Absolute Advantage Research Articles

The Role of Automation from the Perspectives of the Monetary Model, Price Decomposition Model, and Demand-led Growth

Over the past decade, automation has fundamentally reformed the production process, enhancing productivity and allowing humans to rubber stamping trivial tasks. However, the levels of automation vary significantly among nations, and the impact of such disparity of the levels of automation between countries remains unexplored. Aiming to provide a theoretical framework on the effect of the levels of the automation in a broader context, i.e., effect on the real exchange rate, real purchasing power, and hence the international competitiveness, this paper incorporates the overlapping generation model, long-run price decomposition model, revised absolute advantage theory in the real exchange rate, and Thirlwall's balance of payment constraint growth model. Within all three models, automation expands the real production capacity in one economy and, thus, enhances international competitiveness. Moreover, this paper sheds light on future research on trade imbalance, the balance of payment between countries with similar economic characteristics except for their levels of automation.

Spatiotemporal characteristics and influencing factors of agricultural low-carbon economic efficiency in china

Developing low-carbon agriculture can effectively avoid the waste of natural resources, thus contributing to the long-term sustainability of agriculture. This study uses the Super-SBM model to measure agricultural low-carbon economic efficiency (ALEE) in China from 2000 to 2018, then analyzes the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics. Simultaneously, the influencing factors of ALEE are investigated using spatial econometric model. The results show that: (1) In terms of temporal evolution, the ALEE in most provinces is declined over time, with only a few provinces improving. The ALEE in China and the three regions all show an obvious “L” trend of decline first and then stability. (2) From the perspective of spatial differentiation, provinces in eastern region have higher ALEE, while those in central and western regions have lower ALEE. Hainan’s ALEE has an absolute advantage, while Shanxi is the worst. (3) China’s ALEE shows obvious spatial agglomeration characteristics of H-H and L-L agglomeration, which are further enhanced over time. The number of L-L agglomeration provinces gradually increases, indicating that China’s ALEE has not been improved significantly. (4) Economic growth level and Agricultural scientific and Technological progress have effectively improved the ALEE. However, Capital deepening, Government fiscal expenditure, Agricultural planting structure, and Agricultural disaster all have negative impacts. Rural electricity consumption also has a negative impact, but the impact is not significant. To accelerate the development of low-carbon agriculture, all regions must not only pursue a differentiated low-carbon agriculture development path, but also accelerate agricultural transformation, strengthen research and development, and popularize low-carbon agricultural technologies, reduce the input of traditional agricultural means of production, optimize the agricultural industrial structure, and adjust agricultural subsidy policies.

Specialization, Comparative Advantage, and the Sexual Division of Labor

Recent work situates gender norms as a key driver of the sexual division of labor. But the explanatory power of Becker’s comparative advantage explanation is still not well understood. Drawing on unique data, we test the predictions of a formal Beckerian model. We complement this by proposing and analyzing new measures of specialization. We show that comparative advantage plays little or no role in the sexual division of labor within couple households. Absolute advantage also plays no role in specialization for same-sex couples, and this is not explained by having fewer children.

Monitoring the development trend and competition status of high technologies using patent analysis and bibliographic coupling: The case of electronic design automation technology

High technologies play an important role in social progress and economic growth. Monitoring the development trend and competition status of high technology is crucial for policymakers, managers, and developers. This study proposes a framework that integrating the analysis of technological evolutionary trends and competitive status, the results of which will be helpful for engineers and developers for technology scouting and forecasting, but also for policymakers and managers for research and development (R&D) strategy. The electronic design automation (EDA) technology is selected as a case study. The patent analysis and bibliographic coupling are used to analyze the overview and identify the critical technical areas of EDA technology. This research also identifies the competition status of the main competitors in the EDA field from three aspects, including the market and technology fields, R&D capability, and comprehensive evaluation of patents. Our results show that the United States has an absolute advantage in the competition status of EDA technology. This study contributes to monitoring the development situation and competition status of high technologies, and will be of interest to policymakers and engineers.

A Method for Fully Automatic Building Footprint Extraction From Remote Sensing Images

Automatically mapping building footprints has a wide range of applications in many fields. In recent years, the automatic building extraction methods based on deep learning show an absolute advantage over the traditional image segmentation methods due to its high speed and high precision. However, the building footprint extracted by deep learning is just an irregular building mask. There is still much work to be done to transform the building mask into a vector building footprint in the usual sense. One of the most important tasks is to determine the orientation of each side of the building. Most of the current methods are based on the building mask to determine the orientation of each side of the building. The biggest disadvantage of this method is that it completely relies on the building mask which is often unsatisfactory. In this case, the article proposes a method to determine the orientation of each side of the building based on the building mask and line segments, thereby effectively avoiding the danger of relying on the building mask. Experiments show that the proposed method can achieve high-speed and high-precision automatic extraction of building footprints from remote sensing images, saving costs.

