The Faithful Representation of Electrical Energy Sale and Purchase Agreements Under International Accounting Standards/International Financial Reporting Standards （IAS/IFRS）

This article aims at giving a contribution to the issue of accounting electrical energy sale and purchase agreements in accordance with the faithful representation principle. To this end, it must be ascertained whether electrical energy is bought/sold for an industrial use exclusively, so that the relevant transaction will be accounted as a normal purchase/sale, or through the lease of the relevant production plant, which would require the supply contract to be accounted in compliance with International Accounting Standards （IAS） 17 ＂Leasing＂. Alternatively, it must also be ascertained whether the relevant party is implementing financial trading strategies, as in such hypothesis, the supply contract is to be accounted as a financial instrument according to International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS） 9/IAS 39 ＂Financial Instruments＂. Finally, the modalities used by a number of companies listed on European regulated markets to account such kind of contracts will be analyzed.

Macroeconomic and Social Impacts of Economic Partnership Agreements on Ivorian Economy： A New Assessment

This study reassesses the macroeconomic and social impacts of Economic Partnership Agreements （EPAs） on Ivorian economy using Computable General Equilibrium （CGE） model with positive externalities of public investment in education, health, and economic infrastructure. Previous studies highlight negative effect of these agreements stressing particularly on losses in government revenues due to the removal of all tariffs on imports. This analysis aims to provide some insight into this question by refreshing the debate to show how this situation could be transformed into opportunities for Ivory Coast in order to promote growth and reduce poverty. To do so, this study postulates that government spending （investment） in economic infrastructure （roads, bridges, communication network, etc.）, in education and health sectors produces positive externalities in each industry. This assumption has not been set anymore in previous studies. Simulation results reveal that, despite this decline in government revenues, if it invests in economic infrastructure, health and education sector, EPAs will generate more revenue for government due to the rise in income tax on firms and households, and tax on overall production. Furthermore, household income will increase which will in turn stimulate （final） consumption. There won＇t also be a decline in economic growth.

ZTE Inks Strategic Agreements with Two Leading European Telecom System Integrators

ZTE Corporation has signed strategic telecommunications software agreement with two leading providers in Europe and Latin America to optimize its offerings for target customers in

China, Philippines signed two power plants agreements

China and Philippines signed agreements on the construction of two power plants in the Philippines on Nov. 27, 1996. China Shanghai Electric Corp signed an export credit supply contract with Philippines Magellan Utilities Development Corp for the huilding of a 300 MW

An Automated Semantic Negotiation for Cloud Service Level Agreements

Mostly, cloud agreements are signed between the consumer and the provider using online click-through agreements. Several issues and conflicts exist in the negotiation of cloud agreement terms due to the legal and ambiguous terms in Service Level Agreements (SLA). Semantic knowledge applied during the formation and negotiation of SLA can overcome these issues. Cloud SLA negotiation consists of numerous activities such as formation of SLA templates, publishing it in registry, verification and validation of SLA, monitoring for violation, logging and reporting and termination. Though these activities are interleaved with each other, semantic synchronization is still lacking. To overcome this, a novel SLA life cycle using semantic knowledge to automate the cloud negotiation has been formulated. Semantic web platform using ontologies is designed, developed and evaluated. The resultant platform increases the task efficiency of the consumer and the provider during negotiation. Precision and recall scores for Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) SLAs were calculated. And it reveals that applying semantic knowledge helps the extraction of meaningful answers from the cloud actors.

Encryption Algorithm for Securing Non-Disclosure Agreements in Outsourcing Offshore Software Maintenance

Properly created and securely communicated,non-disclosure agreement(NDA)can resolve most of the common disputes related to outsourcing of offshore software maintenance(OSMO).Occasionally,these NDAs are in the form of images.Since the work is done offshore,these agreements or images must be shared through the Internet or stored over the cloud.The breach of privacy,on the other hand,is a potential threat for the image owners as both the Internet and cloud servers are not void of danger.This article proposes a novel algorithm for securing the NDAs in the form of images.As an agreement is signed between the two parties,it will be encrypted before sending to the cloud server or travelling through the public network,the Internet.As the image is input to the algorithm,its pixels would be scrambled through the set of randomly generated rectangles for an arbitrary amount of time.The confusion effects have been realized through an XOR operation between the confused image,and chaotic data.Besides,5D multi-wing hyperchaotic system has been employed to spawn the chaotic vectors due to good properties of chaoticity it has.The machine experimentation and the security analysis through a comprehensive set of validation metric vividly demonstrate the robustness,defiance to the multifarious threats and the prospects for some real-world application of the proposed encryption algorithm for the NDA images.

