Assessing the adjustment implications of trade policy changes using TRIST (tariff reform impact simulation tool)

TRIST is a simple, easy to use tool to assess the adjustment implications of trade reform. It improves on existing tools. First, it is an improvement in terms of accuracy because projections are based on revenues actually collected at the tariff line level rather than simply applying statutory rates. Second, it is transparent and open; runs in Excel, with formulas and calculation steps visible to the user; and is open-source and users are free to change, extend, or improve according to their needs. Third, TRIST has greater policy relevance because it projects the impact of tariff reform on total fiscal revenue (including VAT and excise) and results are broken down to the product level so that sensitive products or sectors can be identified. And fourth, the tool is flexible and can incorporate tariff liberalization scenarios involving any group of trading partners and any schedules of products. This paper describes the TRIST tool and provides a range of examples that demonstrate the insights that the tool can provide to policy makers on the adjustment impacts of reducing tariffs.Trade Policy,Free Trade,Debt Markets,International Trade and Trade Rules,Economic Theory&Research

My Systems Thinking Before and After a Year of Social Systems Sciences

The paper reflects on the following three systems thinking books: Fred E. Emery & E L Trist. Towards a Social Ecology, Plenum Press, New York, 1973: Due to many references both personal and in print made to Eric Trist, and, to a lesser degree, Fred Emery, I wanted to familiarize myself with their work. Russell L. Ackoff & Fred E. Emery. On Purposeful Systems, Intersystems, Seaside CA, 1972: I had wanted to read it since having sat in on several sessions of your course in behavioral variables last spring. Russell L. Ackoff. Creating the Corporate Future, J. Wiley & Sons, New York, 1983: Assigned for the course. I went ahead to read the whole thing in order to get started on our interactive design project, and also to do my own personal idealized design

Report on the Part Played by the Winnipeg Grenadiers in the Defence of Hong Kong

The writer commences this report knowing full well that a report containing criticisms or accusations is bound to be read with a certain amount of skepticism particularly if it is written in opposition to an official report submitted by a much higher authority. Two important factors have decided me to compile this report without further delay and while still a prisoner of war and subject to search at any time by the Japanese authorities (although they have not done so as yet). The first and most urgent one is the necessity for a very accurate recording of events as they occurred, this would not have been so important but for the fact that it has become very evident that we (The Canadian Forces) are being blamed by the Imperial troops for the early fall of Hong Kong. And while it is not definitely known that the Imperial staff are going to adapt this attitude in their official report every precaution must be taken to ensure that any attempt to make ‘C Force (Canadians) the scape goat is adequately challenged by a submission of the facts while they are still fresh in the memory. The second is that the G.S.0.1. Col Nunam informed the late Lieut Col Sutcliffe before we left Sham-Shui-Po camp that he had already commenced compilation of the official report

Localized rest and stress human cardiac creatine kinase reaction kinetics at 3 T.

Changes in the kinetics of the creatine kinase (CK) shuttle are sensitive markers of cardiac energetics but are typically measured at rest and in the prone position. This study aims to measure CK kinetics during pharmacological stress at 3 T, with measurement in the supine position. A shorter "stressed saturation transfer" (StreST) extension to the triple repetition time saturation transfer (TRiST) method is proposed. We assess scanning in a supine position and validate the MR measurement against biopsy assay of CK activity. We report normal ranges of stress CK forward rate (kfCK ) for healthy volunteers and obese patients. TRiST measures kfCK in 40 min at 3 T. StreST extends the previously developed TRiST to also make a further kfCK measurement during <20 min of dobutamine stress. We test our TRiST implementation in skeletal muscle and myocardium in both prone and supine positions. We evaluate StreST in the myocardium of six healthy volunteers and 34 obese subjects. We validated MR-measured kfCK against biopsy assays of CK activity. TRiST kfCK values matched literature values in skeletal muscle (kfCK  = 0.25 ± 0.03 s-1 vs 0.27 ± 0.03 s-1 ) and myocardium when measured in the prone position (0.32 ± 0.15 s-1 ), but a significant difference was found for TRiST kfCK measured supine (0.24 ± 0.12 s-1 ). This difference was because of different respiratory- and cardiac-motion-induced B0 changes in the two positions. Using supine TRiST, cardiac kfCK values for normal-weight subjects were 0.15 ± 0.09 s-1 at rest and 0.17 ± 0.15 s-1 during stress. For obese subjects, kfCK was 0.16 ± 0.07 s-1 at rest and 0.17 ± 0.10 s-1 during stress. Rest myocardial kfCK and CK activity from LV biopsies of the same subjects correlated (R = 0.43, p = 0.03). We present an independent implementation of TRiST on the Siemens platform using a commercially available coil. Our extended StreST protocol enables cardiac kfCK to be measured during dobutamine-induced stress in the supine position.Funded by: a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society [098436/Z/12/B] to CTR, the BHF Centre of Research Excellence (OJR), a BHF clinical research training fellowship [FS/15/80/31803] to MAP, a BHF fellowship [FS/14/54/30946] to JJR, an NIHR OBRC fellowship to BR, a BHF programme grant [RG/13/8/30266] to CAL and SN, and a DPhil studentship from the Medical Research Council to WTC. We acknowledge support from the Oxford NIHR Biomedical Research Centre

