EU Conditionality on Nationality-Sensitive Matters in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Promoting Democracy or Maintaining the Status Quo? EDAP 5/2013

This paper will analyse the impact of the EU conditionality in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and its efficacy in promoting democratic changes in this country. It will be argued that as BiH is a unique case, its constitutional constraints must be taken into account because every reform that affects the difficult balance between the three main ethno-religious groups of BiH is perceived as a nationality-sensitive issue and is therefore vulnerable to political pressure. With reference to two specific situations where EU has demanded the BiH political elites to adopt EU-compatible reforms, namely the police reform process and the implementation of the Sejdić and Finci ruling, it will be argued that the use of the conditionality tool has increased inter-ethnic polarization among the political parties, thus preventing Bosnia and Herzegovina from moving forward in the EU integration process

Formes coopératives hybrides

On constate avec un intérêt croissant la transformation d’organisations du tiers secteur en organisations hybrides. Les chercheurs se sont penchés sur les processus d’« hybridation » ayant mené au développement de l’entreprise sociale, dont l’incarnation la plus remarquable est le modèle italien de la coopérative sociale. Il s’agit d’un modèle doublement « hybride », tant par son mode de gouvernance que par la diversité de ses pourvoyeurs de ressources. D’autres formes hybrides de coopératives se sont développées au cours de ces dernières années, en particulier dans le secteur des coopératives agricoles, qui ont adopté certaines pratiques des entreprises privées (par exemple au niveau des droits de vote). D’autres formes d’hybridation ont concerné les coopératives de consommateurs ou les coopératives ouvrières. Parfois, ce processus s’opère au niveau multi-organisationnel, avec le développement de structures de holding, lorsqu’une coopérative diversifie ses activités en créant une filiale ou en ayant recours à une structure d’entreprise traditionnelle. Abstract in English: There is growing interest in the transformation of third sector organizations into hybrid forms of organization. Researchers focus attention on some of the ‘hybridization’ processes that lead to the development of what is often recognized as a major new hybrid organization: the social enterprise. One of the most notable examples of this is the social cooperative model in Italy, which is “hybridized” in two respects: firstly in adopting a multi-stakeholder governance structure and secondly in terms of using multiple resources. We have also witnessed other hybrid forms of cooperatives develop over the years, particularly in the agricultural cooperatives sector, where we have seen changes (for example in voting rights) moving the form closer to that of private business. And in the consumer cooperatives and worker cooperatives sectors we have seen other patterns of hybridization. Sometimes this functions at the multi-organizational level, where we have seen the growth of holding structures when a cooperative grows and diversifies by developing a line of business which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the cooperative and uses a conventional company structure

Skating With Donovan: Thoughts on Librarianship as a Profession

James M. Donovan’s article: Skating on Thin Intermediation: Can Libraries Survive?, 27 Legal Reference Services Q. 95 (no. 2-3, 2008) argues that librarians place more emphasis than they might on providing service to library users at a time when information seekers are relying less on intermediaries, and that over-emphasizing service to the detriment of other values diminishes the status of librarianship as a profession. The article presents two contrasting models of librarianship. This article discusses Donovan’s models and comments on the continuing importance of the service model to librarianship

Skating With Donovan: Thoughts on Librarianship as a Profession

James M. Donovan’s article: Skating on Thin Intermediation: Can Libraries Survive?, 27 Legal Reference Services Q. 95 (no. 2-3, 2008) argues that librarians place more emphasis than they might on providing service to library users at a time when information seekers are relying less on intermediaries, and that over-emphasizing service to the detriment of other values diminishes the status of librarianship as a profession. The article presents two contrasting models of librarianship. This article discusses Donovan’s models and comments on the continuing importance of the service model to librarianship

Sustainability ranking of desalination plants using Mamdani Fuzzy Logic Inference Systems

As water desalination continues to expand globally, desalination plants are continually under pressure to meet the requirements of sustainable development. However, the majority of desalination sustainability research has focused on new desalination projects, with limited research on sustainability performance of existing desalination plants. This is particularly important while considering countries with limited resources for freshwater such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as it is heavily reliant on existing desalination infrastructure. In this regard, the current research deals with the sustainability analysis of desalination processes using a generic sustainability ranking framework based on Mamdani Fuzzy Logic Inference Systems. The fuzzy-based models were validated using data from two typical desalination plants in the UAE. The promising results obtained from the fuzzy ranking framework suggest this more in-depth sustainability analysis should be beneficial due to its flexibility and adaptability in meeting the requirements of desalination sustainability

Extended RDF: Computability and Complexity Issues

ERDF stable model semantics is a recently proposed semantics for ERDF ontologies and a faithful extension of RDFS semantics on RDF graphs. In this paper, we elaborate on the computability and complexity issues of the ERDF stable model semantics. Based on the undecidability result of ERDF stable model semantics, decidability under this semantics cannot be achieved, unless ERDF ontologies of restricted syntax are considered. Therefore, we propose a slightly modified semantics for ERDF ontologies, called ERDF #n- stable model semantics. We show that entailment under this semantics is, in general, decidable and also extends RDFS entailment. Equivalence statements between the two semantics are provided. Additionally, we provide algorithms that compute the ERDF #n-stable models of syntax-restricted and general ERDF ontologies. Further, we provide complexity results for the ERDF #nstable model semantics on syntax-restricted and general ERDF ontologies. Finally, we provide complexity results for the ERDF stable model semantics on syntax-restricted ERDF ontologies