Why has no other European country adopted the Research Excellence Framework?

Most European countries have followed the UK's lead in developing performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) for their universities. However, what these countries have not done is adopt the same system, the Research Excellence Framework being its most recent iteration. Instead, many use indicators of institutional performance for funding decisions rather than panel evaluation and peer review. Gunnar Sivertsen has examined systems throughout Europe and finds the REF to be quite unique as a combination of performance-based institutional funding and research evaluation. While most countries do both, they do so in independent setups and with different, less expensive methodologies

iPhone – en opplevelsesplattform for de få?

Dette notatet handler om videreutvikling av eksisterende mobilteknologi, om spredningen av den og påvisbare konsekvenser på kort sikt. Kameramobiler som iPhone og den kommunikasjon de er en del av, får en rekke konsekvenser. Blant annet fører de til at fotoene ikke lenger først og fremst blir private, men de blir offentlige gjennom en kommunikasjonsteknologi som sprenger alle grenser og som medfører at de deles med andre. Mobiltelefonen og det omfanget i kommunikasjon den har foranlediget, er historisk unikt på mange vis. Den har formet og former samfunn nasjonalt og globalt

Måling av forskningsaktiviteten ved helseforetakene: Vitenskapelige artikler og doktorgrader som resultatindikatorer

I denne rapporten presenteres et utviklingsarbeid som NIFU har utført i 2001 og 2002 under ledelse av Norges forskningsråd (Medisin og helse) og etter oppdrag fra Helsedepartementet. Formålet med arbeidet har vært å finne fram til hensiktsmessige data og indikatorer for måling av forskningsaktiviteten ved helseforetakene. De to indikatorene som er valgt ligger på resultatsiden av forskningen: avlagte doktorgrader i tilfeller hvor forskningen i hovedsak er utført ved helseforetakene, samt indekserte vitenskapelige artikler hvor helseforetakene er kreditert som forfatteradresse i artiklene

Co-benefit and co-control studies in Norway

In both developing and industrialized countries, abatement of air pollution and mitigation of climate change have generally been treated separately. Co-benefits of air quality and climate change related policies are often addressed on national or supra-national level, to document that costs of policies are acceptable, especially when ancillary benefits are considered. On local or regional level, the focus until now has been mainly on air quality management, not considering benefits for climate change mitigation. Today’s air quality management requires integrated and coordinated measures where urban air quality planning includes also greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change issues. The tools available for investigating scenarios for reducing local impacts and health effect improvements can also be used to investigate cost effective actions aimed at reducing GHG emissions. This approach would lead to identification of strategies that consider co-benefits of climate and local air quality measures, and would both improve the health of people and give climate benefits at best possible costs. Approaches based on an existing air quality management tool, prepared for co-benefit studies in Norway as well as plans for co-control projects in China are presented in this paper. These approaches have the potential to focus on issues not included in traditional air pollution abatement studies

Estimating the Job Impact of Public Investment in Bio-fuel Plants

CaRDI Research & Policy Brief Issue 33; Community & Energy: Economics of Energy; Community & Energy: Renewable Energy Sources & Sustainabilit

Distance Sensitive Bloom Filters Without False Negatives

A Bloom filter is a widely used data-structure for representing a set $S$ and answering queries of the form "Is $x$ in $S$?". By allowing some false positive answers (saying "yes" when the answer is in fact `no') Bloom filters use space significantly below what is required for storing $S$. In the distance sensitive setting we work with a set $S$ of (Hamming) vectors and seek a data structure that offers a similar trade-off, but answers queries of the form "Is $x$ close to an element of $S$?" (in Hamming distance). Previous work on distance sensitive Bloom filters have accepted false positive and false negative answers. Absence of false negatives is of critical importance in many applications of Bloom filters, so it is natural to ask if this can be also achieved in the distance sensitive setting. Our main contributions are upper and lower bounds (that are tight in several cases) for space usage in the distance sensitive setting where false negatives are not allowed.Comment: Published in SODA 201

Air quality management planning (AQMP)

In most urban areas of the world, particulate matter (PM) levels pose severe problems, addressed in several policy areas (air quality, climate change, and human health). PM presents multiple challenges due to the multitude of its sources, spanning many sectors of economic activity as well as nature, and due to the complexity of atmospheric processes involved in its transport and secondary formation. For the authorities, the goal is to assure minimal impacts of atmospheric PM levels, in practice represented by compliance with existing regulations and standards. This may be achieved through an air quality management plan (AQMP). In Northern America and in parts of Europe, comprehensive research programs have guided development of AQMP over the last forty years. This cumulated experience can be utilized by others who face the same problems, but have yet to develop their own substantial research base. The main purpose of the AQMP development process is to establish an effective and sound basis for planning and management of air quality in a selected area. This type of planning will ensure that significant sources of impacts are identified and controlled in a most cost-effective manner. The choice of tools, methods and input information is often dictated by their availability, and should be evaluated against current best practices. Important elements of the AQMP are the identification of sources and development of a complete emission inventory, the development and operation of an air quality monitoring programme, and the development and application of atmospheric dispersion models. Major task is to collect the necessary input data. The development of the AQMP will take into account: - Air Quality Management System (AQMS) requirements; - Operational and functional structure requirements; - Source identification through emission inventories; - Source reduction alternatives, which may be implemented; - Mechanisms for facilitating interdepartmental cooperation in order to assure that actions are being taken; - Institutional building and training requirements This paper offers a practical guide through the different parts of the air quality management and planning procedures

Multiple quantum NMR dynamics in a gas of spin-carrying molecules in fluctuating nanopores

The effect of Gaussian fluctuations of nanopores filled with a gas of spin-carrying molecules ($s=1/2$) on the multiple quantum (MQ) NMR dynamics is investigated at different variances and correlation times of the fluctuations. We show that the fluctuations smooth out the evolution of MQ NMR coherence intensities which rapidly oscillate as functions of time in the absence of fluctuations. The growth and decay of the MQ coherence clusters in the fluctuating nanopore are also investigated.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure