659 research outputs found
European Union Pension Directive
[Excerpt] This Directive thus represents a first step on the way to an internal market for occupational retirement provision organised on a European scale. By setting the ‘prudent person’ rule as the underlying principle for capital investment and making it possible for institutions to operate across borders, the redirection of savings into the sector of occupational retirement provision is encouraged, thus contributing to economic and social progress.
The prudential rules laid down in this Directive are intended both to guarantee a high degree of security for future pensioners through the imposition of stringent supervisory standards, and to clear the way for the efficient management of occupational pension schemes
Field-portable-XRF reveals the ubiquity of antimony in plastic consumer products.
Very little systematic information exists on the occurrence and concentrations of antimony (Sb) in consumer products. In this study, a Niton XL3t field-portable-X-ray fluorescence (FP-XRF) spectrometer was deployed in situ and in the laboratory to provide quantitative information on Sb dissipated in plastic items and fixtures (including rubber, textile and foamed materials) from the domestic, school, vehicular and office settings. The metalloid was detected in 18% of over 800 measurements performed, with concentrations ranging from about 60 to 60,000μgg(-1). The highest concentrations were encountered in white, electronic casings and in association with similar concentrations of Br, consistent with the use of antimony oxides (e.g. Sb2O3) as synergistic flame retardants. Concentrations above 1000μgg(-1), and with or without Br, were also encountered in paints, piping and hosing, adhesives, whiteboards, Christmas decorations, Lego blocks, document carriers, garden furniture, upholstered products and interior panels of private motor vehicles. Lower concentrations of Sb were encountered in a wide variety of items but its presence (without Br) in food tray packaging, single-use drinks bottles, straws and small toys were of greatest concern from a human health perspective. While the latter observations are consistent with the use of antimony compounds as catalysts in the production of polyethylene terephthalate, co-association of Sb and Br in many products not requiring flame retardancy suggests that electronic casings are widely recycled. Further research is required into the mobility of Sb when dissipated in new, recycled and aged polymeric materials
Securing effective and equitable coverage of marine protected areas : the UK's progress towards achieving Convention on Biological Diversity commitments and lessons learned for the way forward
Current international agreements call for protecting 10% of marine and coastal waters by 2020, with the intention of increasing that target to 30% by 2030. With 24% of its territorial waters protected, the UK falls short of the new expected target. As well as quantitative targets, qualitative criteria have been internationally agreed for protected area designation, including minimum coverage values and characteristics that encompass effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscape and seascape. The legal framework supporting protected area designations at sea is summarized and explained for UK territorial waters. Efforts to date to achieve current marine protected area (MPA) targets are reviewed, with emphasis on how well the existing protected area portfolio captures the qualitative criteria. Examples are given of other effective conservation measures complementary to formalized MPAs, especially with regard to achieving and promoting qualitative criteria for biodiversity conservation, including appropriate recognition of and support for areas conserved by indigenous people, local communities and private entities. A precis on the governance of MPAs and other effective conservation measures in the UK and its overseas territories is presented. Whilst the UK has made exceptional progress with quantitative MPA coverage, it is still not clear whether designated areas offer effective protection. A UK-level strategy is in place to address this; and at site level, Lyme Bay MPA illustrates the benefits of addressing qualitative criteria. Illustrated by the UK example, an urgent call is made for ongoing and future marine in situ area-based conservation efforts to substantiate quantitative and qualitative considerations, and to ensure that MPA networks are ultimately fit for purpose
Frequency-dependence of large-signal properties in lead-free piezoceramics
The dependence of large signal properties of (1-x)(0.81Bi 1/2Na 1/2TiO 3-0.19Bi 1/2K 1/2TiO 3)-xBi(Zn 1/2Ti 1/2)O 3 with x 0.02, 0.03, and 0.04 on the measurement frequency was investigated for a wide range of frequencies from 0.1 Hz to 100 Hz. A significant frequency dispersion in the characteristic parameters representatively maximum and coercive values was denoted. On extension with the temperature dependent dielectric permittivity measurement, it was shown that the observed frequency dependence is primarily correlated with the dynamics of field-induced phase transition from a relaxor state to a long-range ferroelectric state. Increasing the substitutional disorder introduced by Bi(Zn 1/2Ti 1/2)O 3 addition was demonstrated to pronounce the frequency dependence. It was proposed that the change be due to the increase in random fields and consequent dominance of ergodicity, based on the frequency-dependent hysteresis measurements at an elevated temperature above so-called induced-ferroelectric-to-relaxor transition temperature.open8
The rise and change of the competence strategy: reflections on twenty-five years of skills policies in the EU
