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This paper studies countries' economic dependence on China through trade. As China's importance in the world economy has grown significantly in recent years, developments in China will increasingly be reflected in its trading partners' economic performance. Therefore, measuring and identifying countries' economic exposure to China has become increasingly relevant. Responding to the need by risk management practitioners in financial institutions, the paper builds a tool to measure and compare countries' exposure to the Chinese economy through trade channels, using principal component analysis. The resultant China Trade Exposure Index ranks countries based on their economic dependence on trade with China. The utilisation possibilities of the index are broad, yet the most obvious application is in financial institutions' stress testing exercises. Indeed, the index can be used in a China-specific stress testing scenario to transmit a shock to other countries according to their China dependence. To validate the relevance of the index, the paper further shows that the China Trade Exposure Index is significant in explaining countries' cyclical economic growth co-movement with China, with a higher ranking implying a stronger real gross domestic product (GDP) growth correlation. Therefore, the China Trade Exposure Index helps global investors, risk professionals and policymakers in analysing potential China-related country risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between economic dependence and foreign influence has become an increasingly prominent topic in International Relations. However, academic studies and public discussion largely overlook that dependence could influence not only states' official policies but also the foreign policy preferences of their populations. In addition, they simplistically assume that material dependence directly establishes influence without considering additional complexities brought on by actors' perceptions of such realities. This could lead to misunderstandings regarding the mechanisms through which economic dependence leads to foreign influence. The problem is especially glaring in relation to China, whose economic clout has been argued to represent a key vector of its global influence. This article studies how economic dependence shapes the foreign policy preferences of populations around the world and, thereby, constitutes a vector of China's international influence. We use novel public opinion data from more than 79,000 respondents in 54 countries to clarify the relative weight of material economic realities and public perceptions of them in shaping foreign policy preferences toward China. In doing so, we also establish the relative extent to which individuals base their preferences on an egoistic or sociotropic sense of economic self-interest. Our results illustrate that perceptions outweigh economic realities in shaping preferences on China. Furthermore, economic dependence has no uniform effects on national populations, suggesting that its effects are primarily expressed through egotropic ways. Our results suggest that the disconnect between perceptions of China's economic importance and material realities needs to be closely considered when studying China's international influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Women's low economic participation in Pakistan and even lower in the formal sector is a perpetual phenomenon leading to their underdevelopment, which has microeconomic and macroeconomic implications. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the nature of women's work and the intersection of their non-market and market activities at micro, meso, and macro levels which influences women's chances and choices of decent economic participation. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate the interdependence of women's market and non-market work to explore how gender intersects with their economic autonomy. METHODS: Using qualitative approach, in-depth interviews of 30 purposely selected respondents from the informal sector were thematically analysed. RESULTS: Results indicated that the interdependence of women's non-market and market work is the outcome of the gendered dichotomy that creates work-life conflict to create women's economic dependence and male hegemony. Moreover, although a common phenomenon, women from underprivileged backgrounds are more likely to bear the brunt of systemic deprivation leading to economic underdevelopment. CONCLUSIONS: Pakistan's inherently masculinised society and economy mutually benefit from women's unpaid and informal work. Facilitated through gender norms, the patriarchal social ideology and the capitalist economic system collaborate to exploit women and their work in both domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influence of trade dependence, encompassing both export and import dependence, and economic dependence on cultural distance within the context of China and ASEAN countries from 1995 to 2020. Employing random‐effects models and, we investigate the impact of these dependencies on cultural distance and explore the moderating effects of humanistic exchange. Our findings reveal that trade dependence, export dependence, import dependence, and economic dependence exert negative effects on cultural distance between China and ASEAN countries. These findings are supported by the robustness test. We further analyze the moderating effects of humanistic exchange on the relationship between trade dependence, economic dependence, and cultural distance, confirming significant moderating effects specifically for trade dependence. Additionally, we observe that regional trade agreements and cultural exchange programs have heterogeneous effects on the relationship between trade and economic dependence and cultural distance, particularly among China and ASEAN countries with established agreements and programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job insecurity is a pervasive and impactful global concern, eliciting stress and affecting the health and well-being of employees worldwide. The present study (N = 679) examined the relationship between job insecurity and health and well-being and the moderating role of economic dependence and job satisfaction. When