Traditional Partners Research Articles

Depth-L Nyquist (M) Filters and Biorthogonal Partners

In the past, Nyquist filters have been studied by many researchers. A pair of filters are said to be biorthogonal partners of each other if their cascade forms a Nyquist filter. The theory and design of traditional biorthogonal partners have been studied extensively. In this paper, we extend these results to depth-L Nyquist filters and biorthogonal partners. Two potential applications of them are discussed in fractionally spaced equalizer (FSE) and filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) systems. Moreover, the necessary and sufficient condition is derived for the existence of an finite impulse response (FIR) depth-L biorthogonal partner. We find out that the existence depends on the cardinality of the largest so-called congruous-zero set. In addition, we will show how to design these filters by using the eigenfilter method. Finally, performance comparisons are carried out to demonstrate the advantage of depth-L biorthogonal partners. It is shown that the depth-L version is more robust against inter-symbol interference (ISI) and timing synchronization error compared to the traditional biorthogonal partner.

THE JAPANESE DIPLOMACY IN ASIA: EVOLUTION AND CHALLENGES

The diplomacy of Japan towards its Asian neighbors has always been a complex issue. Throughout the years, the foreign policy of Japan has witnessed severe alterations specifically after the Second World War. Since then, new challenges and opportunities have risen which have formed a new, adapted Japanese diplomacy, albeit not disconnected from its traditional aspects and its past. The current purpose of the paper is to highlight these evolutions and challenges of the post-WWII Japanese diplomacy. The focus will be on the two main neighbors and traditional partners of Japan, the People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of Korea. There will be an effort to highlight the challenges that Japan experiences with the aforementioned countries, its diplomatic approaches, and how these could be evolved in the near future.

Gaullism and Neogaullism: Foreign Policy Continuity and Dynamics in France

Article describes the main priorities and objectives of foreign policy of Gaullism and neogaullism, trying to underline those elements that remain untouched during the decades and those that have been transformed due to the changes on the international arena. Besides, the authors focus on the notion of “grandeur” that was extensively used by the general de Gaulle, and estimate the direct influence of this concept on the French foreign policy. The main foreign policy priorities of Charles de Gaulle include independent foreign policy, status quo change in the bipolar world and great power status regain. Foreign policy priorities of neogaullists, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, haven’t been changed so far, but the ways of achieving goals are different now. Both presidents have been trying to develop the EU integration, even through strengthening the supranational institutions, and develop the integration with NATO (Sarkozy even returned France to the military structures of NATO). France, led by neogaullists, also conducted an active policy in the Mediterranean, cooperating not only with traditional partners (Arab states) but making attempts to restore relations with Israel. Sarkozy launched the idea of the Mediterranean Union that had the aim to strengthen the influence of France in the region, boost cooperation with Mediterranean countries and solve the numerous problems that all of them were facing. But this idea wasn’t realized as it was supposed to. In general, neogaullists follow the main principles of Charles de Gaulle, also responding to the current challenges. It’s worth mentioning that the authors analyze the foreign policy of French presidents holistically from the point of view of neogaullism, trying to evaluate the level of continuity during the decades and conclude whether the provisions of Gaullism are relevant for France in the 21st century.

Direct Catalytic Decarboxylative Amination of Aryl Acetic Acids

AbstractThe decarboxylative coupling of a carboxylic acid with an amine nucleophile provides an alternative to the substitution of traditional organohalide coupling partners. Benzoic and alkynyl acids may be directly aminated by oxidative catalysis. In contrast, methods for intermolecular alkyl carboxylic acid to amine conversion, including amidate rearrangements and photoredox‐promoted approaches, require stoichiometric activation of the acid unit to generate isocyanate or radical intermediates. Reported here is a process for the direct chemoselective decarboxylative amination of electron‐poor arylacetates by oxidative Cu catalysis. The reaction proceeds at (or near) room temperature, uses native carboxylic acid starting materials, and is compatible with protic, electrophilic, and other potentially complicating functionality. Mechanistic studies support a pathway in which ionic decarboxylation of the acid generates a benzylic nucleophile which is aminated in a Chan–Evans–Lam‐type process.