EU＇s Association Agreements ＆ Central America： No Milk Until the Cows Come Home

Why did the European Union （EU） conclude an Association Agreement （A.A）, rather than a free-trade agreement with Central American （CA） countries in 2010？ A CA-EU AA content analysis within the broader EU policy approach towards Latin America suggests it to be （1） the only feasible option for each side at a time of increasing commercial flux; （2） mutually attractive against globalizing threats, thus converting an institutional innovation into a double-edged instrument; and （3） illustrative of the subtle but significant shift of farm-protection demands from endogenous dynamics to exogenous. They carry important implications： （1） empirically： weak CA-EU linkages further dilute West Europe＇s broader Latin ambitions; （2） theoretically： AA analyses better reflect trading realities than pure regional economic integration theories, suggesting the corrosive impact of globalizing forces on regional pursuits; and （3） historically： the continued role of the farm jinx in trade.

A Comparative Analysis of Owner-Contractor Agreements in the Turkish and US Construction Industry

Successful and cost-effective construction relies upon appropriate communication of the participants of the construction project. Hence, it is important to define the rights and responsibilities of the parties, and relationships among them. In this context, well-designed and complete agreement is essential and necessary for the successfully completion of a construction project within the desired time, quality and budget. In this paper, it is aimed to analyze and compare the owner-contractor agreements in the Turkish and the US construction industry. First, the importance of construction contracts and contractual elements of an agreement is determined, and then, the standard owner-contractor agreement which is used in the Turkish construction industry is analyzed and compared with the US standard owner-contractor agreement. Finally, the differences between these agreements are put forward, the lack and deficiencies of Turkish standard agreement form are determined, and appropriate suggestions are improved.

Research on the Risk Management Issues of VAM Agreements in Private Equity Financing

At present,the biggest obstacle that growing enterprises may encounter in their development process is insufficient funds.Private equity financing does not only solve the capital problem of enterprises,but also provide enterprises with professional management concepts and even help growing enterprises to go public in advance.However,high returns must be accompanied by high risks.For example,private equity financing has information asymmetry risks,principal-agent risks,etc.,and these risks make it impossible to maximize the advantages of private equity financing.Therefore,in order to reduce the risks brought by financing,investment and financing parties should choose to sign gambling contracts to reduce the risk.In recent years,the use of VAM agreements has become more in China.However,according to incomplete statistics,less than 30%of VAM agreements are successful,and this result is mainly due to the insufficient depth and breadth of research on VAM agreements.Therefore,this article will comprehensively analyze the problems that need to be paid attention to when signing a gambling agreement by introducing the case of Anda Technology,and the issue of targeted risk prevention will also be discussed in this paper.

The Evolution and Reshaping of Globalization: A Perspective Based on the Development of Regional Trade Agreements

With the weakening role of the World Trade Organization multilateral trading system, the globalization pattern is moving toward regional economic integration.As a result, the number of regional trade agreements (RTAs)has rapidly increased.New trends in international economics and trade,such as the withdrawal of the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the trade disputes between the US and China,have revealed the intention of the developed countries represented by the US to reshape the direction of globalization.This paper combines the relevant research conclusions and current stylized facts to examine the evolution and reshaping of globalization.We find that: (i)countries have different attitudes toward the recent round of globalization,which are related to changes in the patterns of income distribution within countries caused by the last round of globalization;and (ii)regional economic development is an effective way to reshape globalization.The self-strengthening effect of the hub country in the trade network has promoted global RTA expansion.