인도네시아 자동차 시장에 대한 한국의 수출경쟁력 분석

Purpose : This study analyzes the international competitiveness of Korean products in the Indonesian automobile market.
 Research design, data and methodology : The export of automotive products was extracted in terms of HS 4 and HS 6 units. The Trade Specialization Index (TSI) was calculated for Korea and Indonesia, and a Market Comparative Advantage (MCA) index was calculated for Korea, Japan, and Thailand in the Indonesian automobile market. Export statistics were extracted from the International Trade Centre Trade Map.
 Results : The TSI shows that Korean companies have strong competitiveness in almost all items, compared to Indonesian companies. But according to the MCA index, Korea has no long-term, strong comparative advantage. In contrast, Japan and Thailand have many long-term, strong comparative advantages, especially in the parts/equipment sectors. There, they have an absolute advantage that supports the assembly and production of Japanese automobile brands.
 Conclusions : The Korean automobile industry should find a chance to turn the tide. Korea should increase investment in production facilities in Indonesia, and should seek an opportunity in the conversion to electric vehicles. Also, Korean companies must watch carefully for changes in circumstances due to Indonesian government policy and FTAs.

TECHNIQUES OF PROTECTING CROPS FROM INSECT PESTS IN INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT – INTERCROPPING AND TRAP CROPPING

Intercropping and trap cropping are two cornerstone practices adopted under cultural control in preventive integrated pest management. The added crop diversity by implementing these techniques in the field level helps in supporting ecological engineering process to suppress pest population in a greener way. The main target of these methods is the deterrence of colonization to control insect pests through intra field diversity. However, complete knowledge about the crop and pest relationship, ecology, ways and effects of habitat manipulation should be known by analyzing the agroecosystem to get an absolute advantage prior of implementation. Thus, ongoing researches on the choice of suitability of proper crops aim in utilizing this integrated knowledge to produce a cost-effective system and lowering the pest population both together to make it a lucrative model qualitatively and quantitatively. To be specific, this paper aims to give a thorough discussion about these two techniques up to the field implementation level and the challenging regions like higher weather dependency, less effectiveness as a sole control technique etc. are also discussed to get an idea about where we need to improve to make these working with higher efficiency.

Можливості формування сучасного резерву підтримки частоти в об’єднаних енергосистемах на базі акумуляторних батарей для автоматичного регулювання частоти та потужності

The paper considers the question creation of an effective system of adjustment of frequency and power using modern energy storage systems based on high-capacity accumulator batteries. Within the framework of the research, different types of frequency and power regulators were considered. The authors proposed an approach to the implementation of the adjustment system with the help of battery energy storage. There were performed comparative calculations of different adjustment systems and was demonstrated the advantage of the suggested approach. The research was performed by numerical simulation of the automatic system of adjustment of frequency and power with emergency imbalance. The efficiency of regulation was determined by the analysis of accepted indicators of regulation quality, namely, the maximum frequency deviation and the duration of the transient process. It was found that the use of the high-speed battery energy storage units in the automatic adjustment system of frequency and power demonstrates the best indicators of frequency stabilization, which satisfy the normative requirements established in the power system. The conducted analysis of the energy and economic indicators has shown the absolute advantage of using battery energy storage systems in both technological and economical terms over other variants of regulators. Keywords: frequency, regulation, power, speed, power system, battery energy storage systems

Competitiveness Analysis of the Regions of Georgia

This article analyzes the competitiveness of the regions of Georgia. The analysis is based on the model of comparative and absolute competitive advantage of the EU member states’ regions, which is published every three years. The indicators used in the article correspond to the EU model, however, the difference in this case is only in the variables included in the indicators of the research. As a result of the article, the ranking of comparative as well as absolute evaluation of the competitive advantage of the regions of Georgia will be obtained. Keywords: Regions of Georgia, Competitiveness, Regional Development, Public Policy, Comparative Analysis.

