182 research outputs found
De crisis van de Tsjechische economie
For a long time the Czech Republic was seen as an exainple of a successful transition process. This success was explained by the strict adherence of the Czech goverment to the policy prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank. This rosy picture changed during the second half of the nineties. The economic problenis culminated in a financial crisis in June 1997. Strangely enough, the economic problems were also blamed on the same reform process. Especially the privatisation process was accused of having taken a false course. At first glance it seems illogical to explain both the success and the failure of the reform process by the same phenomenon. This contradiction vanishes when the reform process is seen not as a whole but as a collection of policy measures, which did not 'fit' each other. In addition, also the environment influenced the outcome of the reform process. From this perspective the positive outcomes of the first half of the nineties can be explained as the result of a good starting position, an adequate macro-economic policy and the 'small' privatisation process. When these measures did not work any more, the negative effects of the 'voucher' privatisation process, the hardening of the politica1 climate and the lack of a national process of innovation became dominant. These explain the negative results of the second half of the nineties.
North-South Distribution of Solar Flares during Cycle 23
In this paper, we investigate the spatial distribution of solar flares in the
northern and southern hemisphere of the Sun that occurred during the period
1996 to 2003. This period of investigation includes the ascending phase, the
maximum and part of descending phase of solar cycle 23. It is revealed that the
flare activity during this cycle is low compared to previous solar cycle,
indicating the violation of Gnevyshev-Ohl rule. The distribution of flares with
respect to heliographic latitudes shows a significant asymmetry between
northern and southern hemisphere which is maximum during the minimum phase of
the solar cycle. The present study indicates that the activity dominates the
northern hemisphere in general during the rising phase of the cycle
(1997-2000). The dominance of northern hemisphere is shifted towards the
southern hemisphere after the solar maximum in 2000 and remained there in the
successive years. Although the annual variations in the asymmetry time series
during cycle 23 are quite different from cycle 22, they are comparable to cycle
21.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 1 table; Accepted for the publication in the
proceedings of international solar workshop held at ARIES, Nainital, India on
"Transient Phenomena on the Sun and Interplanetary Medium" in a special issue
of "Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy (JAA)
Search for Short-Term Periodicities in the Sun's Surface Rotation: A Revisit
The power spectral analyses of the Sun's surface equatorial rotation rate
determined from the Mt. Wilson daily Doppler velocity measurements during the
period 3 December 1985 to 5 March 2007 suggests the existence of 7.6 year, 2.8
year, 1.47 year, 245 day, 182 day and 158 day periodicities in the surface
equatorial rotation rate during the period before 1996.
However, there is no variation of any kind in the more accurately measured
data during the period after 1995. That is, the aforementioned periodicities in
the data during the period before the year 1996 may be artifacts of the
uncertainties of those data due to the frequent changes in the instrumentation
of the Mt. Wilson spectrograph. On the other hand, the temporal behavior of
most of the activity phenomena during cycles 22 (1986-1996) and 23 (after 1997)
is considerably different. Therefore, the presence of the aforementioned
short-term periodicities during the last cycle and absence of them in the
current cycle may, in principle, be real temporal behavior of the solar
rotation during these cycles.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Solar Physic
Modification of HDL by reactive aldehydes alters select cardioprotective functions of HDL in macrophages
Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154382/1/febs15034_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154382/2/febs15034.pd
Measurement of Muon Capture on the Proton to 1% Precision and Determination of the Pseudoscalar Coupling g_P
The MuCap experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute has measured the rate L_S
of muon capture from the singlet state of the muonic hydrogen atom to a
precision of 1%. A muon beam was stopped in a time projection chamber filled
with 10-bar, ultra-pure hydrogen gas. Cylindrical wire chambers and a segmented
scintillator barrel detected electrons from muon decay. L_S is determined from
the difference between the mu- disappearance rate in hydrogen and the free muon
decay rate. The result is based on the analysis of 1.2 10^10 mu- decays, from
which we extract the capture rate L_S = (714.9 +- 5.4(stat) +- 5.1(syst)) s^-1
and derive the proton's pseudoscalar coupling g_P(q^2_0 = -0.88 m^2_mu) = 8.06
+- 0.55.Comment: Updated figure 1 and small changes in wording to match published
versio
Preventing species extinctions: A global conservation consortium for Erica
Societal Impact Statement
Human-caused habitat destruction and transformation is resulting in a cascade of impacts to biological diversity, of which arguably the most fundamental is species extinctions. The Global Conservation Consortia (GCC) are a means to pool efforts and expertise across national boundaries and between disciplines in the attempt to prevent such losses in focal plant groups. GCC Erica coordinates an international response to extinction threats in one such group, the heaths, or heathers, of which hundreds of species are found only in South Africa's spectacularly diverse Cape Floristic Region.
Summary
Effectively combating the biodiversity crisis requires coordinated conservation efforts. Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and numerous partners have established Global Conservation Consortia (GCC) to collaboratively develop and implement comprehensive conservation strategies for priority threatened plant groups. Through these networks, institutions with specialised collections and staff can leverage ongoing work to optimise impact for threatened plant species. The genus Erica poses a challenge similar in scale to that of the largest other GCC group, Rhododendron, but almost 700 of the around 800 known species of Erica are concentrated in a single biodiversity hotspot, the Cape Floristic Region (CFR) of South Africa. Many species are known to be threatened, suffering the immediate impacts of habitat destruction, invasive species, changes in natural fire regimes and climate change. Efforts to counter these threats face general challenges: disproportionate burden of in situ conservation falling on a minority of the community, limited knowledge of species-rich groups, shortfalls in assessing and monitoring threat, lack of resources for in situ and limitations of knowledge for ex situ conservation efforts and in communicating the value of biological diversity to a public who may never encounter it in the wild. GCC Erica brings together the world's Erica experts, conservationists and the botanical community, including botanic gardens, seed banks and organisations in Africa, Madagascar, Europe, the United States, Australia and beyond. We are collaboratively pooling our unique sets of skills and resources to address these challenges in working groups for conservation prioritisation, conservation in situ, horticulture, seed banking, systematic research and outreach.publishedVersio
- …