Chaotic Map-Based Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol with Low-Latency for Metasystem

With the rapid advancement in exploring perceptual interactions and digital twins,metaverse technology has emerged to transcend the constraints of space-time and reality,facilitating remote AI-based collaboration.In this dynamic metasystem environment,frequent information exchanges necessitate robust security measures,with Authentication and Key Agreement(AKA)serving as the primary line of defense to ensure communication security.However,traditional AKA protocols fall short in meeting the low-latency requirements essential for synchronous interactions within the metaverse.To address this challenge and enable nearly latency-free interactions,a novel low-latency AKA protocol based on chaotic maps is proposed.This protocol not only ensures mutual authentication of entities within the metasystem but also generates secure session keys.The security of these session keys is rigorously validated through formal proofs,formal verification,and informal proofs.When confronted with the Dolev-Yao(DY)threat model,the session keys are formally demonstrated to be secure under the Real-or-Random(ROR)model.The proposed protocol is further validated through simulations conducted using VMware workstation compiled in HLPSL language and C language.The simulation results affirm the protocol’s effectiveness in resisting well-known attacks while achieving the desired low latency for optimal metaverse interactions.

THE AVAILABILITY OF CLASS ARBITRATION FOR SILENT AGREEMENTS： CONTRACT INTERPRETATION THEORY OR ARBITRABILITY DOCTRINE.9

Along with the increasing use of multi-party arbitration, mounting issues relating to it have recently become heated topics. One of the various facets concerning the availability of class arbitration has gathered overwhelming discussion in the US. According to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, whether class action is applicable is probably decided by the arbitrator＇s interpretation of the parties＇ intent when an adequately drafted arbitration clause is silent on this issue, regardless of the correctness of his/her construing of the contracts. The contract interpretation theory is a conclusion of existing jurisprudence while the question of arbitrability doctrine may be a hint or inkling from a recent court decision. Comparing these two sides, it is better to regard the availability of class arbitration for silent agreements as a matter of contract interpretation. Although it is preferable to regard the availability issue of class action as a contract interpretation question, some restrictions on the arbitrators＇ broad contract interpretation needs to be imposed so that the parties＇ real intent can be properly enforced.

Cautionary Remarks When Testing Agreement between Two Raters for Continuous Scale Measurements: A Tutorial in Clinical Epidemiology with Implementation Using R

Background: When continuous scale measurements are available, agreements between two measuring devices are assessed both graphically and analytically. In clinical investigations, Bland and Altman proposed plotting subject-wise differences between raters against subject-wise averages. In order to scientifically assess agreement, Bartko recommended combining the graphical approach with the statistical analytic procedure suggested by Bradley and Blackwood. The advantage of using this approach is that it enables significance testing and sample size estimation. We noted that the direct use of the results of the regression is misleading and we provide a correction in this regard. Methods: Graphical and linear models are used to assess agreements for continuous scale measurements. We demonstrate that software linear regression results should not be readily used and we provided correct analytic procedures. The degrees of freedom of the F-statistics are incorrectly reported, and we propose methods to overcome this problem by introducing the correct analytic form of the F statistic. Methods for sample size estimation using R-functions are also given. Results: We believe that the tutorial and the R-codes are useful tools for testing and estimating agreement between two rating protocols for continuous scale measurements. The interested reader may use the codes and apply them to their available data when the issue of agreement between two raters is the subject of interest.

STABILITY OF INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS IN LEADERSHIP MODEL

International Environmental Agreements （IEAs） are a form of cooperation ratified by countries which can improve the management of shared environmental resources. The authors analyze the stability of International Eavironmental Agreements in leadership model. In 2006, Diamantoudi ＆ Sartzetakis found that a stable coalition consists of either 2, 3, or 4 members if the number of countries is greater than 4. Their model is reconsidered. It is shown that the size of stable IEAs decreases from 3 to 2 when the total number of countries involved increases. However, a situation that can guarantee 4 to be the size of stable IEAs could not be found.

Formal or Informal? The Dispute Settlement Mechanisms of China's Free Trade Agreements

The dispute settlement mechanism(DSM) has long been the focus of attention because of its significant role in the institutional construction of China's free trade agreements(FTAs). Thus, this paper is to make an analysis of the DSMs of China's established FTAs from a legal perspective of international regime study, which leads to the finding of a co-existence mode of formal and informal DSMs in China's FTAs. This paper also discusses the motivation and significance of such a choice.