Direct Catalytic Decarboxylative Amination of Aryl Acetic Acids.

The decarboxylative coupling of a carboxylic acid with an amine nucleophile provides an alternative to the substitution of traditional organohalide coupling partners. Benzoic and alkynyl acids may be directly aminated by oxidative catalysis. In contrast, methods for intermolecular alkyl carboxylic acid to amine conversion, including amidate rearrangements and photoredox-promoted approaches, require stoichiometric activation of the acid unit to generate isocyanate or radical intermediates. Reported here is a process for the direct chemoselective decarboxylative amination of electron-poor arylacetates by oxidative Cu catalysis. The reaction proceeds at (or near) room temperature, uses native carboxylic acid starting materials, and is compatible with protic, electrophilic, and other potentially complicating functionality. Mechanistic studies support a pathway in which ionic decarboxylation of the acid generates a benzylic nucleophile which is aminated in a Chan-Evans-Lam-type process.

Communication, Partnerships, and the Role of Social Science: Conservation Delivery in a Brave New World

The Saginaw Bay Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) in Michigan is an innovative conservation effort organized to address water quality impairments involving a unique collaboration between conservation organizations, agronomists, universities, commodity groups, and agribusinesses. We track the evolution and adaptation of the Saginaw Bay RCPP, and the collaboration among the traditional and nontraditional conservation partners. Our reflections are organized around three key lessons: vertical and horizontal communication challenges; contextual and structural constraints; barriers that remain between private and public sector entities for this and alternative conservation-delivery models. Lessons from this evaluation will inform the design of future collaborative/multi-stakeholder watershed management efforts. We also demonstrate that rather than being used as an ad-hoc approach, social science evaluation was integrated into conservation planning and practice, hence increasing the salience and legitimacy of the conservation social science in collaborative watershed management.

Aza-Morita–Baylis–Hillman Reaction with Vinyl-oxadiazoles: An Expeditious Approach to Access New Heterocyclic Arrangements

In this communication, we disclosed a new aza-MBH reaction in which traditional nucleophilic partners of these reactions (e.g., acrylates, nitroolefins or enones) were replaced by vinyl-1,2,4-oxadiazoles. Thus, the aza-MBH reaction between 5-aryl-3-vinyl-1,2,4-oxadiazoles and N-sulfonylimines, catalyzed by the mixture DABCO/AcOH, provides a class of new adduct in yields varying from 31% up to 93% in reaction times from 30 minutes to 24 hours. Due to the biological activities and technological applications associated with the 1,2,4-oxadiazole motifs, this new class of heterocycles offers great synthetic and commercial potentiality.

Traditional healing and counselling services partnership in multicultural South Africa: A multiple case study

This study explored partnership opportunities between traditional healing and counselling psychology services in South Africa. Informants comprised a traditional healer and two counselling psychologists who completed interviews on practices in which they engaged and that could be bridged for the benefit of the client. Following thematic analysis, findings indicated opportunities for collaborative services as ways to transform the lives of others as facilitators.

Smart city projects in the continuity of the urban socio-technical regime: The French case

The purpose of the article is to assess whether smart city projects developed in France represent continuity or a break with the established socio-technical regime of French cities. Our assessment attempts to establish a link between the main socio-technical features of French cities in existing literature and an exhaustive list of “smart city”-labelled projects compiled from twenty French cities. It reveals more of continuity than a break with the urban socio-technical regime generated by these projects. Technologies are not evenly developed along different domains: the fact that the most sophisticated innovations play out in the regulation of networks rather than in e-government reinforces an old two-speed urban modernisation. The mainly technological character of these projects is part of the continuity of a depoliticised strategy for managing technical matters. Co-production opportunities renew a tradition of local management and processing of grievances. Traditional public-private partnerships are only partially modified.

