Conceptualising Regulatory Change - Explaining Shifts in Telecommunications Governance

Drawing on perspectives from telecommunications policy and neo-Gramscian understandings of international political economy, this paper offers an explanation and analysis of the shifting patterns of regulation which have been evident in the telecommunications sector in recent years. It aims to illustrate explain and explore the implications of the movement of regulatory sovereignty away from the nation-state, through regional conduits, to global organisations in the crystallisation of a world system of telecommunications governance. Our central argument is that telecommunications governance has evolved from a regulatory arena characterised, in large part, by national diversity, to one wherein a more convergent global multilayered system is emerging. We suggest that the epicentre of this regulatory system is the relatively new World Trade Organisation (WTO). Working in concert with the WTO are existing well-established nodes regulation. In further complement, we see regional regulatory projects, notably the European Union (EU), as important conduits and nodes of regulation in the consolidation of a global regulatory regime. By way of procedure, we first explore the utility of a neo-Gramscian approach for understanding the development of global regulatory frameworks. Second, we survey something of the recent history - and, in extension, conventional wisdom - of telecommunications regulation at national and regional levels. Third, we demonstrate how a multilayered system of global telecommunications regulation has emerged centred around the regulatory authority of the WTO. Finally, we offer our concluding comments.Comment: 29th TPRC conference, 200

The internet and public–private governance in the European Union

The EU plays a significant role in public policy aspects of Internet governance, having created in the late 1990s the dot eu Internet Top Level Domain (TLD). This enables users to register names under a European online address label. This paper explores key public policy issues in the emergent governance system for dot eu, because it provides an interesting case of new European transnational private governance. Specifically, dot eu governance is a reconciliation resulting from a governance cultural clash between the European regulatory state and what can be described broadly as the Internet community. The EU has customised the governance of dot eu towards a public–private dispersed agencification model. The paper extends the evidence base on agencification within trans-European regulatory networks and the emergence of private transnational network governance characterised by self-regulation

Gas-to-gas heat exchanger design for high performance thermal energy storage

The mathematical modelling and optimization of a gas-to-gas heat exchanger with a non-constant cross sectional area is presented. The design of the cross sectional area of the heat exchanger analyzed is based on an hexagonal mesh, which would be highly impractical to fabricate in a conventional way but could be built relatively easily through modern manufacturing techniques. The geometric configuration proposed allows attaining a high exergy efficiency and a significant cost reduction, measured in terms of volume per unit of exergy transfer. The relationship that exists between the overall exergy efficiency of the heat exchanger and its cost is thoroughly explained throughout the study. The results obtained from the modelling demonstrate the premise that it is possible to realize designs for heat exchangers that are highly exergy-efficient and very cheap, owing to the small volume of material required, if the constrains imposed by the limitations of traditional manufacturing methods are set aside. Furthermore, the study reveals a very important fact: the volume of material in a heat exchanger increases in quadratic proportion to its characteristic dimension, which implies that scaling up the geometry has a strong impact on its cost-effectiveness

Perspectives on Citizen Data Privacy in a Smart City -an Empirical Case Study

Digitisation is arguably an inevitable feature of contemporary urban development, yet privacy issues arising from the mass data collection, transmission and processing it entails continue to be a poorly understood and contentious issue for people living in cities. This article uses a case study approach to provide new evidence of the detailed perspectives of citizens and policy makers on data privacy in rapidly digitising urban environments, with a focus on one of the UK’s most prominent smart cities: Manchester. It adds to the literature on smart cities through the application of complementary scholarship from two areas - trust and participation - in order to analyse comparatively citizens’ views and concerns on data gathering activity in their city with efforts of policy-makers to incorporate data privacy matters in their digital city planning. The article finds a clear - but reparable - data privacy disconnect between people and digital policy makers and explores how citizen data privacy concerns may be addressed through a lens of trust and participatio

Shaping the global communications milieu : the EU's influence on internet and telecommunications governance

This article evaluates the European Union's (EU) influence in shaping the global governance for telecommunications and the Internet. Through analysing EU behaviour within an actorness framework, we demonstrate how the external opportunity structure and the EU's internal environment has impacted on its ability to exert and maximize its presence in order to meet its goals and aims in these two very different sub-sectors of global communications in terms of evolution and development. Such a comparison of EU actorness, we argue, is revealing in terms of uncovering the underlying factors and conditions that allow the EU to influence two important and dynamic communications sub-sectors

What is the impact of structural and cultural factors and interventions within educational settings on promoting positive mental health and preventing poor mental health: a systematic review