Dispute Resolution Mechanisms of PPP Agreements in China:A Research Based on Judicial Decisions

Based on research on a number of judicial decisions regarding concession and Public-Private Partnership(PPP)agreements,this paper demonstrates the problems and dilemmas of China's current PPP dispute resolution mechanism and clarifies three fundamental issues:concessiont^PPP;concession agreement工administrative agreement;and disputes related to administrative agreements administrative disputes.On the grounds of these conclusions,the paper argues that the logical chain of China's existing PPP and concession dispute resolution mechanism is untenable.The logic of the current mechanism starts from the definition of an administrative agreement;it then classifies concession agreement as administrative agreement;and finally subjects the disputes over concession agreements to administrative litigation.Yet,this starting point is problematic because the definition of administrative agreement and the distinction between public and private law attributes are difficult to determine precisely,as they lack the necessary theoretical clarity and uniqueness.Overall,the current legal situation of PPP in China is far from being satisfactory because a statutory law on PPP is absent,the existing laws and regulations on administrative agreements are primitive,and the judicial practice has not yet established unified and clear criteria.Against this backdrop,this paper proposes a possible way out.First,we should critically reflect on the current administrative agreement and PPP agreement theory.Then,we should apply the method of legal fact research,adopt doctrinal tools of the legal relationship theory and contract construction theory,and eventually establish a multiple dispute resolution mechanism to resolve disputes effectively.

Cyberattack Ramifications, The Hidden Cost of a Security Breach

In this in-depth exploration, I delve into the complex implications and costs of cybersecurity breaches. Venturing beyond just the immediate repercussions, the research unearths both the overt and concealed long-term consequences that businesses encounter. This study integrates findings from various research, including quantitative reports, drawing upon real-world incidents faced by both small and large enterprises. This investigation emphasizes the profound intangible costs, such as trade name devaluation and potential damage to brand reputation, which can persist long after the breach. By collating insights from industry experts and a myriad of research, the study provides a comprehensive perspective on the profound, multi-dimensional impacts of cybersecurity incidents. The overarching aim is to underscore the often-underestimated scope and depth of these breaches, emphasizing the entire timeline post-incident and the urgent need for fortified preventative and reactive measures in the digital domain.

China's Free Trade Agreements with ASEAN,Japan and Korea:A Comparative Analysis

The role of China in East Asia ＇s recovery from the recent global finaneial and economic crisis highlights China ＇s position as an engine of growth for this region. From the viewpoint of China, there are many potential gains from entering into free trade agreements （FTAs） with its neighbors, who collectively form a large and fast-growing market. In this paper, we qualitatively and quantitatively assess the four main permutations of China＇s FTAs with East Asian major economies： China-ASEAN, China-Japan, China-Korea and ASEAN＋ 3. We compare the effects of these FTAs on China ＂s output and welfare. Our comparative analysis shows that China will gain from all three bilateral FTAs, while gaining the most from the ASEAN＋ 3. Because forming a region-wide FTA, such as the ASEAN＋ 3, is expected to be gradual and difficult, China shouM continue to engage in bilateral FTAs as a mediumterm and alternative strategy. However, in the long term, China should pursue a regionwide FTA.

China＇s Anti-dumping Problems and Mitigation through Regional Trade Agreements

The present paper explores the opportunities for China＇s regional trade agreement （RTA） initiatives to mitigate its anti-dumping problems. The paper highlights the severity and discriminatory nature of China＇s anti-dumping problems. The high concentration of the share of anti-dumping actions taken by the top 4 and top 8 anti-dumping initiators is noted. Our finding of a weak effect of existing RTAs on mitigating China ＇s anti-dumping problems supports the argument that China could become more active in mitigating anti-dumping problems through RTA negotiations. An RTA can include a higher level of openness in exchange for an improvement in regional anti-dumping provisions. Case studies on RTAs involving the EU, the USA and India offer some precedents for offering inducements and modifying regional anti-dumping provisions. The approaches for China may lie in obtaining market economy status from intensive anti-dumping initiators at RTA levels and also altering regional anti-dumping provisions that could be put in place in exchange for some potential concessions.