In order to study the preferred skin color for printing images,two CMYK images from ISO 400 and one from iStock,including five skin color images of East Asian females was selected in this study.The images were adjuste...In order to study the preferred skin color for printing images,two CMYK images from ISO 400 and one from iStock,including five skin color images of East Asian females was selected in this study.The images were adjusted with the CMYK printing ink volume variation of the single,double and triple channels in the given 280%total ink limit conditions.A larger number of color vision normal observers were organized to carry out the color preference evaluation experiment,and the selected preferred skin colors were analyzed.The distribution range of the chromaticity values for skin color images were obtained and the results indicated that there are three regions for printing skin color preferences,and the observers have a memory preference for brighter,fairer skin colors in young female and a reddish skin colors in girl,which can provide the guidance for color adjustment of printed skin color images.展开更多
An approach is proposed to solve the problem how to obtain the priorities from interval fuzzy preference relations. Firstly, another expression of interval numbers is given. Then, some basic definitions on consistency...An approach is proposed to solve the problem how to obtain the priorities from interval fuzzy preference relations. Firstly, another expression of interval numbers is given. Then, some basic definitions on consistency and weak transitivity of real and interval fuzzy preference relations are described. Based on these definitions, a two-phase process for determining the priorities from interval fuzzy preference relations is presented. Finally, two exam- ples are used to illustrate the use of the proposed approach.展开更多
Group decision making problems are investigated with uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations.An unbalanced multiplicative linguistic label set is introduced,which can be used by the experts to express...Group decision making problems are investigated with uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations.An unbalanced multiplicative linguistic label set is introduced,which can be used by the experts to express their linguistic preference information over alternatives.The uncertain linguistic weighted geometric mean operator is utilized to aggregate all the individual uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations into a collective one,and then a simple approach is developed to determine the experts＇ weights by utilizing the consensus degrees among the individual uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations and the collective uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations.Furthermore,a practical interactive procedure for group decision making is proposed based on uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations,in which a possibility degree formula and a complementary matrix are used to rank the given alternatives.Finally,the proposed procedure is applied to solve the group decision making problem of a manufacturing company searching the best global supplier for one of its most critical parts used in assembling process.展开更多
A method of minimizing rankings inconsistency is proposed for a decision-making problem with rankings of alternatives given by multiple decision makers according to multiple criteria. For each criteria, at first, the ...A method of minimizing rankings inconsistency is proposed for a decision-making problem with rankings of alternatives given by multiple decision makers according to multiple criteria. For each criteria, at first, the total inconsistency between the rankings of all alternatives for the group and the ones for every decision maker is defined after the decision maker weights in respect to the criteria are considered. Similarly, the total inconsistency between their final rankings for the group and the ones under every criteria is determined after the criteria weights are taken into account. Then two nonlinear integer programming models minimizing respectively the two total inconsistencies above are developed and then transformed to two dynamic programming models to obtain separately the rankings of all alternatives for the group with respect to each criteria and their final rankings. A supplier selection case illustrated the proposed method, and some discussions on the results verified its effectiveness. This work develops a new measurement of ordinal preferences’ inconsistency in multi-criteria group decision-making （MCGDM） and extends the cook-seiford social selection function to MCGDM considering weights of criteria and decision makers and can obtain unique ranking result.展开更多
The group decision making problem with linguistic pref- erence relations is studied. The concept of additive consistent linguistic preference relation is defined, and then some properties of the additive consistent li...The group decision making problem with linguistic pref- erence relations is studied. The concept of additive consistent linguistic preference relation is defined, and then some properties of the additive consistent linguistic preference relation are studied. In order to rank the alternatives in the group decision making with the linguistic preference relations, the weighted average is first utilized to combine the group linguistic preference relations to one linguistic preference relation, and then the transformation function is proposed to transform the linguistic preference relation to the multiplicative preference relation, and thus the Saaty＇s eigenvec- tor method （EM） of multiplicative preference relation is utilized to rank the alternatives in group decision making with the linguistic preference relations. Finally, an illustrative numerical example is given to verify the proposed method. A comparative study to the linguistic ordered weighted averaging （LOWA） operator method is also demonstrated.展开更多
