National Parties in the European Parliament: An influence in the Committee System?

The European Parliament’s increased legislative role in recent years means that its actions are now more likely to have an impact on national parties’ policy choices and, indirectly, on their electoral fortunes. This article examines the extent to which national party delegations deal with this by ensuring representativeness among their committee contingents. Using a technique borrowed from Cox and McCubbins (1993), the article compares the voting behaviour of committee contingents with their national party delegations on the basis of roll-call votes. The analysis shows that, for the most part, national parties ensure higher levels of representativeness on committees that have legislative power. The results support the assertion that, as the European Parliament’s actions matter more, national parties have become more concerned with their MEPs’ activities

Translating Words, Translating Cultures

What exactly does (or should) translation from one language into another try to do? Attempt to convey to readers of the target language (the language into which one is translating) something of the strangeness, difference and historicity of the original in the source language (the language from which one is translating)? Or must translation try to bridge the gap between source and target language, by rendering the original in a thoroughly contemporary style and diction, as if this were a work being written now for the first time? And related to these the further questions: how closely should a translation render the genre, language, metre, style and content of the original? How far can a translation depart from the original without ceasing to be a translation – in other words, where is one to situate the border between “translation”, “version” and “adaptation”

DEREK WALCOTI'S OMEROS AND THE CLASSICS

The Greek classics served the Italian, French, and English humanists without the troublesome interposition of actual Greeks. Texts by dead people were read, appreciat~, and appropriated by people who imagined an ideal commonwealth ... In modem times, however, thinking about cultural exchange involves thinking about domination and forcible appropriation: someone loses, someone gains. (Edward Said 1994:235

The Effects of Commodity Disturbances on Open Economics

This dissertation investigates the effects of commodity disturbances on underlying economies. The analysis conducted in this dissertation comprises of two main themes. The first is investigating which commodity disturbances affect a country\u27s GDP. I examine twenty three OECD countries and nineteen primary commodities in the energy, metal, food and timber sectors using a New Keynesian model that was estimated using the DSGE method. It was found the oil disturbances and to a lesser extend natural gas were the only commodity disturbances that affect a country\u27s GDP. Also, it was found that a country\u27s openness plays an important role in shaping the response to these shocks. The second theme expands on these findings by analyzing the effects of oil and gas disturbances on Trinidad and Tobago by asking (1) How long are the effects from oil and gas disturbances on the economy? (2) How do the long-run effects from oil and gas disturbances differ within the economy? VECM and SVEC methods were used, and the results show that the effects from an oil disturbance are larger in magnitude and duration when compared to a gas disturbance. In addition, the effects of oil and gas disturbances had opposite movements on Trinidad and Tobago\u27s CPI, interest rate, and narrow money velocity, whereas both disturbances were positively correlated in regards to Trinidad and Tobago\u27s output and effective real exchange rate in the long-run

Mrs. Richard Whitaker to Mr. Meredith (28 September 1962)

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/mercorr_pro/1288/thumbnail.jp

Measuring the star formation rate density from CNOC2

This thesis charts the evolution of the Universal Star Formation Rate Density (SFRD) across the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.6, using the 2nd Canadian Network for Observational Cosmology Survey (CN0C2). The redshift range covered by the Survey marks an important transitional period in the history of the Universe, over which the SFRD is thought to undergo rapid evolution. The various Star Formation Rate (SFR) indicators from the literature are reviewed and it is shown that the [OII] forbidden emission line can provide a very similar SFR to that reported by the Ha recombination line, if reddening is accounted for. We explain the CN0C2 Survey in detail, including the observation strategy and the instrumentation used. The Survey weighting scheme is also discussed. The purpose written code, used to measure the strengths of the [OII] emission line in each of the Survey spectra, is explained and tested, against both another automated code and by-eye measurements from IRAF. The procedure of re-normalising the on equivalent width errors that are reported by the code is also detailed. This leaves the line measurement errors very well quantified. We investigate the accuracy of the photometric redshift codes ImpZ and Hyperz in returning dust estimates, A(_v) from photometry alone. The benchmark for this comparison is set by Balmer Decrement measurements of a sub-set of the CN0C2 dataset. Combining the [OII] line strength measurements with the dust correction from the photometric redshift code ImpZ, we compute SFRs for individual galaxies in the CN0C2 Survey. These are combined with a weighting scheme to chart the evolution of SFRD with redshift and luminosity. It is found that giant galaxies undergo a strong evolution in terms of the fraction of those galaxies that are rapidly star forming, but that the absolute SFRD from giants does not change as quickly as that from lower luminosity galaxies. At all redshifts and luminosities covered by the Survey, galaxies with [OII] emission <30Å contribute roughly half the total SFRD. This means narrow band imaging surveys may miss a large fraction of star formation activity at those epochs. At z ~ 0.25 it is found that dwarf galaxies dominate the overall SFRD, in-keeping with results from the local Universe. We produce a best estimate Lilly-Madau plot based on our findings and compare it to several studies from the literature. It is shown that although the overall rise found by previous studies is confirmed, the shape of the rise is not consistent with other works, showing a sharper increase at low (0.2 < z < 0.4) redshift followed by a slowing at z ~0.6. The significance of this result remains unquantified however

Do MEPs want to keep ‘schlepping’ to Strasbourg? How travel time influences views on the location of the European Parliament

The practice of holding European Parliament plenary sessions in both Brussels and Strasbourg has frequently been criticised on the basis that it is financially wasteful and damages the environment. But what shapes the opinions of MEPs on the subject? Based on survey evidence, Simon Hix and Richard Whitaker illustrate that while there is support among a large number of MEPs for holding all plenary sessions in Brussels, the travel distance from an MEP’s country to Strasbourg goes some way toward explaining their view on the issue

The electrochemistry of redox enzymes

The work presented in this thesis is of two types. Firstly methods for the electrochemical immobilisation of redox enzymes in organic polymers are described. The electrochemical monitoring of the immobilised enzyme reaction by detection of one of the enzyme's products is discussed, and the results obtained for such a system under a variety of experimental conditions are presented. A good understanding of the way in which such a system operates' was obtained by using a specially developed kinetic model., This model is explained fully in the theory chapter of this thesis. A variety of organic polymers were used in the electrochemical immobilisation process, with varying degrees of success. The flexibility of this approach is demonstrated by the use of a variety of immobilisation matrices and also by the development of bienzyme and bilayer devices. The final experimental chapter presents work on the covalent modification of redox enzymes with a variety of, redox centres based. on ferrocene. Although attempts to electrochemically immobilise a modified enzyme were not successful, some interesting information about the kinetic behaviour and stability of a series Of modified enzymes was obtained. An indication of possible work forming an extension to this thesis is given in the final part of this thesis. The electrochemical immobilisation techniques and the procedure for covalently modifying, enzymes using electroactive, groups are relatively recent ideas. Much work remains to be done before a better understanding of these systems is gained

Understanding members of the European Parliament: four waves of the European Parliament Research Group MEP survey

This article presents a new survey of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) conducted during 2015, which adds to a time series of MEP surveys carried out by the European Parliament Research Group. The data allow for comparison of MEPs’ views with those of the EU public, European Parliament candidates, and members of national and regional parliaments in Europe. The survey includes questions on topical issues, such as intra-EU migration and the UK–EU relationship. The dataset can be used to address a range of research questions concerning MEPs’ preferences and representation. This article presents details of the 2015 MEP survey and uses the data to assess what explains MEPs’ attitudes to the question of whether all EP plenary sessions should be held in Brussels