Selection and utilization of the early harvest list : evidence from the Free Trade Agreement between China and Taiwan

In this paper, we conducted an empirical investigation into the determinants of FTA utilization in exports from Taiwan to China. To do this, we first estimated the selection equation to see what kinds of products are included in the early harvest list. As a result, we found that Taiwan includes products with a medium magnitude of benefits from tariff removal in the early harvest list. Taiwan also includes products for which ASEAN countries have better access to the China market. We then estimated the equation for the determinants of FTA utilization by introducing an inverse of the Mills ratio estimated in the selection equation. The findings are that, as usual, the FTA rates are more likely to be utilized for products with a larger tariff margin. In addition, some rules of origin are found to be relatively restrictive in terms of discouraging trade.

Impacts of FTA utilization on firm performance

The international export and investment activities of firms have been widely studied by scholars. In particular, prior studies have focused on two main hypotheses about firms engaged in international activities such as exporting and investing abroad; namely, self-selection of more productive firms into international activities and learning-by-doing international activities. This paper is the first study that explores these hypotheses in regard to firms’ use of free trade agreements (FTAs). We first estimate the propensity score for firms’ use of FTA schemes, and find that larger firms are more likely to participate. Then, by conducting matching analysis using the propensity scores, we find that the use of FTA schemes does not change employment in firms, but does result in more local inputs used and increased exports.

Impact of diagonal cumulation rule on FTA utilization : evidence from bilateral and multilateral FTAs between Japan and Thailand

In this paper, we empirically investigate the effect of diagonal cumulation on free trade agreement (FTA) utilization by exploring Thai exports to Japan under two kinds of FTA schemes. While the one scheme adopts bilateral cumulation, the other scheme does diagonal cumulation. Comparing trade under these two kinds of FTAs, we can examine the effect of diagonal cumulation without relying on not only the variation in cumulation rules across country pairs but also the variation across years. In short, our estimates do not suffer from biases from time-variant elements and country pair-specific elements. As a result, our estimates show around 4% trade creation effect of diagonal cumulation, which is much smaller than the estimates in the previous studies (around 15%).

FTA utilization : certificate of origin data versus customs data

This paper empirically examines what kinds of elements affect the gap in free trade agreement (FTA) utilization with regard to customs data and certificates of origin (CoOs) data. We focus on Thai exports to Korea under the ASEAN-Korea FTA in 2011. As a result, we found that the products with the higher demand volatility or those with a larger number of tariff-line products within the same harmonized system (HS) six-digit code have the larger gap. Another important finding is that the difference between the HS version at the time of the FTA negotiation and the current HS version does not have significant association with the gap. These findings have important implications.

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.

Some practical guidance for the computation of free trade agreement utilization rates

The literature on the use of free trade agreements (FTAs) has recently been growing because it is becoming more important to encourage the use of current FTAs than to increase the number of FTAs. In this paper, we discuss some practical issues in the computation of FTA utilization rates, which provide a useful measure to discover how much FTA schemes are used in trade. For example, compared with the use of customs data on FTA utilization in imports, when using certificates of origin data on FTA utilization in exports, there are several points about which we should be careful. Our practical guidance on the computation of FTA utilization rates will be helpful when computing such rates and in examining the determinants of those rates empirically.

FTA in international finance : impacts of exchange rates on FTA utilization

This paper investigates how exchange rates affect the utilization of a free trade agreement (FTA) scheme in trading. Changes in exchange rates affect FTA utilization by two ways. The first way is by changing the excess profits gained by utilizing the FTA scheme, and the second way is by promoting the compliance of rules of origin. Our theoretical models predict that the depreciation of exporters' currency against that of importers enhances the likelihood of FTA utilization through those two channels. Furthermore, our empirical analysis, which is based on rich tariff-line-level data on the utilization of FTA schemes in Korea's imports from ASEAN countries, supports the theoretical prediction. We also show that the effects are smaller for more differentiated products.

