Languages in the European Union: The Quest for Equality and its Cost

The European Union has recently expanded from 15 to 25 countries. In line with this enlargement, the list of official EU languages has grown from 11 to 20. Currently, the EU extends equal treatment to all member countries’ official languages by providing translations for documents and interpreting services for meetings and sessions of the European Parliament. This, however, is costly, especially when recognizing that many Europeans speak one of the procedural languages of the EU, English, French or German, either as their native language or as a foreign language. We compute disenfranchisement rates that would result from using only the three procedural languages for all EU business, and marginal costs per disenfranchised person associated with providing translations and interpreting into the remaining 17 languages. The marginal costs are shown to vary substantially across the different languages, raising important questions about the economic efficiency of equal treatment for all languages. We argue that an efficient solution would be to decentralize the provision of translations.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40101/3/wp715.pd

Languages in the European Union: The Quest for Equality and its Cost

The European Union has recently expanded from 15 to 25 countries. In line with this enlargement, the list of official EU languages has grown from 11 to 20. Currently, the EU extends equal treatment to all member countries’ official languages by providing translations for documents and interpreting services for meetings and sessions of the European Parliament. This, however, is costly, especially when recognizing that many Europeans speak one of the procedural languages of the EU, English, French or German, either as their native language or as a foreign language. We compute disenfranchisement rates that would result from using only the three procedural languages for all EU business, and marginal costs per disenfranchised person associated with providing translations and interpreting into the remaining 17 languages. The marginal costs are shown to vary substantially across the different languages, raising important questions about the economic efficiency of equal treatment for all languages. We argue that an efficient solution would be to decentralize the provision of translations.Languages, Disenfranchisement, European Union, Cost and benefit analysis

Ever Closer Union or Babylonian Discord?

Extensive multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the European Union. However, a large number of official languages (currently 23) hinders communication and imposes substantial financial and legal costs. We address the merits of multilingualism and formulate an analytical framework to determine the optimal number of official languages in the EU. Using the results of a 2005 Eurobarometer survey of languages in the EU 27, we first derive the sets of languages that minimize aggregate linguistic disenfranchisement of the Unionís citizens for any given number of languages. We then proceed by discussing the political-economy framework and feasibility of a potential linguistic reform in the EU under alternative voting rules. We argue that a six-language regime would be a reasonable intermediate choice: a lower number of official languages results in excessive linguistic disenfranchisement whereas adding further languages increases the costs but brings only limited benefits. We also show that even though a linguistic reform reducing the number of official languages to six is unlikely to gain sufficient support at the present, this may change in the future since young people are more proficient at speaking foreign languages.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64410/1/wp887.pd

Voting on the Choice of Core Languages in the European UnionÂ

Extensive multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the European Union (EU). However, a large number of languages (currently 23) hinders communication and imposes substantial financial and legal costs. On the other hand, the reduction of the number of languages would disenfranchise some or many EU citizens. We use the results of a survey on languages and argue that even though a linguistic reform reducing the number of languages is unlikely to gain sufficient political support today, this may change in the future since young people are more proficient at speaking foreign languages.Languages, Disenfranchisement, European Union, Linguistic standardization

Ever closer Union or Babylonian discord? The official-language problem in the European Union

The policy of official multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the Union. However, a large number of official languages imposes substantial financial, communication and legal costs. We address the merits of extensive multilingualism and formulate an analytical framework to determine the optimal number of official languages in the EU. First, we derive the sequence of optimal sets of languages which identifies the sets of languages that minimize aggregate linguistic disenfranchisement of the Union's citizens for any given number of languages. We then proceed by discussing the political-economy framework and feasibility of a potential linguistic reform in the EU under various voting rules, including the Nice Treaty, the proposed European Constitution and the Penrose law. We argue that a six-language regime would be a reasonable intermediate choice: a lower number of official languages results in excessive linguistic disenfranchisement whereas adding further languages increases the costs but brings only modest benefits. We also show that even though a linguistic reform reducing the number of official languages to six is unlikely to gain sufficient support at the present, this may change in the future since young people tend to be more proficient at speaking foreign languages.languages, disenfranchisement, European Union, linguistic standardization

Ever Closer Union or Babylonian Discord? The Official-language Problem in the European Union

Extensive multilingualism is one of the most important and fundamental principles of the European Union. However, a large number of official languages (currently 23) hinders communication and imposes substantial financial and legal costs. We address the merits of multilingualism and formulate an analytical framework to determine the optimal number of official languages in the EU. Using the results of a 2005 Eurobarometer survey of languages in the EU 27, we first derive the sets of languages that minimize aggregate linguistic disenfranchisement of the Union’s citizens for any given number of languages. We then proceed by discussing the political-economy framework and feasibility of a potential linguistic reform in the EU under alternative voting rules. We argue that a six-language regime would be a reasonable intermediate choice: a lower number of official languages results in excessive linguistic disenfranchisement whereas adding further languages increases the costs but brings only modest benefits. We also show that even though a linguistic reform reducing the number of official languages to six is unlikely to gain sufficient support at the present, this may change in the future since young people are more proficient at speaking foreign languages.

Trapping time statistics and efficiency of transport of optical excitations in dendrimers

We theoretically study the trapping time distribution and the efficiency of the excitation energy transport in dendritic systems. Trapping of excitations, created at the periphery of the dendrimer, on a trap located at its core, is used as a probe of the efficiency of the energy transport across the dendrimer. The transport process is treated as incoherent hopping of excitations between nearest-neighbor dendrimer units and is described using a rate equation. We account for radiative and non-radiative decay of the excitations while diffusing across the dendrimer. We derive exact expressions for the Laplace transform of the trapping time distribution and the efficiency of trapping and analyze those for various realizations of the energy bias, number of dendrimer generations, and relative rates for decay and hopping. We show that the essential parameter that governs the trapping efficiency, is the product of the on-site excitation decay rate and the trapping time (mean first passage time) in the absence of decay.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figure

3D-printing techniques in a medical setting : a systematic literature review

Background: Three-dimensional (3D) printing has numerous applications and has gained much interest in the medical world. The constantly improving quality of 3D-printing applications has contributed to their increased use on patients. This paper summarizes the literature on surgical 3D-printing applications used on patients, with a focus on reported clinical and economic outcomes. Methods: Three major literature databases were screened for case series (more than three cases described in the same study) and trials of surgical applications of 3D printing in humans. Results: 227 surgical papers were analyzed and summarized using an evidence table. The papers described the use of 3D printing for surgical guides, anatomical models, and custom implants. 3D printing is used in multiple surgical domains, such as orthopedics, maxillofacial surgery, cranial surgery, and spinal surgery. In general, the advantages of 3D-printed parts are said to include reduced surgical time, improved medical outcome, and decreased radiation exposure. The costs of printing and additional scans generally increase the overall cost of the procedure. Conclusion: 3D printing is well integrated in surgical practice and research. Applications vary from anatomical models mainly intended for surgical planning to surgical guides and implants. Our research suggests that there are several advantages to 3D- printed applications, but that further research is needed to determine whether the increased intervention costs can be balanced with the observable advantages of this new technology. There is a need for a formal cost-effectiveness analysis