Search results

The purpose of this study is to promote mobile-responsive and agile institutional open-access digital repositories. This paper provided an x-ray of the tilted research approach to open access (OA). Most underlying causes that inhibit OA, such as lack of mobile-friendly user interfaces, infrastructure development and digital divides, are not sufficiently addressed. This paper also indicated that academic libraries over-relied on open-source software and institutional repository, but most institutional repositories are merely “dumping sites” due to how information is classified and indexed.

This paper adopted meta-analysis by mining data sets from databases and provided thematic clustering of its content analysis through network visualisation to juxtapose the existing research gaps and lack of mobile-first insights needed to provide open-access information to the library’s users to consume information via mobile platforms. The retrieved dataset was discussed in tandem with the literature and the author’s insights into systems librarianship knowledge.

The library and information science (LIS) has not addressed how the academics could escape the pay-for-play cost, which was an exclusion tactic to disenfranchise emerging scholars and those without sufficient financial resources to choose between visibility, citation or publishing their outputs in journals without the possibility of citations, which is very important to their academic advancements. The LIS must shift its paradigm from mere talking about OA by producing graduates with the requisite skill to design, develop and host platforms that could enhance indexing and citations and import references. The current design of the institutional repository could be enhanced and promote easy navigation through mobile devices. Thereby taking into accounts internet bandwidth and digital divide, which still hinders accessibility of online resources.

This paper covered research within the LIS fields, and other outputs from other disciplines on OA were not included.

This paper showed the gaps that existed within the LIS campaign on OA, the research focuses of the LIS scholars/research librarians and the needed practical solution for the academic libraries to move beyond OA campaign and reconfigure institutional repository, not as dumping sites, but as infrastructure to host peer-reviewed journals.

Academic libraries institutional repositories can play vital roles in competing with major journal publishers to break their charges monopoly while providing platforms for scholars to make their outputs available freely.

The paper argued that the mobile-first approach to OA is a solution and advocated for mobile application development designed to promote OA resources through mobile-friendly interfaces.

This paper aims to present a highly accessible and affordable tracking model for earthmoving operations in an attempt to overcome some of the limitations of current tracking models.

The proposed methodology involves four main processes: acquiring onsite terrestrial images, processing the images into 3D scaled cloud data, extracting volumetric measurements and crew productivity estimations from multiple point clouds using Delaunay triangulation and conducting earned value/schedule analysis and forecasting the remaining scope of work based on the estimated performance. For validation, the tracking model was compared with an observation-based tracking approach for a backfilling site. It was also used for tracking a coarse base aggregate inventory for a road construction project.

The presented model has proved to be a practical and accurate tracking approach that algorithmically estimates and forecasts all performance parameters from the captured data.

The proposed model is unique in extracting accurate volumetric measurements directly from multiple point clouds in a developed code using Delaunay triangulation instead of extracting them from textured models in modelling software which is neither automated nor time-effective. Furthermore, the presented model uses a self-calibration approach aiming to eliminate the pre-calibration procedure required before image capturing for each camera intended to be used. Thus, any worker onsite can directly capture the required images with an easily accessible camera (e.g. handheld camera or a smartphone) and can be sent to any processing device via e-mail, cloud-based storage or any communication application (e.g. WhatsApp).

Although officially ended in July 2020, China’s dispute about its non-market economy (NME) status at the World Trade Organization (WTO) is far from being resolved. The NME status enables China’s counterparts to disregard Chinese prices in antidumping proceedings and instead use the so-called surrogate country methodology. This paper aims to structure and analyze the complex debate, which emerged with the disputes China has filed against the European Union and the USA at the WTO, and therefore provide a point of reference for future analysis of and debates about China’s NME status.

The analysis is based on the existing academic literature on the topic and on the legal WTO-related documents (e.g. multilateral agreements, China’s Accession Protocol, legal findings of the WTO dispute panels).

Four different interpretations of the respective legal documents about China’s NME status are discussed and strong and weak aspects of these interpretations are pointed out. Also, several misunderstandings and mistakes appearing in the debate are clarified.

