Uniform Regime Research Articles

What mode is conducive to an effective regional IP regime? Evidence from intellectual property courts in China

Amid a patent boom and increase in patent infringement cases, China is a fast-growing catch-up country in the intellectual property (IP) regime, with arguments on effectiveness and standardization. In 2014, China installed three intellectual property courts (IPCs) in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. This reform represents a crucial step in a series of reforms and actions that seek to establish a uniform and standardized judicial IP regime in China. Based on interviews, statistical reports, and an analysis of judicial documents, this study argues that the interpretation and execution of IP law vary across the three locations due to the embeddedness of those courts and their judges in the regions. Indications that the regional setting and presence of international firms affect the efficient proceedings of IP tribunals and courts were found as a result. Given that IP law is the same all over a country, it can be concluded that courts balance national regulation and regional realities.

System of legal regulation of international air transportation

The Warsaw Convention of 1929 for the unification of certain rules of international air transport is the basis of the legal regulation of international air transport. Agreements supplementing the Warsaw Convention: Hague Protocol of 1955, Guatemala Protocol of 1971 amending the Warsaw Convention, Guadalajara Convention of 1961, Montreal Protocol for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air (1975). The Montreal Interim Airline Agreement of 1966, the Montreal Agreement of 1999. The set of norms of these agreements as a whole constitutes the Warsaw System of Regulation of International Air Transport. IATA – a special non-governmental organization, an association of airlines of ICAO member states – is responsible for determining the specific conditions of international air transportation. On May 28, 1999, a significant event took place in the field of international private air law: as a result of the three-week work of the Diplomatic Conference on Air Law held at the ICAO headquarters with the participation of representatives of 121 states and 11 international aviation organizations, the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of International Aviation Law was adopted of air transportation (Montreal Convention of 1999), which defines the basic legal conditions of international air transportation in the 21st century. Scientific and technical progress, the rapid development of international air transport, the increase in the safety of its operation made it necessary to expand the scope and more clearly regulate the responsibility of the carrier. This international Convention is designed to provide firm legal guarantees and an adequate level of compensation to persons injured as a result of aviation events, to create a uniform and clear legal regime of responsibility of air carriers for failure to preserve cargo, baggage and delay during their transportation on international lines. On November 4, 2003, the Montreal Convention entered into force. Among the participants of the Convention are such countries as the USA, Japan, Canada, China, the countries of the European Union, including Ukraine. The article examines the early development of the aviation industry and the role of the Warsaw Convention in the construction of rules and mechanisms aimed at protecting the interests of both the carrier and the passenger or cargo owner. The development of the norms of the Warsaw Convention in various protocols is revealed. Such as the Hague Protocol (1955), the Guadalajara Convention (1961), the Guatemala City Protocol (1971) and the Montreal Four Protocols (1975), which significantly modernized the provisions on air transport regulations, as seen in the Montreal Convention (1999).

A Future Uniform Regime of International Commercial Mediator Immunity: Limited, Party-Agreed and Statute-Required

Mediator immunity refers to the privilege of mediators’ to be partially or completely immune from civil liability. There are ongoing debates on whether to grant this immunity and both sides provide their arguments. However, mediator immunity is better supported based on mediators’ identity as experts rather than as judicial or quasi-judicial figures. So far, there are three degrees of mediator immunity: absolute, limited and differentiated. Among these, limited immunity is more effective in balancing the conflicting interests involved. Furthermore, mediator immunity may find its source in exemption agreements, case law or statute law. For the sake of certainty and predictability, parties should be entitled to provide mediators with immunity within limits by agreement, and the validity and effects of such agreements should be clearly recognised by statute.