Gravity Perspective of Trade Realignment: Assessing China’s Engagement in West Africa

This article examines the impact of emerging West African trade partners—China and India with respect to the traditional trade partners. In this regard, we augmented the gravity model and used dummy to capture bilateral trade effects. This allowed trade to be represented from both sides of its occurrence—import and export—while also accounting for the percentage increase as well as the volume of trade. Applying poisson pseudo maximum likelihood (PPML) technique, we observed a growth in the coefficient of emerging trading partners concerning China in the import direction and India in the export direction, while that of the traditional trade partners remained positive but decreasing. Therefore, West Africa is witnessing a partial and imperfect realignment of trade with China, predominantly on import. As China continues to provide better prices and aids for trade, merchandise trade activities with the traditional partners may start to negatively impact when competing with emerging China.

SUN-341 RESPECTFUL ENGAGEMENT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN A PAN-CANADIAN KIDNEY RESEARCH NETWORK

Kidney disease has a strong and disproportionate impact on the health of Indigenous communities in Canada. Therefore, a national strategy to improve kidney health must include meaningful, culturally appropriate engagement with Indigenous peoples. The Can-SOLVE CKD Network is a pan-Canadian patient-oriented kidney research initiative that is working to improve the health of all Canadians and bring Indigenous ways of knowing into health research. As part of the Can-SOLVE CKD Network, Indigenous patients, caregivers, researchers, and community leaders created an Indigenous Peoples’ Engagement and Research Council (IPERC). This council sits at the centre of the network and supports collaboration grounded in traditional values and partnerships with Indigenous peoples and communities. Using an ethical framework that encompasses the principles of ownership, control, access and possession and the elements of participatory research, IPERC is mandated to guide Can-SOLVE CKD research projects in respectful engagement of Indigenous communities. A key component of this work is the creation of a new training pathway, Wabishki Bizhiko Skaanj (“White Horse” in Anishinaabe), that will help researchers and patient partners build respectful partnerships with Indigenous peoples in health research. Wabishki Bizhiko Skaanj aims to enhance researchers’ knowledge of racial biases, Indigenous voices and stories, the impact of colonization, and culturally safe health research practices. Its objectives are closely aligned with those of the Can-SOLVE CKD Network. Participants are encouraged to look, listen, learn, and lead their way along the pathway by examining racial identities, privileges, and biases, as well as participating in interactive learning exercises, facilitated online modules and webinars. The Wabishki Bizhiko Skaanj learning pathway includes a focus on Indigenous Elders in research, including the role of Elders and how to foster meaningful and reciprocal relationships between researchers and Indigenous Elders/Knowledge Keepers. This training aims to create a culturally safe space for researchers, patients, and Elders to come together to gain understanding of a holistic context for scientific observations. Can-SOLVE CKD has created a culturally safe space for Indigenous individuals to participate in all aspects of patient-oriented kidney research. Through IPERC, the network has instituted guidelines on ceremony and Elder participation that ensure recognition of traditional knowledge and territories. Wabishki Bizhiko Skaanj represents a novel learning platform for Indigenous cultural safety in Canadian health research. By enhancing knowledge, self-awareness and strengthening cultural competency, this learning pathway is enabling all partners in health research to ultimately close the gaps in kidney health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Feedback from a pilot of the components has been very positive. The Can-SOLVE CKD Network offers a model for respectful engagement of Indigenous communities in health research. By adopting Indigenous ways of knowing and fostering cultural competency, the network is working to enhance kidney health outcomes and overall wellness for and with Indigenous peoples and communities across Canada.

Evolution of academic-industry partnerships in cardiovascular research and development.

The advent of ‘big data’ and modern analytics mandates a change of scale in every aspect of the biomedical enterprise. These forces are realigning academic medicine and traditional industrial partners, and also creating the context for an emerging new ecosystem for discovery, translation, care and implementation that promises to transform and integrate all these areas of endeavour.