Cooperative communication can achieve spatial diversity gains,and consequently combats signal fading due to multipath propagation in wireless networks powerfully.A novel complex field network-coded cooperation（CFNCC...Cooperative communication can achieve spatial diversity gains,and consequently combats signal fading due to multipath propagation in wireless networks powerfully.A novel complex field network-coded cooperation（CFNCC） scheme based on multi-user detection for the multiple unicast transmission is proposed.Theoretic analysis and simulation results demonstrate that,compared with the conventional cooperation（CC） scheme and network-coded cooperation（NCC） scheme,CFNCC would obtain higher network throughput and consumes less time slots.Moreover,a further investigation is made for the symbol error probability（SEP） performance of CFNCC scheme,and SEPs of CFNCC scheme are compared with those of NCC scheme in various scenarios for different signal to noise ratio（SNR） values.展开更多
A large-scale field survey to measure indoor environmental parameters such as air temperature,air velocity and relative humidity was conducted in Chongqing,P. R. China,a city in a hot summer and cold winter zone. Subj...A large-scale field survey to measure indoor environmental parameters such as air temperature,air velocity and relative humidity was conducted in Chongqing,P. R. China,a city in a hot summer and cold winter zone. Subjective questionnaires and the ASHRAE seven-point thermal sensation scale were used to evaluate thermal,humidity and velocity sensations. Probability methods were employed to calculate the preferred temperatures. The results show that the preferred temperatures are 25.1 ℃ in summer and 21.1 ℃ in winter,respectively. Based on a comparison of the difference between neutral and preferred temperatures,it is proposed that human temperature sensitivity influences preferred temperature.展开更多
The problem of fusing multiagent preference orderings, with information on agent＇s importance being incomplete certain with respect to a set of possible courses of action, is described. The approach is developed for ...The problem of fusing multiagent preference orderings, with information on agent＇s importance being incomplete certain with respect to a set of possible courses of action, is described. The approach is developed for dealing with the fusion problem described in the following sections and requires that each agent provides a preference ordering over the different alternatives completely independent of the other agents, and the information on agent＇s importance is incomplete certain. In this approach, the ternary comparison matrix of the alternatives is constructed, the eigenvector associated with the maximum eigenvalue of the ternary comparison matrix is attained so as to normalize priority vector of the alternatives. The interval number of the alternatives is then obtained by solving two sorts of linear programming problems. By comparing the interval numbers of the alternatives, the ranking of alternatives can be generated. Finally, some examples are given to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the method.展开更多
There has been a steady growth in demand for convenience and ready-cooked food has influenced the interest of poultry processors in developing value-added chicken products that meet consumers＇ demand/choice. A conjoi...There has been a steady growth in demand for convenience and ready-cooked food has influenced the interest of poultry processors in developing value-added chicken products that meet consumers＇ demand/choice. A conjoint analysis was done in this study on the survey of 975 chicken consumers in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, between March and September, 2014 to valuate consumers, preferences and willingness to pay （WTP） for various chicken attributed parts, production method, processing method, storage method, the presence of flavor and cooking method. The estimates of consumers, WTP premium prices for various mixtures of value-added characteristics were ascertained. The consumers preferred chicken products refrigerated, from chicken produced under free-range management, chicken breast, chicken product that was addictive and flavor free, which could be oven-heated or pan heated. One half of the entire respondents were willing to pay about 25% more for value-added chicken product over the price for conventional products. On the whole, a premium for value-added chicken products was more likely to be paid for by young consumers, consumers who patronized farmers＇ markets and preferred free-range or organic chicken products. WTP by consumers was negatively affected by price of products. The poultry industry could utilize combined knowledge of consumers＇ WTP for value-added chicken product price as a guide of develop innovative value-added chicken products.展开更多
Multi-user detection (MUD) based on multirate transmission in code division multiple access (CDMA) system is discussed. Under the requirement of signal interference ratio (SIR) detection at base station and framework ...Multi-user detection (MUD) based on multirate transmission in code division multiple access (CDMA) system is discussed. Under the requirement of signal interference ratio (SIR) detection at base station and framework with parallel interference cancellation, a supervision decision algorithm based on pre-decision of probabilistic data association (PDA) and hard decision is proposed. The detection performance is analyzed and simulation is implemented to show that the supervision decision algorithm improves the detection performance effectively.展开更多