Industrialization, environmental externality, and climate mitigation strategies

This study proposes a 12-region global modeling framework that integrates industrialization into climate–economy interactions and applies it to explore national strategic interactions and long-term policy outcomes. In this regard, three policy regimes are considered: a non-cooperative Nash equilibrium and two cooperative regimes that maximize the weighted sum of regional welfare. Negishi weights, ensuring uniform carbon price, and equal weights are applied in cooperative setting. Based on the results, global unmitigated emissions will peak around 2040. Given the future industrialization process, developing countries will make greater mitigation efforts under all regimes, whereas the strategies of developed countries will only be affected under the uniform carbon price regime. In the two cooperative regimes, a clear separation of mitigation efforts is observed between developed and developing countries. Moreover, when accounting for industrialization, the global averaged carbon price should grow faster in the first half-century, followed by a period of slower growth. Sensitivity analysis implies that with the support from developed countries, accelerated industrialization in the developing world can help alleviate its environmental strain.

Balance-Sheet Netting in U.S. Treasury Markets and Central Clearing

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive investigation of the potential for expanded central clearing to reduce the costs of the supplementary leverage ratio (SLR) on Treasury market intermediation in both cash and repo markets. Combining a detailed analysis of the rules involved in calculating the SLR with a unique set of regulatory data, we conclude that expanding central clearing would have relatively limited effects on the level of SLRs. We do find intermediaries’ increase their balance sheet netting when their regulatory balance sheet costs are higher. Our data permits us to establish a number of empirical facts related to the noncentrally cleared bilateral (NCCB) repo segment, and to repo activity overall, at the bank holding company level. We find that sizeable amounts of bilaterally-cleared activity would not be nettable even if centrally cleared. We also find that a significant portion of activity is already nettable outside of central clearing because dealers are structuring their NCCB trades to net. While expanded central clearing could have other benefits, such as imposing a more uniform margin regime on Treasury market intermediation, the scope of its effects on reducing balance sheet costs associated with the leverage ratio is limited.

Globalization and Peri-Urban Transformation

This study aims to define the general characteristics of peri-urbanization and the responses that development planning typically provides. It also elaborates on the many urban planning strategies that assist in determining the development in peri-urban areas. Subnational and local political cultures have been acknowledged to differ in a number of ways, and these differences have been shown to influence urban development patterns through mediating factors arising from both uniform national regulatory regimes and global economic demand. Urban governments' evolving involvement in fostering economic development has followed two different paths: "structural" and "agential."

Response of Soil Moisture to Four Rainfall Regimes and Tillage Measures under Natural Rainfall in Red Soil Region, Southern China

Investigating the effects of natural rainfall on the soil moisture for sloping farmland is extremely important for comprehending a variety of hydrological processes. Rainfall regimes can elicit different responses to soil moisture at the depth of soil layers, and the responses may differ depending on the landscape position of the sloping farmland. This paper utilized the surface runoff natural rainfall and soil moisture measured on sloping farmland with conventional tillage and contour tillage in the red soil area of China to investigate the influence of natural rainfall events on soil moisture content and to evaluate if the response results were consistent across the four rainfall regimes. Natural rainfall events were classified into different four regimes in line with rainfall duration, rainfall amount, and the maximum 30 min rainfall intensity (I30) by the k-means clustering method, including advanced, intermediate, uniform and delayed regimes. The result showed that the advanced regime was the predominant one in the study area, which represented 45.9% of the total rainfall events. The rainfall regimes influenced the surface runoff coefficient and runoff depth on sloping farmland for conventional and contour tillage, with the uniform regime generating the highest runoff coefficient (5.20% and 5.82%) and runoff depth (2.00% and 2.05%), respectively. For the conventional tillage, soil moisture at a depth of 0–20 cm increased appreciably when the rainfall amount was larger than 20 mm and larger than 30 mm for the advanced regime. For the contour tillage, soil moisture in 20–40 cm layer increased for the advanced regime when the rainfall amount was larger than 15 mm and 30 mm, while the values were modified with rainfall duration and the antecedent dry day (ADD). A longer rainfall duration had a more obvious effect on soil moisture increasing in deep soil. At a depth of 20 cm, the ADD showed an appreciably positive correlation with the increment in soil moisture, which means that a brief ADD produces a compounding effect for a natural rainfall event. The present results underline the complexity of the effect of the rainfall events on soil moisture under two tillage measures for different rainfall regimes and suggest that the advanced regime significantly affects the distinction of soil moisture and the contour tillage can effectively reduce soil water loss and enhance water storage on the sloping farmland with red soil, presenting a theoretical basis for local soil and water conservation research and sloping farmland conservation tillage management.