workers depended on their job as a source of income or when they were highly satisfied with their work, the relationship between job insecurity and health and well-being was exacerbated. The findings shed light on the complexities of individual variability in the relationship between job insecurity and health and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractAlthough many Southeast Asian countries have asserted maritime claims in the South China Sea, often in conflict with China’s claims, Brunei has adopted a different stance. Brunei continues to display a stance of being a silent claimant to the South China Sea despite the growing turbulence of the disputed waters in recent years with the continued reclamations and use of maritime constabulary forces. In comprehending this irregularity, this article employs Copeland’s ‘theory of trade expectation’ and classifies the South China Sea as a grey zone conflict, which leads to the following conclusions: 1) Brunei is displaying deference to China’s South China Sea claims due to the growing convergence of Brunei’s long-term economic plans to China’s introduction of the Belt Road Initiative, and 2) A visibly apparent, growing economic interdependence of Brunei towards Chinese trade deals and foreign investments, as seen in the past decade of China’s involvement in Brunei’s infrastructural development, petrochemical facilities, joint oil, and gas explorations, and the establishment of the Brunei-Guangxi Economic Corridor. The Sultanate’s recent scramble to diversify its economy has led it to embrace a desperate attempt to secure opportunities from China by steadily neglecting its claims in the South China Sea.

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study delves into the intricate connection between educational achievement and decisions regarding family planning, alongside the escalating prevalence of single parenting. Existing literature suggests that children raised in single-parent households, particularly those led by mothers, may develop positive attributes. However, conversely, this scenario can also give rise to negative traits, contributing to societal issues. Moreover, choices related to engaging in unprotected sex, initial pregnancies, and assuming the role of a single parent may be influenced by one's educational attainment. Nevertheless, the study acknowledges the contradictory conclusions within the literature regarding the correlation between education and single parenting for unmarried women. This necessitates a thorough examination. Employing a mixed research methodology that is non-experimental, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative techniques, the study conducted an online survey via Facebook with the Nigerian Single Parent Lounge group due to the constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings indicate that among highly educated women, education is linked to reduced fertility rates and delayed childbirth. The study identifies several contributing factors to single parenting, including heightened independence, delayed marriage, and the financial autonomy of educated women. Consequently, the paper proposes targeted family planning awareness initiatives, enhanced accessibility to contraceptives, and policy adjustments to assist women in managing their personal and professional lives. To address the complexities involved, the study recommends the introduction of programs aimed at aiding women in navigating family planning decisions in tandem with their employment. Additionally, cultural attitudes hindering highly educated women from entering into marriage should be addressed, fostering a more inclusive societal perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politologija is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Myanmar's external economic relations during the 2010s can be broadly characterized as processes of re-integration with the outside world, thus paying the way for diversification away from dependence on its preeminent neighbor, China. A close examination, however, reveals a complex set of dynamics in Myanmar–China economic relations, particularly in the trade sector. A sectoral value chain analysis shows that Myanmar's trade dependence on China rose rather rapidly during the early part of the decade, which was later halted by the lifting of Western sanctions. However, it was also found that the same process that helped Myanmar diversify away from China in the export sector simultaneously increased the country's dependence on Chinese imports because of newly established global value chains. Overall trends can be explained by considering geographic scale and country positions specific to the value chains of the key export sectors of natural gas, vegetables, and garments. The findings suggest that although the lifting of sanctions was pivotal, the improvement in Myanmar's diplomatic relations with the West during the 2010s did not linearly reduce the country's economic dependence on China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to evaluate the influence of various economic determinants - including economic policies, economic dependence, foreign aid, corruption, and unemployment - on the economic development of Palestinian society. This research utilizes the analytical descriptive methodology where qualitative insights are gathered from in-depth interviews with key specialized stakeholders from four Palestinian related institutions. Further, 252 questionnaires have been addressed to Palestinian citizen to assess their views about challenges facing the economic development in the country. The study finds that economic policies can bolster production levels to a certain extent. Economic dependence appears to challenge the production capacity of the Palestinian economy. Notably, foreign aid does not serve the purpose of financing the general budget deficit and hence the development goals. Furthermore, the presence of corruption seems to hinder the state's ability to effectively roll out economic development strategies. To foster economic growth, there's a crucial need to refine existing economic policies and augment production avenues. Mitigating the adverse effects of economic dependence can be achieved by fostering an equitable investment environment that promotes diverse project initiations. Moreover, the