A study on the zero-forcing beamforming （ZFBF） scheme with antenna selection at user terminals in downlink multi-antenna multi-user systems is presented. Simulation results show that the proposed ZFBF scheme with re...A study on the zero-forcing beamforming （ZFBF） scheme with antenna selection at user terminals in downlink multi-antenna multi-user systems is presented. Simulation results show that the proposed ZFBF scheme with receiver antenna selection （ZFBF-AS） achieves considerable throughput improvement over the ZFBF scheme with single receiver antenna. The results also show that, with multi-user diversity, the ZFBF-AS scheme approaches the throughput performance of the ZFBF scheme using all receiver antennas （ZFBF-WO-AS） when the base station adopts semi-orthogonal user selection （SUS） algorithm, and achieves larger throughput when the base station adopts the Round-robin scheduling algorithm. Compared with ZFBF-WO-AS, the proposed ZFBF-AS scheme can reduce the cost of user equipments and the channel state information requirement at the transmitter （CSIT） as well as the multiuser scheduling complexity at the transmitter.展开更多
A power allocation scheme for multi-user multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （MI- MO-OFDM） systems with channel state information （CSI） on transmitter and receiver is pressed....A power allocation scheme for multi-user multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （MI- MO-OFDM） systems with channel state information （CSI） on transmitter and receiver is pressed. Multi-user lower allocation can be decoupled into single user lower allocation throughout null space mapping of multi-user channel and lower allocation can be performed throughout spatial-spectral water-filling for per user.To deal with more users in system and fading correlation,scheduling is oerformed to maintain the gain of power allocation.The proposed scheme can substantially improve system＇s spectral efficiency with low complexity.Simulation results validate the accuracy of theoretic analyses.展开更多
OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of heat shock protein 70(Hsp70)in the development as well as expression of morphine induced conditioned place preference(CPP)in rats using Hsp70 inhibitors.METHODS The unbi⁃ased pr...OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of heat shock protein 70(Hsp70)in the development as well as expression of morphine induced conditioned place preference(CPP)in rats using Hsp70 inhibitors.METHODS The unbi⁃ased procedures of CPP lasted for 7 d and included three phases:preconditioning(D1-D3),conditioning(D4-D6,6 sessions)and test(D7).Here,morphine 5 mg·kg-1 injected in a subcuta⁃neous(sc)manner can induce significant place preference.Inhibitors of Hsp70 were injected into the right lateral ventricle during either the condi⁃tioning phase or the test phase separately.Fur⁃thermore,the expression of Hsp70 in certain areas of the mesocorticolimbic system was also studied following the intervention of N-formyl-3,4-methylenedioxybenzylidine-γ-butyrolactam(KNK437),a transcriptional inhibitor of Hsp70.RESULTS Pifithrin-μ(PES),a selective functional inhibitor acting on the substrate binding domain(SBD)of Hsp70,dose-dependently suppressed both the acquisition and expression of morphine-induced CPP.Similar function was observed after the intracerebroventricular injection(icv)of KNK437.The other functional inhibitor methy⁃lene blue,targeting the nucleotide-binding area,showed a significant tendency of inhibitory phar⁃macological effect on the expressional and devel⁃opment phases of morphine-induced CPP.Following the interventions of KNK437,we found that the level of Hsp70 was significantly decreased in the NAcs both in the acquisition and expres⁃sion of morphine induced CPP.CONCLUSION Hsp70 in NAcs plays a critical role in mediating the psychological dependence induced by morphine.展开更多
In 2005,India's challenge to the European C ommunity's(EC) Generalized System of Preferences(GSP) scheme resulted in a landmark ruling by the W T O 's Appellate Body.T he Appellate Body had a landmark find...In 2005,India's challenge to the European C ommunity's(EC) Generalized System of Preferences(GSP) scheme resulted in a landmark ruling by the W T O 's Appellate Body.T he Appellate Body had a landmark finding that the Enabling C lause imposes legal obligation on the preference-granting countries,w hich for a long time considered GSP treatment a conditional gift and designed their ow n GSP scheme as they saw fit.How ever,the guidance given by the EC-Preference case is far from clear: the legal uncertainties of the "nexus"requirement,combined with the open questions in the"non-discriminatory"requirement,make the Appellate Body's decision difficult to implement.As a result,the decision put the legitimacy of the conditional preferential treatments in EC and the U.S.GSP in doubt.O n the other hand,the Appellate Body's decision w as subject to certain practical limitations of the case and generated a good number of legal uncertainties in the area of conditional GSP.T he GSP nevertheless serves the developing w orld even better by forgoing the GSP completely.In conclusion,the operation and the future of the GSP currently remains an unsettled area in the W T O system,w hich w ill be further addressed by later GSP practice.展开更多
文摘In order to study the preferred skin color for printing images,two CMYK images from ISO 400 and one from iStock,including five skin color images of East Asian females was selected in this study.The images were adjusted with the CMYK printing ink volume variation of the single,double and triple channels in the given 280%total ink limit conditions.A larger number of color vision normal observers were organized to carry out the color preference evaluation experiment,and the selected preferred skin colors were analyzed.The distribution range of the chromaticity values for skin color images were obtained and the results indicated that there are three regions for printing skin color preferences,and the observers have a memory preference for brighter,fairer skin colors in young female and a reddish skin colors in girl,which can provide the guidance for color adjustment of printed skin color images.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation for Excellent Innovation Research Group of China (70721001)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (90924016)Fundamental Research Fund for Northeastern University (N090606001)
