International Boundaries Research Articles

Quantitative Finance and Information Technologies: A Comparative Analysis of Quantitative Trading and Cryptocurrency and Their Regulatory Challenges

As technology has improved in the last decade, financial institutions have developed new technologies, including quantitative trading and cryptocurrency, to enhance their financial products and services. This paper first provides a brief background of quantitative trading and argues for the transactional efficiency of quantitative trading over traditional trading practices; it characterizes quantitative trading as fast and precise. Meanwhile, the study also accounts for the regulatory concerns–including data leakage and platform security–that quantitative trading firms may encounter. This study then establishes a distinction between cryptocurrency and quantitative trading–the former is money-driven, and the latter is data-driven. This paper then discusses the speculative nature of cryptocurrency and addresses its financial concerns citing the FTX collapse. Overall, this paper establishes the argument that quantitative trading supported by technological experts and facilitators offers more advantages than disadvantages compared to cryptocurrency trading. This research concludes that since quantitative trading and cryptocurrency trading are conducted without consideration for international boundaries, they offer bold financial potential as alternatives to traditional banking practices, as long as specific international financial laws are complied with.

A WHO remit to improve global standards for medical products of human origin.

In recent decades, considerable advances have been made in assuring the safety of blood transfusion and organ transplantation. However, with the increasing movement of medical products of human origin across international boundaries, there is a need to enhance global norms and governance. These products, which include blood, organs, tissues, cells, human milk and faecal microbiota, are today crucial for health care but they also pose unique risks due to their human origin, such as disease transmission and graft failure. Moreover, the demand for medical products of human origin often exceeds supply, leading to dependence on international supply chains, and emerging technologies like cell and gene therapy present further challenges because of their unproven efficacy and long-term risks. Current regulatory mechanisms, especially in low- and middle-income countries, are insufficient. The World Health Organization (WHO) has both the mandate and experience to lead the development of international quality and safety standards, consistent product nomenclature, and robust traceability and biovigilance systems. An international, multistakeholder approach is critical for addressing the complexities of how medical products of human origin are used globally and for ensuring their safety. This approach will require promoting uniform product descriptions, enhancing digital communication systems and leveraging existing resources to support countries in establishing regulations for these products. As illustrated by World Health Assembly resolution WHA77.4 on transplantation in 2024, WHO's ongoing efforts to ensure the safe, efficient and ethical use of medical products of human origin worldwide provide the opportunity to galvanize international cooperation on establishing norms.

Conflict, Borderlands and Displacement: The Persistent and Escalating Crisis in Northwest India

Borderlands are the geographical spaces or zones around a territorial border between nations. Defined by the borders that create and maintain the nation–state, the borderlands are the sites in the making, continually moulded, transformed or reconstructed by the social actors inhabiting them. Going beyond the boundary lines, borderlands encapsulate a much broader area where the impact of happenings at the border is felt and reverberated. Borderlands are of different types. They are classified as ‘alienated’ when dominated by conflict, hostility, insecurity and instability, as in parts of northwest India, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) since 1947–1948. The border between India and Pakistan in J&K called the ‘Line of Control’ (LoC), is a de facto and not an international boundary and remains contested, disturbed, militarised and controlled. The borderlands surrounding it have witnessed many wars, war-like situations and displacement of people with several socio-economic ramifications. The post-colonial state tried to settle these conundrums of border-making but got entangled in the persistent and escalating crisis of intractable border disputes. The state and the media reconstructed and reproduced the rhetoric of nationalism and national security, sustaining the conflict and border entanglements. This paper argues for an alternative discourse to understand the crises of conflict based on people’s lived experiences, border formation and displacement in the wake of the partition of India and thereafter.

Subsidiary Managers in the Middle – Code-Switching While Navigating International Boundaries

Subsidiary Managers in the Middle – Code-Switching While Navigating International Boundaries

Use of wastewater from passenger ships to assess the movement of COVID-19 and other pathogenic viruses across maritime international boundaries.

