Defragmentation measures and the increase of a local European badger (Meles meles) population at Eindegooi, the Netherlands

Ontsnipperingsmaatregelen en de groei van de lokale dassenpopulatie (Meles meles) op Eindegooi . Vanaf 1984 zijn gegevens verzameld op het landgoed Eindegoed en omgeving. De das koloniseerde nieuwe terreinen. In dezelfde periode zijn vele ontsnipperende maatregelen bij wegen getroffen

Information and communication on the designation and management of Natura2000 sites. Main Report 4: A Proposal for a Natura2000 partner award scheme

Following the selection of Special Protection Areas (SPA) and Sites of Community Importance (SCI) according to the Birds and the Habitats Directives, most European Member States are now in process of formally designating SPAs and SCIs as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) or Natura2000 sites. These protected areas collectively form the European Union’s Natura2000 network. Member States are also selecting and implementing adequate management approaches and instruments to maintain and restore the favourable conservation status of protected species and habitat types and to prevent damage to the integrity of the sites. Both actions follow Articles 6.1 and 6.2 of the Habitats Directive. To help the Member States, the European Commission wishes to improve the knowledge and exchange of information and good practice both on the designation process of SPAs and SACs and on the establishment of conservation measures and instruments for these areas. Furthermore, the Commission wants to stress the importance of the sites and their management by involving a wider group of stakeholders in the development of so-called integrated management, in accordance with Article 2 of the Habitats Directive. The project ‘PREPARATORY ACTIONS- Lot 2: Information and communication on the designation and management of sites’ (tender ENV.B.2/SER/2007/0076) is intended to help the Commission to achieve these objectives. This is a proposal to the European Commission (EC) for a new European award scheme recognising ‘Natura2000 Partner’ and ‘Natura2000 Partner of the Year’. Our brief was to “elaborate a proposal for a system for rewarding persons, organizations or institutions that have a particular merit in the management of and the communication on Natura2000 sites.” The brief further stipulated the need for an award that would select ‘Natura2000 Partners’ on an annual basis. From these, a selection would be made, enabling the EC to confer the title of ‘Natura2000 Partner of the Year’. Our proposal allows for Member States (MSs) to award this latter title, with an additional title of ‘European Natura2000 Partner of the Year’ being made annually by the EC

Audit committees and internal auditors: Using LMX for relationship analysis

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretically-informed meaning for the ‘quality of the audit committee-internal auditor relationship’ construct and to provide a new instrument for its measure. Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX theory) is widely accepted in the management communication and management literature as one which can be used to explain the development of a leader-member relationship and the quality of such a relationship. The analysis will be grounded in the LMX literature, and in understanding of the relationship between the audit committee and internal auditors. This paper is a contribution to the literature as such application of LMX is a newly theorised initiative to enable researchers to improve our understandings of this important corporate relationship. The output of this analysis can be used for research which evaluates the quality of the audit committee-internal auditor relationship (AC-IA relationship)

Information and communication on the designation and management of Natura2000 sites. Main Report 3: Towards Integrated Management

Following the selection of Special Protection Areas (SPA) and Sites of Community Importance (SCI) according to the Birds and the Habitats Directives, most European Member States are now in process of formally designating SPAs and SCIs as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) or Natura2000 sites. These protected areas collectively form the European Union’s Natura2000 network. Member States are also selecting and implementing adequate management approaches and instruments to maintain and restore the favourable conservation status of protected species and habitat types and to prevent damage to the integrity of the sites. Both actions follow Articles 6.1 and 6.2 of the Habitats Directive. To help the Member States, the European Commission wishes to improve the knowledge and exchange of information and good practice both on the designation process of SPAs and SACs and on the establishment of conservation measures and instruments for these areas. Furthermore, the Commission wants to stress the importance of the sites and their management by involving a wider group of stakeholders in the development of so-called integrated management, in accordance with Article 2 of the Habitats Directive. The project ‘PREPARATORY ACTIONS- Lot 2: Information and communication on the designation and management of sites’ (tender ENV.B.2/SER/2007/0076) is intended to help the Commission to achieve these objectives. In this report we will elaborate on the concept of integrated management as an option for managing the sites. In the first part the meaning of integrated management will be explored. In a second part we give some examples of management approaches that we think illustrate best the concept of integrated management and its potential to achieve the Natura2000 goals

Voluntary Deductibles and Risk Equalization: A complex interaction

Governments around the world use health insurance as an instrument to establish universal access to medical care. In some countries, e.g. Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, there is a trend towards managed competition among insurers and providers of care and towards higher levels of consumer cost sharing. A popular form of cost sharing is the voluntary deductible, i.e. the option for consumers to pay medical expenditures up to a certain amount themselves in return for a rebate on their out-of-pocket premium. Voluntary deductibles increase consumer choice and can reduce medical consumption. This study focuses on some crucial policy choices concerning the premium rebate for a voluntary deductible in the particular context of a competitive, social health insurance market. Here, competitive means that consumers can periodically switch among insurance plans offered by risk-bearing insurers and social means that a sponsor (e.g. government) aims at realizing risk- and income solidarity. Regarding the social aspects, this thesis will only focus on risk solidarity, i.e. the cross-subsidies from low-risk (e.g. the young and healthy) to high-risk consumers (e.g. the old and unhealthy) intended to make insurance plans affordable for the latter. For curative care, social health insurance schemes with competitive elements can be found, for instance, in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. In a competitive market, insurers are forced to adjust the premium rebate to the difference in (expected) expenses between consumers who choose a deductible and those who do not. From a social perspective, this market-based rebate might be unacceptable. T

Information and communication on the designation and management of Natura2000 sites. Main Report 2: Organizing the management in 27 EU Member States

Following the selection of Special Protection Areas (SPA) and Sites of Community Importance (SCI) according to the Birds and the Habitats Directives, most European Member States are now in process of formally designating SPAs and SCIs as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) or Natura2000 sites. These protected areas collectively form the European Union’s Natura2000 network. Member States are also selecting and implementing adequate management approaches and instruments to maintain and restore the favourable conservation status of protected species and habitat types and to prevent damage to the integrity of the sites. Both actions follow Articles 6.1 and 6.2 of the Habitats Directive. To help the Member States, the European Commission wishes to improve the knowledge and exchange of information and good practice both on the designation process of SPAs and SACs and on the establishment of conservation measures and instruments for these areas. Furthermore, the Commission wants to stress the importance of the sites and their management by involving a wider group of stakeholders in the development of so-called integrated management, in accordance with Article 2 of the Habitats Directive. The project ‘PREPARATORY ACTIONS- Lot 2: Information and communication on the designation and management of sites’ (tender ENV.B.2/SER/2007/0076) is intended to help the Commission to achieve these objectives. This report presents a full description of the results of the project regarding the management of sites

The generation of resonant turbulence for a premixed burner

Is it possible to optimize the turbulent combustion of a low swirl burner by using resonance in turbulence? To that end an active grid is constructed that consists of two perforated disks of which one is rotating, creating a system of pulsating jets, which in the end can be used as a central blocking grid of a low swirl burner. The turbulence originating from this grid is studied by hot wire anemometry to see if there is a frequency for maximal response. Although no resonant enhancement of the turbulent kinetic energy or the dissipation rate is observed, the results for the two different sets of disks show that significant turbulent fluctuations are introduced mainly in the energy containing range and partially in the inertial sub range. These fluctuations represent up to 25% of the total turbulent energy and are not caused by pulsations of the mean flow