\u201cImprovisation is not allowed in a second language\u201d: A survey of Italian lecturers\u2019 concerns about teaching their subjects through English

English Medium Instruction (EMI) is increasingly being introduced across European universities in countries where English is not a commonly-used language, such as Italy and other central and southern European countries. However the competences and concerns of the lecturers involved are not always considered when such developments are introduced and support or training may not be offered. This paper reports on a survey on English-Medium Instruction (EMI) to which 115 lecturers in a public university in northern Italy responded. The survey was carried out by the university\u2019s Language Centre as part of the LEAP (Learning English for Academic Purposes) Project which was developed to support lecturers in EMI. The survey sought to identify what the lecturers perceived as their strengths and weakness in English, their concerns and also their evaluations of the experience of teaching through English if they had had any. The findings discussed in this paper shed light on the needs of lecturers that are involved in EMI, which relate to methodology as well as language issues. The implications of this for European Language Centres intending to support EMI at their universities are discussed in the conclusions

The new Keynesian Phillips curve: empirical results for Luxembourg

The New Keynesian Phillips curve (NPC) differs from the conventional expectations-augmented Phillips curve in that it is forward-looking and links inflation to a measure of marginal cost instead of unemployment or the output gap. More fundamentally, the NPC is derived from New Keynesian models that combine nominal rigidities with individual optimising behaviour and model-consistent (rational) expectations. Because the NPC is grounded in micro-theory (unlike the conventional expectations-augmented Phillips curve), it is robust to some forms of the Lucas critique and may serve to analyse the impact structural changes such as increased price flexibility may have on inflation. New Keynesian Phillips curve estimates for Luxembourg using the Galí and Gertler (1999) hybrid form suggest that firms change prices often but tend to use backward-looking rules-of-thumb instead of resetting prices optimally using forward-looking expectations. In terms of policy implications, although the results suggest prices in Luxembourg are relatively flexible, the prevalence of backward-looking price setting implies greater inflation persistence and a higher sacrifice ratio attached to disinflationary monetary policy. From the perspective of individual firms, backward-looking price setting may be a rational response in a very small open economy because of its vulnerability to external shocks. Small size and openness plausibly imply higher costs of collecting information and lower benefits from optimal price setting.

Negotiating a transcultural place in an English as a lingua franca telecollaboration exchange: a mixed methods approach to the analysis of intercultural communicative competence and third space in an online Community of Practice

The study presented in this thesis was designed so as to explore the impact of an ELF (English as a lingua franca) telecollaboration exchange on its participants’ intercultural learning and negotiation of shared spaces and subject positions (Kramsch 2009a). After describing the two groups of students involved in the project - one from the University of Padova (Italy), and one from the University of Innsbruck (Austria) - as well as the tasks, topics and tools that were used to prompt discussion on issues related to culture, identity and representation, the study adopted a mixed methods approach to respond to two research questions. The first of these (RQ1) aimed at searching for evidence of intercultural communicative competence (Byram 1997) in the personal texts that the Italian students had produced over the course of the project: in particular, the primary source of data for this investigation were the participants’ weekly diaries, seen as a valuable and uncontaminated source of information about the students’ feelings and experiences (Pavlenko 2007). The second research question (RQ2) explored the emergence of a transcultural “third space” (Kramsch 1993) among the two groups of participants, as well as the construction of fluid and hybrid subject positions within it. For the purposes of this investigation, all the students’ reflective diaries were taken into account together with their posts to online forums and comments to the exchange activities. Overall, the study presented in this thesis offers a new lens through which to look at the nature of intercultural communicative competence, and provides insights into its strict relationship with third space as it emerges in an online Community of Practice (Lave and Wenger 1991). Furthermore, the study highlights the complexity and variety of subject positions that are activated in online intercultural encounters, and which mirror the transnational and transcultural essence of third space. Finally, the study also suggests the utility of combining qualitative and quantitative research approaches so as to gain deeper and more comprehensive understanding of intercultural learning and negotiating processes

Open Access to Legal Scholarship and Open Archives: Towards a Better Future? = L’Open Access per la dottrina giuridica e gli Open Archives: verso un futuro migliore?