reliance on foreign aid to cover the public budget deficit necessitates an overhaul, underscoring the importance of advanced coordination and regulatory mechanisms between official and civil society institutions. The comprehensive approach used in this study aligns with Palestine's current development plans, making the findings particularly relevant for policymakers. Overall, this research serves as a pivotal resource for a range of national and international stakeholders aiming to understand and address Palestine's economic development challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores state sovereignty by developing a systematic framework for categorising states based on their sovereignty status. At the heart of our analysis lies the distinction between sovereign states and satellite states – a distinction that has significant implications for global security, stability, and the balance of power. While sovereign states exercise full autonomy and control over their affairs, satellite states often find themselves in a subordinate position, heavily influenced or even dominated by external powers. A theoretical framework deconstructs the concept of sovereignty into four crucial elements: authority, legitimacy, independence, and territoriality, which provide a structured assessment of the level of sovereignty in a state and serve as the basis for our analysis. To illustrate the application of our framework, we adopt a case study approach focused on Belarus. As a nation situated at the crossroads of Eastern Europe with a history marked by geopolitical contestation and strategic manoeuvring, Belarus provides a compelling context for examining sovereignty dynamics. Through a systematic analysis of Belarus’ political, economic, and military landscape, we seek to assess its sovereignty status within the framework of our analysis. While the topic of Belarus’ sovereignty and integration within Russia has been extensively explored over the years, the innovative contribution of this paper lies in purposefully designed methodology for sovereignty assessment and the use of the latest empirical data while practically applying the model for the case of Belarus.

The objective of the chapter is to analyse legal regulations concerning selfemployed activity in force in Germany and Austria. First and foremost, the author presents the scale of self-employment in the relevant countries and the sources of its legal regulation. He goes on to characterize the definition of a self-employed person and the categories of workers that fall within its scope. Furthermore, the author analyses the scope of protection guaranteed by German and Austrian legislation to the gainfully self-employed under individual and collective labour law. The last part of the chapter is devoted to the phenomenon of “bogus self-employment” and the legal mechanisms designed to combat it.

Self-employment has traditionally been regulated by the Civil Code, as a distinctive form of work apart from employment. This chapter strives to evaluate the labour law framework and labour market experience of self-employment. First, the Hungarian legal provisions on self-employment will be highlighted, including labour law, civil law and social security law. This will be followed by an evaluation of the available data on labour market trends regarding the various groups of self-employed workers, such as genuine and false self-employment, and economically dependent work. After this summary on employment data, the legal protection or scope of employee rights enjoyed by self-employed persons will be scrutinised. Finally, I will examine the Hungarian legal mechanisms to combat false self-employment. As a whole, the paper will provide a picture of the legal environment of self-employment with laws, trends and some evident flaws. I will strive to highlight the main driving forces behind self-employment and related labour law policy.

The purpose of the present article is to present to the readers the key concepts underlying the international research project funded by the National Science Centre and led by Prof. Tomasz Duraj titled “In Search of the Self-Employment Model in Poland. A Comparative Analysis”. The chief research task undertaken by the project participants is a complex legal analysis of self-employment – not only from the perspective of Polish regulations and case law, but also with regard to solutions existing in international and Union law as well as in selected European countries. The area of study covered such legal systems as those of the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary, as well as Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Most centrally, the results of the study will serve to develop an original legal model of self-employment in Poland, which will redefine the special status of the self-employed in an optimal way. The final result of the international research project are two twin studies to be published by Lodz University Press, one in Polish, in the form of a multi-author monograph, and the other in English, as two issues of the journal Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Iuridica. The present article demonstrates the scale, significance, and implications of self-employment as an atypical form of providing work, as well as the key scholarly objectives of the international research project and its importance for legal theory and practice. Next, the author discusses the concept and the plan of research work adopted in the project, the research methods applied, and the publication and popularization activities carried out by the project participants. The research undertaken under the project is innovative. This is because until now, no such large-scale study into the legal conditions of self-employment in Poland has been carried out. The final conclusions drawn in the research project make a significant contribution to the development of the theory of labour law and social security law, enriching the academic discourse in this area. An added value for Polish scholarly work is the organized study of foreign regulations on self-employment in selected European countries. Moreover, the de lege ferenda remarks prepared in the research project may be helpful to the Polish authorities in developing new legal solutions in the area of self-employment.

