Catching-up and integration in new and future EU member states through FDI

The round of new membership had strong impact on the functioning of the European economy, both in terms of regulation, distribution of resources, and place of economic and regional developpment, catching up policies (converging policies).This goes along with an important flow of foreign capital pouring in the region where the rate of domestic accumulation is still very low and would never match investment requirements to develop a strong industrial base. Firstly, this raises the question of the development of “a capitalist economy without capitalists”. Secondly, it highlights the fact that industrial recovery and economic growth are fuelled by foreign investments in the regionIn this contribution, our aim is to highlight the transformation of these economies with their linkage through their new specialization, control to EU-15 economies through the strong presence of Western Multinational Corporation (MNC).Keywords: Economy, Capitalisme, Foreign Direct InvestmentCodes JEL: F5, P1

Nouveau regard sur l’intelligence économique au Maroc : les enjeux de la cyber-sécurité dans la nouvelle économie mondiale

L’article analyse comment le Maroc a su utiliser l’Intelligence Economique depuis les années 2000 pour effectuer un rattrapage économique et s’insérer de façon active dans l’économie mondiale. Le travail propose d’étudier également quelles seraient les pistes à explorer pour que le Maroc puisse poursuivre son développement économique en utilisant tous les domaines de l’Intelligence Economique, et en particulier en se concentrant sur l’analyse prospective des informations qui permet de nourrir le processus d’innovation dans l’économie marocaine et de conforter la place que ce pays a su obtenir dans l’économie mondiale grâce à la mobilisation de techniques d’influence, de lobbying et d’image adaptées. Dans une première partie, nous étudierons les facteurs de la croissance économique et du développement du Maroc en identifiant le rôle joué par les pratiques de veille et d’intelligence économique dans son insertion dans l’économie mondiale. Dans une seconde partie, nous proposerons au Maroc des pistes pour développer une stratégie de création de connaissances et d’innovation qui pourrait compléter de façon utile la stratégie choisie en matière d’Intelligence Economique Stratégique sur les marchés internationaux. La prise en compte simultané du long terme et du court terme devrait permettre de mieux structurer une politique publique d’Intelligence Economique au Maroc dans un schéma plus global permettant au Royaume de mieux se développer à l’intérieur du pays tout en maintenant sa place essentielle au sein de l’économie mondiale

The inherited blindness protein AIPL1 regulates the ubiquitin-like FAT10 pathway

Mutations in AIPL1 cause the inherited blindness Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA). AIPL1 has previously been shown to interact with NUB1, which facilitates the proteasomal degradation of proteins modified with the ubiquitin-like protein FAT10. Here we report that AIPL1 binds non-covalently to free FAT10 and FAT10ylated proteins and can form a ternary complex with FAT10 and NUB1. In addition, AIPL1 antagonised the NUB1-mediated degradation of the model FAT10 conjugate, FAT10-DHFR, and pathogenic mutations of AIPL1 were defective in inhibiting this degradation. While all AIPL1 mutants tested still bound FAT10-DHFR, there was a close correlation between the ability of the mutants to interact with NUB1 and their ability to prevent NUB1-mediated degradation. Interestingly, AIPL1 also co-immunoprecipitated the E1 activating enzyme for FAT10, UBA6, suggesting AIPL1 may have a role in directly regulating the FAT10 conjugation machinery. These studies are the first to implicate FAT10 in retinal cell biology and LCA pathogenesis, and reveal a new role of AIPL1 in regulating the FAT10 pathway

EUSEDcollab: a network of data from European catchments to monitor net soil erosion by water

As a network of researchers we release an open-access database (EUSEDcollab) of water discharge and suspended sediment yield time series records collected in small to medium sized catchments in Europe. EUSEDcollab is compiled to overcome the scarcity of open-access data at relevant spatial scales for studies on runoff, soil loss by water erosion and sediment delivery. Multi-source measurement data from numerous researchers and institutions were harmonised into a common time series and metadata structure. Data reuse is facilitated through accompanying metadata descriptors providing background technical information for each monitoring station setup. Across ten European countries, EUSEDcollab covers over 1600 catchment years of data from 245 catchments at event (11 catchments), daily (22 catchments) and monthly (212 catchments) temporal resolution, and is unique in its focus on small to medium catchment drainage areas (median = 43 km(2), min = 0.04 km(2), max = 817 km(2)) with applicability for soil erosion research. We release this database with the aim of uniting people, knowledge and data through the European Union Soil Observatory (EUSO)

State enterprise restructuring in Bulgaria, Albania and Romania

The aim of the paper is to analysis, through a cross-sector and cross-country approach, the way in which firms in less-advanced transforming economies are restructured. Compared with more advanced economies, where different kind of privatization schemes have been experienced, in Bulgaria, Albania and Romania, adjusting to the new market environment has followed different paths (weak macrostabilization policies, lack of a comprehensive programme), which have led to a kind of defensive restructuring. In this paper, we look at the way in which firms in different sectors have reacted. The main economic and political factors that slow the process are analyzed