How Dutch Institutions Enhance the Adaptive Capacity of Society

This report examines the adaptive capacity of the institutional framework of the Netherlands to cope with the impacts of climate change. Historically, institutions have evolved incrementally to deal with existing social problems. They provide norms and rules for collective action and create continuity rather than change. However, the nature of societal problems is changing as a result of the processes of globalization and development. With the progress made in the natural sciences, we are able to predict in advance, to a certain extent, the potential environmental impacts of various human actions on society, for example, climate change. This raises some key questions: Are our institutions capable of dealing with this new knowledge about future impacts and, more importantly, with the impacts themselves? Are our institutions capable of dealing with the inherent uncertainty of the predictions

Māori outcome evaluation: A kaupapa Māori, outcomes and indictors, framework and methodology

Territorial local authorities (i.e. regional and district councils) are by law required to provide for Māori values and interests, and to undertake plan evaluation and environmental monitoring, to ensure that the provisions they have in place for these purposes are effective. Councils have not, however, had methods available that would enable them to meet these statutory obligations. This gap is filled by the framework and methods that we have developed and trialled over the past 5 years. The development and use of our Kaupapa Māori Environmental Outcomes and Indicators Framework and Methodology is the focus of this report

Quantum surveillance and 'shared secrets'. A biometric step too far? CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe, July 2010

It is no longer sensible to regard biometrics as having neutral socio-economic, legal and political impacts. Newer generation biometrics are fluid and include behavioural and emotional data that can be combined with other data. Therefore, a range of issues needs to be reviewed in light of the increasing privatisation of ‘security’ that escapes effective, democratic parliamentary and regulatory control and oversight at national, international and EU levels, argues Juliet Lodge, Professor and co-Director of the Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence at the University of Leeds, U

MoPS: A Modular Protection Scheme for Long-Term Storage

Current trends in technology, such as cloud computing, allow outsourcing the storage, backup, and archiving of data. This provides efficiency and flexibility, but also poses new risks for data security. It in particular became crucial to develop protection schemes that ensure security even in the long-term, i.e. beyond the lifetime of keys, certificates, and cryptographic primitives. However, all current solutions fail to provide optimal performance for different application scenarios. Thus, in this work, we present MoPS, a modular protection scheme to ensure authenticity and integrity for data stored over long periods of time. MoPS does not come with any requirements regarding the storage architecture and can therefore be used together with existing archiving or storage systems. It supports a set of techniques which can be plugged together, combined, and migrated in order to create customized solutions that fulfill the requirements of different application scenarios in the best possible way. As a proof of concept we implemented MoPS and provide performance measurements. Furthermore, our implementation provides additional features, such as guidance for non-expert users and export functionalities for external verifiers.Comment: Original Publication (in the same form): ASIACCS 201

Māori provisions in plans: Mana whenua, mauri of water, and wahi tapu

The intention of this document is to allow those using Ngā Mahi: Kaupapa Māori Outcomes an Indicators Kete (Jefferies and Kennedy, 2009, PUCM Māori Report 2) to view a range of examples of Māori provisions within statutory planning documents against plans being evaluated. The extracts in this Report 3 on Māori Provisions in Plans relate to the three tikanga in the Ngā Mahi report: Mana Whenua, Mauri (relating to water), and Wähi Tapu. It is intended that as we develop new kete (containing worksheets and user guides) and thereby expand Ngā Mahi, this current report will be revised to include plan provisions relating to additional tikanga

The control over personal data: True remedy or fairy tale ?

This research report undertakes an interdisciplinary review of the concept of "control" (i.e. the idea that people should have greater "control" over their data), proposing an analysis of this con-cept in the field of law and computer science. Despite the omnipresence of the notion of control in the EU policy documents, scholarly literature and in the press, the very meaning of this concept remains surprisingly vague and under-studied in the face of contemporary socio-technical environments and practices. Beyond the current fashionable rhetoric of empowerment of the data subject, this report attempts to reorient the scholarly debates towards a more comprehensive and refined understanding of the concept of control by questioning its legal and technical implications on data subject\^as agency

Implementing NMC standards for learning, and assessing in practice(2006): a demonstration of effective partnership between a higher education institution and NHS Trust placement partners

This paper provides an account of the collaborative approach taken to implement professional standards in teaching, learning and assessing in practice for nursing and midwifery. How challenges for effective partnership working between university and placement/practice education provider were overcome are presented. Processes and issues which arose when new national regulatory professional standards of practice education were introduced are highlighted. The partnership work ensured a robust process to locally interpreting and implementing the NMC Standards for Supporting Learning and Assessing in Practice (2006). This was achieved and resulted in a county wide agreed implementation of the Standards across NHS Oxfordshire and beyond. The key requirements of the Standards and the challenges identified are presented together with how issues were addressed. The approach taken by an established partnership working group is described and the products of the process are detailed, including listing 'top tips' for successful partnership working

Forest Charges and Trusts: Shared Benefits with Clear Responsibilities

This paper examines the Community-Based Forest Management Program (CBFM) and Industrial Forest Management Agreements (IFMA) within the context of efficient forest management. Investigation on ways of accomplishing the objectives of the agency, community and commercial forestry in decreased costs is conducted. Results show a need for DENR’s redirection of financial and human resources to focus on critical environmental tasks. Focus on higher-value timber opportunities can increase the potential for sustainable management and increase in the government revenue collection.forestry sector, rent and fee