文摘An approach is proposed to solve the problem how to obtain the priorities from interval fuzzy preference relations. Firstly, another expression of interval numbers is given. Then, some basic definitions on consistency and weak transitivity of real and interval fuzzy preference relations are described. Based on these definitions, a two-phase process for determining the priorities from interval fuzzy preference relations is presented. Finally, two exam- ples are used to illustrate the use of the proposed approach.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (70571087)the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (70625005)
文摘Group decision making problems are investigated with uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations.An unbalanced multiplicative linguistic label set is introduced,which can be used by the experts to express their linguistic preference information over alternatives.The uncertain linguistic weighted geometric mean operator is utilized to aggregate all the individual uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations into a collective one,and then a simple approach is developed to determine the experts＇ weights by utilizing the consensus degrees among the individual uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations and the collective uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations.Furthermore,a practical interactive procedure for group decision making is proposed based on uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations,in which a possibility degree formula and a complementary matrix are used to rank the given alternatives.Finally,the proposed procedure is applied to solve the group decision making problem of a manufacturing company searching the best global supplier for one of its most critical parts used in assembling process.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (60904059 60975049)+1 种基金the Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of Hunan Province (2010YBA104)the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program)(2009AA04Z107)
文摘A method of minimizing rankings inconsistency is proposed for a decision-making problem with rankings of alternatives given by multiple decision makers according to multiple criteria. For each criteria, at first, the total inconsistency between the rankings of all alternatives for the group and the ones for every decision maker is defined after the decision maker weights in respect to the criteria are considered. Similarly, the total inconsistency between their final rankings for the group and the ones under every criteria is determined after the criteria weights are taken into account. Then two nonlinear integer programming models minimizing respectively the two total inconsistencies above are developed and then transformed to two dynamic programming models to obtain separately the rankings of all alternatives for the group with respect to each criteria and their final rankings. A supplier selection case illustrated the proposed method, and some discussions on the results verified its effectiveness. This work develops a new measurement of ordinal preferences’ inconsistency in multi-criteria group decision-making （MCGDM） and extends the cook-seiford social selection function to MCGDM considering weights of criteria and decision makers and can obtain unique ranking result.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(70771025)Hohai University Central University Special Fund Basic Scientific Research and Operational Costs
文摘The group decision making problem with linguistic pref- erence relations is studied. The concept of additive consistent linguistic preference relation is defined, and then some properties of the additive consistent linguistic preference relation are studied. In order to rank the alternatives in the group decision making with the linguistic preference relations, the weighted average is first utilized to combine the group linguistic preference relations to one linguistic preference relation, and then the transformation function is proposed to transform the linguistic preference relation to the multiplicative preference relation, and thus the Saaty＇s eigenvec- tor method （EM） of multiplicative preference relation is utilized to rank the alternatives in group decision making with the linguistic preference relations. Finally, an illustrative numerical example is given to verify the proposed method. A comparative study to the linguistic ordered weighted averaging （LOWA） operator method is also demonstrated.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(6104000561001126+5 种基金61271262)the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project(201104916382012T50789)the Natural Science Foundation of Shannxi Province of China(2011JQ8036)the Special Fund for Basic Scientific Research of Central Colleges (CHD2012ZD005)the Research Fund of Zhejiang University of Technology(20100244)
文摘Cooperative communication can achieve spatial diversity gains,and consequently combats signal fading due to multipath propagation in wireless networks powerfully.A novel complex field network-coded cooperation（CFNCC） scheme based on multi-user detection for the multiple unicast transmission is proposed.Theoretic analysis and simulation results demonstrate that,compared with the conventional cooperation（CC） scheme and network-coded cooperation（NCC） scheme,CFNCC would obtain higher network throughput and consumes less time slots.Moreover,a further investigation is made for the symbol error probability（SEP） performance of CFNCC scheme,and SEPs of CFNCC scheme are compared with those of NCC scheme in various scenarios for different signal to noise ratio（SNR） values.