The principal aim of this article is to provide a historical overview of 25 years of competence policy in the European Union, highlighting connections between past and current initiatives and outlining possible scenarios for the decade to come. The article presents the social investment turn in social policy as the critical political background against which the emergence of a competence strategy in European Union education policy should be analysed and understood. The competence strategy, it is argued, finds its roots in a renewed attention at the European Union level for harmonising educational outputs and labour market demands. While trying to produce a schematic history of the emergence and change of the competence strategy, the article does not seek to offer strict definitions of competence itself; instead, it conveys the nebulous and context-dependent nature of the concept
Bridging rhetoric and practice: new perspectives on barriers to gendered change
Contains fulltext :
167537.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)This article presents a new methodology, Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis, and uses it to examine the processes under way when transformative gender equality policies, such as gender mainstreaming are implemented. Drawing on data gathered in the European Commission, the findings show the processes linking high-level rhetorical policy statements, strategic policies, and daily working practices. This analysis enables exploration of the mechanisms through which indifference to and nonawareness of gendered policy problems are collectively constituted and methods through which they can be challenged. Findings thus deepen our understanding of barriers to the implementation of gender mainstreaming and the steps required for its effective implementation.20 juli 201
Analysis of trends in mapping and assessment of ecosystem condition in Europe
Ecosystem condition is the overall quality of an ecosystem unit, in terms of its biological, physical and chemical characteristics underpinning its capacity to generate ecosystem services. Changes in ecosystem condition affect the delivery of services and therefore human well-being. Despite increasing research in this field, the relations between biodiversity, ecosystem condition and services are still not well understood. This study examined scientific articles and reports to analyse the development of ecosystem condition mapping and assessments in Europe since the year 2000. The aim was to provide an overview of the current state of research and to highlight some challenges for ecosystem condition and ecosystem services research. The review analysed the ecosystems under study, scales, methods, indicators, and the ecosystem services assessed. Based on this review, some gaps were identified, especially in the methods used for condition assessment, the coverage of ecosystems, and the applicability of indicators in policy. It is necessary to develop integrative methods to determine ecosystems condition and its influence on the ecosystem service provision, in order to produce robust information. The results of this review can be harnessed by people who need an overview about existing ecosystem condition studies, such as scientists, land managers or decision makers
Concentrations and Migratabilities of Hazardous Elements in Second-Hand Children's Plastic toys.
About 200 second-hand plastic toys sourced in the UK have been analyzed by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry for hazardous elements (As, Ba, Cd, Cr, Hg, Pb, Sb, Se) and Br as a proxy for brominated flame retardants. Each element was detected in >20 toys or components thereof with the exception of As, Hg, and Se, with the frequent occurrence of Br, Cd, and Pb and at maximum concentrations of about 16000, 20000, and 5000 μg g-1, respectively, of greatest concern from a potential exposure perspective. Migration was evaluated on components of 26 toys under simulated stomach conditions (0.07 M HCl) with subsequent analysis by inductively coupled plasma spectrometry. In eight cases, Cd or Pb exceeded their migration limits as stipulated by the current EU Toy Safety Directive (17 and 23 μg g-1, respectively), with Cd released from yellow and red Lego bricks exceeding its limit by 1 order of magnitude. Two further cases were potentially noncompliant based on migratable Cr, with one item also containing >250 μg g-1migratable Br. While there is no retroactive regulation on second-hand toys, consumers should be aware that old, mouthable, plastic items may present a source of hazardous element exposure to infants
Beyond the Front Page: Measuring Third Party Dynamics in the Field
In the modern Web, service providers often rely heavily on third parties to
run their services. For example, they make use of ad networks to finance their
services, externally hosted libraries to develop features quickly, and
analytics providers to gain insights into visitor behavior.
For security and privacy, website owners need to be aware of the content they
provide their users. However, in reality, they often do not know which third
parties are embedded, for example, when these third parties request additional
content as it is common in real-time ad auctions.
In this paper, we present a large-scale measurement study to analyze the
magnitude of these new challenges. To better reflect the connectedness of third
parties, we measured their relations in a model we call third party trees,
which reflects an approximation of the loading dependencies of all third
parties embedded into a given website. Using this concept, we show that
including a single third party can lead to subsequent requests from up to eight
additional services. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the third parties
embedded on a page load are not always deterministic, as 50% of the branches in
the third party trees change between repeated visits. In addition, we found
that 93% of the analyzed websites embedded third parties that are located in
regions that might not be in line with the current legal framework. Our study
also replicates previous work that mostly focused on landing pages of websites.
We show that this method is only able to measure a lower bound as subsites show
a significant increase of privacy-invasive techniques. For example, our results
show an increase of used cookies by about 36% when crawling websites more
deeply
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