Evaluating the impact of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) on corruption in Zambia

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is internationally recognised as a leading anti-corruption scheme, which promotes transparency, accountability and good governance of public oil, gas, and mining revenues. This article provides the first rigorous quantitative investigation of the impact of EITI on corruption in Zambia. Using a case-comparison approach, called the Synthetic Control Method (SCM), we find that the implementation of EITI provoked a significant decrease in corruption in Zambia (with the corruption-reducing effect of EITI being, though, much stronger at the earlier stages of implementation)

Experimental and numerical investigations on fracture process zone of rock-concrete interface

A crack propagation criterion for a rock-concrete interface is employed to investigate the evolution of the fracture process zone (FPZ) in rock-concrete composite beams under three-point bending (TPB). According to the criterion, cracking initiates along the interface when the difference between the mode I stress intensity factor (SIF) at the crack tip caused by external loading and the one caused by the cohesive stress acting on the fictitious crack surfaces reaches the initial fracture toughness of a rock-concrete interface. From the experimental results of the composite beams with various initial crack lengths but equal depths under TPB, the interface fracture parameters are determined. In addition, the FPZ evolution in a TPB specimen is investigated by using a digital image correlation (DIC) technique. Thus, the fracture processes of the rock-concrete composite beams can be simulated by introducing the initial fracture criterion to determine the crack propagation. By comparing the load versus crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) curves and FPZ evolution, the numerical and experimental results show a reasonable agreement, which verifies the numerical method developed in this study for analysing the crack propagation along the rock-concrete interface. Finally, based on the numerical results, the effect of ligament length on the FPZ evolution and the variations of the fracture model during crack propagation are discussed for the rock-concrete interface fracture under TPB. The results indicate that ligament length significantly affects the FPZ evolution at the rock-concrete interface under TPB, and the stress intensity factor ratio of mode II to I is influenced by the specimen size during the propagation of the interfacial crack.The financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the grants of NSFC 51478083, NSFC 51421064 and NSFC 51109026, and the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, Grant No. 2015CB057703) is gratefully acknowledged

Collection and consumption of non-wood forest products in Europe

Many Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) such as mushrooms and berries are collected and consumed in Europe; but both national statistical and scientific data on this topic are reported only for a limited number of countries, products, and case-study areas. Without an adequate quantitative basis, their importance as source of food and income, their links to recreation and cultural heritage, are all under-valued in forest-focused and forest-related policies. In this study we aimed to address this gap by assessing the consumption and collection of NWFPs through a statistically-representative survey in 28 European countries with over seventeen thousand respondents. Our results show that ninety percent of households consume NWFPs and about one quarter collects them. The consumption and collection rates, as well as the number of collected products and their contribution to household income, increase from West to East of Europe. The vast majority of collected products is consumed fresh. Households with higher income consume a more diverse range of NWFPs, especially in Western Europe. The relation between income and collection is more ambiguous, but there is some indication that the collection rate is higher than average among higher-income households in North and Western Europe, and among lower income households in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Households for which NWFP collection is the main income source are predominantly located in Eastern Europe, and they focus their activities on few key products. Our results also identify recreational, hobby and professional collectors, whose characteristics vary across socio-economic variables and geographical gradient. Recreational collectors in Western and Southern Europe collect 8 kilos of NWFPs from 5 different products, while recreational collectors in Central-Eastern and North-Baltic Europe collect about four times more from ten different products. Hobby collectors collect about one hundred kilos of NWFP per year and professional collectors half a ton, where both groups focus on eight to twelve different products. Professional collectors are predominantly located in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. We end the study by pointing to future research directions and with a series of policy recommendations on how NWFPs could be addressed along the geographical, income, and urban-rural gradient with respect to their role in forest recreation, as a food and income source