Weathering the Storm of Business Climate Rankings

This paper explores current usage of the term business climate. It discusses multiple definitions and measures of what constitutes a region's business climate. It also examines how usage of the term varies over time and geography. Finally, it addresses some issues related to business climate rankings, their role in economic development policy, and whether the multiplicity of published state rankings contribute consensus or confusion to the meaning of the term business climate.

Higher education reform: getting the incentives right

This study is a joint effort by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) and the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies. It analyses a number of `best practices¿ where the design of financial incentives working on the system level of higher education is concerned. In Chapter 1, an overview of some of the characteristics of the Dutch higher education sector is presented. Chapter 2 is a refresher on the economics of higher education. Chapter 3 is about the Australian Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). Chapter 4 is about tuition fees and admission policies in US universities. Chapter 5 looks at the funding of Danish universities through the so-called taximeter-model, that links funding to student performance. Chapter 6 deals with research funding in the UK university system, where research assessments exercises underlie the funding decisions. In Chapter 7 we study the impact of university-industry ties on academic research by examining the US policies on increasing knowledge transfer between universities and the private sector. Finally, Chapter 8 presents food for thought for Dutch policymakers: what lessons can be learned from our international comparison

Microfinance

These 14 policy briefs summarize lessons learned from IFPRI´s multicountry program on rural finance and household food security with regard to the poors' demand for financial services. The lessons are derived from detailed household surveys conducted in nine countries of Asia and Africa: Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Egypt, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Nepal, and Pakistan. The 14 summaries cover the results of research undertaken between 1994—2000.Finance Developing countries. ,Rural poor. ,Food security Asia ,Food security Africa ,

Exploring the perspectives of academic and senior management staff on the influence of global university rankings in the higher education context of Kazakhstan

Global university rankings (GURs) have gained popularity and practical importance in the last few decades as they are used as a proxy indicator of a university's reputation and quality by different stakeholders including governments, funders, and students. Deepening globalisation processes, competition between national university systems and demand for public organisations to be accountable and efficient have enhanced the role of GURs in higher education (HE). Although GURs are exposed to numerous critiques, including methodological limitations, they satisfy a demand for information about the quality of HE by making comparative assessments of thousands of universities globally and are becoming influential in decision-making pertaining to HE reforms and policymaking. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are eager to participate in GURs in building their global brand visibility and reputation, and in recruiting potential students.The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and experiences of academic and senior management staff on the impact of GURs at a public university, one of the leading universities of Kazakhstan in major GURs. This study adopted a qualitative exploratory design that included interviews (N = 17) with academic and senior management staff. Institutional theory and a theory of academic imperialism guided the study and provided useful perspectives in explaining the behaviour of HEIs in response to GURs as well as the growinghegemony of GURs in HE, especially in developing countries.The findings suggest that participation in GURs has led to profound changes in the sampled university, especially in terms of the prioritisation of the research performance of HEIs. In particular, this study reveals that GURs play a significant role in Kazakhstan’s HEIs strategies to regulate research activities through accountability and incentivisation policies. The findings indicate that the university focused on improving its ranking position through pressure to publish and via performance-based incentives. However, these measures did not result inimproved research performance. The findings also revealed barriers to enhanced research performance, including limited English language proficiency, a tension between teaching and research, and insufficient funding of research. A major finding is that academics at the university under study employed various gaming techniques such as gift authorship, publishing in predatory journals and exploiting methodological limitations of GURs in order to raise “an impression” of research productivity. Institutional data indicated that HEIs in Kazakhstan mainly improved their ranking position through reputational indicators and the Faculty Student Ratio indicator while citation indicators, which could reflect research productivity, are consistently low across all HEIs. This study makes a timely contribution to understanding the impact of GURs on HEIs of Kazakhstan as a country with ambitious plans for developing its HE sector.<br/

RIO Country Report 2015: Bulgaria

The 2015 series of RIO Country Reports analyse and assess the policy and the national research and innovation system developments in relation to national policy priorities and the EU policy agenda with special focus on ERA and Innovation Union. The executive summaries of these reports put forward the main challenges of the research and innovation systems.JRC.J.6-Innovation Systems Analysi

Protein abundance profiling of the Escherichia coli cytosol

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Knowledge about the abundance of molecular components is an important prerequisite for building quantitative predictive models of cellular behavior. Proteins are central components of these models, since they carry out most of the fundamental processes in the cell. Thus far, protein concentrations have been difficult to measure on a large scale, but proteomic technologies have now advanced to a stage where this information becomes readily accessible.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we describe an experimental scheme to maximize the coverage of proteins identified by mass spectrometry of a complex biological sample. Using a combination of LC-MS/MS approaches with protein and peptide fractionation steps we identified 1103 proteins from the cytosolic fraction of the <it>Escherichia coli </it>strain MC4100. A measure of abundance is presented for each of the identified proteins, based on the recently developed emPAI approach which takes into account the number of sequenced peptides per protein. The values of abundance are within a broad range and accurately reflect independently measured copy numbers per cell.</p> <p>As expected, the most abundant proteins were those involved in protein synthesis, most notably ribosomal proteins. Proteins involved in energy metabolism as well as those with binding function were also found in high copy number while proteins annotated with the terms metabolism, transcription, transport, and cellular organization were rare. The barrel-sandwich fold was found to be the structural fold with the highest abundance. Highly abundant proteins are predicted to be less prone to aggregation based on their length, pI values, and occurrence patterns of hydrophobic stretches. We also find that abundant proteins tend to be predominantly essential. Additionally we observe a significant correlation between protein and mRNA abundance in <it>E. coli </it>cells.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Abundance measurements for more than 1000 <it>E. coli </it>proteins presented in this work represent the most complete study of protein abundance in a bacterial cell so far. We show significant associations between the abundance of a protein and its properties and functions in the cell. In this way, we provide both data and novel insights into the role of protein concentration in this model organism.</p

Protein abundance profiling of the Escherichia coli cytosol

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Knowledge about the abundance of molecular components is an important prerequisite for building quantitative predictive models of cellular behavior. Proteins are central components of these models, since they carry out most of the fundamental processes in the cell. Thus far, protein concentrations have been difficult to measure on a large scale, but proteomic technologies have now advanced to a stage where this information becomes readily accessible.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we describe an experimental scheme to maximize the coverage of proteins identified by mass spectrometry of a complex biological sample. Using a combination of LC-MS/MS approaches with protein and peptide fractionation steps we identified 1103 proteins from the cytosolic fraction of the <it>Escherichia coli </it>strain MC4100. A measure of abundance is presented for each of the identified proteins, based on the recently developed emPAI approach which takes into account the number of sequenced peptides per protein. The values of abundance are within a broad range and accurately reflect independently measured copy numbers per cell.</p> <p>As expected, the most abundant proteins were those involved in protein synthesis, most notably ribosomal proteins. Proteins involved in energy metabolism as well as those with binding function were also found in high copy number while proteins annotated with the terms metabolism, transcription, transport, and cellular organization were rare. The barrel-sandwich fold was found to be the structural fold with the highest abundance. Highly abundant proteins are predicted to be less prone to aggregation based on their length, pI values, and occurrence patterns of hydrophobic stretches. We also find that abundant proteins tend to be predominantly essential. Additionally we observe a significant correlation between protein and mRNA abundance in <it>E. coli </it>cells.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Abundance measurements for more than 1000 <it>E. coli </it>proteins presented in this work represent the most complete study of protein abundance in a bacterial cell so far. We show significant associations between the abundance of a protein and its properties and functions in the cell. In this way, we provide both data and novel insights into the role of protein concentration in this model organism.</p