Postcondition-preserving fusion of postorder tree transformations

Tree transformations are commonly used in applications such as program rewriting in compilers. Using a series of simple transformations to build a more complex system can make the resulting software easier to understand, maintain, and reason about. Fusion strategies for combining such successive tree transformations promote this modularity, whilst mitigating the performance impact from increased numbers of tree traversals. However, it is important to ensure that fused transformations still perform their intended tasks. Existing approaches to fusing tree transformations tend to take an informal approach to soundness, or be too restrictive to consider the kind of transformations needed in a compiler. We use postconditions to define a more useful formal notion of successful fusion, namely postcondition-preserving fusion. We also present criteria that are sufficient to ensure postcondition-preservation and facilitate modular reasoning about the success of fusion

The geography of the crisis in western Europe : national and regional impacts and policy responses

In the course of 2008, the countries of Western European began to experience the full impact of the global economic crisis. The financial crash was followed by a drying-up of bank liquidity and slowdown in trade. Every country saw a decline in GDP growth over successive quarters in late 2008 and the first half of 2009. During the latter part of 2009, most Western European economies saw the resumption of growth (notable exceptions were Spain and the United Kingdom), with varying predictions of the sustainability of the recovery in the course of 2010. For much of the 2008-09 period, the attention of policymakers was fixed on emergency measures to contain the effects of the crisis, notably to rescue banks in danger of collapse and to stabilise the financial sector. Various packages of crisis measures have been implemented across Western Europe, generally with the aims of stimulating consumer demand and investment and reducing the effects of the crisis on (un)employment. For the most part, the policy measures in response to the crisis have been implemented on a nationwide basis. There is however an important territorial dimension both to the effects of the crisis - only gradually becoming apparent - and the policy responses. This chapter examines the geography of the crisis in Western Europe, discussing regional impacts and regional responses. It begins with a short review of the development of the crisis, the main differences in its impact across countries and the different types of policy measures implemented to contain the effects of the crisis. The chapter then investigates the different types of regional impacts - in particular on regional unemployment rates - and the geographical characteristics of policy responses by national and regional authorities

Interactions between EU funds : coordination and competition

This report looks at the interactions between eu funds, their coordination and competitio

Preparing for Pandemics through Surveillance

The international surveillance of infectious diseases is being addressed through international, national and non-state networks. Summary: Within the next century there will be a rise in the number of new infectious pathogens, while the drug-resistance of existing pathogens such as dengue, meningitis and tuberculosis will also increase. The need to prepare for the pandemics we can predict, let alone the ones that we can’t, has led to calls for investment in preventive efforts. One area of particular growth is infectious disease surveillance networks, set up by both state and non-state actors. International disease surveillance networks exist in a variety of formats: email alert networks, sophisticated laboratory diagnostic networks, cell phone alerts and web scan systems. Generally, the global response to the proliferation of these networks has been positive. Having surveillance in place for situations when either states do not have the capacity to respond to an outbreak or may be tempted to cover up an outbreak, makes the rest of the world safer. But what are the potential political obstacles to the proliferation of infectious disease surveillance networks, and will more ‘disease watchers’ create secure foundations for protecting the global community from ‘public health emergencies of international concern’ (PHEIC)?. This ARI outlines three reasons for caution: (1) state capacity is still weak in areas where the greatest numbers of new pathogens have been diagnosed; (2) the ability to identify where a disease outbreak has occurred does not alleviate the political obstacles to international efforts to contain such an outbreak; and (3) we are yet to establish a correlation between the multiplication of surveillance networks and better responses to disease outbreaks

Formal Definitions of Unbounded Evolution and Innovation Reveal Universal Mechanisms for Open-Ended Evolution in Dynamical Systems

Open-ended evolution (OEE) is relevant to a variety of biological, artificial and technological systems, but has been challenging to reproduce in silico. Most theoretical efforts focus on key aspects of open-ended evolution as it appears in biology. We recast the problem as a more general one in dynamical systems theory, providing simple criteria for open-ended evolution based on two hallmark features: unbounded evolution and innovation. We define unbounded evolution as patterns that are non-repeating within the expected Poincare recurrence time of an equivalent isolated system, and innovation as trajectories not observed in isolated systems. As a case study, we implement novel variants of cellular automata (CA) in which the update rules are allowed to vary with time in three alternative ways. Each is capable of generating conditions for open-ended evolution, but vary in their ability to do so. We find that state-dependent dynamics, widely regarded as a hallmark of life, statistically out-performs other candidate mechanisms, and is the only mechanism to produce open-ended evolution in a scalable manner, essential to the notion of ongoing evolution. This analysis suggests a new framework for unifying mechanisms for generating OEE with features distinctive to life and its artifacts, with broad applicability to biological and artificial systems.Comment: Main document: 17 pages, Supplement: 21 pages Presented at OEE2: The Second Workshop on Open-Ended Evolution, 15th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems (ALIFE XV), Canc\'un, Mexico, 4-8 July 2016 (http://www.tim-taylor.com/oee2/

Quantum Non-Barking Dogs

Quantum weak measurements with states both pre- and postselected offer a window into a hitherto neglected sector of quantum mechanics. A class of such systems involves time dependent evolution with transitions possible. In this paper we explore two very simple systems in this class. The first is a toy model representing the decay of an excited atom. The second is the tunneling of a particle through a barrier. The postselection criteria are chosen as follows: at the final time, the "atom" remains in its initial excited state for the first example and the particle remains behind the barrier for the second. We then ask what weak values are predicted in the physical environment of the "atom" (to which no net energy has been transferred) and in the region beyond the barrier (to which the particle has not tunneled). Previous work suggests that very large weak values might arise in these regions for long durations between pre- and postselection times. Our calculations reveal some distinct differences between the two model systems.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

WHO runs the world – (not) girls: gender neglect during global health emergencies

During health emergencies, neglect of gender experiences and needs can compromise the outbreak response. Ebola in West Africa and Zika in Latin America had gendered effects that were evident during the crises, yet governments and international organisations failed to prioritise a gender inclusive response. There is the same risk of neglecting gender inclusive response and knowledge during COVID-19. In this article we examine the consequence of gender exclusion in health emergency response. We ask where can we locate institutional responsibility to take gender seriously to inform and improve sustainable disease control? This article seeks to address this question by turning to feminist institutional theory to explain why gender inclusion in decision making processes is vital for effective response and post-crisis recovery. We argue that the institutional responsibility to recognise gender within the global health emergency regime lies with World Health Organization (WHO). WHO has neglected to mainstream gender into the policies and practice which they promote for the prevention, detection and response of infectious disease outbreaks. WHO is in a position to support gender inclusion practices but it requires the technical agency to recognise the value of gender inclusion framework to inform outbreak response, financial models, and recovery