The worldwide spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting COVID-19 pandemic has been driven by international travel. This has led to the desire to develop surveillance approaches which can estimate the rate of import of pathogenic organisms across international borders. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of wastewater-based approaches for the surveillance of viral pathogens on commercial short-haul (3.5 h transit time) roll-on/roll-off passenger/freight ferries operating between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Samples of toilet-derived wastewater (blackwater) were collected from two commercial ships over a 4-week period and analysed for SARS-CoV-2, influenza, enterovirus, norovirus, the faecal-marker virus crAssphage and a range of physical and chemical indicators of wastewater quality. A small proportion of the wastewater samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 (8% of the total), consistent with theoretical predictions of detection frequency (4%-15% of the total) based on the national COVID-19 Infection Survey and defecation behaviour. In addition, norovirus was detected in wastewater at low frequency. No influenza A/B viruses, enterovirus or enterovirus D68 were detected throughout the study period. We conclude that testing of wastewater from ships that cross international maritime boundaries may provide a cost-effective and relatively unbiased method to estimate the flow of infected individuals between countries. The approach is also readily applicable for the surveillance of other disease-causing agents.

Managing the Santa Cruz River: Prospects for a Future Binational Minute

This paper examines the prospects for developing and implementing a binational water management agreement for the transboundary Santa Cruz River that crosses the US–Mexico boundary near the sister cities of Nogales, Sonora–Nogales, Arizona. After considering the geography, history, socio-economic context, and binational agreements affecting utilization of the Santa Cruz River, we review the conditions influencing recent binational progress on another transboundary river, the Tijuana River. Specifically, we ask what conditions created a favorable environment in which a binational agreement for management of the Tijuana River Watershed (TRW) was developed, what specific actions by relevant policy officials took place, and how the final agreement was reached. We then compare the dynamics that unfolded in the TRW with conditions in the Santa Cruz River to identify obstacles hindering progress towards achieving an International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) agreement (Minute) on shared management of the Santa Cruz River in its international reach. We find that the required political conditions that favored an agreement on the Tijuana River are not yet met on the Santa Cruz, although several favorable conditions do exist. We conclude with an assessment of current prospects for advancing binational cooperation that can inform discussion of how an IBWC Minute could be drafted to address water resource management issues in the Santa Cruz River Basin.

Moving Accreditation Forward With Accreditation Scholarship.

Accreditation in medical education serves to create and sustain a culture of excellence in medical education endeavors. Accreditors in undergraduate medical education, graduate medical education, and continuing professional development spaces on the medical education continuum need to enhance collaboration across international boundaries to develop and implement best practices in medical education accreditation. One opportunity that exists to achieve this is the emerging field of accreditation research, and more broadly, accreditation scholarship. In this commentary, the authors, both professional members of Canadian accreditation committee secretariats (the Committee on the Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools and the Committee on the Accreditation of Continuing Medical Education) highlight accreditation scholarship as tool to support medical education accreditation improvement, growth, and innovation.

Revolutionizing Rural Oncology: Innovative Models and Global Perspectives.

For individuals living in rural areas, access to cancer care can be difficult. Barriers to access cross international boundaries and have a negative impact on treatment outcomes. Current models to increase rural access in the United States are reviewed, as is a system-wide approach to this problem in Australia. Ongoing efforts to increase access to clinical trials for patients in rural areas are also discussed.

E-COMMERCE IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

Divers may find plenty of opportunities in the international business world, but staying afloat can be challenging. In addition to the fact that this integration of IB with e-commerce will lead to an increase in complexity, it will also facilitate trade and remove many other obstacles that were previously present. A tremendous asset that one may learn and grow from is the quick growth of partnerships across countries worldwide as a consequence of IB, which has led to the best of each other's land and the flow of products and services. International business encompasses any profitable endeavours that promote the international transfer of goods, services, people, ideas, and technology. What are known as "internal business operations"? They occur within the borders of a nation. When companies buy and sell items, commodities, and services over international boundaries, it's called international commerce. This kind of firm is called an international business. The government or a commercial entity may own such trading techniques. Additionally, the country's economy remains steady. There are no competitors in a perilous nation. A global corporation's tools, goals, and objectives should inform its strategy development process.

