Guidelines for assessing favourable conservation status of Natura 2000 species and habitat types in Bulgaria

This executive summary describes the methodology for assessing the favourable conservation status of N2000 habitats and species on site level in Bulgaria and gives guidelines for its application. The methodology was developed in the frame of the BBI/Matra project 2006/014 “Favourable Conservation Status of Natura 2000 Habitat types and Species in Bulgaria”. The project was generously supported by the Dutch government under the BBI/Matra programme, which is a combination of two international policy programs of the Dutch government. The objectives and financial resources of the BBI/Matra Programme fall within the remit of the Matra Social Transformation Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and under the International Policy Program on Biodiversity of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality

Optimized production of large Bose Einstein Condensates

We suggest different simple schemes to efficiently load and evaporate a ''dimple'' crossed dipolar trap. The collisional processes between atoms which are trapped in a reservoir load in a non adiabatic way the dimple. The reservoir trap can be provided either by a dark SPOT Magneto Optical Trap, the (aberrated) laser beam itself or by a quadrupolar or quadratic magnetic trap. Optimal parameters for the dimple are derived from thermodynamical equations and from loading time, including possible inelastic and Majorana losses. We suggest to load at relatively high temperature a tight optical trap. Simple evaporative cooling equations, taking into account gravity, the possible occurrence of hydrodynamical regime, Feshbach resonance processes and three body recombination events are given. To have an efficient evaporation the elastic collisional rate (in s$^{-1}$) is found to be on the order of the trapping frequency and lower than one hundred times the temperature in micro-Kelvin. Bose Einstein condensates with more than $10^7$ atoms should be obtained in much less than one second starting from an usual MOT setup.Comment: 14 page

Corruption and economic growth: An econometric survey of the evidence

Does corruption grease or sand the wheels of economic growth? This paper provides a systematic evaluation of the effect of corruption on growth, using metaanalysis techniques for 460 estimates from 41 studies. We find that publication bias, albeit acute, does not dissipate the genuine and negative effect of corruption on growth. Among the main factors explaining the variation in the estimated effects, we find that taking account of (a) trade openness and institutions and (b) authors with academic affiliations (as opposed to think tanks and international organizations) seems to help generate less negative effects of corruption on growth

Making engineering education more sustainable through community-based learning and teaching

Community-based learning and teaching offers engineering students a transformative educational experience that extends beyond textbooks, labs and classrooms by engaging students in co-creation activities with local community as part of their formal learning. By immersing themselves in real-world community contexts, engineering students develop practical skills, cultivate a sense of social responsibility, and become well-rounded professionals prepared to tackle the intricate challenges of our ever-evolving world. Community-based learning and teaching takes engineering education beyond the confines of ‘in-house’ produced project proposal briefs, leads to better opportunities for interdisciplinary learning (beyond engineering ‘subdisciplines’) and more opportunities for creativity and flexibility in how engineering problems are approached and solved. As part of an institution-wide study, in this paper we share specific findings from engineering educators, as well as university-wide engagement professionals and those supporting teaching and learning (24 in total), on the barriers and opportunities to community-based learning and teaching approaches. Using semi-structured interviews, we used thematic analysis to generate a series of themes which aligned with four key beneficiaries within engineering education: academics, students and community partners and university. Our findings reveal the values and expectations, employability benefits and infrastructural considerations to implement this type of learning as part of future-facing and sustainable curricula in engineering. This includes areas such as motivation, role of the community, partnership building, development of leadership skills and networking and financial planning and relationship management. The findings also provide useful context-specific recommendations for educators seeking to develop their own sustainable approaches towards facilitating community-based learning and teaching in engineering disciplines

Viscosity of fluid membranes measured from vesicle deformation

Viscosity is a key mechanical property of cell membranes that controls time-dependent processes such as membrane deformation and diffusion of embedded inclusions. Despite its importance, membrane viscosity remains poorly characterized because existing methods rely on complex experimental designs and/or analyses. Here, we describe a facile method to determine the viscosity of bilayer membranes from the transient deformation of giant unilamellar vesicles induced by a uniform electric field. The method is non-invasive, easy to implement, probe-independent, high-throughput, and sensitive enough to discern membrane viscosity of different lipid types, lipid phases, and polymers in a wide range, from 10$^{-8}$ to 10$^{-4}$ Pa.s.m. It enables fast and consistent collection of data that will advance understanding of biomembrane dynamics

Mental Health Advocacy on Social Media: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Mental health remains one of today’s most relevant global issues. Mental health organisations (Mind, Rethink Mental Illness, Time to Change) provide resources on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) with the goal to support positive mental health and eradicate societal stigma. The aim of this PhD is to understand how these mental health organisations communicate during social media campaigns. To analyse this, Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework is applied to linguistics and visuals, enabling insights into multimodal meaning creation (e.g. through image/post structure, colours, participant representations and gaze). The WHO has previously pointed out that in order to improve global mental health, a "unifying" language needs to be adopted around all sectors of mental health activities, focusing on "health as opposed to illness" (WHO, 2004, p 24). Based on this, RQ1 investigates positive and negative evaluative valence charges. Findings (RQ1) show differences between organisations, with 100% positive visual affected individual evaluations in Mind, 90% in Time to Change (TTC), but only 59% in Rethink Mental Illness. RQ2 applies appraisal theory to explore linguistic and semiotic expression of agency, and finds agency ascribed to affected individuals in 100% of Mind advice posts, through positive capacity judgement evaluations, whilst TTC ascribes the most agency to external & potentially stigmatising societal attitudes. Finally, investigations into how charities position themselves amongst other participant voices using appraisal engagement resources (RQ3), outlines how Mind and TTC present exclusively affected individual acknowledgement engagement direct quotations, whilst Rethink relies on expanding the heteroglossic space to include professional expert voices. Appraisal engagement resources are further expanded to cover creation of unity, whereby Mind and TTC, not only align themselves with, but also position themselves as part of affected individual groups

A pump-probe study of the formation of rubidium molecules by ultrafast photoassociation of ultracold atoms

An experimental pump-probe study of the photoassociative creation of translationally ultracold rubidium molecules is presented together with numerical simulations of the process. The formation of loosely bound excited-state dimers is observed as a first step towards a fully coherent pump-dump approach to the stabilization of Rb$_2$ into its lowest ground vibrational states. The population that contributes to the pump-probe process is characterized and found to be distinct from a background population of pre-associated molecules.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. A (10 pages, 9 figures