Future Perspectives on Rural Areas.

End of Project ReportThe aim of this project was to project the potential impact of post-2000 economic and policy changes on Irish rural areas. It was intended originally to use a model-building approach in collaboration with the University of Missouri but this did not prove feasible. Instead, a possible scenario of future change for the rural economy was developed under four headings: • number of farms and the size of the farm labour force • agricultural structures • employment and enterprise • population and settlement. The scenario is based on assessment of current trends, on key assumptions about the future, and on the likely directions of relevant policies

Governance and Institutional Innovation: The need for strategic management

Within a comparatively short time there has emerged in Ireland an ad hoc ensemble of initiatives, funds and organisations pursuing aspects of rural development. As a result development policy is faced with a series of institutional and organisational questions (NESC, 1994: 115). These questions concern central-local relationships, possible overlap between agencies, the appropriate spatial units for different programmes, the choice between territorially-based organisations versus sectoral agencies, and accountability in regard to the use of public funds. This paper presents some results from a prospective model designed to facilitate analysis of the policy and institutional environment pertaining to rural development in Ireland. It identifies weaknesses in the institutional fabric: the high degree of centralisation of power and responsibility within agencies; related to this, the sharp compartmentalisation among agencies which act independently of each other, in singularly focusing on separately defined areas of administration; the proliferation of agencies and programmes, this partly reflects the influence of EU funded programmes which have promoted ?bottom up? approaches; the lack of an adequate sub-national spatial focus in policy implementation, and a ?democratic deficit? to the extent that emerging new partnerships are not inclusive of local representative democratic structures. Policy instruments are evaluated and issues for future policy emphasis explored. The paper concludes that organisational structures are vitally important to successful policy intervention in lagging regions. Within the Irish system institutional change is urgently needed.

The Promotion and Marketing of Qulaity Products from Disadvantaged Rual Areas.

End of Project ReportThis report is based on work undertaken as part of a collaborative research project involving a number of European centres, under the EU’s FAIR programme (FAIR 3-CT96-1827), and directed by Professor Brian Ilbery at the Department of Geography, University of Coventry, UK.The present study was part of a project co-funded under the EU’s Fifth Framework Programme. The project was concerned with 12 ‘lagging rural regions’ in six countries of the EU and, specifically, with the strategies, structure and policies used to support the successful marketing and promotion of quality products and services in these regions. Its aims were: – to identify current marketing strategies and promotional activities among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with special reference to the use of regional imagery in marketing quality products and services; – to explore consumer perceptions in relation to the purchase of quality products and services from specific lagging regions; – to identify the strategies and practices of the main institutional structures (e.g., local authorities, development agencies, marketing organisations) in supporting the marketing of quality products and services; – to bring forward ideas for the future development of regional quality products and services.European Unio

The geography of transaction linkages in twelve European case study regions

Small and medium sized enterprises operate within a complex web of links of various kinds. These may be distinguished in terms of their content (transactional, advisory, regulatory, social), "object" (other SMEs, third sector organisations, business services, local and national government), geography (local,regional, global), and durability (transient, permanent, frequent, irregular). A simpler categorisation might be between "hard" linkages involving a recorded transaction of some kind, and "soft" informal interation involving only information. Several schools of thought on local economic development emphasise either or both these types of interaction as important factors in local development dynamics. This is a particularily important group of concepts in relation to peripheral regions, where local opportunities for interaction are constrained, and longer distance relationships are more difficult and expensive. This paper begins with a review of recent research relating to business networks,focusing as far as possible on work relating to rural and peripheral areas, and including relevant aspects of the concepts of social capital, governance and "institutional thickness". This will be drawn together in the form of a number of hypotheses regarding the role of different forms of interaction in determining the degree of economic vitality in peripheral regions. The validity of these hypotheses will then be examined in the light of case-study data relating to twelve regions (six peripheral, six more accessible) in Scotland, Finland, Germany, Spain and Greece. Drawing predominantly on a survey of 600 SMEs, the discussion is structured into the following four themes: The geography of transactional linkages Other aspects of transactional linkages Links with third sector organisactions Links with local, regional and national government agencies. The paper will conclude with a review of the hypotheses and an integrated assessment of the impact of all kinds of networks on regional economic performance. The information presented in this paper has been derived from research funded by the EU Fifth Framework, as part of project QLK5-2000-00783 - Aspatial Peripherality, Innovation and the Rural Economy (AsPIRE).

Development Programmes and Policy Measures in the Western Countries

End of Project ReportThis report compares the 11 western counties (Connacht, Ulster, and counties Longford, Clare and Kerry) with the 15 other counties, in aggregate, as regards the effectiveness of various policies and programme measures in reaching their target populations

Integrated Rural Tourism

End of Project ReportThe overall aim of the SPRITE project was to analyse and develop the potential for better integrated tourism (IT) in the lagging rural regions of Europe. “Integrated rural tourism” is tourism, which is directly and positively linked to the economic, social, cultural and natural resources in the rural region in which it takes place. It seeks to make optimal use of these resources. It is basically a perspective or an approach to tourism development, which is sensitive to the nature of local resources and traditions and to the opportunities for sharing in the benefits of tourism development. In Ireland work on the project was shared between Rural Economy Research Centre of Teagasc, who held responsibility for the study of one selected region referred to as the North Midland Counties, and the Department of Geography at NUIG, who analysed the Western Region. This report is predominantly concerned with the work done by staff of Rural Economy Research Centre in the North Midland region.European Unio

A Census Atlas of Irish Agriculture

End of Project ReportComputerised mapping systems were developed to analyse agricultural census statistics and data from agricultural policy administration sources. The objective was to identify local geographical variations in the structure and trends in the agricultural economy by mapping the available information, principally at the level of the District Electoral Division (DED) and the Rural District (RD). There were 3,113 DEDs and 156 RDs in the analysis. The main database was the 1991 Census of Agriculture, the latest available. Some statistics are updated annually and where possible these were used in tabular form to trace the 1991- 1997 trends for Regional Authority areas. Conclusions: There are distinctive farming regions in the country whose boundaries span unevenly across county limits. These are undergoing different processes of change depending on their resource base, their responses to economic imperatives, and the policy environment. • Commercial farming has become increasingly associated with areas south and east of a line from Limerick to Dundalk. • It is likely that policies and trends post 2000 will further increase the differences in resource use between commercial farming and other areas

Projecting population and labour market trends in rural areas.