Measuring the costs of FTA utilization : evidence from transaction-level import data of Thailand

In this study, we measure the utilization costs of free trade agreement (FTA) tariff schemes. To do that, we use shipment-level customs data on Thai imports, which identify not only firms, source country, and commodity but also tariff schemes. We propose several measures as a proxy for FTA utilization costs. The example includes the minimum amount of firm-level savings on tariff payments, i.e., trade values under FTA schemes multiplied by the tariff margin, in all transactions. Consequently, the median costs for FTA utilization in 2008, for example, are estimated to be approximately US$2,000 for exports from China, US$300 for exports from Australia, and US$1,000 for exports from Japan. We also found that FTA utilization costs differ by rule of origin and industry.

INFOBIOMED: European Network of Excellence on Biomedical Informatics to support individualised healthcare

INFOBIOMED is an European Network of Excellence (NoE) funded by the Information Society Directorate-General of the European Commission (EC). A consortium of European organizations from ten different countries is involved within the network. Four pilots, all related to linking clinical and genomic information, are being carried out. From an informatics perspective, various challenges, related to data integration and mining, are included.

Evaluation of the utilization of electric vehicles for building energy management in hotels

Governments are working in new policies to slow down total energy consumption and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, promoting the deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) in all countries. In order to facilitate this deployment and help to reduce the final costs of their batteries, additional utilization of EVs when those are parked has been proposed. EVs can be used to minimize the total electricity cost of buildings (named vehicle to building applications, V2B). In this paper an economic evaluation of EVs in the Building Energy Management System is shown. The optimal storage capacity and its equivalent number of EVs are determined. This value is then used for determining the optimal charging schedule to be applied to the batteries. From this schedule, the total expected profit is derived for the case of a real hotel in Spain.

Service for the pseudonymization of electronic healthcare records based on ISO/EN 13606 for the secondary use of information

The availability of electronic health data favors scientific advance through the creation of repositories for secondary use. Data anonymization is a mandatory step to comply with current legislation. A service for the pseudonymization of electronic healthcare record (EHR) extracts aimed at facilitating the exchange of clinical information for secondary use in compliance with legislation on data protection is presented. According to ISO/TS 25237, pseudonymization is a particular type of anonymization. This tool performs the anonymizations by maintaining three quasi-identifiers (gender, date of birth and place of residence) with a degree of specification selected by the user. The developed system is based on the ISO/EN 13606 norm using its characteristics specifically favorable for anonymization. The service is made up of two independent modules: the demographic server and the pseudonymizing module. The demographic server supports the permanent storage of the demographic entities and the management of the identifiers. The pseudonymizing module anonymizes the ISO/EN 13606 extracts. The pseudonymizing process consists of four phases: the storage of the demographic information included in the extract, the substitution of the identifiers, the elimination of the demographic information of the extract and the elimination of key data in free-text fields. The described pseudonymizing system was used in three Telemedicine research projects with satisfactory results. A problem was detected with the type of data in a demographic data field and a proposal for modification was prepared for the group in charge of the drawing up and revision of the ISO/EN 13606 norm.

Yield, nutrient utilization and soil properties in a melon crop amended with wine-distillery waste

In Spain, large quantities of wine are produced every year (3,339,700 tonnes in 2011) (FAO, 2011) with the consequent waste generation. During the winemaking process, solid residues like grape stalks are generated, as well as grape marc and wine lees as by-products. According to the Council Regulation (EC) 1493/1999 on the common organization of the wine market, by-products coming from the winery industry must be sent to alcohol-distilleries to generate exhausted grape marc and vinasses. With an adequate composting treatment, these wastes can be applied to soils as a source of nutrients and organic matter. A three-year field experiment (2011, 2012 and 2013) was carried out in Ciudad Real (central Spain) to study the effects of wine-distillery waste compost application in a melon crop (Cucumis melo L.). Melon crop has been traditionally cultivated in this area with high inputs of water and fertilizers, but no antecedents of application of winery wastes are known. In a randomized complete block design, four treatments were compared: three compost doses consisted of 6.7 (D1), 13.3 (D2) and 20 t compost ha-1 (D3), and a control treatment without compost addition (D0). The soil was a shallow sandy-loam (Petrocalcic Palexeralfs) with a depth of 0.60 m and a discontinuous petrocalcic horizon between 0.60 and 0.70 m, slightly basic (pH 8.4), poor in organic matter (0.24%), rich in potassium (410 ppm) and with a medium level of phosphorus (22.1 ppm). During each growing period four harvests were carried out and total and marketable yield (fruits weighting <1 kg or visually rotten were not considered), fruit average weight and fruit number per plant were determined. At the end of the crop cycle, four plants per treatment were sampled and the nutrient content (N, P and K) was determined. Soil samplings (0-30 cm depth) were carried before the application of compost and at the end of each growing season and available N and P, as well as exchangeable K content were analyzed. With this information, an integrated analysis was carried out with the aim to evaluate the suitability of this compost as organic amendment.