Hong Kong in the world: continuities and changes

Purpose To fill the gap in the existing literature on the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), the purpose of this paper is to critically reflect upon the continuities and changes of the city’s relations with the world. Design/methodology/approach The paper has adopted a generic approach to shed light on the factors behind the evolution of the international status of Hong Kong from a by-product of geopolitics to a global city in its own right, to understand how the city has been perceived by traditional western partners after 1997 and to investigate how China has made use Hong Kong’s international status. Findings It has shown that Beijing’s strategy toward Hong Kong has been marred by the inherent tensions between “becoming Chinese” and “remaining global.” The official discourse of functionalism, according to which economic and professional ties are both the most acceptable and therefore the least resisted pathways available for the development of Hong Kong’s external relations, has the opposite effect of expanding Beijing’s control over the city. Originality/value In contrast to the HKSAR Government’s belief that Hong Kong will certainly benefit from the emergence of China, the city has found itself on a shorter leash than ever. It has therefore pinpointed the pitfalls of the logic of functionalism which has dominated the existing literature as much as the policy-making process.

A PRELIMINARY REVIEW ON TRANSACTION COST COMPONENTS WITHIN THE BIM ADOPTED PROCUREMENTS

The Malaysian construction industry although it plays a crucial function in stimulating the economy, is lagging behind other economic sectors. This is due to its unique characteristics such as fragmentation and slow technology adoption. These very characteristics make the industry susceptible to construction disputes. Construction disputes were found to incur high transaction costs (TCs), affect the parties involved, and subsequently increase overall project costs. Because TCs measure the costs that incur from transaction activities, they can be used to better understand the benefits within each transaction. Additionally, TCs are the best mechanism for analysing the ‘unseen’ costs of construction procurement. Previous studies on the traditional, design-and-build, and public private partnership (PPP) procurement methods have demonstrated TCs affect the organizational dynamics of construction and selection of procurement. The emerging Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology is said to be beneficial in addressing the problems associated with disputes and overall project costs. Consequently, many projects embark on BIM adoption in procurement. Hence, this preliminary study seeks to identify the TCs of BIM-adopted procurement by employing a structured literature review to determine the components and activities within the BIM procurement within the BIM implementation. The initial framework for the components of TCs of BIM procurement was drafted by referring to RIBA Plan of Work with BIM overlay. The components are categorised into pre-contract and post-contract components. These components can serve as the basis for developing a framework that can serve as a guideline for construction players involved in managing the TCs of BIM procurement.

Report From the FMAHealth Practice Core Team: Achieving the Quadruple Aim Through Practice Transformation.

Family Medicine for America's Health (FMAHealth) is a strategic planning organization effort that was created out of the reevaluation of the first Future of Family Medicine project from 2004. This article is a summary of the key findings of the FMAHealth Practice Core Team. At the highest level, we find that family medicine practices have compelling intrinsic and extrinsic reasons to evolve to new models of care delivery. We have demonstrated that payment transformation is imperative to successful practice transformation and that comprehensive payment models that include attention to physician work within the social determinants of health and require fewer administrative burdens will be key to achieving the quadruple aim. To bridge payment reform and practice transformation will require better and fewer measures of physician effectiveness in order to allow the physician-patient dyad to thrive in these new models. Achieving these goals will require a sustained national effort involving not only the many family medicine membership organizations, but their collaborative work with others in the health care transformation industry who may not have been our traditional partners. Educational initiatives must be robust, available to all family physicians regardless of professional organization membership, and focused on meeting physicians and physician practice managers where they are with the goal of moving them toward a state of more advanced care delivery. This article outlines the work done by the FMAHealth Practice Team that supports the above assertions.

The global infrastructure public-private partnership and the extra-territorial politics of collective provision: The case of regional rail transit in Denver, USA

Drawing upon a case study of regional transit in Denver, Colorado, this article describes and accounts for the emergence of the global infrastructure public-private partnership (GIP3) as a novel extra-territorial mechanism for financing and delivering transportation infrastructure projects across large metropolitan regions in the United States (US). Unlike traditional locally-funded public-private partnerships, a GIP3 involves a global (i.e. extra-territorial) consortium of private sector construction firms and investors which enters into a long-term contract with a regional public agency to finance, operate, maintain and deliver strategic investments in transportation infrastructure. In 2004, Denver region voters approved a sales tax increase to fund the Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD)’s US$4.7 billion FasTracks programme, a 122-mile extension of light and commuter rail along six corridors. Faced with a shortfall in regional funding, the Denver RTD subsequently entered into a contract with a GIP3 consortium to finance and deliver the Eagle P3 project, a major component of the FasTracks system to Denver International Airport. The article argues that future research on GIP3 contractual agreements needs to consider the local control of infrastructure assets and the integrity of supporting regional collaborative governance arrangements.

