the example of European education policy

Eight years ago, the Open Method of Coordination was codified as a mode of governance to implement the Lisbon strategy of the European Union which aims to turn the European economy into the most competitive and most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. Since then, the OMC has often been highlighted as a “third way” in European governance – an alternative to intergovernmental negotiations and the Classical Community Method. Hopes that the OMC could develop into a “third way” would be destroyed if the OMC had considerable potential to promote institutional- spillover and this way to encourage the European Commission's competence creep. In that case, the OMC could be seen as having a bridging function between the two traditional methods used to govern the EU. Based on the supranationalism as put forward by Sandholtz and Stone Sweet (1998), this paper analyses the OMC's potential to promote institutional-spillover in European education policy. With institutional-spillover I mean an increase of the decisional autonomy or capacity of the European Commission. The analysis reveals that the OMC's potential to promote institutional-spillover in education is very small as it neither increases participation of transnational society in the policy-making process nor sufficiently increases the autonomy of joint organisations such as the European Commission and the European Court of Justice

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL AND NONSOCIAL CONTEXTUAL STIMULI ON THE RENEWAL OF COCAINE SEEKING

Those with substance use disorders can undergo craving and relapse when re-exposed to a drug-associated context. This study determined if renewal of cocaine seeking is differentially controlled by contexts consisting of social and/or nonsocial stimuli. Experiment 1, rats self-administered cocaine in Context A which included a social peer and house light illumination. Following self-administration, rats were randomly assigned to an AAA or ABA group for extinction and renewal. For the AAA rats, context was similar to self-administration; for ABA rats, the drug-associated stimuli (peer and house light) were removed (Context B). Following extinction, renewal of cocaine seeking was examined by testing the peer alone, house light alone, or the combination. Experiment 2 was similar, except only a house light (no peer) was used throughout the experiment. Results revealed rats acquired cocaine self-administration and extinguished lever pressing for both experiments. For Experiment 1, ABA rats renewed cocaine seeking to the peer alone and peer+house light but not the house light alone. Experiment 2 found ABA rats renewed cocaine seeking to the house light alone, but the AAA group did not. These data indicate that social peers serve as powerful stimuli that can overshadow nonsocial stimuli in the renewal of cocaine seeking

Utilizing the Composite Financial Index as Strategic Financial Analysis for Measuring Financial Health and Student Success Rates among Iowa Community Colleges

ABSTRACT The phrase survival of the fittest is coming to fruition in higher education today. Less than strategic financial moves have no place in post-secondary education. Facing the realities of our current economy is dictating major changes in how colleges are doing business. These changes present enormous challenges to community college administrators. Two of these challenges are meeting the demands of faculty associations and ever-increasing budgets for remedial education. A trend of waning state support is also exacerbating these challenges while major changes occurring at the legislative level have also intensified the need for extremely competent leaders--leaders with a much more diverse set of skills than in the past. One such skill necessary for effective leadership in the community college lies in the area of strategic financial analysis. Annual reporting procedures for the Higher Learning Commission require some ratio analyses. However, the data should be analyzed and evaluated for strategic decision making by each community college and not merely reported for compliance purposes. The purpose of this study is to analyze the financial statements for Iowa\u27s community colleges and compare the results of this analysis to the success rates of first-time, full-time students who transfer to a four-year institution or graduate with a degree, diploma, or certificate within 150 percent of normal time to complete or three years. The composite financial index conceptual framework was utilized to calculate the overall financial health for Iowa\u27s community colleges for the fiscal years 2001-2010

Field Evaluation of an Electrically Powered Spiral Mechanization System

This thesis is part of an investigation to determine the feasibility of using ozonation to control odors from the Fairmont municipal water supply. The primary source of water for Fairmont is Budd Lake. Odors develop in this lake water from the decomposition of organic matter such as algae and vegetation. Ozone was applied to the water at dosages of approximately 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8,12, 16, 20 and 24 mg/1 at contact times of 2.5, 5, 110, 20 and 30 minutes using a continuous flow ozonation pilot system. Odor intensities of these waters were then measured in terms of Threshold Odor Numbers. The results indicated that ozone dosages from 1.5 to 4 mg/1 at contact times of at least 30 minutes achieved sui table results under roost conditions. Dosages up to 8 mg/1 were required in a few instances. These investigations have been described in detail by Munce. The primary objectives of the investigations described in this thesis are as follows. 1. To determine the effect of ozonation, at the recommended operating conditions for odor control, on the flocculation efficiency, chlorine demand, content of organic matter and potential for the formation of trihalamethanes of the water. 2. To determine if any correlation exists between the ultra-violet absorbance and trihalamethane concentration of the water. A high correlation would allow the relatively inexpensive absorbance analysis to be used instead of the relatively expensive trihalamethane analysis to estimate the trihalamethane content of the water. 3. To determine the estimated construction and operating costs of ozonation facilities for odor control in Fairmont

Which skills protect graduates against a slack labour market?