Definition and application of the Péclet number threshold for water quality analysis in water distribution networks

ABSTRACT To assess the water quality within the distribution networks, simplified models are used, which adopt an advective–reactive approach and neglect diffusion–dispersion phenomena. Although such simplifications can be sufficiently accurate in complete turbulent uniform flow regimes, literature works demonstrated that they could produce wrong results in laminar and transitional regimes that are relevant when analysing low flows, dead-end pipes in looped distribution networks or service connections. On the other hand, advective simplification allows for considerable computational savings during the simulation of large networks. Therefore, a criterion is needed for better discriminate pipes in which the advective approach is sufficient or the diffusive approach is required. The present study aims to investigate the use of the Péclet number to discriminate the use of advective simplification both adopting the two-dimensional (2D) advection–dispersion equation and the one-dimensional (1D) cross-section averaged advection–dispersion equation. The numerical analysis was applied to a linear pipeline using the EPANET, 1D advective–dispersive–reactive, and EPANET-DD (Dynamic–Dispersion) models. The results showed the inadequacy of the Péclet number in discriminating the dominance of the advective–dispersive process in real systems, as it is linked to the pipe's length, regardless of the flow regime occurring on the pipeline.

Stress Patterns and Crustal Anisotropy in the Eastern Alps: Insights From Seismological and Geological Observations

AbstractIn the Eastern Alps, the indentation of the Adriatic promontory since the Cenozoic affected the kinematics of separate crustal domains bounded by faults that accommodate lateral extrusion processes and differential shortening. Deciphering the pattern of crustal stresses in the orogen interior is challenging, due to the lack of in situ stress measurements at crustal depths. We define stress regimes and the orientations of the most‐compressive horizontal stress (SHmax) by integrating published results with new data, including stress analysis from fault plane solutions, estimation of crustal anisotropy through the shear wave splitting analysis, paleostress determination from fault slip data, and computation of cumulative seismic displacements. The retrieved regional SHmax are generally consistent with N‐S convergence. In the northern part of the study area, current stress orientations are almost parallel to paleo‐SHmax, suggesting a rather uniform compressional regime since the late Cenozoic. Conversely, sharp deflections and divergence with paleo‐SHmax appear at the western border of the Adriatic promontory across major transpressive and extensional shear zones and in the Southalpine domain, indicating a change in tectonically induced second‐order stresses. A current strike‐slip regime with subordinate orogen‐parallel seismic displacements affects a belt to north of the Periadriatic Lineament and NE‐extension characterizes the Ortles‐Engandine region. Seismic anisotropy locally exhibits fault‐parallel fast axes (Brenner‐Giudicarie fault‐systems, Dinaric and Southalpine thrusts), whereas stress‐induced anisotropy parallel to SHmax characterizes the southern part of the orogen. Cumulative seismic displacements are small compared to geodetic ones, and unravel partitioning of deformation into second‐order transpressive and extensional belts in response to indentation.

Fracture of beam-column connections with cope holes under large cyclic deformations

A relationship between cord rotation (θp) and the number of deformation cycles to fracture initiation (N) is developed for steel moment frame welded beam-column connections with different cope hole sizes. The selected ductile fracture model is calibrated using material monotonic test results. It is then verified using small coupons considering different test regimes. The model with 45 mm cope hole radius was then calibrated for a welded connection tested under a uniform test regime. Then, further analyses of the configuration were conducted with cope hole radii ranging from 15 mm to 55 mm subjected to different test regimes. The number of cycles before fracture varied by up to 2.44 times for the range of cope hole sizes considered for the largest end displacement. Fracture initiated at the inside edge of the cope hole. The strength decreased with an increasing cope hole size, and equations to describe this were developed as a function of the remaining section plastic modulus.