Mental health (MH) difficulties are on the increase among children and young people (CYP). Evidence has shown that educational settings contain both risk and protective factors for MH. This review investigated which structural and cultural factors and interventions within educational settings promote positive MH and prevent poor MH in 4-18 year olds. Searches were conducted in PsychINFO, Embase, ERIC, ASSIA and British Education Index, and reference lists from key studies and relevant systematic reviews were hand-searched. Intervention, cohort, and qualitative studies were included. Of the 62 included papers, 36 examined cultural factors (30 social/relational and six value-related) while 12 studies examined structural factors (eight organisational and four physical) and 14 studies examined multiple factors. There was strong evidence for the impact of positive classroom management techniques, access to physical activity, and peer mentoring on student MH. Studies examining the impact of positive school culture, teacher training in MH and parent involvement in school MH activities also found predominantly positive results for student MH, albeit the evidence was of lower quality or from a low number of studies. Few studies explicitly examined the impact of interventions on MH inequalities; those that did indicated limited if any reduction to inequalities. A very small number of studies suggested that interventions targeting those at risk of poor MH due to socioeconomic factors could successfully improve wellbeing and reduce depression, anxiety and behavioural problems. Studies exploring the effect of management and leadership strategies within schools, policies, and aspects of the physical environment other than green space were scarce or absent in the literature. This review highlights the need to consider the ways in which educational settings are organised, the culture that is created and the physical space in order to improve the MH of CYP

Parametric investigation of a non-constant cross sectional area air to air heat exchanger

The present article addresses the design, mathematical modelling and analysis of a novel highly exergy-efficient air to air heat exchanger. An intricate design based on an hexagonal mesh is proposed for the cross-sectional area of the heat exchanger with aims to explore the performance gains that can be obtained by exploiting the capabilities and benefits offered by modern fabrication techniques such as additive manufacturing. Special attention is paid to understanding the relationship or trade-off that exists between the overall exergy efficiency of the heat exchanger and its cost. The iterative algorithm used to find the geometrical parameters that yield the best performance in terms of volume of material required per unit of exergy transfer at a certain level of efficiency, as well as the assumptions and simplifications made, are comprehensively explained. It has been found through the analyses carried out performed, which are thoroughly discussed throughout the paper, that if the characteristic dimension of the heat exchanger is scaled up by a factor of n, the volume of material per kW of exergy transfer at certain exergy efficiency will increase by a factor of n squared. This is a very important observation, possibly applicable to other types of heat exchangers, that indicates that performance improves dramatically at smaller scales. The overall performance of the case study presented is satisfactory, a volume of material as low as 84.8 cm3 for one kW of exergy transfer can be achieved with a 99% exergy efficiency

Orthostatic Change in Blood Pressure and Incidence of Atrial Fibrillation: Results from a Bi-Ethnic Population Based Study

Autonomic fluctuations are associated with the initiation and possibly maintenance of atrial fibrillation (AF). However, little is known about the relationship between orthostatic blood pressure change, a common manifestation of autonomic dysfunction, and incident AF

What is the impact of structural and cultural factors and interventions within educational settings on promoting positive mental health and preventing poor mental health: a systematic review.

Mental health (MH) difficulties are on the increase among children and young people (CYP). Evidence has shown that educational settings contain both risk and protective factors for MH. This review investigated which structural and cultural factors and interventions within educational settings promote positive MH and prevent poor MH in 4-18 year olds. Searches were conducted in PsychINFO, Embase, ERIC, ASSIA and British Education Index, and reference lists from key studies and relevant systematic reviews were hand-searched. Intervention, cohort, and qualitative studies were included. Of the 62 included papers, 36 examined cultural factors (30 social/relational and six value-related) while 12 studies examined structural factors (eight organisational and four physical) and 14 studies examined multiple factors. There was strong evidence for the impact of positive classroom management techniques, access to physical activity, and peer mentoring on student MH. Studies examining the impact of positive school culture, teacher training in MH and parent involvement in school MH activities also found predominantly positive results for student MH, albeit the evidence was of lower quality or from a low number of studies. Few studies explicitly examined the impact of interventions on MH inequalities; those that did indicated limited if any reduction to inequalities. A very small number of studies suggested that interventions targeting those at risk of poor MH due to socioeconomic factors could successfully improve wellbeing and reduce depression, anxiety and behavioural problems. Studies exploring the effect of management and leadership strategies within schools, policies, and aspects of the physical environment other than green space were scarce or absent in the literature. This review highlights the need to consider the ways in which educational settings are organised, the culture that is created and the physical space in order to improve the MH of CYP