544 research outputs found
Triggers, Remedies, and Tariff Cuts: Assessing the Impact of a Special Safeguard Mechanism for Developing Countries
Full text linkThe WTO negotiations broke down on July 30th, 2008 because members could not bridge their differences over the operation of a Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM). This article evaluates the latest SSM proposal using the world wheat market as our case study. Whether low-income WTO members should be allowed to breach their pre-Doha bound tariffs is a key element of our analysis. The SSM leads to sizeable additional duties but is not very trade distorting, even when pre-Doha bound rates are breached. Moreover, the extent to which low-income countries should be allowed to exceed pre-Doha bound rates depends heavily on the product under consideration, the ambition of the tariff cutting exercise, and the gap between members’ bound and applied tariffs.agriculture, Doha Development Agenda, July Package, Special Safeguard Mechanism, World Trade Organization, International Relations/Trade,
Tissue distribution of arsenic species in rabbits after single and multiple parenteral administration of arsenic trioxide: tissue accumulation and the reversibility after washout are tissue-selective.
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Soft systems methodology analysis for scoping in environmental impact statement in Israel
No full textThe current working paper will focus on Soft System Methodology (SSM) analysis of the process of issuing guidelines for Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) to developers in the Israeli context. The paper’s goal is to make the reader familiar with the terminology and the concepts of SSM, while serving as a case study for practising SSM. The paper starts with a “crash” introduction to SSM, followed by a general description of the process in the centre of the discussion - the Israeli EIS process. After these two introductory sections, the paper turns to the main issue - a SSM analysis of the problem situation - the creation of guidelines for EIS in the Israeli context. This specific case study have been selected due to the author’s familiarity with it (is served as the main research field for his MA thesis). Also the author has the shorthand transcripts from a series workshops that were held as part of an evaluation study that the environmental planning department in the ministry of environment (EPD-MoE) have commissioned on the Israeli EIS system. Unless stated otherwise, the sources for SSM are “Information Systems Development: Methodologies, Techniques and Tools” (Avison and Fitzgerald, 1995), “Practical Soft Systems Analysis” (Patching, 1990), on-line lecture notes for the UCL “System Analysis and Design” course (Sasse and Fultun, 1997) and “Soft Systems Methodology: An Alternative Approach to Knowledge Elicitation in Complex and Poorly Defined Systems” (Finegan, 1994)
EEG-SSM: Leveraging State-Space Model for Dementia Detection
Full text linkState-space models (SSMs) have garnered attention for effectively processing long data sequences, reducing the need to segment time series into shorter intervals for model training and inference. Traditionally, SSMs capture only the temporal dynamics of time series data, omitting the equally critical spectral features. This study introduces EEG-SSM, a novel state-space model-based approach for dementia classification using EEG data. Our model features two primary innovations: EEG-SSM temporal and EEG-SSM spectral components. The temporal component is designed to efficiently process EEG sequences of varying lengths, while the spectral component enhances the model by integrating frequency-domain information from EEG signals. The synergy of these components allows EEG-SSM to adeptly manage the complexities of multivariate EEG data, significantly improving accuracy and stability across different temporal resolutions. Demonstrating a remarkable 91.0 percent accuracy in classifying Healthy Control (HC), Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), and Alzheimer\u27s Disease (AD) groups, EEG-SSM outperforms existing models on the same dataset. The development of EEG-SSM represents an improvement in the use of state-space models for screening dementia, offering more precise and cost-effective tools for clinical neuroscience
The future of SSM given Generative AI:the power of ‘purpose’ and its context (or “A Grok 3 enabled story regarding a future for systems thinking and practice”)
Full text linkThis paper presents a recent discussion between the author and Grok 3, a Generative AI programme. The ‘conversation’ begins with the author ‘testing’ the software to discover its ability to describe three related systems concepts: the idea that “all perception is selection” (Youngson, 1996), Vickers’ concept of an “appreciative system” (1965) and Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) (1981). The software produces a surprisingly discerning description of the three concepts and their associated ideas. However, it goes a step further than mere description and evaluation of these ideas by inviting the author to consider a “thought experiment” where it applies SSM to the historical context discussed by Youngson. This unexpected experiment prompts the author to explore the software’s ability to implement SSM-type modelling: the author requests Grok 3 to use SSM’s Root Definitions (RDs) to provide insight into different stakeholders’ views of the current Ukraine-Russia conflict (as of 04/03/2025). The software offers a range of different RDs and their associated CATWOE elements. One RD is selected for refinement and the development of a Conceptual Model (CM) through an iterative process which is documented. The purpose of the exercise presented is to explore the potential future role of SSM and associated systems of inquiry (such as the Appreciative Inquiry Method) given the increasingly powerful AI programmes available. The conclusion is that AI is not only able to offer innovative analysis of existing ideas but also more than capable of undertaking the sophisticated modelling of ‘purpose’ (T) within its wider appreciative context (W) that lies at the heart of SSM. Consequently, we no longer need the skills to produce such models - we merely need to know how to use the models to create appropriate and useful inquiry
