Entry into force of the new European neighbourhood policy and Negotiation of 'Deep and comprehensive' free trade areas: a European neighbourhood policy running at different speeds

Analysis of the consequences of the entry into Force of the New European Neighborhood Instrument (ENI) and the start of negotiation of “Deep and Comprehensive” Free Trade Areas with Mediterranean partners of the E

Bilateral dynamics and multilateral perspectives in Euro-Mediterranean relations (1995-2010)

The author points out the increasing complexity of Euro-Mediterranean relations and the ever more differentiated relationships. He underlines the return to a more intergovernmentalist approach promoted by the UfM and the creation of an “avant-garde” generated by an ENP positive conditionality approach. At bilateral level, Mediterranean partners must decide to what extent they can go further in the process of economic integration with the EU. At multilateral level, the next step is a comprehensive understanding of what could be the future Euro-Mediterranean economic model of integration. The author alerts us to the development of a multi-speed UfM that could lead to the division of Mediterranean partners into two subgroups: the “good” and “rewarded students” and the “bad” and “non-rewarded students”. Finally, the question of the definitive articulation between the old institutional structures of the Barcelona Process and the new ones has still to be more precisely defined

EU cybersecurity capacity building in the Mediterranean and the Middle East

Cyberthreats on the Rise The 2008 Report on the implementation of the European Security Strategy included “cybersecurity” for the first time among the priorities of the EU’s external action, stating that: “modern economies are heavily reliant on critical infrastructure including transport, communication and power supplies, but also the Internet.” If the EU Strategy for a Secure Information Society, adopted two years before, already addressed “cybercrime,” the proliferation of cyber-attacks “against private or government IT systems” gave the spread of cyber-capabilities a “new dimension, as a potential new economic, political and military weapon.” An EU Cybersecurity Strategy was adopted in 20132 followed, in 2016, by a first EU “Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems,” known as the “NIS Directive,” which harmonized the EU Member States’ legislations

Extending the Geographical Scope of the ENP: The Neighbours of the EU’s Neighbours

The concept of the “neighbours of the EU’s neighbours” appeared for the first time within the 2006 communication of the European Commission on “strengthening the ENP”1, the main idea being to “look beyond the Union’s immediate neighbourhood” and to see if bridges could be built between the areas covered by the latter and Africa, Central Asia and the Gulf

Responding to Cross Border Child Trafficking in South Asia: An Analysis of the Feasibility of a Technologically Enabled Missing Child Alert System

This report examines the feasibility of a technologically enabled system to help respond to the phenomenon of cross-border child trafficking in South Asia, and makes recommendations on how to proceed with a pilot project in the selected areas of Bangladesh, Nepal and India. The study was commissioned by the Missing Child Alert (MCA) programme which is an initiative led by Plan. MCA is an initiative to address cross-border child trafficking in South Asia, led by Plan. The aim of the programme is to link existing institutions, mechanisms and resources in order to tackle the phenomenon from a regional perspective. To achieve this, Plan propose to implement a technologically equipped, institutionalised system of alert that can assist in the rescue, rehabilitation, repatriation and reintegration of children who are at risk of, or are victims of, cross-border trafficking

Force-clamp experiments reveal the free energy profile and diffusion coefficient of the collapse of proteins

We present force-clamp data on the collapse of ubiquitin polyproteins in response to a quench in the force. These nonequilibrium trajectories are analyzed using a general method based on a diffusive assumption of the end-to-end length to reconstruct a downhill free energy profile at 5pN and an energy plateau at 10pN with a slow diffusion coefficient on the order of~100nm^2/s. The shape of the free energy and its linear scaling with the protein length give validity to a physical model for the collapse. However, the length independent diffusion coefficient suggests that internal rather than viscous friction dominates and thermal noise is needed to capture the variability in the measured times to collapse.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Planning: Archival Storage in the Historic Sanborn House

The Town of Winchester requests $35,000 to plan a storage facility for its consolidated historical collections. Project funds would be used to engage a team of experts in the fields of conservation, architecture, archival practice, and engineering to work with the Town of Winchester's Head of Engineering, Town Clerk, Historical Commission, and the Executive Director of the Historical Society to develop plans and specifications for a storage facility on the ground floor of the Sanborn House, a National Register building currently being restored as a cultural and historical center with funding from the Massachusetts Historical Commission, foundations, and private donors. The planning process would focus on a review of collections and calculation of their storage needs, analysis of environmental data for the Sanborn House, review of the building envelope and its capacity for passive and active measures to provide a storage environment that is energy- and cost-efficient