Trade Realignment Position in ECOWAS with Gravity Model

This paper assesses the realignment position of trade in West African region with respect to the emergence of China and India vis-a-vis trade flow with traditional trade partners. Applying PPML technique with importer, exporter, and year fixed effect, the bilateral trade effects between ECOWAS and her trade partners are captured with dummy. These allow trades to be represented from both sides of its occurrences (import and export) rather than viewing from one side of it. Results revealed that ECOWAS trade with her emerging and traditional trade partner increased over time but rate of increases are reducing with the traditional partners - China and India are accumulating more market shares towards displacing these old friends. Given the trend, in no long time, there could be a fundamental realignment of trade from traditional trade partners for envisaged reliance on China and India.

Trade realignment position in ECOWAS with gravity model

This paper assesses the realignment position of trade in West African region with respect to the emergence of China and India vis-a-vis trade flow with traditional trade partners. Applying PPML technique with importer, exporter, and year fixed effect, the bilateral trade effects between ECOWAS and her trade partners are captured with dummy. These allow trades to be represented from both sides of its occurrences (import and export) rather than viewing from one side of it. Results revealed that ECOWAS trade with her emerging and traditional trade partner increased over time but rate of increases are reducing with the traditional partners - China and India are accumulating more market shares towards displacing these old friends. Given the trend, in no long time, there could be a fundamental realignment of trade from traditional trade partners for envisaged reliance on China and India.

The Persisting Us Trade Deficit Is Protectionism the Right Answer?

On January 22, 2018, the Trump administration imposed Safeguard Tariffs on $8.5 billion of imports of solar panel and $1.8 billion for washing machines. This move marked the beginning of what is now considered a trade war the USA is fighting against China and other traditional American trade partners such as EU and NAFTA members states. The “official” motivation for Trump’s trade war is that the persisting US trade deficit depends on “unfair competition” by trade partners. Tariffs are therefore seen as a political tool for levelling the field of international trade. In this paper we present and discuss two main objections to this view: the first is that current and trade account disequilibria are ultimately due to differences between domestic savings and investments driven by macroeconomic fundamentals which in general do not depend only on the trade policies of foreign countries. The second objection consists in the fact that the role of the US dollar as the “world’s money” in the current asymmetric international monetary system makes the US trade deficit both inevitable and sustainable in the long run. Unless protectionist measures permanently affect the domestic savings-investment balance they alone cannot eliminate a structural trade deficit.

Kyrgyz Republic and Structural Reforms: Twenty Years of WTO Membership

The Kyrgyz Republic joined the WTO twenty years ago with the expectation that structural reforms required for obtaining membership and the application of trade rules would facilitate its transformation from a centrally planned to a market economy and ease its integration into the WTO multilateral trading system. It completed its accession process in record time, liberalized its economy considerably, reduced tariffs significantly, and made substantial commitments in a broad range of services sectors. It adopted legislation in all areas required for WTO membership and created competitive market access conditions for goods and services. Looking back at two decades of WTO membership, there is evidenced that the reform process is paying off. Trade has expanded significantly and new markets have been tapped for imports and exports, thus decreasing its dependency on traditional trading partners. As a result, the economy has grown rapidly. At the same time, many challenges remain to further diversify the economy, take better advantage of opportunities offered in the services trade, attract foreign direct investment, and fully implement all WTO related laws, rules, and regulations. The reform process continues to be essential to Kyrgyzstan’s economic policies to deepen and solidify its integration into the world trading system.