The objective of the article is to analyse legal regulations concerning self-employed activity in force in France and Italy. Given that both countries are characterized by a dualism between subordinated work and self-employment, the author looks at legal constructions that do not easily fit into this division. In addition, she places great importance on discussing the social rights of the self-employed.

The objective of the article is to analyse legal regulations concerning self-employed activity in force in Spain. Spain is the first EU Member State to have adopted a separate law (on 11 July 2007) to comprehensively and systemically regulate the legal status of the self-employed. The Spanish 2007 LETA act aimed to sort out the situation of the self-employed and grant them additional rights. A new category of economically dependent self-employed persons was introduced and accorded special protection. The author discusses the concept and typology of self-employment, including classic, economically dependent, and bogus self-employment. In her view, the Spanish solution of regulating self-employment in a single piece of legislation appears attractive, but the criteria introduced in the law to determine the status of economically dependent self-employed do not adequately fulfil their role in practice. Their restrictive nature, far-reaching casuistry, and the criterion of economic dependence of the self-employed, who must receive at least 75 per cent of their income from a single counterparty, which is difficult to verify objectively and relatively easy to circumvent, result in a negligible number of self-employed persons benefiting from the protective guarantees provided by LETA.

This study explores the relationships between different determinants of residents’ support for sustainable tourism development (STD) and certain sociodemographic profile variables. A quantitative approach was used, based on a questionnaire applied over the internet to residents of a historic town in the north of Portugal. 250 valid questionnaires were obtained. In data analysis, descriptive statistics and correlational analysis were used. The results show that the levels of perception regarding the concepts under study are relatively low to moderate. There is a greater community attachment than community involvement, a more intense perception of the benefits than the costs of tourism, moderate support for the STD and a low economic dependence on the tourism sector. The results of the comparisons between the concepts under analysis and the sociodemographic profile variables showed the existence of several significant associations.

The neorealist approach to institutional change has the merits of emphasising the importance of the Dominant Social Bloc (DSB) in institutions, and of integrating economics, society, and politics in the formation and breakdown of the DSB. Since this approach was not designed for Colombia, it is necessary to integrate certain characteristics, such as economic dependence, armed conflict, and drug trafficking. This paper presents the first theoretical adaptation of the neorealist approach for a Latin American country. This extended theoretical framework evinces the role of crime and violence in providing political stability to an accumulation regime that satisfies the demands of a narrow DSB.

