Rules of Origin and Local Content in East Asia

Rules of Origin (RoO) are an integral part of all trade rules. In order to be eligible for Common Effective Preferential Tariffs (CEPT) under AFTA and similar arrangements under the ASEAN-China FTA, a product must satisfy the conditions relative to local content. The paper tries to calculate local content as well as cumulative local content in East Asian economies, with use of the Asian International Input-Output Tables; it also investigates factors of change in local content by applying decomposition analysis. The paper finds that the cumulation rule increased local content of the electronics industry more significantly than local content of the automotive industry, and the contribution of the cumulation rule increased in the period 1990-2000, due to rising dependency on neighboring ASEAN countries and China.

Customary land tenure, inheritance rules, and smallholder farmers in Malawi

Based on information derived from six villages in various parts of rural Malawi, this paper examines the interrelationship between smallholder strategies to obtain land on the one hand, and customary land tenure and inheritance rules on the other. The paper revealed that although the majority of land transactions followed customary land tenure systems and inheritance rules, in a good number of cases land transactions deviated from the basic rules. One factor behind such deviation was the unique personal relationships that were developed between original landholders and heirs. Another factor was the seemingly increasing cases of returning wives in patrilineal villages. Still another factor was the intensifying land scarcity that encouraged villagers to adopt strategies to obtain land from any source by any means. On the other hand, there were also some cases in which the same land-scarcity problem induced villagers to countercheck the practice of flexible land transfer to prevent their lineage land from being alienated to non-kin members. These facts suggest that, in a land scarce situation, an individual strategy to obtain land rights from any possible sources by deviating from customary rules may occasionally be in conflict with a lineage strategy to countercheck such tendency.

Impacts of common rules of origin on FTA utilization

This paper examines empirically the impacts of sharing rules of origin (RoOs) with other ASEAN+1 free trade agreements (FTAs) on ASEAN-Korea FTA/ASEAN-China FTA utilization in Thai exports in 2011. Our careful empirical analysis suggests that the harmonization of RoOs across FTAs play some role in reducing the costs yielded through the spaghetti bowl phenomenon. In particular, the harmonization to "change-in-tariff classification (CTC) or real value-added content (RVC)" will play a relatively positive role in not seriously discouraging firms’ use of multiple FTA schemes. On the other hand, the harmonization to CTC or CTC&RVC hinders firms from using those schemes.

Classification of Satellite Images by means of Fuzzy Rules generated by a Genetic Algorithm

The data acquired by Remote Sensing systems allow obtaining thematic maps of the earth's surface, by means of the registered image classification. This implies the identification and categorization of all pixels into land cover classes. Traditionally, methods based on statistical parameters have been widely used, although they show some disadvantages. Nevertheless, some authors indicate that those methods based on artificial intelligence, may be a good alternative. Thus, fuzzy classifiers, which are based on Fuzzy Logic, include additional information in the classification process through based-rule systems. In this work, we propose the use of a genetic algorithm (GA) to select the optimal and minimum set of fuzzy rules to classify remotely sensed images. Input information of GA has been obtained through the training space determined by two uncorrelated spectral bands (2D scatter diagrams), which has been irregularly divided by five linguistic terms defined in each band. The proposed methodology has been applied to Landsat-TM images and it has showed that this set of rules provides a higher accuracy level in the classification process

CLP Projection for Constraint Handling Rules

This paper introduces and studies the notion of CLP projection for Constraint Handling Rules (CHR). The CLP projection consists of a naive translation of CHR programs into Constraint Logic Programs (CLP). We show that the CLP projection provides a safe operational and declarative approximation for CHR programs. We demónstrate moreover that a confluent CHR program has a least model, which is precisely equal to the least model of its CLP projection (closing henee a ten year-old conjecture by Abdenader et al.). Finally, we illustrate how the notion of CLP projection can be used in practice to apply CLP analyzers to CHR. In particular, we show results from applying AProVE to prove termination, and CiaoPP to infer both complexity upper bounds and types for CHR programs.

Tractatus de diuina perfectione, infininate et magnitudine, circa illa verba, Ego sum, qui sum, [et]c. Exodi Capit. 3 : cui annexus est alius Tractatus De perfectione actus essendi creati, circa aliquot quæstiones ... / Authore F. Petro de Ledesma ... ;

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