NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY V REGIONALISM; TOWARD A COMMON FISHERIES POLICY FOR CARICOM

The hypothesis which guides this thesis is that successful integration cannot be achieved so long as member states of a regional grouping are unwilling to subordinate the individual interest to the collective interest. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) – which is the second oldest regional institution in the Western Hemisphere – is the central focus of the work. In order to assess this hypothesis, the study first discusses the relevant integration literature, and then addresses the issue of individual vs. collective interests in CARICOM overall. Next it examines the specific functional area of fisheries which effectively illustrates the complexity of this dilemma. For nine years, member states have tried unsuccessfully to forge a Common Fisheries Policy and Regime to more effectively manage the region’s maritime resources. However, such an arrangement carries implications regarding perceived loss of sovereignty over portions of their Exclusive Economic Zones and this, inter alia, has kept member states from being able to unite on this issue. Boundary delimitation challenges, diverging national positions regarding the right of access to third party vessels and the lack of willingness to grant necessary powers to the implementing agency have also been shown to contribute to the lack of progress. In April 2011, an agreement on a common fisheries policy was finally established. However, given the considerably reduced reach of this agreement, the study concludes that CARICOM has continued to function as a regional group of independent states, in which maintenance of national sovereignty takes precedence over collective interest. Therefore, while committed in principle to deepening integration, the political leadership maintains a state-centric view that has compromised CARICOM’s effectiveness as a regional entity

Implementation of a disability management policy in a large healthcare employer: a quasi-experimental, mixed-method evaluation

Objective: This study describes the process and outcomes of the implementation of a strengthened disability management policy in a large Canadian healthcare employer. Key elements of the strengthened policy included an emphasis on early contact, the training of supervisors and the integration of union representatives in return-to-work (RTW) planning. Design: The study applied mixed methods, combining a process evaluation within the employer and a quasi-experimental outcome evaluation between employers for a 3-year period prior to and following policy implementation in January 2012. Participants: Staff in the implementation organisation (n=4000) and staff in a peer group of 29 large hospitals (n=1 19 000). Outcomes: Work disability episode incidence and duration. Results: Both qualitative and quantitative measures of the implementation process were predominantly positive. Over the 6-year observation period, there were 624 work disability episodes in the organisation and 8604 in the comparison group of 29 large hospitals. The annual per cent change in episode incidence in the organisation was −5.6 (95% CI −9.9 to −1.1) comparable to the annual per cent change in the comparison group: −6.2 (-7.2 to –5.3). Disability episode durations also declined in the organisation, from a mean of 19.4 days (16.5, 22.3) in the preintervention period to 10.9 days (8.7, 13.2) in the postintervention period. Reductions in disability durations were also observed in the comparison group: from a mean of 13.5 days (12.9, 14.1) in the 2009–2011 period to 10.5 days (9.9, 11.1) in the 2012–2014 period. Conclusion: The incidence of work disability episodes and the durations of work disability declined strongly in this hospital sector over the 6-year observation period. The implementation of the organisation’s RTW policy was associated with larger reductions in disability durations than observed in the comparison group

Implementation of a disability management policy in a large healthcare employer: a quasi-experimental, mixed-method evaluation

Objective: This study describes the process and outcomes of the implementation of a strengthened disability management policy in a large Canadian healthcare employer. Key elements of the strengthened policy included an emphasis on early contact, the training of supervisors and the integration of union representatives in return-to-work (RTW) planning. Design: The study applied mixed methods, combining a process evaluation within the employer and a quasi-experimental outcome evaluation between employers for a 3-year period prior to and following policy implementation in January 2012. Participants: Staff in the implementation organisation (n=4000) and staff in a peer group of 29 large hospitals (n=1 19 000). Outcomes: Work disability episode incidence and duration. Results: Both qualitative and quantitative measures of the implementation process were predominantly positive. Over the 6-year observation period, there were 624 work disability episodes in the organisation and 8604 in the comparison group of 29 large hospitals. The annual per cent change in episode incidence in the organisation was −5.6 (95% CI −9.9 to −1.1) comparable to the annual per cent change in the comparison group: −6.2 (-7.2 to –5.3). Disability episode durations also declined in the organisation, from a mean of 19.4 days (16.5, 22.3) in the preintervention period to 10.9 days (8.7, 13.2) in the postintervention period. Reductions in disability durations were also observed in the comparison group: from a mean of 13.5 days (12.9, 14.1) in the 2009–2011 period to 10.5 days (9.9, 11.1) in the 2012–2014 period. Conclusion: The incidence of work disability episodes and the durations of work disability declined strongly in this hospital sector over the 6-year observation period. The implementation of the organisation’s RTW policy was associated with larger reductions in disability durations than observed in the comparison group

Genericity versus expressivity - an exercise in semantic interoperable research information systems for Web Science

The web does not only enable new forms of science, it also creates new possibilities to study science and new digital scholarship. This paper brings together multiple perspectives: from individual researchers seeking the best options to display their activities and market their skills on the academic job market; to academic institutions, national funding agencies, and countries needing to monitor the science system and account for public money spending. We also address the research interests aimed at better understanding the self-organising and complex nature of the science system through researcher tracing, the identification of the emergence of new fields, and knowledge discovery using large-data mining and non-linear dynamics. In particular this paper draws attention to the need for standardisation and data interoperability in the area of research information as an indispensable pre-condition for any science modelling. We discuss which levels of complexity are needed to provide a globally, interoperable, and expressive data infrastructure for research information. With possible dynamic science model applications in mind, we introduce the need for a "middle-range" level of complexity for data representation and propose a conceptual model for research data based on a core international ontology with national and local extensions.Comment: Long version of a paper submitted to the WebScience 201

Fluorescently labeled circular DNA molecules for DNA topology and topoisomerases

DNA topology plays essential roles in several fundamental biological processes, such as DNA replication, recombination, and transcription. Typically agarose gel electrophoresis is employed to study DNA topology. Since gel electrophoresis is time-consuming and labor intensive, it is desirable to develop other methods, such as fluorescence-based methods, for such studies. In this paper we report the synthesis of a type of unique fluorescence-labeled DNA molecules that can be used to study DNA topology and topoisomerases by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). Specifically, we inserted an 82 nt. synthetic DNA oligomer FL905 carrying a 42 nt. AT sequence with fluorescein and dabcyl labels into a gapped DNA molecule to generate relaxed and supercoiled pAB1_FL905. Since the fluorescence intensity of pAB1_FL905 is dependent on its supercoiling status, pAB1_FL905 is a powerful tool to study DNA topology and topoisomerases by FRET. pAB1_FL905 can also be developed into rapid and efficient high-throughput screening assays to identify inhibitors that target various DNA topoisomerases

Forming Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in Few Million Years by Core Accretion

Giant planet formation process is still not completely understood. The current most accepted paradigm, the core instability model, explains several observed properties of the solar system's giant planets but, to date, has faced difficulties to account for a formation time shorter than the observational estimates of protoplanetary disks' lifetimes, especially for the cases of Uranus and Neptune. In the context of this model, and considering a recently proposed primordial solar system orbital structure, we performed numerical calculations of giant planet formation. Our results show that if accreted planetesimals follow a size distribution in which most of the mass lies in 30-100 meter sized bodies, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may have formed according to the nucleated instability scenario. The formation of each planet occurs within the time constraints and they end up with core masses in good agreement with present estimations.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, in press (Icarus