Spatial and temporal change of hydrological connectivity in the Wusuli River Basin

Study regionThe study region of this paper is the Wusuli River basin, which is comprised of nine sub-basins. The basin is located on the border between China and Russia. Study focusWe investigated the hydrological connectivity of the Wusuli River basin, an international boundary river that has received little attention. The spatial and temporal evolution of hydrological connectivity over the last 38 years was characterized using a geostatistical connectivity function combined with the remote sensing technique. In particular, some key sub-basins were identified to help strengthen China-Russian cooperation on ecological protection of the basin. New hydrological insights for the regionThe results show that the hydrological connectivity in the northwestern region of the Wusuli River basin was unstable with several surges from 1984 to 2021. Analyzed from a temporal perspective, the effective range of hydrological connectivity is expanding and connectivity is showing an overall upward trend due to increased fluctuations in rainfall. Analyzed from a spatial perspective, the connectivity of the right bank of the Wusuli River is better than that of the left bank due to the influence of topography. Stable connectivity pathways are a must for efficient hydrological connectivity within a watershed. Another finding is that the capacity of the Wusuli River basin to resist extreme rainfall is weakening.

The Causes and Consequences of Refugee Flows: A Contemporary Reanalysis

The world faces a forced displacement crisis. Tens of millions of individuals have been forced across international boundaries worldwide. Therefore, the causes and consequences of refugee flows are the subjects of significant social science inquiry. Unfortunately, the historical lack of reliable data on actual refugee flows, country-specific data reporting timelines, and more general pre-2000 data quality issues have significantly limited empirical inferences on these topics. We replicate 28 articles on these topics using data newly released after a multiyear collaboration with the United Nations on annual dyadic flows. We observe major inconsistencies between the newly released flow numbers and the stock-based flow estimates upon which decades of research are based; we also find widespread inappropriate treatment of missing historical values. When we replicate the existing literature using the newly introduced flow data, correcting the treatment of missing historical values, and temporally extending/restricting the study periods, we produce significantly different results.

Cooperation in Digital Innovation Under the Master Plan on Asean Community (MPAC) in Muslim Asean Countries

This study examines the present conditions and obstacles faced by digital innovation in Indonesia and Malaysia, explicitly focusing on Muslim ASEAN countries. Additionally, it seeks to identify potential areas for collaboration and cooperation within the framework of the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) in Digital Innovation, such as the Quick Response Indonesian Standard (QRIS) in Indonesia and Malaysia. Besides, this qualitative study employed a literature review. In addition, the collaboration between Indonesia and Malaysia on the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) in Digital Innovation, particularly in Quick Response Indonesia Standard (QRIS), can significantly improve economic integration and social growth in Muslim ASEAN nations. The result of this study is that Through the implementation of QRIS. This digital payment system makes use of QR codes to carry out transactions across international boundaries, reducing the costs of transactions. According to the author, this study is a first attempt to build a factual and theoretical basis for the researcher's analysis of the cooperation on the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) in digital innovation in Muslim countries in the ASEAN region, including Indonesia and Malaysia.

In/Visible Line: The Physical and Symbolic Power of the US-Mexico Border

ABSTRACT What does the US-Mexico border mean to people whose marriages are defined by – and defy – this international boundary? Through an analysis of in-depth interviews with 42 mixed-citizenship US-Mexican couples, I demonstrate the imagery and symbolisms mixed-citizenship couples evoke to make meaning of the border in their lives. I find that an individual’s initial encounter with the border, each couple’s current proximity to the border, and the non-citizen spouse’s US immigration status all informed the meanings and descriptions of the border that couples shared. For couples living in the US-Mexico Borderlands, the border looms largest as a physical structure cutting into the landscape, literally separating space and people. For couples living away from the border but who can freely travel between countries, the border/lands are mostly invisible, but also a danger to be avoided. And for couples living away from the border with no legal authorization to travel across it, the border predominantly functions as a symbolic power, dividing individuals from families and communities, past from present, reality from possibility. These different understandings of the border show the physical and symbolic power of the border to divide, while simultaneously revealing how its divisiveness can be overpowered by relationships and community.

