safeguards on the steel industry and downstream steel-consuming activities. All of these studies find that the costs of the Safeguard Measures outweighed their benefits in terms of aggregate GDP and employment as well as having an important redistributive impact. The paper provides a brief summary of the subsequent WTO steel case and the final resolution of the dispute. The evidence suggests that the steel Safeguards owed more to political expediency than justification for protection under the WTO rules.
Trade dispute settlement mechanisms: the WTO dispute settlement understanding in the wake of the GATT
A critical feature of the GATT Uruguay Round negotiations was the establishment of a new and more effective system of dealing with international trade disputes, known as the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU). The original GATT dispute settlement system comprised rudimentary remnants of a more thorough framework contained in the defunct Havana Charter of the International Trade Organization (ITO). By the time of the start of the Uruguay Round negotiations in Punta del Este in 1986, the effectiveness and credibility of the GATT dispute settlement system was being very seriously questioned. The primary reason for the increasing lack of confidence in the system was the propensity of GATT contracting countries to ignore the findings of Panels, resulting in a stalemate in a number of high profile trade disputes. Several trade disputes between the EU and the United States discussed were initiated under the GATT dispute settlement system but remained unresolved. These disputes became increasingly acrimonious as a direct consequence of the failure of the GATT system to enforce a satisfactory resolution. This paper provides an outline of the workings of the GATT and WTO dispute settlement systems underlie several recent trade disputes. The first two sections deal with the GATT system of settling trade disputes. The first details the key elements of the GATT dispute settlement system while the second considers its performance in resolving disputes. Section 3 outlines the origins of the WTO DSU and summarises its principal Articles. The WTO DSU is appraised on the basis of its first nine years of operation in Section 4 followed by a brief discussion of the key issues that have arisen from its operation. The final Section makes some concluding comments on the relative efficacy of the GATT and WTO dispute settlement systems.
Tool for use in lifting pin supported objects
A tool for use in lifting a pin-supported, electronic package mounted in juxtaposition with the surface of an electronic circuit board is described. The tool is configured to be received beneath a pin-supported package and is characterized by a manually operable linkage, including an elongated, rigid link is supported for axial reciprocation and a pivotal link pinned to the body and supported for oscillation induced in response to axial motion imparted to the rigid link. A lifting plate is pivotally coupled to the distal end of the pivotal link so that oscillatory motion imparted to the pivotal link serves to move the plate vertically for elevating the plate into lifting engagement with the electronic package positioned thereabove
The XMM-Newton slew survey in the 2-10 keV band
The XMM-Newton Slew Survey (XSS) covers a significant fraction of the sky in
a broad X-ray bandpass. Although shallow by contemporary standards, in the
`classical' 2-10 keV band of X-ray astronomy, the XSS provides significantly
better sensitivity than any currently available all-sky survey. We investigate
the source content of the XSS, focussing on detections in the 2-10 keV band
down to a very low threshold (> 4 counts net of background). At the faint end,
the survey reaches a flux sensitivity of roughly 3e-12 erg/cm2/s (2-10 keV).
Our starting point was a sample of 487 sources detected in the XMMSL1d2 XSS at
high galactic latitude in the hard band. Through cross-correlation with
published source catalogues from surveys spanning the electromagnetic spectrum
from radio to gamma-rays, we find that 45% of the sources have likely
identifications with normal/active galaxies, 18% are associated with other
classes of X-ray object (nearby coronally active stars, accreting binaries,
clusters of galaxies), leaving 37% of the XSS sources with no current
identification. We go on to define an XSS extragalactic hard band sample
comprised of 219 galaxies and active galaxies. We investigate the properties of
this extragalactic sample including its X-ray logN-logS distribution. We find
that in the low-count limit, the XSS is strongly affected by Eddington bias.
There is also a very strong bias in the XSS against the detection of extended
sources, most notably clusters of galaxies. A significant fraction of the
detections at and around the low-count limit may be spurious. Nevertheless, it
is possible to use the XSS to extract a reasonably robust sample of
extragalactic sources, excluding galaxy clusters. The differential logN-logS
relation of these extragalactic sources matches very well to the HEAO-1 A2
all-sky survey measurements at bright fluxes and to the 2XMM source counts at
the faint end.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, FITS table of XSS extragalactic sample
available from http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~amr30/Slew
XMM-Newton Slew Survey observations of the gravitational wave event GW150914
The detection of the first gravitational wave (GW) transient GW150914
prompted an extensive campaign of follow-up observations at all wavelengths.
Although no dedicated XMM-Newton observations have been performed, the
satellite passed through the GW150914 error box during normal operations. Here
we report the analysis of the data taken during these satellite slews performed
two hours and two weeks after the GW event. Our data cover 1.1 square degrees
and 4.8 square degrees of the final GW localization region. No credible X-ray
counterpart to GW150914 is found down to a sensitivity of 6E-13 erg/cm2/s in
the 0.2-2 keV band. Nevertheless, these observations show the great potential
of XMM-Newton slew observations for the search of the electromagnetic
counterparts of GW events. A series of adjacent slews performed in response to
a GW trigger would take <1.5 days to cover most of the typical GW credible
region. We discuss this scenario and its prospects for detecting the X-ray
counterpart of future GW detections.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Mathematical wind profiles, parts 1, 2, 3, 4
Fourier holograph representation of wind velocity over Cape Kenned
Mathematical wind profiles
Augmented Fourier polynomials for mathematical representation of vertical profiles for horizontal wind velocitie
Photoionization of Galactic Halo Gas by Old Supernova Remnants
We present new calculations on the contribution from cooling hot gas to the
photoionization of warm ionized gas in the Galaxy. We show that hot gas in
cooling supernova remnants (SNRs) is an important source of photoionization,
particularly for gas in the halo. We find that in many regions at high latitude
this source is adequate to account for the observed ionization so there is no
need to find ways to transport stellar photons from the disk. The flux from
cooling SNRs sets a floor on the ionization along any line of sight. Our model
flux is also shown to be consistent with the diffuse soft X-ray background and
with soft X-ray observations of external galaxies.
We consider the ionization of the clouds observed towards the halo star HD
93521, for which there are no O stars close to the line of sight. We show that
the observed ionization can be explained successfully by our model EUV/soft
X-ray flux from cooling hot gas. In particular, we can match the H alpha
intensity, the S++/S+ ratio, and the C+* column. From observations of the
ratios of columns of C+* and either S+ or H0, we are able to estimate the
thermal pressure in the clouds. The slow clouds require high (~10^4 cm^-3 K)
thermal pressures to match the N(C+*)/N(S+) ratio. Additional heating sources
are required for the slow clouds to maintain their ~7000 K temperatures at
these pressures, as found by Reynolds, Hausen & Tufte (1999).Comment: AASTeX 5.01; 34 pages, 2 figures; submitted to Astrophysical Journa
The X-ray properties of the merging galaxy pair NGC 4038/9 - the Antennae
We report the results of an X-ray spectral imaging observation of the
Antennae with the ROSAT PSPC. 55% of the soft X-ray flux from the system is
resolved into discrete sources, including components identified with the
galactic nuclei and large HII regions, whilst the remainder appears to be
predominantly genuinely diffuse emission from gas at a temperature ~4x10^6 K.
The morphology of the emission is unusual, combining a halo which envelopes the
galactic discs, with what appears to be a distorted, but well-collimated
bipolar outflow. We derive physical parameters for the hot gas in both diffuse
components, which are of some interest, given that the Antennae probably
represents an elliptical galaxy in the making.Comment: 15 pages plus 9 figures, uuencoded encapsulated postscript file.
Accepted for publication in MNRA
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