The Absolute Advantage in Foreign Trade at the Stage of 4.0 Globalization

Penetrating into all spheres of human activity at the stage of 4.0 globalization, information technologies not only and not so much lead to structural shifts in the economy, putting the service sector and the information sector onto the first place, and carry more constructive consequences. A new type of society is being formed in which knowledge, information, information and communication technologies, goods and services of an appropriate nature are in great demand. Those economic entities that are able to generate them among the first to receive a huge number of exceptional benefits. And, those who become their main suppliers to the world market get an absolute advantage. The article examines the level of development of the post-industrial and information society in the countries of the G7 group, the Scandinavian Peninsula, the «small» countries of Western Europe, the former colonies of Great Britain, South Korea, Russia and China. The uneven entry of these countries into the post-industrial economy and information society is revealed. It is proved that both the leading post-industrial and information economies cannot act currently as states receiving the maximum increment of utility, both from industrial and foreign trade activities in the context of 4.0 globalization. The exceptional positions in the structure of the modern world order of the USA, their companies and individuals generating unique information products are substantiated. The article proves the strengthening of the role of micro-level subjects in the implementation of the macroeconomic strategy of the state in the conditions of informatization of the economy and society.

Study on the Activity Laws of Fishing Vessels in China’s Sea Areas in Winter and Spring and the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic Based on AIS Data

Using AIS data to mine the dynamic characteristics of fishery resource exploitation helps to carry out scientific management of fishery and realize the sustainable development of marine resources. We proposed a framework that integrates multiple AIS data processing and analysis modules, which can efficiently divide fishing voyages, determine the fishing activities and identify fishing types, and provide near real-time analysis results on the number of fishing vessels, fishing duration, voyages and so on. The framework was applied to 1.68 billion AIS trajectory data points of approximately 588,000 fishing vessels. We selected China’s sea areas overall and six fishing grounds as the research area, explored the characteristics of fishing vessel activities in winter and spring of 2019, and analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on winter-spring fishing in China in 2020. In 2019, our results showed that the number of fishing vessels in China’s sea areas gradually increased over time, with the Chinese New Year holiday affecting fishing activities at the corresponding time but having little impact on the entire month. We found that the changing laws of the fishing duration and voyages in the inshore fishing grounds were similar to those of the number of fishing vessels, which increased to varying degrees over time. Gillnetters were the most numerous fishing vessel type operating in the inshore fishing grounds with increased in spring, while seiners had an absolute advantage in the Xisha-Zhongsha fishing ground. In 2020, during the occurrence period of COVID-19, the fishing activities in China’s sea areas was almost unaffected. During the outbreak period, the number, distribution range, activity intensity, and fishing duration of fishing vessels all experienced a relatively large decline. After the epidemic was effectively controlled, they were rapidly increased. In addition, we found that compared with the Government Response Stringency Index, the number of fishing vessels and the number of new confirmed cases showed a more obvious negative correlation. By processing, mining and analyzing AIS data with high spatial-temporal granularity, this study can provide data support for the reasonable development of fishery resources, and help fishery practitioners make wise decisions when responding to unexpected emergencies (e.g. pandemics).

Bulleyaconitine A is a sensitive substrate and competitive inhibitor of CYP3A4: One of the possible explanations for clinical adverse reactions

Bulleyaconitine A (BLA), a toxic Aconitum alkaloid, is a potent analgesic that is clinically applied to treat rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and lumbosacral pain. BLA-related adverse reactions occur frequently, but whether the underlying mechanism is related to its metabolic interplay with drug-metabolizing enzymes remains unclear. This study aimed to elucidate the metabolic characteristics of BLA and its affinity action and mechanism to drug-metabolizing enzymes to reveal whether BLA-related adverse reactions are modulated by enzymes. After incubation with human liver microsomes and recombinant human cytochrome P450 enzymes, we found that BLA was predominantly metabolized by CYP3A, in which CYP3A4 had an almost absolute advantage. In vitro, the CYP3A4 inhibitor ketoconazole noticeably suppressed the metabolism of BLA. In vivo, the AUC0-∞ values, cardiotoxicity and neurotoxicity of BLA in Cyp3a-inhibited mice were all obviously enhanced (P < 0.05) compared to those in normal mice. In the enzyme kinetics study, BLA was found to be a sensitive substrate of CYP3A4, and its characteristics were consistent with substrate inhibition (Km = 39.36 ± 10.47 μmol/L, Ks = 83.42 ± 19.65 μmol/L). BLA was further identified to be a competitive inhibitor of CYP3A4 with Ki = 53.64 μmol/L, since the intrinsic clearance (CLint) of midazolam, a selective CYP3A4 substrate, decreased significantly (P < 0.05) when incubated with BLA together in mouse liver microsomes. Overall, BLA is a sensitive substrate and competitive inhibitor of CYP3A4, and clinical adverse reactions of BLA may mechanistically related to the CYP3A4-mediated drug-drug interactions.

