QCA as an approach to make sense of micro-level data-centric practices for policy innovation: a walk-through

The paper explores the potentialities and challenges of using a comparative research method — Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) — as a methodological approach for researching policy innovation. The paper argues for QCA to constitute a rigorous and systematic way to explore policy innovation using micro-level experimental and innovative practices in the public sector as the empirical base. Conceptually, we propose considering the importance of policy workers in policy innovation processes. This proposal addresses a gap in policy innovation research that appears to have mostly focused on entrepreneurship while under-appreciating other individual agency explanations of change (e.g., policy workers). Policy innovation researchers should therefore reframe the concept of policy innovation from an out-based view to a process-based view, while avoiding the development of ideographic knowledge. To address this issue, we provide a walk-through of using QCA as a methodological approach to investigate data-centric practices in the public sector. In the walk-through, we simulate the execution of the first three steps of approaching different cases of data-centric practices through QCA, identifying variables and calibrating them. Other researchers might find this approach useful to investigate similar innovative practices in the public sector in the perspective of policy innovation

Food safety regulation in Europe: how to measure performance and effectiveness

The paper aims to review the existing empirical literature on food safety regulation in Europe, in order to assess how performance and effectiveness are measured. The paper explores the main empirical contributions that describe the measurement process that has been applied in the literature to operationalize some key variables. Those variables have been identified through a preliminary literature review. This allowed to draw a general picture of the state of the art in the field of food regulation and to go deeper into unsolved research questions. Furthermore, measurement and operationalization processes are assessed. The method used is systematic review, which allows replicability and relies on the key principles of objectivity and scientific rigor. The paper eventually discusses the results in order to set the ground for further empirical analysis on the impact that the institutional regime (i.e. regulation, regulators and controllers) has on the effectiveness of food regulation

How does the professionalisation of farmer collectives enable effective agri-environmental schemes? A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 36 Dutch farmer collectives

Agriculture is the main land use and one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss. In particular, intensive farming practices have contributed to biodiversity loss, which is why many governments have implemented agri-environmental schemes (AES). Farmer collaboration at landscape level is important to achieve effective AES. The Dutch government opted for such an approach and decided that only farmer collectives were entitled to take part in AES. In this paper, we evaluate 36 Dutch farmer collectives. Through the lens of professionalisation, we investigated which characteristics of professionalisation enable farmer collectives to work towards an effective AES in terms of collaboration at landscape level. We used spatial concentration of conservation measures as a measurement of an effective AES and, based on expert judgement, selected five characteristics of professionalisation that directly impact AES effectiveness. We applied a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) in order to explore which of these characteristics singly or in combination contribute most to spatial concentration. We found that different combinations of characteristics of professionalisation enable farmer collectives to work towards spatial concentration. First, we found that working on the maintenance and development of qualifications of participants is for most farmer collectives important to work on more spatial concentration. Second, the combination of having a strategy for agrobiodiversity in combination with working on the qualifications of the field workers is important. And when the network capability or the presence and use of enabling systems are missing, the qualifications of the field workers is important. Based on our findings, we conclude that the qualifications of participants and fieldworkers (i.e., regional coordinator, ecologist and field officer) are the most important characteristics of professionalisation to contribute to spatial concentration at the moment

Characterization of ion-beam-sputtered AlF3_3 thin films for gravitational-wave interferometers

Thermal noise in amorphous coatings is a limitation for a wide range of precision experiments such as gravitational-wave detectors (GWDs). Mirrors for GWDs are composed of multiple thin layers of dielectric materials deposited on a substrate: the stack is made of layers with a high refractive index interleaved with layers of a low refractive index. The goal is to obtain high reflectivity and low thermal noise. In this paper we report on the optical and mechanical properties of ion-beamsputtered aluminium fluoride (AlF3) thin films which have one of the lowest refractive index among the known coating materials and we discuss their application in current and future GWDs

Elastic (stress-strain) halo associated to ion-induced nano-tracks in lithium niobate: role of crystal anisotropy

The elastic strain/stress fields (halo) around a compressed amorphous nano-track (core) caused by a single high-energy ion impact on LiNbO3 are calculated. A method is developed to approximately account for the effects of crystal anisotropy of LiNbO3 (symmetry 3m) on the stress fields for tracks oriented along the crystal axes (X, Y or Z). It only considers the zero-order (axial) harmonic contribution to the displacement field in the perpendicular plane and uses effective Poisson moduli for each particular orientation. The anisotropy is relatively small; however, it accounts for some differential features obtained for irradiations along the crystallographic axes X, Y and Z. In particular, the irradiation-induced disorder (including halo) and the associated surface swelling appear to be higher for irradiations along the X- or Y-axis in comparison with those along the Z-axis. Other irradiation effects can be explained by the model, e.g. fracture patterns or the morphology of pores after chemical etching of tracks. Moreover, it offers interesting predictions on the effect of irradiation on lattice parameter

Do Circulating Extracellular Vesicles Strictly Reflect Bronchoalveolar Lavage Extracellular Vesicles in COPD?

Cell-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) found in the circulation and body fluids contain biomolecules that could be used as biomarkers for lung and other diseases. EVs from bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) might be more informative of lung abnormalities than EVs from blood, where informa- tion might be diluted. To compare EVs’ characteristics in BAL and blood in smokers with and without COPD. Same-day BAL and blood samples were obtained in 9 nonsmokers (NS), 11 smokers w/o COPD (S), and 9 with COPD (SCOPD) (FEV1: 59 ± 3% pred). After differential centrifugation, EVs (200–500 nm diameter) were identified by flow cytometry and labeled with cell-type specific antigens: CD14 for macrophage-derived EVs, CD326 for epithelial-derived EVs, CD146 for endothelial-derived EVs, and CD62E for activated-endothelial-derived EVs. In BAL, CD14-EVs were increased in S compared to NS [384 (56–567) vs. 172 (115–282) events/μL; p = 0.007] and further increased in SCOPD [619 (224–888)] compared to both S (p = 0.04) and NS (p < 0.001). CD326-EVs were increased in S [760 (48–2856) events/μL, p < 0.001] and in SCOPD [1055 (194–11,491), p < 0.001] when compared to NS [15 (0–68)]. CD146-EVs and CD62E-EVs were similar in the three groups. In BAL, significant differences in macrophage and epithelial-derived EVs can be clearly detected between NS, S and SCOPD, while these differences were not found in plasma. This suggests that BAL is a better medium than blood to study EVs in lung diseases

Using Trust and Possibilistic Reasoning to Deal with Untrustworthy Communication in VANETs

International audienceVANETs allow for unprecedented amounts of information to be sent between participants in traffic. Unfortunately, without countermeasures, they also allow selfish agents to take advantage of communication to improve their own utility. In this paper we present a novel framework for dealing with potentially untrustworthy information. The framework consists primarily of two components: a computational trust model for estimating the amount of uncertainty in received information and a possibilistic beliefs-desires-intentions agent system for reasoning about this uncertain information in order to achieve the driver's goals. We demonstrate the framework's effectiveness in an easy to understand but realistic scenario of a freeway system in which we also show that deceit may have a larger impact on traffic flow than previously thought