What role for knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in de-industrialised regions?

This paper seeks to provide insights into the structural role that Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) SMEs play in de-industrialised regions in the UK. The paper aims to establish what contribution KIBS make to their regional economies in terms of exports to other regions in the UK as well as abroad but also to what extent do they depend on the intermediate demand in their respective regions. The paper draws evidence from a survey of KIBS SMEs in the North East and the West Midlands conducted during the most recent recession. The results exhibit a degree of wider generalizability to other regions, which may be characterised by deindustrialisation. Results from the West Midlands and the North East survey show that although KIBS play an important role in the local economic base of de-industrialised regions they are not as important as their elite, tradable counterparts in global cities such as London. However, KIBS SMEs in the North East and West Midlands provide important support to their regional clients, many of which are in the declining manufacturing and public service sectors. A vast majority are also trading outside their respective regions

The European Union approach to flood risk management and improving societal resilience: lessons from the implementation of the Floods Directive in six European countries

Diversity in flood risk management approaches is often considered to be a strength. However in some national settings, and especially for transboundary rivers, variability and the incompatibility of approaches can reduce the effectiveness of flood risk management. Placed in the context of increasing flood risks, as well as the potential for flooding to undermine the European Union's sustainable development goals, a desire to increase societal resilience to flooding has prompted the introduction of a common European Framework. This paper provides a legal and policy analysis of the implementation of the Floods Directive (2007/60/EC) in six countries; Belgium (Flemish Region), England, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Evaluation criteria from existing legal and policy literature frame the study of the Directive and its impact on enhancing or constraining societal resilience by using an adaptive governance approach. These criteria are initially used to analyze the key components of the EU approach, before providing insight of the implementation of the Directive at a national level. Similarities and differences in the legal translation of European goals into existing flood risk management are analyzed alongside their relative influence on policy and practice. The research highlights that the impact of the Floods Directive on increasing societal resilience has been nationally variable, in part due to its focus on procedural obligations, rather than on more substantive requirements. Analysis shows that despite a focus on transboundary river basin management, in some cases existing traditions of flood risk management, have overridden objectives to harmonize flood risk management. This could be strengthened by requiring more stringent cooperation and providing the competent authorities in International River Basins Districts with more power. Despite some shortcomings in directly impacting flood risk outcomes, the Directive has positively stimulated discussion and flood risk management planning in countries that were perhaps lagging behind

The European Union approach to flood risk management and improving societal resilience: lessons from the implementation of the Floods Directive in six European countries

Diversity in flood risk management approaches is often considered to be a strength. However in some national settings, and especially for transboundary rivers, variability and the incompatibility of approaches can reduce the effectiveness of flood risk management. Placed in the context of increasing flood risks, as well as the potential for flooding to undermine the European Union's sustainable development goals, a desire to increase societal resilience to flooding has prompted the introduction of a common European Framework. This paper provides a legal and policy analysis of the implementation of the Floods Directive (2007/60/EC) in six countries; Belgium (Flemish Region), England, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Evaluation criteria from existing legal and policy literature frame the study of the Directive and its impact on enhancing or constraining societal resilience by using an adaptive governance approach. These criteria are initially used to analyze the key components of the EU approach, before providing insight of the implementation of the Directive at a national level. Similarities and differences in the legal translation of European goals into existing flood risk management are analyzed alongside their relative influence on policy and practice. The research highlights that the impact of the Floods Directive on increasing societal resilience has been nationally variable, in part due to its focus on procedural obligations, rather than on more substantive requirements. Analysis shows that despite a focus on transboundary river basin management, in some cases existing traditions of flood risk management, have overridden objectives to harmonize flood risk management. This could be strengthened by requiring more stringent cooperation and providing the competent authorities in International River Basins Districts with more power. Despite some shortcomings in directly impacting flood risk outcomes, the Directive has positively stimulated discussion and flood risk management planning in countries that were perhaps lagging behind

До питання підготовки музейної експозиції з історії культури первісного суспільства