Earthquake size distributions are slightly different in compression vs extension

The earthquake size distribution is described by an exponential function governed by the b-value parameter. It has already been proven that the b-value depends on the differential stress and tectonic settings. Here, we propose a new method to group earthquakes using the kinematics of the interseismic geodetic strain rates and horizontal stress directions. We select the Italian peninsula as a case study, and we find that the b-value is significantly larger in the extensional setting than in the compressional one, although these differences are much smaller than previously reported. We also show that spatial fragmentation of uniform tectonic regimes leads to inaccurate b-value estimation due to the undersampling of earthquake size distribution. Given these results, we conclude that stress directions and geodetic data complement other geological or geophysical information and reduce the arbitrariness in drawing zones for a seismotectonic model.

Uniform versus discriminatory tariffs when competition mode is endogenous

AbstractWe examine the welfare implications of two tariff regimes when firms have a forward‐looking view on trade policy. Discriminatory tariffs lead to Cournot competition, whereas uniform tariffs lead to diverse competition modes. If exporters are identical in production costs, all the trading countries are better off under the uniform rather than discriminatory tariff regime, which suggests a possibility that countries reach an agreement on the most‐favored nation (MFN) as a preferred tariff regime. For asymmetric costs among exporters; however, the competition mode determined endogenously under the uniform tariffs does matter for the welfare comparison. If Cournot competition emerges, then each country's preference is consistent with conventional wisdom. That is, the importing country and high‐cost exporters prefer a discriminatory tariff while low‐cost exporters have a uniform tariff regime. However, if the uniform regime leads to either Bertrand or asymmetric competition mode, then the cost gap between exporters would be the determinant factor. Only when the cost gap is sufficiently small, the uniform tariff, required by the MFN clause of the World Trade Organization, can be beneficial to all trading countries.

Systematic construction of lawfulness of processing employees’ personal information under China's personal information protection law

With the rapid development and widespread use of digital technologies in the workplace in China, employers’ right to monitor and direct employees has often been abused, raising a number of disputes over the infringement of employees’ right to privacy in terms of their personal information. China must urgently develop an appropriate approach to balancing these two conflicting interests. However, there is currently no coherent and uniform regime governing the protection of employees’ personal information in China. The primary legal source on which employers can rely is the latest version of the Chinese Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), which offers three lawful bases for employers’ processing of their employees’ personal information. These bases are employee consent; “necessity for the conclusion or performance of an employment contract”; and “necessity for conducting human resource management.” Concerns have been expressed regarding the reasonableness and effectiveness of the three lawful bases under the PIPL. First, it is both legally and practically problematic for the PIPL to rely so heavily on employee consent. Second, it is unclear whether the other two lawful bases relieve employers of the duty of notification and, if so, how to safeguard employees’ right to know. Third, the ambiguous standard of “necessity” requires clarification.This article argues that China should adopt many elements from EU law, while US law should be only followed in relation to the standard of “necessity”. In relation to employee consent, the EU approach is preferable to the US approach. As the EU approach does not generally regard employees’ consent as a lawful basis for the processing of their information and uses the other two lawful bases as alternatives to employee consent, this approach better reflects the customary practices of employee subordination and employer control in China. In contrast, US law deems employee consent to be an absolute general defense to the tort of privacy violation and adopts an employer favoritism approach to balancing these two conflicting interests, which is not appropriate in the Chinese context. In relation to the scope of necessity, three tests taken from the EU and US approaches should be considered by the Chinese courts. In addition, when processing personal information based on the other two lawful bases, employers should safeguard employees’ right to know through collective contracts concluded with labor unions or employee representatives under the Chinese Labor Contract Law, which would effectively address employers’ arbitrariness. Ultimately, these changes would produce a better balance between employees’ right to privacy in terms of their personal information and employers’ need to subordinate and control employees.