基金Projects(50838009, 50678179) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaProjects(2006BAJ02A09, 2006BAJ02A13-4) supported by the National Key Technologies R & D Program of China
文摘A large-scale field survey to measure indoor environmental parameters such as air temperature,air velocity and relative humidity was conducted in Chongqing,P. R. China,a city in a hot summer and cold winter zone. Subjective questionnaires and the ASHRAE seven-point thermal sensation scale were used to evaluate thermal,humidity and velocity sensations. Probability methods were employed to calculate the preferred temperatures. The results show that the preferred temperatures are 25.1 ℃ in summer and 21.1 ℃ in winter,respectively. Based on a comparison of the difference between neutral and preferred temperatures,it is proposed that human temperature sensitivity influences preferred temperature.
基金This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(70631004).
文摘The problem of fusing multiagent preference orderings, with information on agent＇s importance being incomplete certain with respect to a set of possible courses of action, is described. The approach is developed for dealing with the fusion problem described in the following sections and requires that each agent provides a preference ordering over the different alternatives completely independent of the other agents, and the information on agent＇s importance is incomplete certain. In this approach, the ternary comparison matrix of the alternatives is constructed, the eigenvector associated with the maximum eigenvalue of the ternary comparison matrix is attained so as to normalize priority vector of the alternatives. The interval number of the alternatives is then obtained by solving two sorts of linear programming problems. By comparing the interval numbers of the alternatives, the ranking of alternatives can be generated. Finally, some examples are given to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the method.
文摘There has been a steady growth in demand for convenience and ready-cooked food has influenced the interest of poultry processors in developing value-added chicken products that meet consumers＇ demand/choice. A conjoint analysis was done in this study on the survey of 975 chicken consumers in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, between March and September, 2014 to valuate consumers, preferences and willingness to pay （WTP） for various chicken attributed parts, production method, processing method, storage method, the presence of flavor and cooking method. The estimates of consumers, WTP premium prices for various mixtures of value-added characteristics were ascertained. The consumers preferred chicken products refrigerated, from chicken produced under free-range management, chicken breast, chicken product that was addictive and flavor free, which could be oven-heated or pan heated. One half of the entire respondents were willing to pay about 25% more for value-added chicken product over the price for conventional products. On the whole, a premium for value-added chicken products was more likely to be paid for by young consumers, consumers who patronized farmers＇ markets and preferred free-range or organic chicken products. WTP by consumers was negatively affected by price of products. The poultry industry could utilize combined knowledge of consumers＇ WTP for value-added chicken product price as a guide of develop innovative value-added chicken products.
文摘Multi-user detection (MUD) based on multirate transmission in code division multiple access (CDMA) system is discussed. Under the requirement of signal interference ratio (SIR) detection at base station and framework with parallel interference cancellation, a supervision decision algorithm based on pre-decision of probabilistic data association (PDA) and hard decision is proposed. The detection performance is analyzed and simulation is implemented to show that the supervision decision algorithm improves the detection performance effectively.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (60496314)the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2006AA01Z266).