Copyright of H-Industria: Revista de Historia de la Industria Argentina y Latinoamericana is the property of H-Industria, Revista de Historia de la Industria Argentina y Latinoamericana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Multi-component maintenance optimization is a well-studied area for age-based failure models but in contrast, incorporation of condition-based maintenance (CBM) is still an open area of research. Taking advantage of condition monitoring information for updating components' health conditions demands a dynamic short-term approach when grouping multiple activities subject to CBM policy. Degradation models are commonly utilized in CBM for predicting the future condition of a given component to decide appropriate maintenance actions where inherent uncertainties exist in the degradation processes. There are a limited number of works in literature that account for degradation uncertainties where maintenance cost is a function of such uncertainty. This paper aims to develop a maintenance decision support for a multi-component system by incorporating CBM while considering the degradation uncertainties. In this paper, a two-stage stochastic programming is proposed to address such an issue and the problem is formulated for situations where maintenance opportunities are limited due to practical constraints (e.g., remote offshore maintenance operations of wind farms, unmanned platforms in oil and gas industries, etc.). The concept of marginal cost is used in developing the equation of optimality. This is a combinatorial problem and becomes intractable when the number of components is large therefore a heuristic is proposed to reduce the problem size which reduces the required computational time substantially. It is shown that significant cost savings are possible, especially, when the downtime cost and common setup cost are significant. A numerical example is provided with a system of six components achieving above 10 % cost reduction when the degradation uncertainties are taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the background of the improving economic position of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county between 2000 and 2020 in the light of the balance sheet data of the county's double-entry bookkeeping enterprises. Utilising the ideas of the trade-off theory, seeks the answer for questions like which districts determined the county's real convergence processes to the greatest extent, how internal inequalities changed during the catching up period, what kind of structural changesfacilitated the processes, i.e. how the long-term factors affecting the county's economic dependence changed in the meanwhile? The study evaluates dependence in terms of economic power growth, embeddedness in foreign markets and economic vulnerability. The research established that trade-off theory prevailed during the county's economic catching up, i.e. the inequality scale changed. At the same time, it can also be stated that the inequalities between the national economy's core areas and the overwhelming majority of the peripheral districts remained essentially unchanged in the last twenty years, just a definite clubbing process took place. The catching up has been achieved by an increasing ratio and volume between the export and the domestic registered capital, improving the resilience of the economy, the one-sidedness of the economic structure driving the catching up, however, is leading to instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research attempts to explore the connection between wages, compensation, incentives and bonuses, and employee loyalty with the aim to analyze their economic dependence through the lens of how loyal they are to their organizations. In order to validate the suggested model, a survey of Pakistan Stock Exchange employees was undertaken with a structured questionnaire, and responses from a sample of 120 were examined using a PLS-SEM modeling approach. Quantitative methodology was used to collect data from the selected participants through a pre-structured and self-administered questionnaire, which was then analyzed using a specialized statistical analysis tool STATA. The findings of the study suggest that economic dependence has a significant impact on employee loyalty, and in light of these findings to ensure that corporation personnel is devoted, HR managers can establish pertinent procedures and advance organizational rules, as well as employers, could be given the instruments and techniques required to identify more precise methods of mapping economic dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While sense of place (SOP) has been used in amenity landscapes to understand pro-environmental behavior, in working landscapes, SOP has not been a valid or reliable predictor for explaining conservation behavior. In this paper, we advance theory on SOP in working landscapes by assessing the relationship between several new and modified sense of place measures and farmer adoption of cover crops in Iowa. We used data from a 2018 survey of Iowa farmers and a Bayesian logistic regression, finding that physical dependence and economic dependence are distinct dimensions of SOP in working landscapes and the addition of a measure beyond SOP of who farmers feel responsible to when making land management decisions provides insights on how social groups are influential in farmers' decision-making. Our results suggest the SOP conceptual framework has the potential to help explain conservation behavior in working landscapes, and identifies opportunities for further reconceptualization and testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Luridica is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Luridica is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Luridica is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Luridica is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Luridica is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The term 'Honour Killing' is conventionally used to denote a specific category of extralegal killings where the act of murder is seen to have been motivated by pre-modern affiliations/sentiments of some sort. Acts of violence committed against people for marrying outside of caste/religion/ethnicity or other similar infringements where they are seen by their actions to have besmirched the honour of the family and the larger community come under the broad rubric of honour crime. Implicit in using the term are assumptions that mark it as different from other crimes. Honour is defined in terms of women assigned sexual and familial roles as dictated by traditional family ideology. Thus, adultery, premarital relationships (which may or may not include sexual relations), rape, and falling in love with an "inappropriate" person may constitute violations of family honour. 'Crimes of honour' as a form of violence against women does not imply that men also are not subjected to such crimes. In cases of forced marriage or interference with the right of choice and whom to marry, pressure from older family members over younger members will apply to men as well as to women. However, women remain the victims and survivors of 'crimes of honour' and have fewer available remedies.

