Does the European Union have a reverse gear? Policy dismantling in a hyperconsensual polity

The financial crisis has triggered demands to halt and even reverse the expansion of European Union (EU) policies. But have these and previous demands actually resulted in policy dismantling? The existing literature has charted the rise of dismantling discourses such as subsidiarity and better regulation, but has not examined the net effect on the acquis. For the first time, this contribution addresses this gap in the literature through an empirical study of policy change between 1992 and 2014. It is guided by a coding framework which captures the direction of policy change. It reveals that, despite its disposition towards consensualism, the EU has become a new locus of policy dismantling. However, not all policies targeted have been cut; many have stayed the same and some have even expanded. It concludes by identifying new directions for research on a topic that has continually fallen into the analytical blind spot of EU scholars

GeantV: Results from the prototype of concurrent vector particle transport simulation in HEP

Full detector simulation was among the largest CPU consumer in all CERN experiment software stacks for the first two runs of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the early 2010's, the projections were that simulation demands would scale linearly with luminosity increase, compensated only partially by an increase of computing resources. The extension of fast simulation approaches to more use cases, covering a larger fraction of the simulation budget, is only part of the solution due to intrinsic precision limitations. The remainder corresponds to speeding-up the simulation software by several factors, which is out of reach using simple optimizations on the current code base. In this context, the GeantV R&D project was launched, aiming to redesign the legacy particle transport codes in order to make them benefit from fine-grained parallelism features such as vectorization, but also from increased code and data locality. This paper presents extensively the results and achievements of this R&D, as well as the conclusions and lessons learnt from the beta prototype.Comment: 34 pages, 26 figures, 24 table

An integrated view on monitoring and compensation for dynamic optical networks: from management to physical layer

A vertical perspective, ranging from management and routing to physical layer options, concerning dynamic network monitoring and compensation of impairments (M&C), is given. Feasibility, reliability, and performance improvements on reconfigurable transparent networks are expected to arise from the consolidated assessment of network management and control specifications, as a more accurate evaluation of available M&C techniques. In the network layer, physical parameters aware algorithms are foreseen to pursue reliable network performance. In the physical layer, some new M&C methods were developed and rating of the state-of-the-art reported in literature is given. Optical monitoring implementation and viability is discussed.Publicad

Wales: challenges and opportunities for post-Brexit environmental governance

Brexit represents a major change to environmental governance in Wales and the United Kingdom (UK), raising both opportunities and challenges. Welsh stakeholders are worried that English interests will predominate in the design of environmental governance after Brexit and are also concerned about the prospect of greater instability and weaker environmental protections. Crucially, the key planks of the UK government’s ‘Green Brexit’ strategy—the 25 Year Environment Plan (25 YEP) and Defra’s environmental governance and principles consultation—do not cover governance in the devolved nations. This gap in coverage raises the prospect of policy divergence and inconsistent implementation and enforcement across the UK. Most importantly, there is a strong fear in Wales that Welsh environmental policy ambition will be thwarted by Brexit and deregulatory pressure emanating from England

Scotland: challenges and opportunities for post-Brexit environmental governance

Brexit represents a major change to environmental governance in Scotland and the United Kingdom (UK), raising both opportunities and challenges. It has prompted a constitutional dispute between the Scottish and UK governments, which may jeopardise future environmental governance. The current constitutional impasse has created even more uncertainty, making Brexit preparations highly challenging for government and civil society actors. Scottish stakeholders are worried that English interests will predominate in the design of environmental governance after Brexit and are also concerned about the prospect of greater instability and weaker environmental protections. Crucially, the key planks of the UK government’s ‘Green Brexit’ strategy—the 25 Year Environment Plan and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) environmental governance and principles consultation—do not cover governance in the devolved nations. This gap in coverage raises the prospect of policy divergence and inconsistent implementation and enforcement across the UK. Most importantly, there is a strong fear in Scotland that Scottish environmental policy ambition will be thwarted by Brexit and deregulatory pressure from England