In Europe, water management is moving from flood defense to a risk management approach, which takes both the probability and the potential consequences of flooding into account. In this report, we will look at Directives and (non-)EU- initiatives in place to deal with flood risk in Europe indirectly and directly. Emphasis will lie on the two Directives most specifically aimed at floods: the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Floods Directive (FD) – how are they related and how they have been or are implemented in the Member States (MSs)? In February 1995, the Netherlands and France took the initiative for a discussion on streamlining the water legislation of the European Union (EU) which resulted in the creation of the WFD in 2000. The WFD provided a new system for the protection and improvement of Europe’s water environment – its rivers, lakes, estuaries, coastal waters and groundwaters. Its main innovation is the requirement that water be managed in an integrated way, with river basin management as leading managing unit. Since flood protection is not explicitly addressed in the WFD, the need to clarify the role of the WFD in flood protection was put on the European agenda as early as 2003, and in 2007, the FD became a fact. The FD is to be implemented in coordination with the WFD, notably by coordinating Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMPs) and River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs). Both the WFD and the FD reflect a shift in EU-governance. Instead of the more traditional top-down legalistic approach they emphasise the importance of more bottom up initiatives from the actors who have to implement the Directives. Combined with the expanded freedom and flexibility for national and local governments, with this new approach, the FD is the first Water Directive in EU law that does not offer an equal minimum level of protection for EU citizens. While both Directives are meant to harmonise European legislation, much flexibility on objectives and measures in the FD is left to the MSs, justified by the nature of flooding and the subsidiarity principle. This creates multi-actor, multi-level and multi-sector challenges addressed in report D1.1.2 (Hegger et al. 2013). For instance, the FD sets out general obligations for transboundary cooperation, but at the national level, the scope and distributions of duties, rights and powers of the various organizations involved should be set out in law. Other challenges identified in the literature are concrete issues related to mandatory flood risks assessments, flood risk maps, and Flood Risk Management plans, but also the involvement of the public and stakeholders, the science-policy interface, uncertainties related to climate change predictions and effects, the coordination with the WFD, the lack of safety standards, the lack of possibilities for EU citizens to rely on substantive provisions before the administrative courts and finally, transboundary aspects such as issues of scale, mismatches between national policies, the assessment of transboundary effects and division of costs related to this. In sum, this report has clarified the development, content and implementation of the current European flood risk governance policies, possible synergies between the two most important Directives linked to floods, and identified topics and questions for more in-depth questions relevant for the next work packages, pertaining to, in no particular order, a) the level of implementation and level of ambition as well as the competent authorities in the case study countries; b) the transboundary nature of floods; c) synergies and conflicts between FD and WFD and other issues not mentioned in these Directives; d) the degree of harmonization, for instance when it comes to flood safety standards and e) the subsidiarity principle – is this conform the requirements set out in the FD? Because while current European flood regulation specified in the WFD and FD provides several potential opportunities for improving flood risk governance, it is not self-evident that all of these opportunities will materialise in all MSs

Five-year follow-up of participants diagnosed with chronic airflow obstruction in a South African Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease (BOLD) survey

Background. A community-based prevalence survey performed in two suburbs in Cape Town, South Africa (SA), in 2005, using the international Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease (BOLD) method, confirmed a prevalence of chronic airflow obstruction (CAO) in 23.1% of adults aged >40 years. Objectives. To study the clinical course and prognosis over 5 years of patients with CAO identified in the 2005 survey. Methods. Patients with CAO in 2005 were invited to participate. Standard BOLD and modified questionnaires were completed. Spirometry was performed using spirometers of the same make as in 2005. Results. Of 196 eligible participants from BOLD 2005, 45 (23.0%) had died, 8 from respiratory causes, 10 from cardiovascular causes and 6 from other known causes, while in 21 cases the cause of death was not known. On multivariate analysis, only age and Global initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage 4 disease at baseline were significantly associated with death. Of the 151 survivors, 11 (5.6% of the original cohort) were unavailable and 33 (16.8%) declined or had medical exclusions. One hundred and seven survivors were enrolled in the follow-up study (54.6%, median age 63.1 years, 45.8% males). Post-bronchodilator spirometry performed in 106 participants failed to confirm CAO, defined as a forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1)/forced vital capacity (FVC) ratio of <0.7, in 16 participants (15.1%), but CAO was present in 90. The median decline in FEV1 was 28.9 mL/year (interquartile range –54.8 - 0.0) and was similar between GOLD stages. The median total decline in FVC was 75 mL, and was significantly greater in GOLD stage 1 (–350 mL) than in stages 2 or 3 (–80 mL and +140 mL, respectively; p<0.01). Fifty-eight participants with CAO in 2005 (64.4%) remained in the same GOLD stage, while 21 (23.3%) deteriorated and 11 (12.2%) improved by ≥1 stage. Only one-third were receiving any treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Conclusions. The prevalence, morbidity and mortality of CAO and COPD in SA are high and the level of appropriate treatment is very low, pointing to underdiagnosis and inadequate provision of and access to effective treatments and preventive strategies for this priority chronic non-communicable disease.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Systematic behaviour of the in-plane penetration depth in d-wave cuprates

