A forest typology for monitoring sustainable forest management: The case of European Forest Types

Sustainable forest management (SFM) is presently widely accepted as the overriding objective for forest policy and practice. Regional processes are in progress all over the world to develop and implement criteria and indicators of SFM. In continental Europe, a set of 35 Pan-European indicators has been endorsed under the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) to measure progress towards SFM in the 44 countries of the region. The formulation of seven indicators (forest area, growing stock, age structure/diameter distribution, deadwood, tree species composition, damaging agents, naturalness) requires national data to be reported by forest types. Within the vast European forest area the values taken by these indicators show a considerable range of variation, due to variable natural conditions and anthropogenic influences. Given this variability, it is very difficult to grasp the meaning of these indicators when taken out of their ecological background. The paper discusses the concepts behind, and the requirements of, a classification more soundly ecologically framed and suitable for MCPFE reporting than the three (un-informative) classes adopted so far: broadleaved forest, coniferous forest, mixed broadleaved and coniferous forest. We propose a European Forest Types scheme structured into a reasonably higher number of classes, that would improve the specificity of the indicators reported under the MCPFE process and its understanding.L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.tandf.co.uk/journals

Lipid Exchange Mechanism of the Cholesteryl Ester Transfer Protein Clarified by Atomistic and Coarse-grained Simulations

Cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) transports cholesteryl esters, triglycerides, and phospholipids between different lipoprotein fractions in blood plasma. The inhibition of CETP has been shown to be a sound strategy to prevent and treat the development of coronary heart disease. We employed molecular dynamics simulations to unravel the mechanisms associated with the CETP-mediated lipid exchange. To this end we used both atomistic and coarse-grained models whose results were consistent with each other. We found CETP to bind to the surface of high density lipoprotein (HDL) -like lipid droplets through its charged and tryptophan residues. Upon binding, CETP rapidly (in about 10 ns) induced the formation of a small hydrophobic patch to the phospholipid surface of the droplet, opening a route from the core of the lipid droplet to the binding pocket of CETP. This was followed by a conformational change of helix X of CETP to an open state, in which we found the accessibility of cholesteryl esters to the C-terminal tunnel opening of CETP to increase. Furthermore, in the absence of helix X, cholesteryl esters rapidly diffused into CETP through the C-terminal opening. The results provide compelling evidence that helix X acts as a lid which conducts lipid exchange by alternating the open and closed states. The findings have potential for the design of novel molecular agents to inhibit the activity of CETP

Global Economic Governance between China and the EU: the case of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

The recent establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the initiative launched by the People’s Republic of China in 2013 underpins Beijing’s intensions to promote its own narrative about global economic governance (GEG) as well as China’s readiness to play a far more proactive role at the international level. In the age of global power shifting and with 14 EU member-states part of the AIIB, the European Union (EU) necessitates to engage further with China, in particular, within the context of multilateral institutions. This article analyses the impact of China’s evolving global governance policies on the EU. China’s and EU’s approaches to the reform of global governance present both differences and similarities, yet, the article highlights EU’s needs to make sense to what extent China’s growing ascent in the realm of global governance is reshaping world’s regional and global architectures vis-à-vis financial multilateral cooperation

Reference Model for Generic Capabilities in Maturity Models

Context - Many Maturity Models (MMs) have been designed for over 40 years now but selecting the constructs which chart the application areas is at variance. When comparing MMs, application area-specific constructs appear to be divers. Nevertheless, some constructs are often similar. Objective – Our research aims at finding generic constructs in existing MMs as reference for con-structing MMs. Method - We conducted literature research for generic MM constructs in organisational readiness MMs. We applied card sorting as a classification method and sorted cards according to Metaplan technique with peers. Results - Our research resulted in a limited set of generic capabilities for constructing MMs. Organising these capabilities according to widely accepted reference models in Information Systems (IS) literature results in the Generic Capability Reference (GCR) model. Conclusion – The GCR model serves as a reference model for (re- )designing MMs for the part of the generic capabilities in MMs besides application area-specific capabilities. CC