The logic of Open Access (OA) is gradually spreading in the scientific community, mainly thanks to the help of important areas of public libraries. OA basically describes a phenomenon that sees many scientific communities publishing through the Internet their results (papers, articles, books, etc.) on archives accessible to anyone (and without payment of a price). OA seems to have the possibility to become a very powerful tool for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. As part of the general phenomenon called “Transfer of Knowledge” (broader category than the more famous “Technology Transfer”), which sees universities and research centers increasingly interested in showing in the market the quality of their scientific production through various activities aimed at exploiting the foreground of their researches (IPRs, licenses, spin-off, etc.), OA plays a pivotal role: it could make transfer of knowledge - previously conveyed (under payment) by private intermerdiaries - more transparent, fluid, and accessible to anyone. Despite the initial delay, the OA movement is quickly growing in importance for legal scholarship. Nonetheless, the institutional arrangements and the technological features of OA to legal scholarship are variegated and pose a vast array of problems. OA to legal scholarship changes the form of the legal publication - e.g., we face new kinds of publications such as blog posts or Wikipedia articles - and shifts the “quality selection” function of the publication system from traditional intermediaries (publishers, learning societies, editorial boards, etc.) to new ones (e.g., search engines, social software, Open Archives, etc.) and readers. In this perspective, a prominent issue is represented by the Open Archives. Open Archives, as well as other OA tools (OA journals), increase the reputation of authors and improve the future impact of their articles. A vast literature – although referring to other subjects - shows that papers deposited in OA repositories are cited more often than those which are not. Moreover, the OA repositories enable a new form of evaluation process. On one hand, it is possible to develop innovative bibliometric indicators. On the other hand, through them you can easily trace the entire life of a scientific product: for example, the OA repositories will allow the display of all the evolution stages of an article from the presentation at a conference to its final version. Given the enormous power of the Net and the rise of these OA repositories, we are still suffering - especially within the Italian context – the low number of uploads and the lack of innovative tools fit to navigate through the OA legal materials. The governance of legal Open Archives should pay attention to the following main features: interoperability, redundancy, multilingualism, evaluation criteria and tools, policies. This kind of issues can be solved only by using an interdisciplinary law and technology approach which clarifies the various, complex aspects of the relationship between Open Archives and legal scholarship. ITALIAN ABSTRACT Da qualche anno si sta gradualmente diffondendo all’interno della comunità scientifica, grazie anche all’impegno di operatori delle biblioteche pubbliche, la logica dell’“Open Access” (OA). Questa espressione descrive un fenomeno che vede molti ricercatori pubblicare attraverso Internet i risultati della propria ricerca (saggi, articoli, libri, etc.) su archivi accessibili a chiunque (e senza il pagamento di un prezzo). L’OA è sicuramente destinato a diventare uno strumento molto potente per la diffusione della conoscenza scientifica. Come parte del più generale fenomeno chiamato “trasferimento della conoscenza”, che vede le università e i centri di ricerca sempre più interessati a dimostrare la qualità della, propria, produzione scientifica attraverso varie attività volte alla valorizzazione delle loro ricerche, l’OA gioca un ruolo fondamentale: esso potrebbe rendere il trasferimento di conoscenze – prima veicolato, a pagamento, dagli intermediari privati - più trasparente, fluido ed accessibile a tutti. Nonostante il ritardo iniziale, il movimento OA sta rapidamente acquisendo importanza per la dottrina giuridica; ciò sebbene gli assetti istituzionali e le caratteristiche tecnologiche proprie di questo nuovo fenomeno siano variegati e pongano una vasta gamma di problemi. L’OA cambia, infatti, la forma stessa delle pubblicazioni scientifiche – affiorano, così, nuovi “generi letterari” quali post sui blog o articoli di Wikipedia – e determina uno spostamento della funzione di selezione della qualità del sistema di pubblicazione che dai tradizionali intermediari (editori, società scientifiche, comitati editoriali, etc.) viene sempre più svolta da nuovi soggetti (motori di ricerca, social software, Open Archives, etc.), quando non direttamente dai lettori stessi. Gli Open Archives, così come altri strumenti di OA (riviste ad accesso aperto), aumentano la fama degli autori ed incrementano l’impatto (citazionale) futuro dei loro articoli. Una vasta letteratura dimostra che i documenti depositati in archivi OA sono citati più spesso di quelli che, invece, non lo sono. Inoltre, tali archivi permettono di porre in essere una nuova forma di processo di valutazione: da un lato, è possibile sviluppare innovativi indicatori bibliometrici; dall’altro, consentono di tracciare facilmente l’intera vita di un prodotto scientifico (ad es., un repository OA consente la visualizzazione di tutte le fasi dell’evoluzione di un articolo: dalla presentazione in una conferenza alla sua versione finale). Nonostante l’enorme importanza che l’uso della Rete sta acquisendo e l’ascesa di questi archivi aperti, stiamo, però, ancora soffrendo – soprattutto all’interno del contesto italiano – il basso numero di depositi e la mancanza di strumenti idonei a navigare attraverso i materiali giuridici distributi secondo la logica dell’OA. La governance di questi innovativi Open Archives dovrebbe essere volta all’incorporazione dei seguenti principi: interoperabilità, ridondanza, multilinguismo, utilizzo di nuovi criteri e strumenti di valutazione, adozione di nuove policy. Questo tipo di problematiche possono trovare soluzione solo tramite l’utilizzo di un approccio interdisciplinare di “diritto e tecnologia” che chiarisca i vari e complessi aspetti del rapporto tra gli “archivi aperti” ed il mondo della dottrina giuridica