Developing Adaptive Leaders: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic onTheological Field Education in Australia and New Zealand

Trist reflects on how theological field education adpated and functioned in New Zealand and Australia

Sadness-related Expressions in Danish and German: A Corpus-assisted NSM-analysis

The study explores sadness-related expressions in two typologically closely related languages in the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) framework. A systematic corpus enquiry revealed the syntactic patterns and helped to identify the most frequent head-nouns of a number of Danish and German sadness-related expressions. German traurig, for instance, has a distribution similar to that of Danish sørgelig with semiotic products and clauses as subjects. However, when used with human subjects, its distribution aligns with the Danish multi-word expression ked af det. Semantic consultations conducted about the use of the most salient sadness adjectives with some speakers of Danish and German revealed fine-grained differences between German traurig and trist and Danish ked af det and trist respectively. Thus, when used with a human headword, Danish trist is more trait-like while ked af det is more state- like. The concept of sadness-related emotions in Danish and German is discussed, followed by a methodological discussion about the combinability of a quantitative corpus approach, a qualitative semantic consultation approach and NSM explications. Corpus inquiry was used to chart the adjectives’ polysemy, and as a method for creating the NSM explications, consultation data were used

La qualité de vie au travail, le remède au stress occupationnel

Dans ce court article, l'auteure fait part d'un modèle de Trist et Emery sur le changement d'orientation dans la façon de voir le travail et les gens en milieu de travail. Elle explique ensuite l'impact des changements dans la société industrielle (complexité du monde des affaires et valeurs sociales) sur les rôles clés de l'organisation du travail (gérant, superviseur et travailleur) selon trois périodes : 1945, 1970 et 1985.In this short article, the author uses the Trist and Emery model to present the changing orientation in the way of regarding work and people in their work environment. The impact of the changes in industrial society (in the complexity of the business world and in social values) on key positions in the work organization (manager, supervisor and worker), is explained according to three periods: 1945-1970-1985

10-04 "Buyer Power in U.S. Hog Markets: A Critical Review of the Literature"

The U.S. Departments of Justice and Agriculture have focused attention recently on rising levels of corporate concentration in agricultural markets and the challenges that may pose to U.S. anti-trust enforcement and agricultural policies. Both agencies have raised particular concerns about dominant firms’ exercise of buyer power over farmers, especially in livestock markets controlled by a shrinking number of large multinational meat packers. U.S. hog markets have undergone rapid concentration in the last 25 years, with the top four packers now controlling two-thirds of the market and Smithfield Foods, the industry leader, commanding 31 percent. Despite the rapid structural changes in the U.S. hog industry, the literature on buyer power in hog markets is quite limited. In this paper, we review the available literature, which has been generally presented as demonstrating that buyer power is not a significant problem. We find that interpretation to be poorly justified. Researchers have found well-documented evidence of market power on both the seller and the buyer sides of the market, though the studies have been less clear on the specific causes. Mirroring prevailing practices in Justice Department merger reviews, researchers have often discounted buyer power using methodologies more appropriate to seller power, then dismissed findings of seller power by pointing to offsetting “efficiency gains” from concentration. Yet such apparent efficiency gains in seller markets can include reductions in the prices concentrated firms pay for animals through their exercise of buyer power. We also raise the question of how buyer power in concentrated retail markets may compound the exercise of buyer power by packers. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for further research, including the refinement of methodologies for the study of buyer power, and an assessment of proposed new USDA regulations on packer buying practices.

Designacions catalanes del trist, tit, cisticola juncidis: entre l'onomatopeia del seu cant i la reialesa del seu vol

El trist és un petit ocell, un dels més menuts de l'ornitofauna catalana i europea; tot just fa uns 10 cm. de llarg i 13 cm. d'envergadura, i pesa uns 9 grams. Els seus colors són més que discrets, críptics de fet. No es mou en estols o grupets d'uns quants individus, com fan els pardals o altres ocells que, malgrat ser menuts, es deixen veure volant en grup. Però hi ha un tret del seu comportament que fa que sigui fàcil de reconèixer. Tot i que de mida petita i moviments en solitari, quan vola, cosa que fa sovint, ho fa acompanyat d'un xiulet curt, però repetitiu, ben audible i fàcil de diferenciar de la resta de cants o crits que altres ocells de l'entorn puguin fer al mateix moment. Segurament a partir d'una variant com trit, la pronúncia de trist, amb la inserció d'una -s-, es veuria afavorida per l'aproximació formal al trist adjectiu descendent del llatí TRISTIS, però sense que hi intervingués cap factor d'afinitat semàntica; o sigui que es tractaria d'un cas d'homonimització formal (trit → trist), per dir-ho amb la terminologia proposada per Joan Veny (1991: 74). I, si ho interpretem així, seria discutible la seva inclusió lexicogràfica dins la mateixa entrada que l'adjectiu trist, -a