Who controls the European External Action Service? Agent autonomy in EU external relations

When the European External Action Service (EEAS) became operational on 1 January 2011 it was still not clear exactly what position it occupies in the pluralistic EU external policymaking system, where member states and supranational actors already operate with varying degrees of influence and autonomy. One way of clarifying this issue is to discuss the degree of autonomy the EEAS may have and to whom it is accountable. This paper uses a principal-agent (PA) framework of analysis to discuss the EEAS’ institutional design and policy mandates. Can the EEAS act autonomously? Are there policy areas in which the EEAS has greater decision-making autonomy than others? Such questions are central to discussions of the post-Lisbon Treaty EU’s role as an international actor

EU Foreign Relations after Lisbon: Tackling the Security-Development Nexus?

Presentation on department page: http://www.uia.no/no/portaler/om_universitetet/oekonomi_og_samfunnsvitenskap/statsvitenskap_og_ledelsesfag/ forskning_isl/isl_working_papers_seriesThe 2009 Lisbon Treaty sought to enhance the coherence of EU foreign policies by improving the conditions for collective action in the EU-level foreign relations system, including its interaction with member states. Several innovations aimed to facilitate collective action: the establishment of the European External Action Service, bringing EU institutions and member state officials together, is the most important. Policy-level innovations, in turn, have included a string of ‘comprehensive’, ‘joined-up’, and ‘whole-of-government’ approaches that have explicitly focussed on linking the various instruments in the EU’s tool box. Have these reforms led to improved policy coherence? We focus on a key domain that illustrates Europe’s engagement with the changing global context: the nexus of security and development policy. Drawing on post-Lisbon Treaty policy documents and interviews with officials from the EU foreign relations bureaucracy, we argue that collective action at the EU-level has improved somewhat since 2010. This has been accompanied by some improvements in the coherence of security and development policy. Nevertheless, decisionmaking is still affected by bureaucratic actors catering to specific constituencies and, accordingly, the coherence of security and development policies remains challenged. The EU institutions lack the strategic direction that would be provided by clear prioritisation of global policy objectives, but this is not possible in a system that lacks clear hierarchy. Without combining strategic direction with effective changes in the foreign relations apparatus, reforms aimed at improving collective action can only make a marginal impact on policy coherence

Report of the ARLIS/NA Presidential Task Force on Art Libraries and COVID-19

The Presidential Task Force on Art Libraries and COVID-19 was established in May 2020, with the charge “to assess and respond to ARLIS/NA members’ need for data about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on art information professionals by identifying and compiling existing sources of information and conducting survey(s) of the membership to fill identified information gaps.

EU Foreign Relations after Lisbon : Tackling the Security-Development Nexus?

Presentation on department page: http://www.uia.no/no/portaler/om_universitetet/oekonomi_og_samfunnsvitenskap/statsvitenskap_og_ledelsesfag/ forskning_isl/isl_working_papers_seriesThe 2009 Lisbon Treaty sought to enhance the coherence of EU foreign policies by improving the conditions for collective action in the EU-level foreign relations system, including its interaction with member states. Several innovations aimed to facilitate collective action: the establishment of the European External Action Service, bringing EU institutions and member state officials together, is the most important. Policy-level innovations, in turn, have included a string of ‘comprehensive’, ‘joined-up’, and ‘whole-of-government’ approaches that have explicitly focussed on linking the various instruments in the EU’s tool box. Have these reforms led to improved policy coherence? We focus on a key domain that illustrates Europe’s engagement with the changing global context: the nexus of security and development policy. Drawing on post-Lisbon Treaty policy documents and interviews with officials from the EU foreign relations bureaucracy, we argue that collective action at the EU-level has improved somewhat since 2010. This has been accompanied by some improvements in the coherence of security and development policy. Nevertheless, decisionmaking is still affected by bureaucratic actors catering to specific constituencies and, accordingly, the coherence of security and development policies remains challenged. The EU institutions lack the strategic direction that would be provided by clear prioritisation of global policy objectives, but this is not possible in a system that lacks clear hierarchy. Without combining strategic direction with effective changes in the foreign relations apparatus, reforms aimed at improving collective action can only make a marginal impact on policy coherence

The Security–Development Nexus in European Union Foreign Relations after Lisbon: Policy Coherence at Last?