La eficiencia en la Política criminal: estudio del Sistema de Análisis Criminal y Focos Investigativos (SACFI) de Chile

La eficiencia en la Política criminal: estudio del Sistema de Análisis Criminal y Focos Investigativos (SACFI) de Chil

Online Learning and Experimentation via Interactive Learning Resources

Recent trends in online learning like Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Educational Resources (OERs) are changing the landscape in the education sector by allowing learners to self-regulate their learning and providing them with an abundant amount of free learning materials. This paper presents FORGE, a new European initiative for online learning and experimentation via interactive learning resources. FORGE provides learners and educators with access to world- class facilities and high quality learning materials, thus enabling them to carry out experiments on e.g. new Internet protocols. In turn, this supports constructivist and self-regulated learning approaches, through the use of interactive learning resources, such as eBooks

Más allá del gerencialismo: las nuevas relaciones entre la gestión del sistema penal y el castigo.

La presente exposición describe un nuevo fenómeno político criminal, denominado gerencialismo penal. Para ello, se indican sus principales características y elementos, reflexionando de este modo, si este fenómeno contiene o no las propiedades necesarias para caracterizarlo como modelo político criminal consistente. Para profundizar en lo anterior, se explicarán algunos nuevos campos de investigación que nacen del gerencialismo penal y que nos acercan a nuevas formas de entender el fenómeno del castigo como algo mucho más amplio. Algunas de estos nuevos campos son la emergencia del paradigma del cliente-usuario en el sistema penal, que cambia el rol de la víctima y el análisis del castigo como eje central de este nuevo modelo político criminal

Assessment of the bioactive and nutritional potential of novel food products enriched in Cystoseira abies-marina and Skeletonema sp. biomass

Mestrado em Engenharia Alimentar - Instituto Superior de AgronomiaMicro and macroalgae are photosynthetic organisms of large abundance and diversity that contain a variety of compounds with high bioactivity and nutritional value. These compounds have been receiving an increasing interest of researchers due to their potentially positive effect on human health. This has also led to the development of applications for algal biomass, ranging from animal feed to cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and functional foods. The use of algae biomass in the food industry is still a new concept with the potential to produce healthy foods with added nutritional and bioactive compounds. Although there are many countless studies that support the health benefits of algae, few studies quantify the bioavailability of those nutritional compounds. In vitro digestion methods currently being used for studying the bioaccessibility of said nutrients and bioactive compounds, allowing a better understanding of how those compounds can be used. In this work two algae species, microalgae Skeletonema sp. and macroalgae Cystoseira abies-marina, that are not thoroughly studied were analysed regarding their proximal composition, lipid composition, element composition, phenolic content and relevant bioactivities, as well as their bioaccessibility, in order to understand their potential to be incorporated in food products. Two food products enriched in algae, sauce and cookies, were prepared and analysed, displaying a higher content in polyphenols and higher antioxidant activity than the control in the bioaccessible fraction. The high arsenic concentration found in the macroalgae is also observed in food products prepared with this species requiring a speciation study to assess the risk to human health. The mixture of the food ingredients with Skeletonema sp. was beneficial for the bioaccessibility of monounsaturated fats in sauces, which increased with the incorporation of the microalgae. This work reinforced that incorporating algae in food products can be advantageous, thereby paving the way for effective and marketable functional foodsN/

Is foreign-bank efficiency in financial centers driven by home-country characteristics?

This paper investigates the effects of home country banking regulations on the performance of foreign banks in Luxembourg’s financial center. We control for the main regulatory indicators, such as capital requirements, private monitoring, official disciplinary power and restrictions on bank activities, accounting for the regulatory regime applied to foreign banks. We also control for the level of GDP in the home country and its position in the business cycle. The two-stage bootstrap method proposed by Simar and Wilson (2007) is applied to bank panel data covering 1999-2009. The analysis carries policy implications for bank regulators in both home and host countries and provides insight into the choice between establishing a branch or a subsidiary, when developing cross-border activities through financial centers.

Potential output and the output gap in Luxembourg: some alternative methods

The output gap is defined as the difference between the observed level of an economy's output and its trend or potential level. In the short term, an economy can produce above its potential level (a positive output gap) through unusually high levels of labour force participation, capacity utilisation, or technical progress. However, a positive output gap tends to generate inflationary pressures on the markets for factors of production. Once inflation accelerates, output will have to fall below its potential level (a negative output gap) to increase available resources and reduce the pressure on prices. Therefore, measures of the output gap are often used in macroeconomic analysis to assess current and future levels of inflationary pressures in the economy. This study reviews several of the many alternative methods of estimating output gaps and applies six of these to annual data for Luxembourg. These different measures of the output gap are then compared and evaluated in terms of their contribution to inflation forecasting. Methods based on unobserved components models tend to do better than simpler, better known methods (i.e. linear trends, the HP filter). Multivariate methods that consider the simultaneous evolution of several different economic variables tend to do better than univariate methods that limit themselves to the output series itself.