We report the temperature T and oxygen concentration dependences of the penetration depth of grain-aligned YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-\delta} with \delta= 0.0, 0.3 and 0.43. The values of the in-plane \lambda_{ab}(0) and out-of-plane \lambda_{c}(0) penetration depths, the low temperature linear term in \lambda_{ab}(T), and the ratio \lambda_{c}(0) /\lambda_{ab}(T) were found to increase with increasing $\delta$. The systematic changes of the linear term in \lambda_{ab}(T) with T_c found here and in recent work on HgBa_2Ca_{n-1} Cu_nO_{2n+2+\delta} (n = 1 and 3) are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Assessing the sublethal impacts of anthropogenic stressors on fish: an energy‐budget approach

Fish are increasingly exposed to anthropogenic stressors from human developments and activities such as agriculture, urbanization, pollution and fishing. Lethal impacts of these stressors have been studied but the potential sublethal impacts, such as behavioural changes or reduced growth and reproduction, have often been overlooked. Unlike mortality, sublethal impacts are broad and difficult to quantify experimentally. As a result, sublethal impacts are often ignored in regulatory frameworks and management decisions. Building on established fish bioenergetic models, we present a general method for using the population consequences of disturbance framework to investigate how stressors influence ecologically relevant life processes of fish. We partition impact into the initial energetic cost of attempts to escape from the stressor, followed by the energetic impacts of any injury or behavioural change, and their consequent effects on life processes. As a case study, we assess the sublethal effects of catch and release angling for the European sea bass (Dicentrachus labrax, Moronidae), a popular target species for recreational fishers. The energy budget model described is not intended to replace existing experimental approaches but does provide a simple way to account for sublethal impacts in assessment of the impact of recreational fisheries and aid development of robust management approaches. There is potential to apply our energy budget approach to investigate a broad range of stressors and cumulative impacts for many fish species while also using individual‐based models to estimate population‐level impacts

Shockwave synthesis of a thallium-based superconductor with a novel defect microstructure

We report the shock-wave synthesis at a yield ≳80% by volume of the single copper layer thalliumsuperconductor of composition Tl2Ba2CuO6. The as-synthesized material displays zero resistance near 55 K and a diamagnetic onset to bulk superconductivity at 70 K. Lattice imaging indicates that the superconducting microcrystals consist of a novel defect microstructure involving an intergrowth of two copper-oxygen layers probably interleaved by partial thallium and barium occupancy

A quantum Monte Carlo study of the one-dimensional ionic Hubbard model

Quantum Monte Carlo methods are used to study a quantum phase transition in a 1D Hubbard model with a staggered ionic potential (D). Using recently formulated methods, the electronic polarization and localization are determined directly from the correlated ground state wavefunction and compared to results of previous work using exact diagonalization and Hartree-Fock. We find that the model undergoes a thermodynamic transition from a band insulator (BI) to a broken-symmetry bond ordered (BO) phase as the ratio of U/D is increased. Since it is known that at D = 0 the usual Hubbard model is a Mott insulator (MI) with no long-range order, we have searched for a second transition to this state by (i) increasing U at fixed ionic potential (D) and (ii) decreasing D at fixed U. We find no transition from the BO to MI state, and we propose that the MI state in 1D is unstable to bond ordering under the addition of any finite ionic potential. In real 1D systems the symmetric MI phase is never stable and the transition is from a symmetric BI phase to a dimerized BO phase, with a metallic point at the transition