This paper explores the relationship between graduates’ skill levels and the risk of overeducationand unemployment in 17 European countries. We distinguish between field-specific and generalskills and between two labour market segments, the occupational domain of a particular field ofstudy and the labour market segment which requires general skills. In line with the predictions ofthe crowding out hypothesis, we find that the level of protection afforded by field-specificskills against the risk of overeducation increases with the degree of excess labour supply in theoccupational domain of the graduate’s field of study. Conversely, general skills offer moreprotection against the risk of overeducation when excess labour supply in the labour marketsegment which requires general skills is higher. Field-specific skills also protect graduatesagainst the risk of unemployment, whereas graduates’ level of general skills appears to beunrelated to the risk of becoming unemployed.labour market entry;

Validation and functional annotation of expression-based clusters based on gene ontology

BACKGROUND: The biological interpretation of large-scale gene expression data is one of the paramount challenges in current bioinformatics. In particular, placing the results in the context of other available functional genomics data, such as existing bio-ontologies, has already provided substantial improvement for detecting and categorizing genes of interest. One common approach is to look for functional annotations that are significantly enriched within a group or cluster of genes, as compared to a reference group. RESULTS: In this work, we suggest the information-theoretic concept of mutual information to investigate the relationship between groups of genes, as given by data-driven clustering, and their respective functional categories. Drawing upon related approaches (Gibbons and Roth, Genome Research 12:1574-1581, 2002), we seek to quantify to what extent individual attributes are sufficient to characterize a given group or cluster of genes. CONCLUSION: We show that the mutual information provides a systematic framework to assess the relationship between groups or clusters of genes and their functional annotations in a quantitative way. Within this framework, the mutual information allows us to address and incorporate several important issues, such as the interdependence of functional annotations and combinatorial combinations of attributes. It thus supplements and extends the conventional search for overrepresented attributes within a group or cluster of genes. In particular taking combinations of attributes into account, the mutual information opens the way to uncover specific functional descriptions of a group of genes or clustering result. All datasets and functional annotations used in this study are publicly available. All scripts used in the analysis are provided as additional files

Using Variable Spray Angle Fan Nozzle on Long Spray Booms

Abstract. A new-concept of using variable spray angle fan spray nozzle in conjunction with pulse width modulation technique was proposed for compensation of the effects of spray boom vibration on chemical application rate and pattern. A brief review of literature regarding techniques used to diminish the effects of long spray booms dynamic behavior on uniformity of spray application reveals that the research work so far has mostly been involved boom positioning, vibration analysis, mathematical modeling and monitoring of boom dynamic behavior, in the hope of finding the ways of attenuation of vibration through improving the design of better boom structure, suspension, and control systems. The present article puts forward the idea of using Variable Spray Angle Fan Spray Nozzle (VSAFSN) along with pulse width modulation (PWM) technique to maintain constant spray coverage, hence, uniformity of spray application while employing variable rate technology (VRT). TEEJET-XR11002 Nozzle was used and preliminary experiments were carried out. Spray pressure range of 55 kPa to 490 kPa, was used to vary spray angle from 78 to 160 degrees. Results showed that the spray maintained its almost normal distribution pattern within full range of spray angle. Relationships between spray angle and operating pressure, and, between spray angle and nozzle flow rate were found as  and  respectively. Keywords: Spray, Boom, Nozzle, Pulse width modulatio

Risk factors in prolonged postpartum urinary retention: an analysis of six cases

Purpose: Prolonged first and second stage of labor, isolated prolongation of the second stage, forceps delivery or vacuum extraction, perineal laceration, nulliparity and epidural anesthesia are known risk factors for developing prolonged postpartum urinary retention (PUR). The aim of our study was to analyze number and constellations of these risk factors, in prolonged postpartum urinary retention (PPUR) in our own unit to facilitate the identification of patients at high risk and thus to prevent bladder overdistension by early intervention. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of all our cases with PPUR between 2003 and 2008 including variables like age weight, height, body mass index, fetal birth weight and head circumference. Results: The incidence of PPUR at our institution is low being 0.06%. No woman combined all six risk factors. The majority had five risk factors, all had at least four. An isolated prolonged second stage of labor was common to all patients with PPUR. Five women had an epidural anesthesia, three were nulliparous and only two women delivered spontaneously. All but one woman suffered from perineal tears. Interestingly, fetal head circumference was larger than 36cm in four of six cases. Conclusion: In contrast to simple PUR, the prolonged form of PUR could be the result of a cumulative effect of different single risk factor

Propelled Abrasive Grit for Weed Control in Organic Silage Corn

Weed management in organic farming requires many strategies to accomplish acceptable control and maintain crop yields. This 2-yr field study used air propelled abrasive grit for in-row weed control in organically certified silage corn (Zea mays L.). Corncob grit was applied as a single application at corn vegetative growth stages V1 (one true leaf; numbers correspond to number of true leaves at the corn vegetative stage), V3, or V5 (in 2013) and V3, V5, and V7 (in 2014) and in double and triple combinations at these stages. Between-row weed control was accomplished by flaming or cultivation after the last grit application. Grit effects on weed efficacy and silage yield were quantified and compared with hand-weeded and season-long weedy treatments. Grit applications decreased in-row weed biomass by \u3e80% and increased yield up to 250% when compared with the weedy check. Single early applications (V1 and V3) increased yield, with additional treatments decreasing end-of-season weed density and biomass. Single late grit applications (V5 and V7) also decreased weed biomass, but silage yields were reduced compared with hand-weeded and early treatments. Early grit applications may have value for growers to control in-row annual weeds in organic silage corn without soil disturbance