The paper addresses a long-standing discussion on what are the major sources of power asymmetry among the suppliers and the buyers in the agri-food chain, and thus, a primary cause of pursuing various kinds of so-called unfair trading practices. Basically, three theoretical frameworks stay beyond combating against these practices: market power, economic dependence, and bargaining power approach. The setting of personal scope in the new EU Directive 2019/633 profoundly prefers the lastly mentioned theoretical framework. But does such a preference signify the true triumph of the bargaining power conception? The paper intends to scrutinize it using an evaluation of the major traits of the frameworks, stressing that some of them may allow for the protection of those entrepreneurs who are not in need of it. The analysis of the ways how the Directive has been implemented in the Member States then indicates that such giant suppliers continuously enjoy protection in several countries. A special attention is devoted to Czech legislation whose development may serve as a kind of a natural experiment of how these competing conceptions function in the practice.

Copyright of Revista de la Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas is the property of Revista Faculdad de Derecho y Ciencias Politicas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Against the background of the recent intensification of global geopolitical tensions and, in this framework, of the announcement made by the German authorities regarding a future "historic turning point" (Zeitenwende) in the country's foreign policy, meant to contribute (among others) to the reduction of the economic dependence on countries with a totalitarian regime, our research aims at obtaining an in-depth image of the current status of the economic relations between Germany and China. Based on the quantitative measurement analyses performed, the article emphasises China's role and importance for the German traditional export-centred development model, as well as the challenges resulting from the deepening of these interdependencies. At the same time, we emphasise, on the one hand, the strategic motivations underlying the orientation of Chinese investment flows towards the acquisition of German high technology and related knowhow, as well as the factors that determine the accelerating trend of German investments on the Chinese market and, on the other hand, the risks that German companies face at present as a result of China's increased assertiveness on the international stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I explore a range of approaches to the colonial heritage (or colonial heritages) in the Americas in both their popular and academic iterations during the Cold War and the post-Cold War era. Overall, I argue that the most obvious elements of the Hispanic colonial heritage are cultural and linguistic, as well as various forms of economic dependence and high levels of socio-economic inequality. Economic dependence and social inequality remain a central, if now diffuse, Hispanic colonial heritage, as does the diverse cultural and linguistic post-colonial milieu that is the New World. Over three decades out from the end of the Cold War, the cultural complexity, shifting economic contours and geographical diffusion of the Hispanic colonial heritage is more apparent than ever at the same time as (contrary to several recent accounts) it hangs no heavier over the present than the Anglo-Protestant colonial heritage; nor should either be deployed to do too much heavy lifting as far as explaining contemporary developmental outcomes is concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapidly changing security environment has brought a plethora of non-military measures to the fore. These measures have completely changed the nature of hostilities by giving them a hybrid character. With regard to the South Caucasus region, the chasm among the political courses pursued by particular states makes the overall region more susceptible to diverse external threats of a political, economic, military and cultural nature. This paper focuses on the economic component of the hybrid warfare in the South Caucasus region. The issues are considered from a security point of view and not from an economic perspective. The vulnerabilities of particular nations in the region to economic coercion are highlighted in the paper and suggestions for improving them made. The authors underscore the regional unity in the South Caucasus as a prerequisite for eliminating or at least mitigating economic dependence and healing the "regional fracture" that has lasted for decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) provide customized after-sales service contracts tailored to their customers' specific requirements. While these customized offerings may increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, they are likely more expensive, and that in times that OEMs are striving to reduce maintenance costs and ease the workload of their service engineers. To address this challenge, we introduce a quantitative methodology for shaping maintenance policies that minimize overall maintenance costs for systems comprising multiple heterogeneous components over a finite lifespan. Our proposed two-threshold condition-based maintenance policy incorporates scheduled visits and semi-urgent interventions, using component-level control thresholds to preventively trigger component replacements. Scheduled visits provide opportunities for grouping component replacements, capitalizing on positive economic dependencies. Our optimization model and solution methodology are tailored to systems consisting of numerous components. We assume a fixed time interval between consecutive scheduled visits, allowing us to employ a decomposition approach that ensures model scalability. The optimal policy for each component is determined by formulating a single-unit replacement model as a finite horizon Markov Decision Problem solved via dynamic programming. Simultaneously, at system level, we optimize the maintenance interval for the entire system using an iterative