End of Project ReportThis purpose of this project is to develop a spatial model to project population and labour market variables at the small area level in Ireland. The model is called SMILE (Simulation Model for the Irish Local Economy) and is a static and dynamic spatial microsimulation model. Microsimulation attempts to describe economic and social events by modelling the behaviour of individual agents such as persons or firms. Microsimulation models have proved useful in evaluating the impact of policy changes at the micro level. Spatial microsimulation models contain information on geographic units and allow for a regional or local approach to policy analysis. SMILE is based on modelling work on urban systems and employs similar techniques for analysing rural areas. The static model creates a spatially referenced synthetic population of Ireland. Each individual enumerated in the 1991 Census of Population is synthetically constructed and is assigned 11 census characteristics including a District Electoral Division (DED) location. The dynamic element incorporated in SMILE ages the synthetic population by modelling demographic processes including fertility, mortality and internal migration. The dynamic process is used to project population in the medium term; it ages the synthetic 1991 population to 1996. For validation purposes, these 1996 projections are then compared to the 1996 Census of Population. The same process was used to project between the 1996 and the 2002 Census of Population. The results indicate that the accuracy at DED and county level is within acceptable limits. The model will be extended in the next three years, beginning in 2003, with additions including validating individual attributes such as employment status and social class and also including households in the model. This project has created a basic model that can be expanded and developed in the future

An assessment of the farm improvement programme (Reg. 797/85) in the West of Ireland

The Farm Improvement Programme (FIP) (Reg. 797/85) was introduced in Ireland in 1986 to replace the Farm Modernisation Scheme (FMS) (Dir. 159/92) of 1974-1985. Both schemes had similar objectives. Participants in each followed a grant aided farm development plan drawn up and operated in conjunction with their farm adviser. Nearly three quarters of farmers participated in either the FIP or FMS. This study was carried out on a sample of 145 FIP participant farms. The objective was to assess the impact of the measure on regional resource use. The average size of the farm business, as measured by standard gross margin, expanded by 15 per cent over the period of the plan. This compared with a planned increase of 9 per cent. Two-thirds of participants expanded the size of their businesses. Some outperformed their gross margin targets to a considerable extent. One-third of farms suffered a decline in gross margins. Stocking rate increased by 9 per cent from 1.38 to 1.5 livestock units per ha and the productivity of labour increased by 37 per cent. The internal rate of return to all resources involved (including farm investment, grant aid, administration and advisory costs) was high. Eighty to ninety per cent of the on farm development work was carried out by local labour. While sixty two per cent of applicants reported that they would not have made any investments without the aid of the scheme, 26 per cent said that they would have gone ahead in its absence. The conclusions from the study are as follows: Compared to the rest of Europe Irish agriculture is extensive and under capitalised with a high level of underutilisation of resources. It should therefore be a priority to increase the contribution of agricultural resources to rural and national development by improving their productivity. Because of the high and widespread participation of farmers in both schemes and the positive outcomes on the majority of participant farms, the FIP/FMS programmes seem to provide a suitable model for such development.

Synaptic Tau Seeding Precedes Tau Pathology in Human Alzheimer's Disease Brain

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is defined by the presence of intraneuronal neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) composed of hyperphosphorylated tau aggregates as well as extracellular amyloid-beta plaques. The presence and spread of tau pathology through the brain is classified by Braak stages and thought to correlate with the progression of AD. Several in vitro and in vivo studies have examined the ability of tau pathology to move from one neuron to the next, suggesting a “prion-like” spread of tau aggregates may be an underlying cause of Braak tau staging in AD. Using the HEK293 TauRD-P301S-CFP/YFP expressing biosensor cells as a highly sensitive and specific tool to identify the presence of seed competent aggregated tau in brain lysate—i.e., tau aggregates that are capable of recruiting and misfolding monomeric tau—, we detected substantial tau seeding levels in the entorhinal cortex from human cases with only very rare NFTs, suggesting that soluble tau aggregates can exist prior to the development of overt tau pathology. We next looked at tau seeding levels in human brains of varying Braak stages along six regions of the Braak Tau Pathway. Tau seeding levels were detected not only in the brain regions impacted by pathology, but also in the subsequent non-pathology containing region along the Braak pathway. These data imply that pathogenic tau aggregates precede overt tau pathology in a manner that is consistent with transneuronal spread of tau aggregates. We then detected tau seeding in frontal white matter tracts and the optic nerve, two brain regions comprised of axons that contain little to no neuronal cell bodies, implying that tau aggregates can indeed traverse along axons. Finally, we isolated cytosolic and synaptosome fractions along the Braak Tau Pathway from brains of varying Braak stages. Phosphorylated and seed competent tau was significantly enriched in the synaptic fraction of brain regions that did not have extensive cellular tau pathology, further suggesting that aggregated tau seeds move through the human brain along synaptically connected neurons. Together, these data provide further evidence that the spread of tau aggregates through the human brain along synaptically connected networks results in the pathogenesis of human Alzheimer's disease