Business model for healthcare interoperability services

En la situación actual donde los sistemas TI sanitarios son diversos con modelos que van desde soluciones predominantes, adoptadas y creadas por grandes organizaciones, hasta soluciones a medida desarrolladas por cualquier empresa de la competencia para satisfacer necesidades concretas. Todos estos sistemas se encuentran bajo similares presiones financieras, no sólo de las condiciones económicas mundiales actuales y el aumento de los costes sanitarios, sino también bajo las presiones de una población que ha adoptado los avances tecnológicos actuales, y demanda una atención sanitaria más personalizable a la altura de esos avances tecnológicos que disfruta en otros ámbitos. El objeto es desarrollar un modelo de negocio orientado al soporte del intercambio de información en el ámbito clínico. El objetivo de este modelo de negocio es aumentar la competitividad dentro de este sector sin la necesidad de recurrir a expertos en estándares, proporcionando perfiles técnicos cualificados menos costosos con la ayuda de herramientas que simplifiquen el uso de los estándares de interoperabilidad. Se hará uso de especificaciones abiertas ya existentes como FHIR, que publica documentación y tutoriales bajo licencias abiertas. La principal ventaja que nos encontramos es que ésta especificación presenta un giro en la concepción actual de la disposición de información clínica, vista hasta ahora como especial por el requerimiento de estándares más complejos que solucionen cualquier caso por específico que sea. Ésta especificación permite hacer uso de la información clínica a través de tecnologías web actuales (HTTP, HTML, OAuth2, JSON, XML) que todo el mundo puede usar sin un entrenamiento particular para crear y consumir esta información. Partiendo por tanto de un mercado con una integración de la información casi inexistente, comparada con otros entornos actuales, hará que el gasto en integración clínica aumente dramáticamente, dejando atrás los desafíos técnicos cuyo gasto retrocederá a un segundo plano. El gasto se centrará en las expectativas de lo que se puede obtener en la tendencia actual de la personalización de los datos clínicos de los pacientes, con acceso a los registros de instituciones junto con datos ‘sociales/móviles/big data’.---ABSTRACT---In the current situation IT health systems are diverse, with models varying from predominant solutions adopted and created by large organizations, to ad-hoc solutions developed by any company to meet specific needs. However, all these systems are under similar financial pressures, not only from current global economic conditions and increased health care costs, but also under pressure from a population that has embraced the current technological advances, and demand a more personalized health care, up to those enjoyed by technological advances in other areas. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a business model aimed at the provision of information exchange within the clinical domain. It is intended to increase competitiveness in the health IT sector without the need for experts in standards, providing qualified technical profiles less expensively with the help of tools that simplify the use of interoperability standards. Open specifications, like FHIR, will be used in order to enable interoperability between systems. The main advantage found within FHIR is that introduces a shift in the current conception of available clinical information. So far seen, the clinical information domain IT systems, as a special requirement for more complex standards that address any specific case. This specification allows the use of clinical information through existing web technologies (HTTP, HTML, OAuth2, JSON and XML), which everyone can use with no particular training to create and consume this information. The current situation in the sector is that the integration of information is almost nonexistent, compared to current trends. Spending in IT health systems will increase dramatically within clinical integration for the next years, leaving the technical challenges whose costs will recede into the background. The investment on this area will focus on the expectations of what can be obtained in the current trend of personalization of clinical data of patients with access to records of institutions with ‘social /mobile /big data’.