approach. The results of our case study highlight that complementing scheduled visits with semi-urgent interventions - both triggering preventive replacements - leads to a reduction in the volume of corrective maintenance. From a practical standpoint, our findings offer valuable insights for OEMs seeking to enhance their after-sales service contracts while concurrently reducing maintenance-related costs. Specifically, our model is particularly valuable for OEMs that service systems with high shutdown costs, rely heavily on customer satisfaction, and favor more attractive policies for their service engineers (i.e., reducing the number of emergency corrective interventions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Systems Engineering & Electronics is the property of Journal of Systems Engineering & Electronics Editorial Department and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract In the Americas, The United States of America, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil are the top vaccine producers and the countries with the leading infrastructure for biological manufacturing. The North American countries have the most demanding legislation regulating and controlling these pharmaceuticals’ distribution and production. Some Latin American countries rank in the top 20 of worldwide vaccine manufacturers, with Cuba, Brazil, México and Colombia have a self-sufficient vaccine production of 72.7%, 54,2%; 25%; and 7.7%, respectively, of the national vaccine demand. On the other hand, the rest of Latin American countries cannot satisfy their demand for vaccines, and most of their efforts are associated with the distribution within their health systems rather than in transferring technology. Based on this literature review, the results suggest an increasing growth vaccine demand, not only for their growing populations and previously established demand but also for the recently exerted pressure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the American continent has a marked inequality between the hegemonic producers of vaccines, the exporters, and those that depend heavily on importing these products, this could assert technological dependence in countries with rapid population growth and jeopardize the effectiveness of the two vaccination plans.

This study aims to shed light on the issue of economic dependency in the Iraqi economy, which was demonstrated through the use of indicators of economic dependence up until Iraq's dependence on the outside world reached 99%. It is possible that this is because the Iraqi economy is unilateral because it is reliant on oil. Excessive dependence necessitates that decision-makers in Iraq take this issue into account and work to find solutions, including stimulating local and foreign investment and removing barriers to it, as well as a true trend toward diversifying the components of the gross domestic product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript helps bridge a gap between theoretical work that advocates for a broad view of forest dependence, and empirical work that has focused narrowly on economic measures. Background: Forest dependence has been widely recognized as a valuable concept for understanding human communities' well-being and vulnerability to shocks and changes. Past theoretical literature has highlighted the importance of recognizing various types of dependence—environmental, economic, and social—yet past empirical literature on the topic in the United States has almost exclusively relied on measures of economic dependence such as employment and earnings from the traditional forest products sector. Objective and Methods: As a first step to bridge the gap between the theoretical and empirical, we reviewed the existing, publicly available, reliable, wall-to-wall data sources to identify alternate proxy measures for forest dependence. Data availability made the analysis feasible only at the county level—the administrative subdivisions of the state—or higher. Results and Conclusions: We created environmental, economic, and social criteria based on threshold levels of the following proxy variables: forest area, earnings, employment, and indigenous population. Using these criteria, we identified 524 counties to be potentially forest-dependent of 3140 total counties in the United States. The largest concentration was in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast regions, and a higher proportion were non-metro counties than metro. Varying the threshold levels significantly changes the number of counties identified but does not alter the overall geographic trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic challenges are often invoked in discussions of island sovereignty and non- sovereignty. This paper explores the perceived link between a subnational island jurisdiction’s ability to achieve economic independence and its ability to achieve political independence. In the popular and political discourse, it is frequently argued that island territories—sovereign island states and subnational island jurisdictions (SNIJs)—ought to reduce their economic dependence on patron states. Such ideas are often entangled in colonial relationships, and the scholarship suggests no correlation between economic independence and political sovereignty. I use the case of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) to illustrate the conceptual complexity and ambiguity of economic dependence and economic independence. Media and political discourses emphasise that because Kalaallit Nunaat is economically dependent on its former coloniser Denmark, this SNIJ is incapable of exercising its autonomy or becoming a sovereign state, yet these discourses simultaneously argue that Kalaallit Nunaat should not create economic dependencies on other states, such as China and the USA. This discursive construction ignores the real power dynamics at play in the relationships between Kalaallit Nunaat, Denmark, and other states. I argue that the concepts of economic independence and economic dependence are unsuitable as indicators of readiness or unreadiness for island political independence.