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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Interrater Reliability Estimation via Maximum Likelihood for Gwet’s Chance Agreement Model

Interrater reliability (IRR) statistics, like Cohen’s kappa, measure agreement between raters beyond what is expected by chance when classifying items into categories. While Cohen’s kappa has been widely used, it has several limitations, prompting development of Gwet’s agreement statistic, an alternative “kappa”statistic which models chance agreement via an “occasional guessing” model. However, we show that Gwet’s formula for estimating the proportion of agreement due to chance is itself biased for intermediate levels of agreement, despite overcoming limitations of Cohen’s kappa at high and low agreement levels. We derive a maximum likelihood estimator for the occasional guessing model that yields an unbiased estimator of the IRR, which we call the maximum likelihood kappa (κML). The key result is that the chance agreement probability under the occasional guessing model is simply equal to the observed rate of disagreement between raters. The κMLstatistic provides a theoretically principled approach to quantifying IRR that addresses limitations of previous κcoefficients. Given the widespread use of IRR measures, having an unbiased estimator is important for reliable inference across domains where rater judgments are analyzed.

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.

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.

THE ROLE OF UMBRELLA AGREEMENTS IN ACHIEVING SUSTAINABILITY GOALS:ENERGY EFFICIENCY AT THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

In this paper we investigate whether innovative and flexible contractual arrange-ments can support the process of achieving ambitious sustainability goals.We explore this question through an analysis of the role of umbrella agreements in driving energy savings in the building sector.Drawing on a case study of the iconic Empire State building,we examine the typical challenges faced by clients and con-tractors in devising suitable agreements that facilitate managing contractual and performance risks,as well as the sharing of responsibilities and cooperation between multiple project stakeholders.We find that the project arrangements appear to exhibit the adoption of the key characteristics commonly found in umbrella agree-ments which incorporate sustainability measures that maximize income through efficient delivery of outcomes.Specifically,this means that they need to enable stakeholders to manage repeated review cycles,complex perceptions and expecta-tions,and different tacit assumptions and codes of behaviour,as well as managing and communicating in networks and obtaining agreement also from non-contrac-tual parties.Moreover,we demonstrate that umbrella agreements can facilitate a network perspective of business relationships by emphasizing value co-creation and the embeddedness of firms within a network of interactions.

基于WS-Agreement的资源预留与QoS监控框架

目前还没有遵循OGSA/WSRF规范的网格服务中间件能够很好地支持基于QoS协商的网格资源管理,因此重点研究了如何设计一个执行服务级协定(SLA)的框架,能够在网格中协商资源预留和任务执行期间对所在资源的QoS监控。首先通过定义资源预留的XML Schema,使得资源请求者和提供者基于WS-Agreement能够协商包含关于资源预留的协定;然后遵循WSRF及WS-*规范设计和开发出一组Web服务用于构建一个基于WS-Agreement的资源预留与QoS监控框架(RMF),并将其集成到Globus资源管理模型中;最后通过理论分析和模拟实验评估了RMF的综合性能。

Possible Chinese Strategic Responses to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership （TPP） Agreement have concluded, but the TPP still must be ratified by each of the 12 member countries. China is the world＇s second largest economy and yet it has not joined the TPP. This has provoked much debate in China as to the best strategic approach to the TPP This paper analyzes China＇s possible strategy for the TPP agreement. We make three key points. First, the security of market access should be China＇s main concern in any free-trade agreement negotiations, regrettably, it is not included in TPP. The second point is that the present TPP agreement is somewhat diminished from its ambitious original claims. We suggest four strategies for China. The first is to promote the development of China＇s remaining regional and bilateral free trade agreements （FTAs）. The second is to negotiate a bilateral FTA with the United States. The third is to promote deep domestic reforms via enlarged TPP coverage. The last is negotiating entrance to the entering do not worsen. TPP as soon as possible so that terms of

FORMAL PROOF OF RELATIVE STRENGTH OF SECURITY AMONG ECK2007 MODEL AND OTHER PROOF MODELS FOR KEY AGREEMENT PROTOCOLS

The differences among the extended Canetti ＆ Krawezyk 2007 model （ECK2007） and other four models, i.e., the Bellare ＆ Rogaway （1993, 1995）models （BR93,BR95）, the Bellare, Pointcheval ＆ Rogaway （2000） model （BPR2000） and the Canetti ＆ Krawczyk （2001） model （CK2001） are given. The relative strength of security among these models is analyzed. To support the implication or non-implication relation among these models, the formal proof or the counter-example is provided.

Security agreement汉译探析

security agreement通常译为"担保协议",内容囊括动产担保与不动产担保。但在美国的法律文本中,security agreement的含义范围与中国法律中的"担保合同"并不对等。文章围绕security agreement在美国法律中的不同含义讨论其中文译名。

Two-Party Authenticated Key Agreement in Certificateless Public Key Cryptography

Certificateless public key cryptography was introduced to overcome the key escrow limitation of the identity-based cryptography. It combines the advantages of the identity-based cryptography and the traditional PKI. Many certificateless public key encryption and signature schemes have been proposed. However, the key agreement in CL-PKE is seldom discussed. In this paper, we present a new certificateless two party authentication key agreement protocol and prove its security attributes. Compared with the existing protocol, our protocol is more efficient.

Efficient Certificateless Authenticated Key Agreement Protocol from Pairings

In the area of secure Web information system, mutual authentication and key agreement are essential between Web clients and servers. An efficient certificateless authenticated key agreement protocol for Web client/server setting is proposed, which uses pairings on certain elliptic curves. We show that the newly proposed key agreement protocol is practical and of great efficiency, meanwhile, it satisfies every desired security require ments for key agreement protocols.

Assessing Disagreement and Tolerance of Misclassification of Satellite-derived Land Cover Products Used in WRF Model Applications

As more satellite-derived land cover products used in the study of global change, especially climate modeling, assessing their quality has become vitally important. In this study, we developed a distance metric based on the parameters used in weather research and forecasting （WRF） to characterize the degree of disagreement among land cover products and to identify the tolerance for misclassification within the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme （IGBP） classification scheme. We determined the spatial degree of disagreement and then created maps of misclassification of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectoradiometer （MODIS） products, and we calculated overall and class-specific accuracy and fuzzy agreement in a WRF model. Our results show a high level of agreement and high tolerance of misclassification in the WRF model between large-scale homogeneous landscapes, while a low level of agreement and tolerance of misclassification appeared in heterogeneous landscapes. The degree of disagreement varied significantly among seven regions of China. The class-specific accuracy and fuzzy agreement in MODIS Collection 4 and 5 products varied significantly. High accuracy and fuzzy agreement occurred in the following classes： water, grassland, cropland, and barren or sparsely vegetated. Misclassification mainly occurred among specific classes with similar plant functional types and low discriminative spectro-temporal signals. Some classes need to be improved further; the quality of MODIS land cover products across China still does not meet the common requirements of climate modeling. Our findings may have important implications for improving land surface parameterization for simulating climate and for better understanding the influence of the land cover change on climate.