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Effectiveness and efficiency of training in digital healthcare packages: Training doctors to use digital medical record keeping software

Objective: Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH) is the first hospital in Western Australia to implement a digital medical record (BOSSnet, Core Medical Solutions, Australia). Formal training in the use of the digital medical record is provided to all staff as part of the induction program. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether the current training program facilitates efficient and accurate use of the digital medical record in clinical practice. Methods: Participants were selected from the cohort of junior doctors employed at FSH in 2015. An e-Learning package of clinically relevant tasks from the digital medical record was created and, along with a questionnaire, completed by participants on two separate occasions. The time taken to complete all tasks and the number of incorrect mouse clicks used to complete each task were recorded and used as measures of efficiency and accuracy respectively. Results: Most participants used BOSSnet more than 10 times per day in their clinical roles and self-rated their baseline overall computer proficiency level as high. There was a significant increase in the self-rating of proficiency levels in successive tests. In addition, a significant improvement in both efficiency and accuracy for all participants was measured between the two tests. Interestingly, both groups ended up with similar accuracy on the second trial, despite the second group of participants starting with significantly poorer accuracy. Conclusions: Overall, the greatest improvements in task performance followed daily ward-based experience using BOSSnet rather than formalised training. The greatest benefits of training were noted when training was delivered in close proximity to the onset of employment. What is known about the topic? Formalised training in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) is widespread in the health service. However, there is limited evidence to support the modes of learning typically used. Formalised training is often costly and there is little other than anecdotal evidence that currently supports its efficacy in the workplace. What does the paper add? Assessment of accuracy when using the BOSSnet system over time revealed that daily use rather than formalised training appeared to have the most impact on performance. Formalised training was rated poorly, and this appeared to correlate with time between training and use. The present study suggests that formalised training, if required, should be delivered close in time to actual use of the system to benefit end-users. The study also shows that daily experience is more effective than formalised training to improve accuracy. What are the implications for practitioners? Formalised training for ICT needs to be scheduled in close proximity to end-user use of the ICT. Current scheduling may be beneficial for ease of delivery, but unless it is delivered at a suitable time the benefits are minimal. Formalised training programs may not be critical for all staff and all staff improve with contextualised experience given time. Training may be better suited to optional rather than compulsory delivery programs with ongoing delivery to suit user schedules

Moving polewards in winter: a recent change in the migratory strategy of a pelagic seabird?

Background: During the non-breeding period, many birds migrate to milder areas, found closer to the equator than their breeding sites. Opposite movements are very rare. In the Southern Ocean, the abundance of C-13 declines markedly with more southern latitude, providing a characteristic C-13 isoscape. This can be used as a tracer for the movement of seabirds between breeding and inter-breeding areas, by comparing stable isotope ratios of feathers grown at different times of the year. Results: We studied seasonal movements of Thin-billed prions (Aves, Procellariiformes), breeding at the Subantarctic Falkland/Malvinas Islands, compared with those of Wilson's storm-petrels breeding in the Antarctic South Shetland Islands. The two species showed opposite migratory movements. While Wilson's storm-petrels moved to warmer waters north of the Drake Passage in winter, Thin-billed prions showed a reversed movement towards more polar waters. Carbon stable isotope ratios in recent and historical feathers indicated that poleward winter movements of Thin-billed prions were less common historically (45% in 1913-1915), and have only recently become dominant (92% in 2003-2005), apparently in response to warming sea temperatures. Conclusions: This study shows that pelagic seabirds can rapidly change migration strategies within populations, including migration towards more poleward waters in winte

Comparative Density Functional Theory Study of Magnetic Exchange Coupling in Di-nuclear Transition Metal Complexes

Multi-center transition metal complexes (MCTMs) with magnetically interacting ions have been proposed as components for information processing devices and storage units. For any practical application of MCTMs as magnetic units, it is crucial to characterize their magnetic behavior, and in particular the isotropic magnetic exchange coupling, J, between its magnetic centers. Due to the large size of typical MCTMs, density functional theory (DFT) is the only practical electronic structure method for evaluating the J coupling. Here we assess the accuracy of different density functional approximations for predicting the magnetic couplings of seven di-metal transition metal complexes with known reliable experimental J couplings spanning from ferromagnetic to strong antiferromagnetic. The density functionals considered include global hybrid functionals which mix semilocal density functional approximations and exact exchange with a fixed admixing parameter, six local hybrid functionals where the admixing parameters are extended to be spatially dependent, the SCAN and r$^2$SCAN meta-generalized gradient approximations (GGAs), and two widely used GGAs. We found that global hybrids have a tendency to over-correct the error in magnetic coupling parameters from the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) GGA, while the performance of local hybrid density functionals is scattered without a clear trend, suggesting that more efforts are needed for the extension from global to local hybrid density functionals for this particular property. The SCAN and r$^2$SCAN meta-GGAs are found to perform as well or better than the global and local hybrids on most tested complexes. We further analyze the charge density redistribution of meta-GGAs as well as global and local hybrid density functionals with respect to that of PBE, in connection to the self-interaction error (SIE) or delocalization error