Rural firms, farms and the local economy - a focus on small and medium-sized towns

Small and medium-sized towns have traditionally formed an integral part of the agricultural sector and wider rural economy, acting as a source of farm inputs, a first destination of farm outputs and as a source of consumer goods and services to farm households. In recent years, this relationship has been substantially eroded through processes socio-economic restructuring, including the transformation of agriculture and a decline in other primary industries. Further, a number of endogenous and exogenous drivers have resulted in the uneven development of rural economies throughout Europe, leading not only to disparities but also to decline of small and medium sized towns as thriving economic and service centres. As a result, these settlements have received increasing attention from policy makers aiming to both maintain the traditional socio-economic fabric of rural areas, and to stimulate rural development through territorial, as opposed to sectoral – and namely agricultural – approaches. This paper considers these two issues through an analysis of local economic linkages in and around small and medium-sized towns. Using primary data collected in a study of thirty towns across five European countries, the paper examines the degree to which local firms and farms are integrated into the local economies of such towns relative to other sectors, and identifies the organisational characteristics associated with strong and weak local integration. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of evolving European rural development policy.

Doubly Charmed Baryons in COMPASS

The search for doubly charmed baryons has been a topic for COMPASS from the beginning. Requiring however a complete spectrometer and highest possible trigger rates this measurement has been postponed. The scenario for such a measurement in the second phase of COMPASS is outlined here. First studies of triggering and simulation of the setup have been performed. New rate estimates based on recent measurements from SELEX at FNAL are presented.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, contribution to the Workshop on Future Physics at COMPASS, CERN, Geneva, September 26-27 2002, to appear as CERN Yellow Repor

Coupling qualitative and quantitative analyses of pharmaceutical materials enabled by second harmonic generation microscopy

The detection and characterization of crystallinity is critical throughout the drug development process. From the initial establishment of an active pharmaceutical ingredient’s (API) crystal structure to stability testing and quality control, the phase of an API affects the solubility, bioavailability, stability, and efficacy of a drug product. Second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy has recently been developed as a selective and rapid method for imaging crystallinity in drug formulations. While SHG microscopy can enable the high signal-to-noise (SNR) detection of crystallinity, the intrinsic chemical information content within SHG images is relatively low. In cases of trace crystallinity and/ or small crystal volumes, new tools capable of rapid, qualitative crystal characterization are needed to fill this measurement gap. Several strategies for increasing the chemical information content of SHG microscopy were developed. Following combined computational and experimental studies to help determine the body of crystalline API structures amenable to imaging by SHG microscopy, measurements by confocal Raman spectroscopy and synchrotron X-ray diffraction were performed on regions of interest (ROI) identified by SHG. In both cases, spatial restriction of the spectroscopic technique to these regions of interest lowered the detection limits of Raman and synchrotron X-ray diffraction by several orders of magnitude. To further expand the capabilities of SHG microscopy, nonlinear optical Stokes ellipsometric (NOSE) microscopy was developed to assess crystal structure characteristics through the polarization dependence of SHG. Rapid (8 MHz) polarization modulation enabled NOSE microscopies at video rates (up to 15 Hz). Following development and validation, NOSE microscopy was used in conjunction with an iterative, nonlinear least-squares fitting algorithm to discriminate polymorphic crystal forms of the small molecule D-mannitol. Finally, to extend the linear dynamic range of photon counting measurements as described here-in, a novel digital filter derived from linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was developed and validated via theoretical and experimental nonlinear optical (NLO) measurements

From Colonies to Client-States: The Origins of France's Postcolonial Relationship with Sub-Saharan Africa, 1940-1969

This dissertation examines the transformation of French mentalities regarding France's role in Africa, beginning with World War II and continuing through the end of Charles de Gaulle's presidency in 1969. Despite the political independence of France's African colonies in 1960, many of them quickly transitioned from colonies into client-states. Since then, France's relationships with its former colonies have enabled a variety of underhanded dealings on the continent. In tracing the roots of this transformation, I focus on French politicians and colonial administrators, and their gradual ideological shift away from traditional conceptions of the French colonial mission. I argue that the events of World War II, which split the empire and placed France in a greatly disadvantageous international position (first with respect to Nazi Germany and later vis-à-vis the Allies), led to a formidable shift in how France viewed its colonies and other Francophone territories in sub-Saharan Africa. French insecurity, precipitated by its fall as a major world power, required new ways to maintain influence internationally and in its empire. This mentality, while shaped by the postwar environment, was not the product of any one political ideology; it was shared by colonial administrators in both the Vichy and Free French regimes, and by politicians on both the left and right of the political spectrum after the war. At the same time, French officials grew increasingly wary of British and American efforts to broaden their respective standings in Africa. This renewed concern about the "Anglo-Saxon" threat, along with the increasing need to preserve influence in Africa in a postcolonial age, were powerful undercurrents in the formation of French policy on the continent leading up to and after decolonization. The result was increasingly cynical support of despotic regimes friendly to French interests, in an effort to maintain political influence in Africa after decolonization

Lang's Conjecture and Sharp Height Estimates for the elliptic curves y2=x3+axy^{2}=x^{3}+ax

For elliptic curves given by the equation $E_{a}: y^{2}=x^{3}+ax$, we establish the best-possible version of Lang's conjecture on the lower bound of the canonical height of non-torsion points along with best-possible upper and lower bounds for the difference between the canonical and logarithmic height.Comment: published version. Lemmas 5.1 and 6.1 now precise (with resultant refinement to Theorem 1.2). Small corrections to

Employment Changes Play Major Role in Access to Employer Health Coverage

Highlights findings on the factors that drive short-term changes in employer-sponsored health insurance coverage, including the rising cost of health insurance and changes in employment rates and availability of better jobs during macroeconomic cycles