Effects for global agriculture of country-specific climate policy regimes with a focus on methane

Abstract While countries have agreed in the Paris-agreement on common rules to report greenhouse gas emissions, the design of domestic climate policy regimes remains in the national domain. This may cause different carbon prices for climate gasses across countries, between a country's emission sectors, and within the same sector. Our focus is on methane, which is a major emitter from agriculture, but also linked to livestock farming which is a core activity in agriculture worldwide. We analyse the potential effects of domestic carbon pricing regimes for agriculture in a non-cooperative game theoretic setting using a global agricultural sector model. Our results indicate no ‘race to the bottom’ to apply carbon pricing regimes that result in lowest implicit carbon prices for methane. Enforcing a uniform regime can reduce additional global warming with up to 0.02 °C, but runs the risk of agreeing to lower emission cuts than a nationally determined choice would suggest.

One Price Fits All? On Inefficient Siting Incentives for Wind Power Expansion in Germany under Uniform Pricing

This paper evaluates investment incentives for wind power under two market designs: uniform and nodal pricing. An electricity system model is developed, that allows for investments in wind power capacities while carefully accounting for static transmission grid constraints. Wind power capacities are assumed to reach the same expansion target by 2030 under both market designs. The results show that the introduction of nodal prices leads to investments in wind power plants shifting to locations with lower wind yield. The amount of electricity fed into the grid from wind power plants, however, is higher under nodal pricing as curtailment is reduced by two-thirds. Furthermore, grid-optimal wind locations are shown to require higher direct subsidy payments but decrease yearly variable supply costs by 1.5% in 2030. Yet distributional effects present an obstacle to the introduction of a nodal pricing regime, with about 75% of German demand facing an increase in electricity costs of about 5%. To mitigate the distorted investment signals arising from uniform pricing regimes, restricting investments within grid expansion areas proves to be more promising than including latitude-dependent generator-component in the grid tariff design.

Non-unique solutions for flow depth and velocity estimations in free-surface annular-channel for single-phase viscous flows

Flow depth and mean velocity estimations for partially filled annular ducts are performed using a one-dimensional free-surface flow formulation. The formulation considers a Newtonian fluid flowing in a closed channel with a circular annular cross-section, in steady-state and uniform regimes. The Darcy–Weisbach friction factor, combined with the Churchill equation and hydraulic-diameter approach, is used. Expressions for the flow cross-section area and the wetted perimeter of the partially full annular channel flow, both terms of hydraulic-diameter definition, are derived from trigonometric rules as a function of the flow depth. In contrast to partially filled pipe flow where a bi-univocal and monotonic trend solution between flow depth and flow rate occurs, for annular-channel, multiple values for the flow depth satisfy the formulation for a single flow rate value. Multiple solutions existence is accounted for the abrupt changes in the flow geometry, mainly related to the wetted perimeter, when (i) the flow height enters in contact with the internal duct, (ii) the internal duct becomes completely submerged, and (iii) the flow completely fills the duct cross-section. Calculations for a broad range of geometries and flow conditions (inclination angles: 15°–85°, viscosity: 0.001–0.576 Pa s., and Reynolds numbers: 101–8×105) show errors up to 47% can be reached for flow velocity and flow depth estimations. Specifically, for turbulent flows, discrepancies are lower, being less than 10%. Thus, the higher the inclination angle and viscosity, the more significant errors. The paper outlines the implication of the flow depth and velocity estimations using a well-accepted formulation that impacts on industrial systems’ design and operation stages. We draw attention to the existence of non-unique solutions for free-surface flows in annulus and the need for experiments to elucidate which of these solutions is physically possible and consequently improve predictions for the flow depth and mean velocity in this kind of flow.