scHiC-SSM: a semi-supervised deep generative model for the analysis of single-cell Hi-C data
No full text<p>Single-cell Hi-C (scHi-C) profiles the chromatin three-dimensional (3D) conformation at single cell resolution, thus revealing genomic interactions with potential impact in regulating cell identities. However, high dimensionality and sparsity of scHi-C data often complicate the analysis. Here, we introduce a method, scHiC-SSM, for embedding scHi-C data that combines a semi-supervised deep generative model to learn latent features that accurately characterize scHi-C data. scHiC-SSM outperforms other tools in typical aspects of scHi-C data analysis, including cell embedding and cell type clustering on four independent scHi-C datasets. Taken together, scHiC-SSM represents a powerful tool to facilitate the study of 3D chromatin organization.</p>
The SSM with Suppressed SUSY Charge
Full text linkAn earlier paper showed that it is possible to write down new SUSY Actions in which it is not possible to define a Supersymmetry Charge. SUSY is defined in these new Actions by the fact that they satisfy Master Equations. The new SUSY Actions are very easy to write down. One simply takes a Chiral SUSY Action, coupled to Gauge and other Chiral Multiplets, and even SuperGravity, if desired. Then one creates a new Action from this by exchanging all or part of the Scalar Field for a new Zinn Source , and the corresponding part of the Zinn Source for a new Antighost Field . Since the original Action satisfies a Master Equation, this exchange guarantees that the new Action will satisfy the new Master Equation. As was shown in the earlier paper, the new multiplets have fewer bosonic degrees of freedom than fermionic degrees of freedom. This is possible because they do not have a Supercharge.
The resulting new SSM has no need for Squarks or Sleptons. It does not need spontaneous breaking of SUSY, so that the cosmological constant problem does not arise (at least at tree level). It mimics the usual non-supersymmetric Standard Model very well, and the absence of large flavour changing neutral currents is natural. There is no need for a hidden sector, or a messenger sector, or explicit `soft\u27 breaking of SUSY. Spontaneous Gauge Symmetry Breaking implies the existence of two new very heavy Higgs Bosons with mass 13.4 TeV, slightly smaller than the energy of the LHC at 14 TeV. There is also a curious set of Gauginos and Higgsinos which have exactly the same masses as the Higgs and Gauge Bosons. These do not couple to the Quarks and Leptons, except through the Higgs and Gauge Bosons.19 pages. This version contains a better explanation of why and how this theory can exis
Gender-specific associations between involvement in team sport culture and canadian adolescents’ substance-use behavior
No full textDetection of Drought, Flood and Snow Anomalies with 37GHz Passive Microwave Space-borne Data: The SSM/I case study over Europe
No full textEurope is a continent with diverse climatic conditions. The dominant climates are the Oceanic, the Mediterranean and the Continental ones. The western part of Europe has an oceanic climate, southern Europe has a Mediterranean climate and eastern Europe has a continental climate. Because of such heterogeneities, a vast range of extreme climatic events might occur in different areas. We define extreme climatic events the droughts, floods and heavy snowfall. Those events will be generically referred to in this research as anomalies. The purpose of this study is the identification of these extreme climatic events in the area of Europe, with the use of Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) data at 37GHz frequency. The data that are used are Brightness Temperature (TB) values. The detection of the events will be achieved with the Polarization Difference Brightness Temperature (PDBT). The PDBT values can be related to changes to surface wetness and the surface geometry. It could be used as an indicator of an anomaly, because the higher the values of PDBT the higher the surface wetness. The methodological steps of the work consist in a statistical analysis of the SSM/I time-series, in the design of a detection algorithm of the anomalies under investigation and on the debate of its performance. The analysis of the temporally long SSM/I data will provide a first understanding of the data sensitivity to events under investigation and of their distribution for the statistical modelling of the Normalized Polarization Difference Brightness Temperature (NPDBT) indicator. The calculation of the NPDBT exploits the same principles as the well-known z-score index. The detection of the anomalies will be then achieved through thresholding the NPDBT index. Further information for the detection of anomalies is provided by the soil moisture time series from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) sensor and the precipitation data from the Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMAP). The soil moisture data appear to be more useful for the dry events, whereas the precipitation data for the flooding and the heavy snowfall events.Geoscience and Remote Sensin
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