As the question of China’s position at the WTO and its NME status has not been resolved yet and some authors believe that China will pursue its case again once the WTO Appellate Body revives its functionality, the analysis of the debate can serve as a point of reference for the academic debate and the future research on this topic. Moreover, it offers an introduction to China’s NME position at the WTO for the newcomers to this topic.

Although China’s NME status has been much discussed, there is no literature review that would structure the debate and point out some of the (dis)advantages of the respective arguments and interpretations. Rather than adding to the large corpus of literature about the NME status, this study takes this corpus as the object of its analysis.

This study analyzes the policy initiatives that have been adopted by the US government since the 1930s. We document the institutional bodies responsible for the implementation of trade policy, as well as the objectives and decision making practices that are associated with policy formation. We also examine the new institutional movement of the Trump Administration’s neo-protectionist “America First” trade policy and its potential impact on the Asian region. Finally, our study examines the recent renegotiation of Korea-US FTA from a perspective of each country’s internal decision making process and discusses a number of issues that have relevant applications for Korea. The results from our analysis show that U.S trade policy show that despite a long period of an open and liberalized trade policy focus, recent neo-protectionist measures by President Trump could lead to potential trade wars and a return to the beggar-thy-neighbor policies of the 1930s. Such an anti-globalization agenda could have dire consequences for export dependent countries in the Asian region.

As the US-China conflict intensifies, the United States is pursuing a ‘decoupling’ strategy to build a new world trade order, arguing that the current World Trade Organization (WTO) system does not properly regulate China's non-market economic system. The WTO provides special and differentiated treatment (S&DT) for developing countries. The United States argues that China should give up its developing country (DC) status. Sufficient research on the DC status and S&DT has not been conducted as a means of resolving the US-China conflict. Decoupling means the collapse of the global supply chain (GSC), which will bring substantial shock to the global economy and a catastrophe for China. This paper examines the re-classification of DC status and S&DT in the context of US-China conflict and seeks an approach for China to avoid decoupling and coexist with the United States. It would be an optimal way for China to revive the WTO first and to improve its economic system through negotiations under the WTO.

Korea and China have promoted a bilateral FTA since 2005 to upgrade their economic relationships. If the Korea-China FTA is concluded, then trade between the two countries is likely to involve substantial changes both quantitatively and qualitatively. Offer lists submitted by Korea include steel, petrochemicals and machinery and those by China include some agricultural and marine products as well as nonferrous metals. Korea's interest in the Korea-China FTA has focused mainly on damage to the agricultural sector and there have been a lot of studies on the effects of the FTA on Korean agricultural sector. However, little is known about why China includes the nonferrous metals industry for early voluntary liberalization and its implications for the domestic economy. Nonferrous metals industry is one of China’s national strategic sectors and has a large supply excess in the country. This study targets the survey of Chinese nonferrous metals industry and trade structure and considers the problem of nonferrous metals in the context of negotiations for the Korea-China FTA and its implications for a higher-quality Korea-China FTA.

Used clothes supply chains are becoming increasingly complex, fragmented and less transparent due to rising volumes of discarded clothes and its dispersed reverse logistics operations across the Global North (GN) and Global South (GS). While it has a promising impact on circular economy and international trade growth, increasing exports of used clothes and overflowing landfills raise some negative concerns on its overall sustainability. This paper addresses the dichotomy that exists in terms of interpreting the sustainability credentials of used clothes supply chains.

A systematic literature review was carried out and 55 articles were examined to identify the triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability impacts of used clothes supply chains. TBL sustainability issues were identified, reflected through the lens of natural resource-based view and interpreted in the form of propositions.

The paper pinpoints seven TBL sustainability concerns and prescribes three sets of strategic resources required in glocal used clothes supply chains for mitigating these. These are (1) slowing the supply chain by tackling poor quality, overproduction and oversupply issues, (2) improving logistics/supply chain infrastructure and ecosystem collaboration and (2) embedding transparent environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures taken by both value chain actors and regulatory bodies, for embracing system-level sustainable development.

This is one of the first studies to analyse TBL sustainability of glocal north–south used clothes supply chains. The study is unique in terms of its scope and contribution to the sustainable supply chain literature.