The Role of Low-Tide Elevations in Maritime Delimitation Cases

Compared with the extensive research on the role of islands in maritime boundaries, recent developments on the impact of low-tide elevations in maritime delimitations have not been examined carefully. This article explores the role of low-tide elevations in international maritime boundary cases with a particular focus on the validity and appropriateness of using low-tide elevations as base points for an equidistance line for delimiting maritime zones. It argues that low-tide elevations can be valid base points for constructing an equidistance line as they may constitute the relevant coast. It notes, however, that based on the rationale applied to the treatment of islands in maritime delimitations, low-tide elevations are not appropriate base points for an equidistance line if they produce a disproportionate impact on the delimitation line. Overall, the article suggests that formulating a general rule on the effect of low-tide elevations in the maritime delimitations is likely to be a difficult task due to some unresolved issues concerning the appropriateness of the use of low-tide elevations.

‘Could have been a god but chose to be a Devil’. The 2004 European Championships and Wayne Rooney’s departure from Everton Football Club

ABSTRACT The world of elite football is woven from complex and intriguing relations informing the identities of players, clubs and supporters, across local, national and international boundaries. Often, key players with a global presence become a catalyst informing such relations. This paper considers one stark example of this: the case of Wayne Rooney, a local Liverpool lad and football protégée who raced through the ranks of Everton’s youth academy to establish himself in the first team aged sixteen before being transfered to Manchester United in the summer of 2004 for a fee of £30 million. The paper describes how, set in the wider context of tense dynamics between club and country and between local and national sentiment, the specific manner in which the transfer unfolded pitched Rooney at the centre of an identity defining power struggle between clubs, agents and fans.

Exploring the similarities in international designers’ posters

Posters serve as a potent medium for conveying messages and ideas to vast audiences, and though hailing from different backgrounds, graphic designers frequently produce visually similar designs. Despite the absence of direct influences, these parallels persist across international boundaries. Such convergence prompts the query: why do these resemblances occur and how can designers foster more distinctive outcomes? This research delves into the origins of similarities in global poster designs with the objective of identifying causative factors and furnishing guidelines to cultivate unique and resonant designs.

Maritime boundaries in the energy transition: carbon dioxide (CO2) storage across maritime jurisdictions

Governments around the world are looking to ensure their transition to full low-carbon economies whilst tackling climate change by implementing offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) – a method of permanently removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels and burying it deep below the seabed in suitable geological formations. Among the main targets of such geological formations are depleted, or nearly depleted, offshore oil and gas reservoirs within existing oil-producing fields. However, such reservoirs will frequently transcend maritime boundaries and jurisdictions, ie a shared geological formation could be used on both sides of the maritime boundary for CO2 sequestration and storage. This raises the potential for disputes among nations, transboundary environmental degradation, and business disruption. The paper discusses the role of CCS in the low-carbon energy transition, focusing specifically on international legal aspects related to the storage of CO2 in sub-seabed geological formations of the continental shelf. Ongoing CO2 storage projects are examined to showcase critical technical aspects, including reservoir selection, well design, and post-injection monitoring. The analysis highlights the need for international coordination in situations where CO2 storage occurs across an international boundary and the importance of consent from all states with jurisdiction over the relevant CO2 storage formations. The paper concludes that existing maritime boundary agreements, including those with straddling deposit clauses, are unlikely to cover transboundary CO2 storage operations, except if they are considered incidental to ongoing petroleum operations.

Pre-hospital telestroke and expanded hyper-acute telestroke network solutions to reduce geographic inequities: a brief review from the South Pacific

Hyper-acute stroke treatments are time sensitive, and decision-making is complex. Telemedicine has been highly effective in breaking down regional access barriers by providing front line rural hospital clinicians with remote telemedicine decision support by remote stroke experts. With the advent of mechanical thrombectomy, hyper-acute stroke care has grown even more complex from both a decision-making and logistical perspective. Mobile Stroke Units (MSU) have been deployed in a few urban settings globally but are unlikely to address all global access issues due to geographical and logistical factors. This paper reviews the feasibility and benefit of extending telestroke into the pre-hospital setting as an adjunct or alternative to MSUs. It will discuss how this service model can fit into existing stroke networks and potential deployment strategies. Finally, the paper also considers potential scalability of pre- and in-hospital telestroke support across regional and international boundaries to further reduce global hyper-acute access inequities.

