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While the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) has pioneered the establishment of a benefit-sharing regime for marine genetic resources (MGRs), persistent divergences between developing and developed countries have posed substantial challenges to its implementation. The current legal framework is overly schematic and insufficient to guide practice, leaving many issues unresolved. To explore the solutions for these issues, this article adopts a legal functionalist approach grounded in the principle that “form follows function”. First, this article categorizes the unresolved issues into four types: ambiguous terms in the Agreement, uncertain legal nature of benefit-sharing modalities, weak operability resulting from incomplete guiding rules, and inadequate monitoring rules. Second, it derives potential solutions from a legal functionalist perspective. This approach emphasizes the instrumental value or functionality of law. By focusing on facilitating the achievement of the Agreement’s intended functions and goals, this approach can help steer ongoing international rule-making activities and overcome negotiation deadlocks. Under such an approach, the core guiding principle for problem solving is to make rules operational by addressing conflicts, giving due regard to diverse concerns, and fostering broad consensus among negotiating parties. Finally, this article tentatively applies this approach to specific unresolved issues, including: adopting broader definitions of key terms; designing relatively light monetary benefit-sharing rules that combine mandatory and voluntary mechanisms; facilitating ex situ access through multilateral mechanisms; clearly delineating the respective scope of application of different technology transfer modalities; and strengthening supporting information disclosure and traceability rules. Concurrently, this article suggests that the design and implementation of rules should take into account the needs of marine scientific research, data confidentiality, financial and administrative burdens, and the legitimate rights and interests of stakeholders.

Forecasting future driving conditions such as acceleration, velocity, and driver behaviors can greatly contribute to safety, mobility, and sustainability issues in the development of new energy vehicles (NEVs). In this brief, a review of existing velocity prediction techniques is studied from the perspective of traffic flow and vehicle lateral dynamics for the first time. A classification framework for velocity prediction in NEVs is presented where various state-of-the-art approaches are put forward. Firstly, we investigate road traffic flow models, under which a driving-scenario-based assessment is introduced. Secondly, vehicle speed prediction methods for NEVs are given where an extensive discussion on traffic flow model classification based on traffic big data and artificial intelligence is carried out. Thirdly, the influence of vehicle lateral dynamics and correlation control methods for vehicle speed prediction are reviewed. Suitable applications of each approach are presented according to their characteristics. Future trends and questions in the development of NEVs from different angles are discussed. Finally, different from existing review papers, we introduce application examples, demonstrating the potential applications of the highlighted concepts in next-generation intelligent transportation systems. To sum up, this review not only gives the first comprehensive analysis and review of road traffic network, vehicle handling stability, and velocity prediction strategies, but also indicates possible applications of each method to prospective designers, where researchers and scholars can better choose the right method on velocity prediction in the development of NEVs.

BackgroundBariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for severe obesity. However, following Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery, a small minority of patients develop new-onset alcohol use disorder (AUD), the aetiology of which is poorly understood.AimThe aim is to construct a theory to explain the development of AUD among a sample of individuals who reported problematic drinking following RYGB.MethodSemi-structured interviews were conducted with eight RYGB patients diagnosed with AUD attending a multi-disciplinary outpatient weight management service at a public hospital in the Republic of Ireland. A constructivist grounded theory methodology was used to analyse interview transcripts.ResultsParticipants’ main concern was identified as ‘unresolved psychological issues’ which were managed by ‘external coping mechanisms’, namely, ‘eating to cope’. After RYGB, comfort eating was no longer possible to the same extent. Following a ‘honeymoon period’, participants’ need for an external coping mechanism resurfaced. ‘Filling the void’ provides a framework to explain how participants managed the symptoms of their unresolved psychological issues through ‘behavioural substitution’, that is, drinking alcohol instead of eating.ConclusionThe theoretical framework of ‘filling the void’ adds to contemporary research that conceptualises AUD behavioural substitution as ‘addiction transfer’ by describing the process by which the phenomenon occurs as well as the characteristics of participants. The clinical implication of this research is to advocate for a reshaping of treatment of RYGB patients, with increased psychological input following surgery.

In the era of fast-tracking digitization and unconventional big data analytics, business models are being reshaped and they impact auditing amongst auditors. This viewpoint paper takes into account the procedures underlying on big data and its analytics in driving the evolution of business and identifies some of the unresolved issues and concerns on auditors, especially in the context of cognitive tasks. The paper continues to focus on the current spate of discussions on big data and auditing profession. It explains the nature of big data and its characteristics as well as the output types. This paper also tries to find answers for what is new in it, how it assists the auditors along with some unresolved  issues and concerns. Since big data analytics is the future, auditors need to reshape themselves in terms of skills and competencies to meet the emerging technological challenges. 

Variable pay is usually defined as paid that is tied to some measure of worker output. Why use variable pay? The typical reaction is that variable pay provides incentives to put forth effort. Although true, discrete-pay schemes also generate incentives. Compensation that depends only mildly on output can be a very effective sorting mechanism, and schemes that place heavier weight on output induce sorting inefficiencies. Tying compensation to performance induces a manager to put her money where her mouth is, but too close a relation of pay to output causes managers to pass up too many positive-profit opportunities.

The trade-off between risk and incentives has become a mantra among economists working on agency issues, despite the lukewarm evidence in its favor. The objective of this paper has been to provide a series of theoretical reasons why one might not expect to find such a relationship in the data. It is important to note that is not claimed that one should necessarily see a positive relationship between observed measures of risk and incentive provision based on the insights provided. Instead, the claim is that there are possible influences that can cause a positive relationship, and that there is no necessary reason why the clear and simple logic characterized by the traditional negative trade-off of risk and incentives should be reflected in the data.

The characteristics of performance measures (those data on which explicit incentive contracts are based) are examined to understand how firms use incentive contracting, and to predict the use of incentives in practice. Two ways of thinking about the choice of performance measures are suggested. The first, and the perspective used in the paper, is to suppose the existence of a set of performance measures that the firm could use in an incentive contract and ask which measure yields the strongest incentives or the highest surplus. The second way of looking at the question is to ask how much the firm should pay to develop better performance measure.

Subclinical Carditis A significant number of patients with suspected acute rheumatic carditis have no clinical murmurs but have documented regurgitation on echocardiography. [...] a new category of subclinical carditis,, echocarditis or asymptomatic carditis has emerged. \"Subclinical RHD\" may be a preferable term for asymptomatic school children with echo-identified cardiac lesions. Because the \"echo criteria for subclinical carditis\" have been studied in patients with other clinical features of acute RF, it should be strictly applied to this group only.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Traditional Approaches to Preclinical Evaluation of Radiotherapeutics Models of Cancer Animal Models for Evaluating Radiopharmaceuticals: Unresolved Issues and Challenges for Translation References

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Bacterial Phylogeny: Overview and Key Unresolved Issues New Protein‐Based Molecular Markers for Systematic and Evolutionary Studies Molecular Markers Elucidating the Evolutionary Relationships among α‐Proteobacteria Molecular Markers for the Bacteroidetes‐Chlorobi Phyla Branching Order and Interrelationships among Bacterial Phyla Importance of Protein Markers for Discovering Unique Properties for Different Groups of Bacteria Concluding Remarks Acknowledgements References