Repeal of Decisions of the European Central Bank

Decision of the European Central Bank of March 20, 2013 -- Repealing Decisions ECB/2011/4 on Temporary measures relating to the eligibility of marketable debt instruments issued or guaranteed by the Irish Government, on temporary measures relating to the eligibility of marketable debt instruments issued or guaranteed by the Portuguese Government, ECB/2012/32 on temporary measures relating to the eligibility of marketable debt instruments issued or fully guaranteed by the Hellenic Republic and ECB/2012/34 on temporary changes to the rules relating to the eligibility of foreign currency denominated collatera

COMMUNICATIONS FROM EUROPEAN UNION INSTITUTIONS AND BODIES

Comunicação da Comissão ”” Quadro comunit¡rio tempor¡rio relativo s medidas de aux­lio estatal destinadas a apoiar o acesso ao financiamento durante a actual crise financeira e económic

Council Directive on Requirements for Budgetary Frameworks of the Member States

COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2011/85/EU of 8 November 2011 on requirements for budgetary frameworks of the Member State

Can dasymetric mapping significantly improve population data reallocation in a dense urban area?

The issue of reallocating population figures from a set of geographical units onto another set of units has received a great deal of attention in the literature. Every other day, a new algorithm is proposed, claiming that it outperforms competitor procedures. Unfortunately, when the new (usually more complex) methods are applied to a new data set, the improvements attained are sometimes just marginal. The relationship cost-effectiveness of the solutions is case-dependent. The majority of studies have focused on large areas with heterogeneous population density distributions. The general conclusion is that as a rule more sophisticated methods are worth the effort. It could be argued, however, that when we work with a variable that varies gradually in relatively homogeneous small units, simple areal weighting methods could be sufficient and that ancillary variables would produce marginal improvements. For the case of reallocating census data, our study shows that, even under the above conditions, the most sophisticated approaches clearly yield the better results. After testing fourteen methods in Barcelona (Spain), the best results are attained using as ancillary variable the total dwelling area in each residential building. Our study shows the 3-D methods as generating the better outcomes followed by multiclass 2-D procedures, binary 2-D approaches and areal weighting and 1-D algorithms. The point-based interpolation procedures are by far the ones producing the worst estimates.We wish to thank three anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions and comments, the Spanish Official Statistical Agency (INE) for their first-rate assistance in producing, from individual records, the benchmark variables analyzed in this research and Marie Hodkinson for revising the English of the paper. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness under Grant CSO2013-43054-R.Pavía, JM.; Cantarino Martí, I. (2017). Can dasymetric mapping significantly improve population data reallocation in a dense urban area?. Geographical Analysis. 49(2):155-174. https://doi.org/10.1111/gean.12112S15517449

RadioActive101-Learning through radio, learning for life: an international approach to the inclusion and non-formal learning of socially excluded young people

This article describes an original international approach to inclusion and non-formal learning of socially excluded young people, through participatory internet radio - RadioActive101. First, we critically discuss the social and digital exclusion of young people. We then describe our approach - that includes partic-ipatory action research methods that are influenced by the work of Dewey and Freire, and operate as a process of complex intervention. This supports the inclusive co-production of radio content in ways that support non-formal learning in two EU contexts – the UK and Portugal. We then summarise and compare a qualitative investigation of RadioActive101. This showed positive results, with important similarities and differences between the two contexts. Participants reported that RadioActive101 was motivating and contributed to the development of contemporary skills, and also stimulated improvements in psychosocial dimensions such as confidence (self-efficacy) and self-esteem. This investigation informed the development of an original recog-nition system for non-formal learning that maps EU Key Competences for Lifelong Learning to radio practic-es and activities that are recognised through electronic badges. Our final reflections emphasise that in order to support the non-formal learning of socially excluded young people we must foreground our attention to foster-ing psychosocial dimensions alongside developing contemporary competences

Charting a perfect storm of water quality pressures

peer-reviewedThe agri-food economy can be a significant driver of water quality pressures but the role of hydro-meteorological patterns in a changing climate also requires consideration. For this purpose, an assessment was made of a ten-year synchronous high temporal resolution water quality and hydro-meteorological dataset in Irish agricultural catchments. Changes occurring to rainfall intensity and soil temperature patterns were found to be important drivers of nutrient mobility in soils. There were links between the intensity of the North Atlantic Oscillation over the decade and large shifts in baseline nutrient concentrations in catchments. The data also revealed extreme weather impacts to pollution patterns including short periods of rain induced nutrient flux, that exceeded average annual mass loads in these catchments, and drought influences on point source pollution. These influences need consideration, and may require different mitigation strategies, as links between water quality land use pressure and water quality state in regulatory reviews. In a decade of both increased land use source and hydro-meteorological transport pressures, water quality natural capital in Ireland has faced a perfect storm. Such conditions are difficult to model and only revealed in high temporal resolution datasets.Government of Ireland Department of Agriculture Food and the Marin