文摘A study on the zero-forcing beamforming （ZFBF） scheme with antenna selection at user terminals in downlink multi-antenna multi-user systems is presented. Simulation results show that the proposed ZFBF scheme with receiver antenna selection （ZFBF-AS） achieves considerable throughput improvement over the ZFBF scheme with single receiver antenna. The results also show that, with multi-user diversity, the ZFBF-AS scheme approaches the throughput performance of the ZFBF scheme using all receiver antennas （ZFBF-WO-AS） when the base station adopts semi-orthogonal user selection （SUS） algorithm, and achieves larger throughput when the base station adopts the Round-robin scheduling algorithm. Compared with ZFBF-WO-AS, the proposed ZFBF-AS scheme can reduce the cost of user equipments and the channel state information requirement at the transmitter （CSIT） as well as the multiuser scheduling complexity at the transmitter.
基金This project was supported bythe National Natural Science Foundation of China (60272079) the National High Technol-ogy Research and Development Plan Project of China (2001AA123014) .
文摘A power allocation scheme for multi-user multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing （MI- MO-OFDM） systems with channel state information （CSI） on transmitter and receiver is pressed. Multi-user lower allocation can be decoupled into single user lower allocation throughout null space mapping of multi-user channel and lower allocation can be performed throughout spatial-spectral water-filling for per user.To deal with more users in system and fading correlation,scheduling is oerformed to maintain the gain of power allocation.The proposed scheme can substantially improve system＇s spectral efficiency with low complexity.Simulation results validate the accuracy of theoretic analyses.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(81773705)。
文摘OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of heat shock protein 70(Hsp70)in the development as well as expression of morphine induced conditioned place preference(CPP)in rats using Hsp70 inhibitors.METHODS The unbi⁃ased procedures of CPP lasted for 7 d and included three phases:preconditioning(D1-D3),conditioning(D4-D6,6 sessions)and test(D7).Here,morphine 5 mg·kg-1 injected in a subcuta⁃neous(sc)manner can induce significant place preference.Inhibitors of Hsp70 were injected into the right lateral ventricle during either the condi⁃tioning phase or the test phase separately.Fur⁃thermore,the expression of Hsp70 in certain areas of the mesocorticolimbic system was also studied following the intervention of N-formyl-3,4-methylenedioxybenzylidine-γ-butyrolactam(KNK437),a transcriptional inhibitor of Hsp70.RESULTS Pifithrin-μ(PES),a selective functional inhibitor acting on the substrate binding domain(SBD)of Hsp70,dose-dependently suppressed both the acquisition and expression of morphine-induced CPP.Similar function was observed after the intracerebroventricular injection(icv)of KNK437.The other functional inhibitor methy⁃lene blue,targeting the nucleotide-binding area,showed a significant tendency of inhibitory phar⁃macological effect on the expressional and devel⁃opment phases of morphine-induced CPP.Following the interventions of KNK437,we found that the level of Hsp70 was significantly decreased in the NAcs both in the acquisition and expres⁃sion of morphine induced CPP.CONCLUSION Hsp70 in NAcs plays a critical role in mediating the psychological dependence induced by morphine.
文摘In 2005,India's challenge to the European C ommunity's(EC) Generalized System of Preferences(GSP) scheme resulted in a landmark ruling by the W T O 's Appellate Body.T he Appellate Body had a landmark finding that the Enabling C lause imposes legal obligation on the preference-granting countries,w hich for a long time considered GSP treatment a conditional gift and designed their ow n GSP scheme as they saw fit.How ever,the guidance given by the EC-Preference case is far from clear: the legal uncertainties of the "nexus"requirement,combined with the open questions in the"non-discriminatory"requirement,make the Appellate Body's decision difficult to implement.As a result,the decision put the legitimacy of the conditional preferential treatments in EC and the U.S.GSP in doubt.O n the other hand,the Appellate Body's decision w as subject to certain practical limitations of the case and generated a good number of legal uncertainties in the area of conditional GSP.T he GSP nevertheless serves the developing w orld even better by forgoing the GSP completely.In conclusion,the operation and the future of the GSP currently remains an unsettled area in the W T O system,w hich w ill be further addressed by later GSP practice.
