The decomposition of complex systems into manageable parts is an essential principle when dealing with complex technical systems. However, many safety and reliability modelling techniques do not support hierarchical decomposition in the desired way. Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) offers decomposition into modules, a breakdown with regard to the hierarchy of failure influences rather than to the syst...

This paper studies the e¤ect of foreign lobbies on trade policy of a country which is a member of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). It uses a monopolistically competitive political economy model in which the government determines external tari¤s endogenously. The e¤ect of foreign lobbying under the FTA is examined empirically using Canadian industry-level trade data that allow di¤erentiating of lob...

We evaluated caveolin-1 expression in the human thyroid neoplasia spectrum with the aim of examining differences in expression as detected by two anti-caveolin-1 antibodies, and secondly, to investigate the association of caveolin-1 expression levels with aggressive papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). Immunohistochemical staining using sc894 or AV09019 antibodies revealed that caveolin-1 was gen...

An enzyme immunoassay for the diagnosis of syphilis (ELISA-SY) was developed with solid-phase extracts of Treponema pallidum, specimen diluent containing Reiter treponeme absorbent, and three 30-min incubations. The ELISA-SY results were determined in comparison with a standardized positive control and reported as a percentage of strong positive control. In tests with 1,005 serum samples from a...

Abstract The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is a Free Trade Area (FTA) regional trade agreement in Africa. Currently, Ethiopia negotiating to join COMESA FTA. This study assesses the impact of three arrangements, FTA, customs unions, European Partnership Agreement (EPA) on economy Ethiopia. analysis based static Global Analysis Project (GTAP) model, version 9 database. U...

Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) is a method of estimating system reliability by combining logic models of the ways systems can fail with numerical failure rates. One postulates a failure state and systematically decomposes this state into a combination of more basic events through a process known as Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). Failure rates are derived from vendor specifications, historical ...

A pulsed dye laser was used as an excitation source in a fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption (FTA-ABS) test. A high precision in quantitative fluorescence was obtained with this high-power excitation source coupled to an electronic detection system and a storage oscilloscope by standardization of fluorescence evaluation and through elimination of human error. One 0.4-mus pulse exposure w...

Fault tree analysis (FTA) is a very prominent method to analyze the risks related to safety and economically critical assets, like power plants, airplanes, data centers and web shops. FTA methods comprise of a wide variety of modelling and analysis techniques, supported by a wide range of software tools. This paper surveys over 150 papers on fault tree analysis, providing an in-depth overview o...

The EU has indicated that after 2008 its trade relationships with developing countries will be dominated by the development of preferential trade agreements. Although not a consequence of the Cotonou Agreement, the free trade agreement between the EU and the Republic of South Africa (EU RSA FTA) is clearly one of the first fruits of this approach to trade relationships. However, there is no evi...

Presently, the diagnosis of syphilis is dependent mainly on serological tests. The most widely used screening tests for syphilis are the VDRL and the rapid plasma reagin (RPR) and for confirmation, the fluorescent treponemal antibody (FTA) and the treponema pallidum hemagglutination (TPHA) tests. The four alternative modes for diagnosis of syphilis can be a) VDRL + FTA, b) VDRL + TPHA, c) RPR +...