THE HARMONIZATION OF THE EU CONTRACT LAW

Why would a common contract law be optimal for the member states of the European Union? The main reason is that it would be much cheaper to set up contractual relations. If somebody conducts economic activities in the European Union, and if the same regulations apply everywhere, this unity can help this corporate or private person (entrepreneur) to work under the same conditions. If somebody wants to sell a product in the EU he/she has to be well-prepared about the different legal systems in various countries. To know these regulations is very expensive. Apart from the costs, there is also the risk of accepting another country’s legal norms, which are different than home rules. The essence of the EU is the common market. The steps that the EU has taken to deepen the level of the integration in the last decades lead to this direction. Many firms or private persons do not dare to step over the borders of their home countries, because of their ignorance of the legal systems of other countries. If the EU can create a unity in some fields of the legal systems, business transactions across the borders can be made much easier.European Union, contract, harmonization, Agricultural and Food Policy, Public Economics,

Interpretáció, diskurzusszerkezet és intonáció = Interpretation, discourse structure, and intonation

A kutatás a mondatok jelentése, a diskurzusok szerkezete és az intonáció általános összefüggéseinek feltárásához kívánt hozzájárulni a magyarra vonatkozó adatok új szempontok szerinti gyűjtése, azok formális leírása, és a leírásokra támaszkodó elméleti magyarázatok kidolgozása révén. A fenti általános problémakörből a kutatás három részproblémára fókuszált. Egyrészt, percepciós kísérletek eredményeire alapozva új, és a szakirodalomban eddig szereplő megfigyelésekkel részben ellentétes megállapításokat tettünk arról, hogy a mondatok igazságfeltételes jelentésére milyen hatással van a default hangsúlymintától való eltérés, amelyek a magyar kvantoros kifejezéseket tartalmazó mondatok interpretációjára vonatkozó korábbi nézetek revízióját teszik szükségessé. Másrészt, vizsgáltuk azt a kérdést, hogy egyes mondatösszetevők azonos információs szerkezeti szerepe ugyanolyan prozódiai tulajdonságokban nyilvánul-e meg. Ennek során a magyar mondat úgynevezett topik pozíciójában elhelyezkedő különböző szintaktikai kategóriájú, de a diskurzusban ugyanannyira ismertnek tekintett összetevők prozódiai tulajdonságainak explicit, eszközfonetikai méréseken alapuló leírását adtuk meg. Harmadrészt, áttekintettük, hogy milyen paraméterek segítségével írhatók le a diskurzuspartikulák jelentéstani tulajdonságai, és több partikula (hangsúlyos csak, ugye, -e, vajon, hát) esetében elsőként adtunk a magyarra formális szemantikai/pragmatikai alapokon nyugvó jelentésleírásokat. | The aim of the project was to contribute to the study of the interrelations between the meaning of sentences, discourse structure, and intonation, by collecting Hungarian data according to new principles, formally describing them, and developing new theoretical explanations based on these. The research concentrated on three subproblems within this general area. First, on the basis of the results of perception experiments, we made new observations partly contradicting those in the literature on how non-default stress patterns influence the truth-conditional meaning of sentences, which require the revision of previous views on the interpretation of Hungarian sentences with quantifiers. Second, we investigated the question of whether similar information structural roles of constituents are manifested in similar prosodic properties. In the course of this, we provided an explicit description of the prosodic properties of constituents situated in the so-called topic position of the Hungarian sentence that belong to different syntactic categories but represent similar degrees of givenness. Third, we investigated what parameters can be used for the description of the meaning of discourse particles, and provided formal semantic/pragmatic descriptions of some Hungarian particles (csak, ugye, -e, vajon, hát) for the first time

Global crisis and its implications on the political transformation in China

This paper analyzes the impact of global financial and economic crisis on the process of system transformation in China. First, it details the direct impact of global growth on macroeconomic development and its indirect impact on economic transformation. Second, it analyzes the direct impact of global crisis on macroeconomic decline and its indirect impact on the prospects of political transformation. The paper builds on the basic principles and ideas of the Interactive Party-State model to introduce the concept of transformation dynamics. This concept implies the direction and speed of change of the retreating party-state sphere and the emergence of the field outside of it during the process of transformation. Using this concept a statistical survey was carried out on the economic transformation of the Chinese party-state. Results reveal the disparities of the dynamics of transformation in time, in space, and at different levels of aggregation between 1999 and 2004. A dominant type of transformation dynamics is revealed during this period and the shift of dominant type within that period, sensitive to the trend of certain economic indicators. Based on those findings, the paper projects the dominance of another type of transformation dynamics as a result of the consequences of global crisis. It also outlines the possible impact of this dynamics on the premises of political transformation.system transformation, China, economic transformation, political transformation, spatial disparities in system transformation

Evaluating the alignment between the RSD framework and the effectiveness of 'bolted on' research skills training

This research considers the alignment of the curriculum and assessment design of the subject Research and Communication Skills for the Natural Sciences (SC5055) against the RSD matrix and asks which students benefit most from training in research and communication skills. The impact of SC5055 on students’ achievement and their ability to self-evaluate the development of their skills and understanding is also explored. Potential improvement for the RSD framework is highlighted