“El Chamizal is ours forever:” Rumor, time, and the law in El Paso’s settler society

This essay contributes to literature on the intersections of white settler colonialisms, racial capitalism, and U.S.-Mexico borderlands history by tracing the web of spatial, temporal, and legal power relations that produced El Paso, Texas’ seemingly legitimate possession of stolen Mexican territory known as “El Chamizal” in the El Paso-Cd. Juárez borderlands. This land theft became the Chamizal Dispute: an international land and boundary conflict between the U.S. and Mexico caused by the meandering Río Grande that defines the “fixed” international border between El Paso, Texas and Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua. In the 1860s, multiple shifts in the Rio Grande “relocated” El Chamizal north of this river/boundary. Soon thereafter, and despite Mexico’s sustained claim to and jurisdiction over this land, recently arrived Anglo American settlers incorporated El Chamizal into the nascent City of El Paso. In 1964, the U.S. and Mexico finally agreed to resolve this conflict by virtue of the landmark Chamizal Treaty, which ceded 630-acres of El Paso to Cd. Juárez as El Chamizal. Contrary to what dominant state accounts and the mainstream historical literature on this settlement would have us believe, however, this ceded land includes only a fraction of the original contested terrain. El Chamizal therefore remains a stolen tract of land nestled within the heart of El Paso. Drawing on oral histories, court testimonies and affidavits, and an array of binational records, this essay demonstrates that this ongoing theft is not a finite or complete project. Rather, the process hinges on a fragile web of spatial, white settler temporal, and legal practices of concealment/denial anchored to a colonial rumor that refuses to open this region to the mystery and wonder of the Río Grande’s “wayward life, beautiful experiment in how to live.”

A first ecological coherent assessment of eutrophication across the North-East Atlantic waters (2015–2020)

This paper presents the outcomes of the fourth application of the Common Procedure for the Identification of the Eutrophication Status of the OSPAR Maritime Area (the “Common Procedure”), conducted for the period 2015–2020 for the North East Atlantic. Previously, OSPAR has assessed eutrophication based on national assessment areas and disparate approaches lacking a transparent and comparable basis. A more harmonized approach has now been achieved through development of ecologically relevant assessment areas defined by oceanographic criteria rather than international boundaries, allowing for consistent assessments across exclusive economic zones and acknowledging that eutrophication is a transboundary problem. Thresholds that were specific for those harmonized assessment areas and eutrophication parameters have been derived primarily from an ensemble modeling approach to determine pre-eutrophic conditions. Common assessment areas and harmonized thresholds have enabled, for the first time, an objective and comparable assessment of the eutrophication status of the whole OSPAR Maritime Area. This establishes a level playing field for managing eutrophication and a solid basis for deriving OSPAR nutrient reduction targets as a prerequisite for targeted and successful regional eutrophication management. This assessment shows that eutrophication problem areas persist, in particular along the continental coasts from France to Denmark/Sweden and in the Greater North Sea and the Bay of Biscay and Iberian coast. The main areas affected by eutrophication are the plumes and adjacent coastal areas in the Greater North Sea and Bay of Biscay/Iberian Coast, with riverine nutrient inputs remaining the major source of nutrient pollution. Approximately 6% (152,904 km2) of the OSPAR Maritime Area is eutrophic, with the impacted area supporting many important ecosystem services. Fifty-eight percent of river plume areas (eight assessment areas out of 14), 22% (five of 27) of the coastal areas and 10% (three of 17) of the shelf areas were classified as problem areas. Application of the current assessment process to historical data from the previous three OSPAR assessment periods shows a gradual improvement since 2000. However, the OSPAR 2010 objective “to combat eutrophication, with the ultimate aim of achieving and maintaining a healthy marine environment where anthropogenic eutrophication does not occur” has not yet been fully achieved. Further measures to reduce nutrient loads are needed to ensure long-term sustainability of our coastal waters.