Investigating Export Determinants: A Time Series Evidence From Canada

Export is an important macroeconomic factor that can elevate a country’s output performance and raise employment opportunities, in any economy. Any country may expand the number of its allies through exports. Foundation trade theories, like absolute advantage and comparative advantage, suggest that a country should export the product with greater absolute or comparative advantage. This sheds light on allocating the optimal resources for producing low-price products and flouting the idea of specialization among the countries of the world. The present study explores the factors that may influence the export performance of a developed economy like Canada from 1979 to 2019. The study findings provide evidence of the absence of multicollinearity and that the data series for the selected functional form of the study is stationary at mixed order. The results of the ARDL bounds test confirm long-run cointegrating relations between exports and its determinants for Canada. The results further reveal that per capita energy consumption and government final consumption expenditures significantly elevate export performance in both the long and short run, while population size significantly elevates exports performance only in the long run in Canada. Moreover, the findings also expose that real effective exchange rate significantly reduces exports in both the long and short run in Canada: This means that by depreciating Canadian currency, Canadian exports will be boosted. The real interest rate reports a negative but insignificant impact on the Canadian export function in both the long and short run. Finally, the CUSUM and CUSUM Square graphs confirm the stability of the estimated coefficients for the Canadian export function for the selected sample of the study.

Testing the Ricardian Model: Do the Data Confirm the Assumptions?

The insight of David Ricardo’s international trade theory can be proved by the way he managed to capture the economic problems of his era and by the fact that his theory is still studied and applied in the construction of new economic models and theories. Ricardo has accepted Adam Smith’s idea, that the “absolute advantage” determines domestic output and trade between countries, under the assumption of perfect mobility of factors of production. The aim of this paper is to do an empirical analysis of Ricardo’s model not only to test the validity of his assumptions, but also to see what are the main categories of goods that the European Union, the United States and Japan export and which specialization should each of them choose.

National assistance to agricultural production as an object of accounting: The essence and principles of organization

Subject. This article deals with the issues related to the organization of government support for agriculture, which are the main ones in solving the problems of improving the efficiency of agricultural production and enhancing the competitiveness of domestic products. Objectives. The article aims to explore the basic prerequisites and sectoral features of agriculture, justifying the need to provide government assistance to this area of the national economy, and substantiate the author-developed definitions of this assistance. Methods. For the study, we used observation, comparison, systematization, and data generalization. Results. The article substantiates the prerequisites and reasons that determine the absolute advantage of agriculture in the distribution of government assistance in comparison with other industries. It systematizes the types of government assistance, gives the author-developed formulations of the main tasks of State regulation of agriculture and specifies the list of forms of government assistance. It also develops theoretical provisions that clarify the essence and economic content of government assistance in the accounting system, based on the peculiarities of agriculture and modern requirements for information support for the control and management of government assistance in agricultural organizations. Relevance. The results of the study can be applied both in the theory and practice of accounting, analysis and control of government assistance in agricultural organizations.

First-line chemotherapy plus immune checkpoint inhibitors or bevacizumab in advanced non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer without EGFR mutations or ALK fusions.

Aim: To compare the efficacy and safety of first-line chemotherapy (Chemo) plus immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) or bevacizumab (Bev) in advanced non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer without EGFR mutations or ALK fusions. Methods: A network meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize relative treatment outcomes. Results: Chemo+ICIs is superior to Chemo+Bev in both overall survival (hazard ratio: 0.92; 95% CI: 0.88-0.96) and progression-free survival (hazard ratio: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.90-0.97), with comparable severe adverse events. However, for patients with liver metastasis, Chemo+Bev has a 59.8% probability of providing better overall survival benefit. For specific regimens, pembrolizumab+Chemo showed an absolute advantage over other regimens. Conclusion: First-line Chemo+ICIs is superior to Chemo+Bev in advanced non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer except for patients with liver metastasis.

Optimizing surgical outcome of auricular keloid with a novel multimodal approach

Various treatments are available for auricular keloids, but none has an absolute advantage. A practical and safe therapy to optimize the surgical outcome for auricular keloids is needed. We adopted a multimodal treatment of surgical enucleation, core fillet flap reconstruction, intraoperative corticosteroid injection, and immediate postoperative radiotherapy. There were no routine intralesional corticosteroid injections during follow-up. Keloid recurrences, complications, and risk factors for recurrences were analyzed. The outcome was compared with other published literatures. 45 auricular keloids were included in this study. 85.7% were female with an average age of 27.1 ± 7.5 years, and averaged size was 1.8 × 1.2 ± 0.9 × 0.6 cm. 71.1% were located at ear helix with 28.9% at the ear lobe. Nine keloids were classified as Chang-Park classification type I, 30 for type II, two for type III, and four for IV. The average radiation dosage was 1578.6 cGy. The recurrence rate was 6.7% at an average 24.1-month follow-up. There were no complications of surgery, radiotherapy, and intralesional corticosteroid injection. Our recurrence rate was lower than those in mono-adjuvant therapies of intraoperative corticosteroid injection or radiotherapy. This one-session multimodal approach optimizes treating auricular keloids with a low recurrence rate and minimal post-radiation and long-term corticosteroid injection-related complications.

