a r t i c l e i n f o The recent proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs) has resulted in an increasingly complex network of preferential trading relationships. The economics literature has generally examined the formation of FTAs as a function of the participating countries' economic characteristics alone. In this paper, we show both theoretically and empirically that the decision to ente...

Accompanying the unprecedented outburst of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), scholarly interests in the new wave of regionalism have been flourishing. Yet, notwithstanding its contribution, extant literature has paid little attention to an important aspect of FTA formation: the choice of FTA partners and the underlying structure of the FTA network. While theoretical conjectures about likely FTA par...

Coral reef degradation increases coral interactions with filamentous turf algae (FTA) and macroalgae, which may result in chronic stress for the corals. We evaluated the effects of short (2.5 month) and long (10 month) periods of FTA removal on tissue thickness (TT), zooxanthellae density (ZD), mitotic index (MI), and concentration of chlorophyll a (Chl a) in Montastraea annularis at the beginn...

Liquid-based methods for the collection, transportation, and storage of cervical cells are cumbersome and expensive and involve laborious DNA extraction. An FTA cartridge is a solid carrier device, easier to handle and allowing simple DNA elution for human papillomavirus (HPV) testing. HPV-DNA results from cervical specimens collected in PreservCyt medium (Hologic, Inc.) and the indicating FTA ...

Recently, a treponema-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) enzyme immunoassay (EIA), the CAPTIA Syphilis-G (Trinity Biotech, Jamestown, N.Y.), has become available as a diagnostic test for syphilis. A total of 89 stored sera previously tested by the fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption (FTA-ABS) IgG assay were evaluated by the CAPTIA EIA. The FTA-ABS IgG procedure was performed by technologist...

We study how the sequential formation of free trade areas affects trade flows between member countries. In a three–country, three–good model of comparative advantage if two countries have an FTA, and both sign a similar agreement with the third, trade between the two decreases. However, if only one of them signs an additional FTA, a huband-spoke pattern arises, and trade between the initial mem...

Why is Chile following such a proactive FTA policy and at the same time promoting the benefits of these type of agreements to other Latin American countries? There is a predominance of economic explanations to analyze why countries pursue an active FTA policy. Yet within an FTA policy, understood as an essential component of a country’s foreign policy, strategic and ideational goals are also im...

FTA proposed to add selections for ‘‘type of fire’’ to the non-rail fire event detail screens to provide better nationallevel information for vehicle fire prevention and mitigation. Comment. FTA received two comments to the proposed revision. Commenters indicated that ‘‘type of fire’’ was often difficult to ascertain and could only be identified after a lengthy investigation. FTA Response. The ...