Development and validation of the Surgical Outcome Risk Tool (SORT).

Existing risk stratification tools have limitations and clinical experience suggests they are not used routinely. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a preoperative risk stratification tool to predict 30-day mortality after non-cardiac surgery in adults by analysis of data from the observational National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) Knowing the Risk study

Do bank loans and credit standards have an effect on output? A panel approach for the euro area

Applying the identification strategy employed by Driscoll (2004) for the United States, this paper provides empirical evidence for the existence of a bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission in the euro area. In addition, and in contrast to recent findings for the US, we find that in the euro area changes in the supply of credit, both in terms of volumes and in terms of credit standards applied on loans to enterprises, have significant effects on real economic activity. This highlights the importance of the monitoring of credit developments in the toolkit of monetary policy and underpins the reasoning behind giving monetary and credit analysis a prominent role in the monetary policy strategy of the ECB. It also points to the potential negative repercussions on real economic growth of bank balance sheet impairments arising in the context of the financial crisis erupting in mid-2007 which led to the need for banks to delever their balance sheets and possibly to reduce their loan supply. JEL Classification: C23, E51, E52, G21bank credit, bank lending channel, euro area, panel data

A strengths-based approach to mentoring women entrepreneurs: How to free the strengths within them

Entrepreneurship has been considered the route towards European recovery and growth. The contribution of female entrepreneurship is of utmost importance as women bring into business ventures attributes such as team spirit, synergy, intuition, multi-tasking, and social awareness, beneficial both for entrepreneurial advancement and society. However, women wishing to pursue or/and maintain a successful entrepreneurial path are still faced with a gender gap prevailing in entrepreneurial practice and culture. Despite an encouraging recent increase in the number of women entrepreneurs, their representation is still limited to about 30% of EU entrepreneurs. Mentoring is considered effective for personal and professional development of women entrepreneurs. It is realistic and adjustable to their true needs, expectations and business context. In a mentoring relationship of equality and trust, the mentor provides just-in-time knowledge and experience which support the woman entrepreneur in making decisions. The mentee learns from the mentor's experience and is more likely to transfer new learning on her business because it is more meaningful and necessary. Strengths-based mentoring can be a more effective and dynamic developmental process for women entrepreneurs. It enhances social interaction in which the mentor facilitates the mentee to discover her strengths and use them to achieve her goals. Being aware of her strengths, the mentee engages in self-reflection and evaluation and develops both personally and professionally. The mentor is instrumental in enabling her to discover her strengths, use them in her business and release her potential. This paper presents an innovative strengths-based approach, 'feel the mentoring©', a human-oriented model that enhances personal experience and the professional milieu in which a woman entrepreneur performs. The feel the mentoring© enables the mentee to discover, recognise, emerge, free, use, combine and evaluate her strengths and sustainably employ them in her activities. The practical value of this approach is discussed through the real case of a woman entrepreneur who experienced strengths-based mentoring. While herein discussed in the context of female entrepreneurship, feel the mentoring© is not restrained to it. It can be successfully applied with male entrepreneurs, employees or unemployed individuals who wish to gear their inner strengths to professional and personal advantage

Access to Justice and Legal Clinics: Developing a Reflective Lawyering Space. Some Insights from the Italian Experience. WP CSDLE “Massimo D’Antona”.INT – 141/2017

The paper will explore the potential of legal clinics in contributing to making access to justice more effective. It intends to do so in the light of a critical assessment of the Italian system of access to justice, while taking into account the peculiarities of legal clinics as a public interest law actor. To this end, the paper will move along a double dimension of access to justice and the different approaches to the issue of effective access to justice associated with each dimension. The first approach relies on an individualistic conceptualization of access to justice and focuses on providing legal services to those unable to afford a lawyer. The second one looks at access to justice as a collective right and, rather than focusing on the need for legal services of specific individuals, aims to address the problem of legal representation in court of group and collective interests. This considered, the paper will analyze the Italian system of access to justice with the aim of highlighting its shortcomings. It will provide a brief description of the institutional context of legal aid in Italy and assess its effectiveness in terms of granting legal assistance to those unable to afford a lawyer. It will than offer an account of the mechanisms aiming to ensure effective access to justice, at the individual and/or collective level that have been put in place by private and governmental actors, focusing first on the court enforcement of the Workers’ Statute then on gender equality legislation and finally on the more recent experience of enforcement of antidiscrimination law provisions concerning, race, ethnic origin and nationality

Do bank loans and credit standards have an effect on output? A panel approach for the euro area

Applying the identification strategy employed by Driscoll (2004) for the United States, this paper provides empirical evidence for the existence of a bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission in the euro area. In addition, and in contrast to recent findings for the US, we find that in the euro area changes in the supply of credit, both in terms of volumes and in terms of credit standards applied on loans to enterprises, have significant effects on real economic activity. This highlights the importance of the monitoring of credit developments in the toolkit of monetary policy and underpins the reasoning behind giving monetary and credit analysis a prominent role in the monetary policy strategy of the ECB. It also points to the potential negative repercussions on real economic growth of bank balance sheet impairments arising in the context of the financial crisis erupting in mid-2007 which led to the need for banks to delever their balance sheets and possibly to reduce their loan supply

Near-UV OH Prompt Emission in the Innermost Coma of 103P/Hartley 2

The Deep Impact spacecraft fly-by of comet 103P/Hartley 2 occurred on 2010 November 4, one week after perihelion with a closest approach (CA) distance of about 700 km. We used narrowband images obtained by the Medium Resolution Imager (MRI) onboard the spacecraft to study the gas and dust in the innermost coma. We derived an overall dust reddening of 15\%/100 nm between 345 and 749 nm and identified a blue enhancement in the dust coma in the sunward direction within 5 km from the nucleus, which we interpret as a localized enrichment in water ice. OH column density maps show an anti-sunward enhancement throughout the encounter except for the highest resolution images, acquired at CA, where a radial jet becomes visible in the innermost coma, extending up to 12 km from the nucleus. The OH distribution in the inner coma is very different from that expected for a fragment species. Instead, it correlates well with the water vapor map derived by the HRI-IR instrument onboard Deep Impact \citep{AHearn2011}. Radial profiles of the OH column density and derived water production rates show an excess of OH emission during CA that cannot be explained with pure fluorescence. We attribute this excess to a prompt emission process where photodissociation of H$_2$O directly produces excited OH*($A^2\it{\Sigma}^+$) radicals. Our observations provide the first direct imaging of Near-UV prompt emission of OH. We therefore suggest the use of a dedicated filter centered at 318.8 nm to directly trace the water in the coma of comets.Comment: 21 page