Environmental policy in a devolved United Kingdom: challenges and opportunities after Brexit

The European Union (EU) has had a profound effect on UK environmental policy and governance. The EU provides treaty-based principles to underpin and inform new policy development and a well-developed system of monitoring and enforcement to ensure it is implemented. The EU’s system of environmental governance provides a set of structures that establishes minimum common standards across the UK. These structures have allowed the devolved nations to develop their own policies, some with a higher level of ambition than the UK’s. EU membership, therefore, provides a common framework that enables both transboundary cooperation and local policy innovation. Brexit consequently represents a major change to environmental governance in the United Kingdom (UK), raising significant opportunities and challenges. Environmental policy in the UK is devolved, but UK devolution is asymmetrical: England has no formal representation or parliament. For environmental policy this means that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) often acts on behalf of England. This model of devolution raises concerns amongst stakeholders in the devolved nations that Defra approaches policy with an English mind-set, which suggests that English interests will dominate after Brexit. There are also concerns that Brexit will lead to greater instability and weaken environmental protections. In addition, Brexit has prompted a constitutional dispute between the Scottish and UK governments, which may jeopardise future environmental governance. These tensions have created uncertainty, making Brexit preparations highly challenging for both government and civil society actors. Crucially, the key planks of the UK government’s ‘Green Brexit’ strategy— the 25 Year Environment Plan (25 YEP) and Defra’s consultation on environmental governance and principles—do not cover governance in the devolved nations. This gap in coverage raises the prospect of policy divergence and inconsistent implementation and enforcement across the UK. More importantly, there is a strong fear in Scotland and Wales that their environmental policy ambitions could be thwarted by Brexit and deregulatory pressures emanating from England. Meanwhile Northern Ireland, which has a history of weak environmental governance and sits alongside the politically sensitive border with Ireland, has no government and therefore no voice in the Brexit negotiations. As a result, it is poorly represented in the discussions over the future shape of UK-wide environmental policy and governance

Northern Ireland: challenges and opportunities for post-Brexit environmental governance

Brexit represents a major change to environmental governance in Northern Ireland and the UK. Yet it is occurring at a time when Northern Ireland has no government, curtailing its ability to engage in both local and UK-wide preparations. Northern Irish stakeholders are worried that tensions between England and Scotland are dominating Brexit preparations, hampering discussions of UK-wide cooperation, as well as of the specific needs of Northern Ireland. They are concerned pre-existing environmental governance issues in the region (such as the lack of an independent environmental agency or the prevalence of cross-border environmental crime) will remain unaddressed, and that current North/South cooperation on environmental issues will be negatively impacted by the Brexit deal. Crucially, the key planks of the UK government’s ‘Green Brexit’ strategy (such as the commitments laid out in the 25 Year Environment Plan and the Environmental Principles and Governance consultation) do not cover the devolved nations. This raises the prospect of further policy divergence and inconsistent implementation and enforcement across the UK, and for Northern Ireland’s environment to continue deteriorating

Wales: challenges and opportunities for post-Brexit environmental governance

Brexit represents a major change to environmental governance in Wales and the United Kingdom (UK), raising both opportunities and challenges. Welsh stakeholders are worried that English interests will predominate in the design of environmental governance after Brexit and are also concerned about the prospect of greater instability and weaker environmental protections. Crucially, the key planks of the UK government’s ‘Green Brexit’ strategy—the 25 Year Environment Plan (25 YEP) and Defra’s environmental governance and principles consultation—do not cover governance in the devolved nations. This gap in coverage raises the prospect of policy divergence and inconsistent implementation and enforcement across the UK. Most importantly, there is a strong fear in Wales that Welsh environmental policy ambition will be thwarted by Brexit and deregulatory pressure emanating from England

Impact of peer-to-peer traffic on the efficiency of optical packet rings

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