Governance and small states

This paper attempts to assess how small states perform in terms of governance using the so- called Kaufmann Index as a yardstick. The issue of “good governance” has been at the centre of the development debate for many years. It has major normative implications and it is therefore subject to political and cultural interpretations. However, there is a broad measure of agreement on what might be termed essential elements such as open, transparent, accountable, efficient, effective and responsive administration. Respect for human rights and the rule of law is also generally included in the definition of good governance. Governance is very important for all states, but it is particularly important for small states, which are often characterized by very limited resources endowments and are very exposed to the negative effects of external shocks. In the quest for economic development, effective, stable and accountable governments are indispensable. Recently, good governance has been associated with economic resilience building, mainly for small states, which are very highly prone to external shocks and the promotion of good governance in the public and private sector of small states was considered to be a major element of an integrated approach for resilience building (Briguglio et al., 2006). The paper is organised in five sections. Section 2 which follows this introduction deals with the meaning of good governance, while section 3 describes a number of governance indicators, focussing on the Kaufmann Index. Section 4 uses the Kaufmann index to assess the performance on small states in terms of good governance. Section 5 concludes the paper.peer-reviewe

Bor de la fibre de Milnor d'une singularité Nexton-non-dégénérée de surface complexe

We give in this work an explicit combinatorial algorithm for the description of the Milnor fiber of a Newton non degenerate surface singularity as a graph manifold. This is based on a previous work by the author describing a general method for the computation of the boundary of the Milnor fiber of any reduced non isolated singularity of complex surface.Nous donnons dans ce travail un algorithme explicite permettant la description de la fibre de Milnor d'une singularité de surface Newton non dégénérée. Ce travail est basé sur un travail précédent de l'auteur proposant une méthode générale pour le calcul du bord de la fibre de Milnor d'une singularité réduite non-isolée de surface complex

Validating informal and non-formal learning through lifepass

The need to recognise and validate informal and non-formal learning has been recognised as part of Europe's Lisbon Strategy. and again in the EU2020 Strategy. This is both for economic reasons and social reasons. On an economic level Europe needs to havee a skilled workforce. Documenting all skills and competences thus becomes relevant. On a social level, many limes it is those marginalised citizens or those at risk of poverty who often do not possess formal qualifications but learn through their life and work experiences. This paper describes and discusses the development of an innovative ICT tool, Lifepass, to be used for the validation of informal and nonformal learning. This tool provides new approaches to present evidence of individuals' knowledge, skills and competences which is much more powerful than the Europass CV and different to the traditional porifolio. The results of the piloting exercise of Lifepass across ten different sectors and in nine different countries will be presented. Although not finalised and some problems were identified with respect to Lifepass, the researchers felt that Lifepass is a powerful tool which, although still needing further developed for the validation of informal and non-formal learning, can be that tool which suprecedes the Europass CV at European level.peer-reviewe

Comparison of the photoluminescence properties of semiconductor quantum dots and non-blinking diamond nanoparticles. Observation of the diffusion of diamond nanoparticles in living cells

Long-term observations of photoluminescence at the single-molecule level were until recently very diffcult, due to the photobleaching of organic ?uorophore molecules. Although inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals can overcome this diffculty showing very low photobleaching yield, they suffer from photoblinking. A new marker has been recently introduced, relying on diamond nanoparticles containing photoluminescent color centers. In this work we compare the photoluminescence of single quantum dots (QDs) to the one of nanodiamonds containing a single-color center. Contrary to other markers, photoluminescent nanodiamonds present a perfect photostability and no photoblinking. At saturation of their excitation, nanodiamonds photoluminescence intensity is only three times smaller than the one of QDs. Moreover, the bright and stable photoluminescence of nanodiamonds allows wide field observations of single nanoparticles motion. We demonstrate the possibility of recording the tra jectory of such single particle in culture cells

Molecular Interactions of the Min Protein System Reproduce Spatiotemporal Patterning in Growing and Dividing Escherichia coli Cells

© 2015 Walsh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Oscillations of the Min protein system are involved in the correct midcell placement of the divisome during Escherichia coli cell division. Based on molecular interactions of the Min system, we formulated a mathematical model that reproduces Min patterning during cell growth and division. Specifically, the increase in the residence time of MinD attached to the membrane as its own concentration increases, is accounted for by dimerisation of membrane- bound MinD and its interaction with MinE. Simulation of this system generates unparalleled correlation between the waveshape of experimental and theoretical MinD distributions, suggesting that the dominant interactions of the physical system have been successfully incorporated into the model. For cells where MinD is fully-labelled with GFP, the model reproduces the stationary localization of MinD-GFP for short cells, followed by oscillations from pole to pole in larger cells, and the transition to the symmetric distribution during cell filamentation. Cells containing a secondary, GFP-labelled MinD display a contrasting pattern. The model is able to account for these differences, including temporary midcell localization just prior to division, by increasing the rate constant controlling MinD ATPase and heterotetramer dissociation. For both experimental conditions, the model can explain how cell division results in an equal distribution of MinD and MinE in the two daughter cells, and accounts for the temperature dependence of the period of Min oscillations. Thus, we show that while other interactions may be present, they are not needed to reproduce the main characteristics of the Min system in vivo

Teaching sustainable and integrated resource management using an interactive nexus model

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to enhance and complement teaching about resource system feedbacks and environmental modelling. Students were given an interactive exercise based on a research model (ForeseerTM), developed by an inter-disciplinary research team, that explores the interconnectivity of water, energy and land resources. Two groups of students were involved, one of undergraduates and the other of graduates. Design/methodology/approach – The Foreseer model represents physical flows of the three resources (water, energy and land) using an interactive visual interface. The exercise was set up by giving students short instructions about how to use the tool to create four scenarios, and an online questionnaire was used to capture their understanding and their ability to extract information from the model. Findings – The exercise proved to be a helpful way to connect research and teaching in higher education, to the benefit of both. For students, it was an interactive and engaging way to learn about these complex sustainability issues. At the same time, it provided tangible feedback to researchers working on the model about the clarity of its user interface and its pedagogic value. Originality/value – This exercise represents a novel use of a resource model as a teaching tool in the study of the water, energy and land nexus, and is relevant to sustainability educators as an example of a model-centred learning approach on this topic. This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Emerald via http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-02-2014-002

Marketing and the public service

What is Marketing? Every year at the start of the academic year, I ask this question to freshers, enthusiastic about taking Marketing as their major. The hands-up responses are always insightful. “The ability to get people to click on ads” is a typical response; “understanding consumers to create more saleable products” or “the ability to find a product that satisfies peoples’ needs”, to name a familiar few. Many consider marketing as the ability to sell more for increased profitability. However, Marketing is more encompassing than this. The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large” (AMA, 2017).peer-reviewe

Vibronic resonances facilitate excited state coherence in light harvesting proteins at room temperature

Until recently it was believed that photosynthesis, a fundamental process for life on earth, could be fully understood with semi-classical models. However, puzzling quantum phenomena have been observed in several photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes, prompting questions regarding the nature and role of these effects. Recent attention has focused on discrete vibrational modes that are resonant or quasi-resonant with excitonic energy splittings and strongly coupled to these excitonic states. Here we unambiguously identify excited state coherent superpositions in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes using a new experimental approach. Decoherence on the timescale of the excited state lifetime allows low energy (56 cm-1) oscillations on the signal intensity to be observed. In conjunction with an appropriate model, these oscillations provide clear and direct experimental evidence that the persistent coherences observed require strong vibronic mixing among excited states