Comitology between Political Decision-Making and Technocratic Governance: Regulating GMOs in the European Union

The EU’s comitology system is generally considered to be an effective mechanism for facilitating efficient policy implementation while at the same time ensuring a degree of Member State control over the process. However, if this assessment is applicable to most areas of routine decision-making, the regulation of GMO authorizations by the European Commission, which also falls under comitology, presents a markedly different picture. The article shows the particular problems that occur in this field, outlining the involvement of a number of different actors (comitology committees, Council, European Commission and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and their interaction in what has become a complex and protracted policy process. The articles identifies a number of key issues – the reliance of the Commission on EFSA’s scientific expertise, the weakness of political accountability due to divisions among the Member States, the difficulties of the European Commission to achieve compliance with European and international rules – and discusses the impact that these have on the legitimacy, efficiency and effectiveness of policy-making in this area. The article concludes that, due to the problems arising from the particular arrangement of interests and procedures in this area, the operation of comitology in the regulation of GMOs is highly problematic

Measuring the welfare cost of inflation in South Africa

In this paper, we estimate the long-run equilibrium relationship between money balance as a ratio of income and the Treasury bill rate for the period of 1965:02 to 2007:01, and, in turn, use the relationship to obtain welfare cost estimates of inflation. Using the Johansen (1991, 1995) technique, we estimate a log-log specification and a semi-log model of the above relationship. Based on the fits of the specifications, we decided to rely more on the welfare cost measure obtained under the log-log money demand model. Our estimates suggest that the welfare cost of inflation for South Africa ranges between 0.34 percent and 0.67 percent of GDP, for a band of 3 to 6 percent of inflation. Thus, it seems that the SARB's current inflation target band of 3-6 percent provides quite a good approximation in terms of welfare.

Influence of sperm-oocyte coincubation period on porcine in vitro fertilization (IVF) efficiency

A major obstacle for successful in vitro production of porcine embryos is the polyspermic fertilization. One possibility to reduce polyspermic penetration is decreasing the number of spermatozoa added to the fertilization medium. Unfortunately, the lower rate of polyspermy is accompanied by a reduced penetration rate. A short gamete coincubation period of 10 min has been described to obtain fertilization rates similar to 6 h of coincubation and may improve IVF efficiency (number of monospermic fertilized oocytes/total number inseminated) depending on sperm-oocyte ratio (Gil, 2007, Theriogenology, 67(3), 620–626). Here we demonstrate that the optimal coincubation period in our IVF conditions is between 10 min and 6 h. In vitro matured oocytes (n = 600) were inseminated with frozen-thawed epididymal semen with 600 spermatozoa per oocyte and coincubated for 2, 4 and 6 h. At 2 and 4 h post insemination (hpi), oocytes were vortexed and transferred to fertilization medium without spermatozoa. At 6 hpi, presumed zygotes of all groups were washed three times in culture medium and cultured. At 22 hpi, zygotes were fixed overnight and stained with Hoechst 33,342 for the assessment of fertilization and polyspermy. The IVF efficiency was higher for the 4 h group (40 ± 5%) than the 2 and 6 h group (19 ± 8% and 17 ± 5%). Between 4 and 6 h of gamete coincubation, the increase in the number of polyspermic oocytes was relatively higher than the increase in penetration rate (+39% vs. +15%), resulting in a decline in efficiency. (This study was supported by Research Foundation-Flanders)

The Scientific Integrity of Applied Research

This paper reviews some of the threats to scientific independence in the Netherlands that have recently alerted the scientific community. The problems are not only apparent in research requested by the government or local authorities; they are also found in a variety of research fields. They are essentially related to the increasing dearth of research funding in the universities. In Europe in general, and the Netherlands in particular, there are no large, independent research foundations which exist elsewhere, so research funding generally depends on funding by government, local authorities or industry. The problem has long been underappreciated and no effective action has been taken. However, more recently and as a consequence of media reports, a number of drastic measures are being taken. This paper deals first with the nature of the threats to the integrity of scientific research, and then reviews the type of actions that have been, and could be take

Behavior modification in special classes

The purpose of this paper was to encourage the use of behavior modification in special classes as a substantial aid to present-day needs. It briefly reviews the compelling need for improvement in special education, especially in the two areas of social maturity and motivation. It suggests that behavior modification may be the answer to these needs. It briefly treats some of the objections to the use of behavior modification. However, the main part of this paper was directed toward: (1) an examination of principles concerning behavior modification, (2) a review of techniques currently being practiced, (3) a discussion of these techniques in the light of the principles presented, and (4) a suggestion toward solving the problem of internalizing behavior modification gains