Sequential tariffs with increasing marginal costs

AbstractThis study examines the superiority of the discriminatory and uniform tariff regimes under both simultaneous and sequential arrangements in terms of social and global welfare by considering asymmetrically increasing marginal costs among exporters. Under Cournot competition, the importing country has an incentive to manipulate the tariff structure using a sequential tariff arrangement, which implies that it prefers to impose tariff on a low‐cost exporter first and a high‐cost exporter later. Sequential discriminatory (uniform) tariffs can achieve Pareto superiority from the perspective of consumer surplus, and social and global welfare if product differentiation is low (high). It is mainly because high‐cost (low‐cost) exporters are handicapped (subsidized) under alternative tariff regimes. In contrast to previous research, our analysis suggests the possibility that preferences for tariff regimes will change in the same direction for consumer surplus, social welfare, and global welfare.

How to Mix Monarchy with Democracy. Precepts from Roman History

The article deals with several aspects of the theory of mixed government (mixed constitution), given that many scholars, including Max Weber, considered such phenomenon of modern political systems as Ceasarism to be a mix of monarchy and democracy. In the beginning an analysis of a famous statement from the “Roman History” of Cassius Dio (who wrote that Augustus has “mixed monarchy with democracy”) is provided. Such terms from Ancient Greek as demokratia and monarchia had a very specific meaning during the time of writing of this book, i.e. 220–230 CE. But apart from studying the peculiarities of the historical meanings of the terms used to designate these forms of rule what is important is also how their juxtaposition or mixing was theorized. The article studies different terms used in such interpretations. Briefly, the term krasis meant a fusion of the components and thus a creation of a new substance with new qualities and homogeneity, while the term mixis could also mean that the components of the mixture retained their distinct existence, though acquiring an ability to influence each other. The second version of conceptualizing mixes eventually served as the basis for a famous theory of checks and balances within a political regime. Thus Dio, one could argue, uses the term mixis rather than krasis — and this makes his different from the other authors of the school of the Second Sophistic — because he wants to stress that one form of rule should check and balance another form, and they should not constitute a total fusion within a uniform political regime. In the end of th article, the conceptual vocabulary of Dio is tested in its felicity while describing present day political phenomena.

Granular stresses in granular flows subjected to different obstacles

Although the application and development of continuum approaches demonstrate immense promise to model granular flows, the assumption of isotropic stress state in a constitutive law needs to be carefully examined, especially for accurately modeling the kinematics and kinetics of obstructed granular flows. This paper investigates the effect of obstacles on granular stresses and stress ratios in 3D granular silo flows by using discrete element method (DEM). The adopted obstacles include a conical insert, disk insert, BINSERT, hollow cylinder insert and hollow silo insert, as well as the absence of any insert for comparison. A novel (simple but robust) method with ring measurement cells was proposed to determine average stress tensors for granular flows. An innovative slice method with null friction boundaries was also proposed to significantly reduce DEM computational time. The validity of the proposed DEM model was justified by a repose angle experiment and two numerical verification examples. Results reveal that the blocking effect from the obstacles and the hopper wall of the silos led to a significant increase in normal and shear stresses. The normal stresses exhibited slight anisotropy in steady and uniform granular flows, and resulted in a stress ratio of approximately 1.0, indicating an approximately isotropic stress state. Unlike the normal stresses, the shear stresses however showed strong anisotropy even in the steady and uniform regime. The obstructed granular silo flows exhibited strong anisotropy not only in normal stresses, but also in shear stresses. The stress ratio in the obstructed granular flows can appreciably deviate from unity, varying between 0.27 and 2.24. Moreover, the vertical stresses dominated the contact force transmission in the granular silo flows, and showed the formation of dynamic granular arching.

The Cost of Free Speech: Is Your Personal Data Safe?

Abstract This article examines the supremacy accorded to free speech by the First Amendment of the American Constitution and in contrast, the European Union’s 2018 General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR] that highlights data protection. It compares speech as a fundamental human right in US law with the GDPR that champions individual and social rights in personal data as constraints upon speech action. It evaluates US and EU law in light of the history of the law of privacy and the protection of personal information, as is reflected in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR]. The article concludes by proposing a uniform and consistent regime for limiting freedom of expression in an era of mass exposure of personal data to harmful online dissemination on the global Internet of Things [IoT].