Elucidating nitrifying performance, nitrite accumulation and microbial community in a three-stage plug flow moving bed biofilm reactor (PF - MBBR)

A three-stage plug flow moving bed biofilm reactor (PF - MBBR, consisting of three identical chambers of N1, N2 and N3) was proposed for nitrifier enrichment using synthetic wastewater. During the stable operation, the average NH4+-N effluent was 0.67 mg/L and NH4+-N removal was as high as 97.19% with the nitrite accumulation ratio (NAR) of 54.23%, although the biofilm thickness and biomass both presented downward trends from N1 (296 μm, 2280 mg/L), N2 (248 μm, 1850 mg/L) to N3 (198 μm, 1545 mg/L). Particularly, the comparative results of three stages revealed that N2 showed the optimum NH4+-N removal (77.27%) and NAR (75.21%) in the continuous-flow, while NAR of N3 unexpectedly maintained a high level of 65.83% in the batch test, suggesting that ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) accounted for absolute advantage over nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB). High-throughput sequencing initially verified different distribution of bacterial community structure, where N2 was far away from N1 and N3 with the lowest community richness and community diversity (operational taxonomic units (OTUs): 454(N2)<527(N3)<621(N1)). Proteobacteria (77.60%–83.09%), Bacteroidetes (1.66%–3.66%), Acidobacteria (2.28%–4.67%), and Planctomycetes (1.19%–6.63%) were the major phyla. At the genus level, AOB (mainly Nitrosomonas) accounted for 5.08% (N1), 20.74% (N2) and 14.24% (N3) while NOB (mainly Nitrospira) increased from 0.14% (N1), 7.06% (N2) to 4.91% (N3) with the total percentages of 5.22%, 27.80% and 19.15%. Finally, the application feasibility of MBBR optimization linked with nitrite (NO2−-N) accumulation for deep-level nutrient removal was discussed.

Nanopore Structure and Origin of Lower Permian Transitional Shale, Eastern Ordos Basin, China

Nanopores in the shale play a vital role in methane adsorption, and their structural characteristics and origins are of great significance for revealing the mechanism of methane adsorption, desorption, and diffusion. In this paper, through low-temperature ashing and low-pressure gas adsorption experiments, the nanopore structure of original shales and ashed shales was quantitatively characterized, and the nanopore origins in the transitional shale of lower Permian in eastern Ordos Basin were analyzed. The results show that the pore volume (PV) and specific surface area (SSA) of nanopores in transitional shale reservoirs are 0.0217–0.0449 cm3/g and 13.91–51.20 m2/g, respectively. The average contribution rates of micropores (<2 nm), mesopores (2–50 nm), and macropores (50–100 nm) to PV are 18.78, 72.26, and 8.96%, respectively, and the average contribution rates to SSA are 66.19, 33.10, and 0.71%, respectively. In addition, it is found that the average contribution rates of inorganic minerals and organic matter to the SSA of micropores are 55.9 and 44.1%, respectively, and the average contribution rates to the SSA of mesopores are 92.3 and 7.7%, respectively. Combining the adsorption properties of the main clay minerals and kerogen in shale, it is concluded that organic pores control the adsorption of methane with an absolute advantage in transitional shales. It is of great significance to understand the mechanism of methane occurrence, desorption, and diffusion in shales by clarifying the origins of multiscale pores.

Auction-based approach with improved disjunctive graph model for job shop scheduling problem with parallel batch processing

The job-shop scheduling problem (JSSP) is encountered in several industries, including the military where heat treatment is applied prior to the machining process in production. This study aims to minimize the overall make-span of a JSSP with parallel batch processing. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming model. Feasible solutions are derived from an auction-based approach for forming batches, allocating operation machines, and scheduling. An improved disjunctive graph model is further developed to search for better solutions. We conduct numerical experiments to test a set of benchmark instances. A comparison of the results with those obtained applying other existing algorithms and CPLEX demonstrates the effectiveness and stability of the proposed auction-based approach and improved graph model. Furthermore, a statistical analysis using IBM SPSS shows that the proposed auction-based approach has an absolute advantage in solving medium-scale and large-scale instances of JSSP with batch processing.