Conservation : concept and reality.

Before any individual, organisation or discipline contemplates its future, it is prudent to know where it currently stands, where it has come from and what the world around it is like. Thus to start a conference on ‘Current Trends and Future Directions in Archaeological Conservation’, it is surely prudent to consider, if briefly, what we understand conservation to be i.e. the concept of conservation, and something of the history of conservation to show how we got here. We also need to understand the reality of the world in which conservation exists, what others expect from conservation and conservators

Review of the list of LDCs

The Committee for Development Policy is required by Economic and Social Council resolution 1991/46 to conduct triennially a review to determine the countries to be added or graduated from the list of least developed countries (LDCs). Since the previous review was conducted in 2000, the Committee conducted another review in 2003. The Committee bases its identification of the LDCs on the consideration of three dimensions of a country's state of development - its income level, its stock of human assets and its economic vulnerability. The Committee thus uses (a) Gross National Income (GNI) per capita as an indicator of income; (b) the Human Assets Index (HAI) as an indicator of the stock of human assets; and (c) the Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI) as an indicator of economic vulnerability. In addition, because the underlying concept of the LDC category excludes large economies, in 1991 the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) endorsed the principle that no country with a population exceeding 75 million should be considered for addition to the list. --

Joined-Up Pensions Policy in the UK: An Asset-Libility Model for Simultaneously Determining the Asset Allocation and Contribution Rate

The trustees of funded defined benefit pension schemes must make two vital and inter-related decisions - setting the asset allocation and the contribution rate. While these decisions are usually taken separately, it is argued that they are intimately related and should be taken jointly. The objective of funded pension schemes is taken to be the minimization of both the mean and the variance of the contribution rate, where the asset allocation decision is designed to achieve this objective. This is done by splitting the problem into two main steps. First, the Markowitz mean-variance model is generalised to include three types of pension scheme liabilities (actives, deferreds and pensioners), and this model is used to generate the efficient set of asset allocations. Second, for each point on the risk-return efficient set of the asset-liability portfolio model, the mathematical model of Haberman (1992) is used to compute the corresponding mean and variance of the contribution rate and funding ratio. Since the Haberman model assumes that the discount rate for computing the present value of liabilities equals the investment return, it is generalised to avoid this restriction. This generalisation removes the trade-off between contribution rate risk and funding ratio risk for a fixed spread period. Pension schemes need to choose a spread period, and it is shown how this can be set to minimise the variance of the contribution rate. Finally, using the result that the funding ratio follows an inverted gamma distribution, shortfall risk and expected tail loss are computed for funding below the minimum funding requirement, and funding above the taxation limit. This model is then applied to one of the largest UK pension schemes - the Universities Superannuation Scheme

Behaving badly? The conservation of modern textile art

Textile conservators are increasingly likely to be asked to treat modern textile artworks. These often present new challenges: they may be made of unusual materials whose deterioration patterns are unfamiliar, they may utilise traditional textile techniques in unusual ways. Modern artworks may be hung in unconventional ways, or be displayed in spaces which are not standard museum venues. It is commonly accepted that it is necessary to gain as much information as possible in order to preserve the artist’s intent when treating modern artworks. Legislation also gives the artist moral rights over his or her work. The issues involved in the conservation of modern textile artworks are illustrated with examples of pieces treated at the Textile Conservation Centre, UK, among others, and with particular reference to a piece by Robert Rauschenberg

Using ODL and ICT to develop the skills of the unreached: a contribution to the ADEA triennial of the Working Group on Distance Education and Open Learning

Innovation in technology is occurring at rapid pace thus shrinking the distances and making information and knowledge more than ever accessible to everyone irrespective of where the person resides. This paper consists of four main articles. The first one deals with technological trends. The second one focuses on the deployment and use of open and distance education mode in rural areas by documenting initiatives that embrace information and communication technologies (ICTs). Due to challenges faced in rural areas only a few success stories/cases currently exist and some of these are cited in this article. The challenges faced in the deployment of ICT enhanced ODL have been highlighted as well as the potential of developing and delivering effective and relevant ODL programmes in rural areas in order to ensure that issues of educational equity and social exclusion rural communities are adequately addressed. ICTs in ODL are perhaps the greatest tool to date for self-education and value addition to any community’s development efforts, yet poor rural communities particularly in Africa do not have the necessary awareness, skills or facilities to enable themselves to develop using ICTs. Inadequate ICT infrastructures in rural areas remain a major source for the digital divide in Africa and for under-performance of distance learners. The third one analyses the support provided to ODL learners who often encounter difficulties in completing their studies through the distance education mode due to loneliness, uncertainties and de-motivation. ICT has not been able to sufficiently support distance learners in overcoming those obstacles efficiently. An investigation regarding those learning supports has been conducted in ten distance learning institutions, along with an intensive literature review with the aim of understanding the high percentage of dropout rates of distant learners. The learners’ interactions have been scrutinized through content analysis of their synchronous exchanges, during a completely online course. After taking into account the limited technical and human resources in Africa, a technological virtual environment along with a pedagogical framework has been proposed with the aim of giving adequate educational support to them. The fourth article has explored The Open University (UK) and its efforts to use new technologies to deliver online courses to difficult-to- reach learners in prison environments. The case study analysed here is an international course (called, B201- Business Organisations and their environments) which also touches an African cohort of learners. The implications for designing and delivering online ODL to the complex unreachable environments of prisons anywhere, and particularly in Africa, have been discussed

The Powerful Antitakeover Force of Staggered Boards: Theory, Evidence and Policy

Staggered boards, which a majority of public companies now have, provide a powerful antitakeover defense, stronger than is commonly recognized. They provide antitakeover protection both by (i) forcing any hostile bidder, no matter when it emerges, to wait at least one year to gain control of the board and (ii) requiring such a bidder to win two elections far apart in time rather than a one-time referendum on its offer. Using a new data set of hostile bids in the five-year period 1996-2000, we find that not a single hostile bid won a ballot box victory against an 'effective' staggered board (ESB). We also find that an ESB nearly doubled the odds of remaining independent for an average target in our data set, from 34% to 61%, halved the odds that a first bidder would be successful, from 34% to 14%, and reduced the odds of a sale to a white knight, from 32% to 25%. Furthermore, we find that the shareholders of targets that remained independent were made worse off compared with accepting the bid and that ESBs did not provide sufficient countervailing benefits in terms of increased premiums to offset the costs of remaining independent. Overall, we estimate that, in the period studied, ESBs reduced the returns of shareholders of hostile bid targets on the order of 8-10%. Finally, we show that most staggered boards were adopted before the developments in takeover doctrine that made ESBs such a potent defense.

Review and assessment of simplification measures in cohesion policy 2007-2013 : Report to policy department B: structural and cohesion policies

Simplification has been an ongoing feature of Cohesion policy reform debates since 1988, and the most recent simplification exercise responds to the economic crisis and involves measures for speeding up programme implementation. The study by John Bachtler and Carlos Mendez drew on an online survey of IQ-Net partners in May 2010 to assess their experience of individual simplification measures. The research also made extensive use of material from IQ-Net Review papers published over the past 18 months which have reported on the relevance and utility of the simplification exercise. The study found that these measures have been at least partially effective, with some programmes playing a major role in dealing with the crisis, through accelerated spending or special instruments. The longer term focus of attention is on how the current, administratively complex management and control system can be simplified while maintaining assurance on the regularity of spending