Effects of thickness stretching in functionally graded plates and shells

1The present work evaluates the effect of thickness stretching in plate/shell structures made by materials which are functionally graded (FGM) in the thickness directions. That is done by removing or retaining the transverse normal strain in the kinematics assumptions of various refined plate/shell theories. Variable plate/shell models are implemented according to Carrera's Unified Formulation. Plate/shell theories with constant transverse displacement are compared with the corresponding linear to fourth order of expansion in the thickness direction ones. Single-layered and multilayered FGM structures have been analyzed. A large numerical investigation, encompassing various plate/shell geometries as well as various grading rates for FGMs, has been conducted. It is mainly concluded that a refinements of classical theories that include additional in-plane variables could results meaningless unless transverse normal strain effects are taken into account

The EU's dialogue on migration, mobility, and security with the Southern Mediterranean: filling the gaps in the global approach to migration. CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe, June 2011

Recent events in North Africa and the Mediterranean have had consequences in terms of human mobility, and are putting the foundations and components of EU’s migration policy under strain. The forthcoming European Council summit of 23-24 June 2011 is expected to determine ‘the orientations for further work’ under the Polish Presidency and the next JHA Trio Presidency Programme for the EU’s policies on crossborder migration in the Mediterranean and internal mobility within the scope of the Schengen regime. This paper constitutes a contribution to current and future EU policy discussions and responses on migration, mobility and security. It provides a synthesised selection of recommendations in these domains resulting from the research conducted by the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Section of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) during the last nine years of work. This Policy Brief argues that for the EU’s Global Approach to Migration to be able to satisfactorily address its unfinished elements and policy incoherencies, the Union needs to devise and develop common policy strategies focused on: first, new enforcement and independent evaluation mechanisms on the implementation of the European law on free movement, borders and migration, and the compatibility of EU member states and EU agencies’ actions with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. And second, the development of a kind of cooperation (dialogue) with third states that goes beyond security-centred priorities and that is solidly based on facilitating human mobility, consolidating fundamental rights and the general principles of the rule of law upon which the EU legal system is founded

An Assessment of the Commission’s 2011 Schengen Governance Package: Preventing abuse by EU member states of freedom of movement? CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe No. 47, 26 March 2012

The Schengen system has been at the centre of sharp controversy throughout 2011 and the early months of 2012 arising from attempts by several member state governments to challenge the right to the free movement of persons and the abolition of internal border checks. The speech delivered by Nicolas Sarkozy early this month (March 2012), as part of the French presidential campaign, in which he threatened to suspend France’s participation in Schengen illustrates this phenomenon. This paper examines the European Commission’s response to the Schengen controversies, namely the Schengen Goverance Package published in September 2011 and currently under negotiation in Council and the European Parliament. It assesses the scope and added value of the Package’s two new legislative proposals (a new Schengen evaluation mechanism and revised rules for restating internal border checks) by looking at the origins and features of the debate surrounding liberty of circulation in the Schengen area. The paper addresses the following questions: first, are these new rules necessary and appropriate to effectively respond to unlawful security derogations and restrictions to liberty of circulation? Second, would their adoption provide an effective response to current and future political tensions and national governments’ policies against free movement, such as those evidenced in 2011 and 2012 and for them to expand to other member states? And finally, is the Schengen Governance Package well designed to safeguard the free movement of persons, or is it rather oriented towards further strengthening the security apparatus of Schengen

Building a Common Policy on Labour Immigration: Towards a Comprehensive and Global Approach in the EU? CEPS Working Document, No. 256, 7 February 2007

This paper addresses the building of a common EU policy on labour immigration. It reviews the latest policy developments concerning the harmonisation of the rules for admission and residence of third-country workers in the EU. In November 2006, the European Commission published a Communication entitled “Global Approach to Migration one year on: Towards a Comprehensive European Migration Policy”, which reemphasises the need to develop a transnational policy on regular immigration facilitating the admission of certain categories of immigrant workers through “a needsbased approach” and especially taking into account the case of the “highly skilled”. By September 2007 the Commission intends to present two proposals for directives dealing respectively with the conditions for entry and residence of highly skilled workers and a common general framework of rights for all immigrants in legal employment. The main questions evoked by the EU’s ‘global and comprehensive’ approach and these two proposals are considered along with the essential weaknesses that current policy and legal trends in the national arena may pose to any eventual Europeanisation as a result of following their patterns too closely

Automated design of bacterial genome sequences

Background: Organisms have evolved ways of regulating transcription to better adapt to varying environments. Could the current functional genomics data and models support the possibility of engineering a genome with completely rearranged gene organization while the cell maintains its behavior under environmental challenges? How would we proceed to design a full nucleotide sequence for such genomes? Results: As a first step towards answering such questions, recent work showed that it is possible to design alternative transcriptomic models showing the same behavior under environmental variations than the wild-type model. A second step would require providing evidence that it is possible to provide a nucleotide sequence for a genome encoding such transcriptional model. We used computational design techniques to design a rewired global transcriptional regulation of Escherichia coli, yet showing a similar transcriptomic response than the wild-type. Afterwards, we “compiled” the transcriptional networks into nucleotide sequences to obtain the final genome sequence. Our computational evolution procedure ensures that we can maintain the genotype-phenotype mapping during the rewiring of the regulatory network. We found that it is theoretically possible to reorganize E. coli genome into 86% fewer regulated operons. Such refactored genomes are constituted by operons that contain sets of genes sharing around the 60% of their biological functions and, if evolved under highly variable environmental conditions, have regulatory networks, which turn out to respond more than 20% faster to multiple external perturbations. Conclusions: This work provides the first algorithm for producing a genome sequence encoding a rewired transcriptional regulation with wild-type behavior under alternative environments

The Malta declaration on SAR and relocation: A predictable EU solidarity mechanism? CEPS Policy Insights No 2019-14/October 2019

The joint declaration of intent signed at the informal summit between the interior ministers of Italy, Malta, France and Germany in La Valletta on 23 September 2019 (the ‘Malta declaration’) has been presented as a milestone in addressing controversies over Search and Rescue (SAR) and disembarkation of asylum seekers and migrants in the Mediterranean. This Policy Insight provides a critical analysis of the declaration, questioning its added value in ensuring a predictable EU solidarity mechanism in the Mediterranean. It underlines how the intergovernmental and extra-EU Treaty character of this initiative raises a number of concerns regarding its compliance with EU Treaties and principles such as the one of equal solidarity and fair responsibility sharing for asylum seekers among all member states