Number Of New Elements Research Articles

Perspectives of undergraduate medical students regarding competency-based curriculum.

Background The competency-based undergraduate medical curriculum has a number of new elements. Few authors have attempted to understand the students' viewpoints on the curriculum. We assessed undergraduate students perspectives and ratings about various elements after 2 years of implementation of the curriculum. Methods We included 240 students (2019 and 2020 admission). An invitation letter-cum-information sheet was sent to all the students by email informing them about the study, keeping their identity confidential and the implied consent. A validated questionnaire based on a 5-point Likert scale including 35 closed-ended questions eliciting the students' perception on various elements of the new curriculum and a rating scale from 1 to 5 was designed. Data collection was done using Google forms. Results Of the 240 respondents, 192 (80%) had positive perceptions for the Foundation Course, Attitude, Ethics and Communication skills, Early Clinical Exposure and Community Health Visits. Integrated Teaching, Small Group Teaching and Assessments were viewed less positively (62.9%-75%) and Self-directed Learning received the lowest positive responses (57%-58%). For training as a doctor, the elements considered most valuable were Early Clinical Exposure (70.4%) and Community Health Visits (70.4%) while the least were Logbooks (35.5%) and Reflections (34.2%). Conclusions Students found Early Clinical Exposure and Community Health Visits the most valuable elements whereas Self-directed Learning, Logbooks and Reflections were rated as the least useful.

Role of Digitalization in the Growth of MSMEs in India: Opportunities and Challenges

Digital technology has enormous potential benefits for the MSME sector in India. The business-focused digital environment has seen a substantial transition recently. A number of new elements have emerged that could help define the limits of a strong digital ecosystem. Problems arise when trying to address the complex and heterogeneous MSME sector, which is dominated by small businesses with varying degrees of digital readiness. An incentive for businesses to completely adopt digital technology would be to provide an ecosystem with end-to-end solutions for operations, management, payments, skilling, and even easy information sources. The global Covid-19 outbreak has forced businesses, including MSMEs, to digitally upgrade their operational procedures. This paper makes the argument that we should consider those factors that offer opportunities to deepen our understanding of MSMEs' attempts to digitise their operations. The government's policies on widespread social restrictions and physical segregation have a significant negative impact on MSMEs'operations. The development of business centres utilising the digital transformation paradigm may help MSMEs to go digital.

Демократические традиции российской президентуры в контексте конституционной реформы 2020 года

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the formation of the post of the President of the Russian Federation and the constitutional parameters of his relationship with the legislative, executive and judicial authorities. The relevance of the chosen topic is determined by the importance of the constitutional reforms carried out in 2020, the lack of significant number of scientific assessments of the results of the reform, the prospects for changing the principles of work of public authorities based on its results. Based on generally accepted scientific methods, based on the results of the analysis, it is substantiated that the 2020 constitutional reform introduced a number of new elements into the constitutional mechanism for the separation of powers without affecting its fundamental foundations. In support of this conclusion, a historical excursion is dedicated to the establishment of presidential rule in Russia in the conditions of centrifugal tendencies of the perestroika period, revealed the differences in the “late Soviet” ideas about the functional composition of the powers of the head of state, showed the main milestones in the evolution of doctrinal judgments about the role of the president in the constitutional mechanism of separation of powers, developed in the modern period. The article examines the features of the constitutional reform that took place, assesses the strategy of targeted adjustments to constitutional norms, developed with the direct participation of the President of Russia Vladimir V. Putin. Attention is also paid to the sociological dimension of support for the constitutional initiatives of the head of state, as well as a special procedure for their legitimization. Positive assesses are given the establishment of a mechanism for the implementation of preliminary constitutional review, since this strengthens the guaranteeing function of the head of state and his powers as a guarantor of constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens. In the context of limiting the period of tenure of the head of state by two constitutional terms, the adopted decisions serve as a condition for increasing the protection of citizens. In addition, they help to prevent a possible political crisis in the context of disagreements between the parliament and the head of state. The approval of amendments to the constitutional text at the all-Russian vote became an act of real democracy, which guaranteed the stable development of the country and civil society. The procedure of the all-Russian voting as a form of direct democracy has prospects for further use in electoral law. All-Russian voting has no historical analogues, but the experience of its holding has shown that in modern conditions a new democratic electoral standard can be formed.

SCOPE 2.0: a model to simulate vegetated land surface fluxes and satellite signals

Abstract. The Soil Canopy Observation of Photosynthesis and Energy fluxes (SCOPE) model aims at linking satellite observations in the visible, infrared, and thermal domains with land surface processes in a physically based manner, and quantifying the microclimate in vegetation canopies. It simulates radiative transfer in the soil, leaves, and vegetation canopies, as well as photosynthesis and non-radiative heat dissipation through convection and mechanical turbulence. Since the first publication 12 years ago, SCOPE has been applied in remote sensing studies of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), energy balance fluxes, gross primary production (GPP), and directional thermal signals. Here, we present a thoroughly revised version, SCOPE 2.0, which features a number of new elements: (1) it enables the definition of layers consisting of leaves with different properties, thus enabling the simulation of vegetation with an understorey or with a vertical gradient in leaf chlorophyll concentration; (2) it enables the simulation of soil reflectance; (3) it includes the simulation of leaf and canopy reflectance changes induced by the xanthophyll cycle; and (4) the computation speed has been reduced by 90 % compared to earlier versions due to a fundamental optimization of the model. These new features improve the capability of the model to represent complex canopies and to explore the response of remote sensing signals to vegetation physiology. The improvements in computational efficiency make it possible to use SCOPE 2.0 routinely for the simulation of satellite data and land surface fluxes. It also strengthens the operability for the numerical retrieval of land surface products from satellite or airborne data.

A shimmering movement: Ali Abbasi’s Border as a trans* posthumanist post-celluloid adaptation

Gräns (Border) (2018) is an adaptation of a short story by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist (2006). The film retains large parts of the literary plot as well as its focalization through the troll-protagonist Tina/Reva. At the same time, Border introduces significant modifications. I argue that by expanding the plot to include a number of new elements and amplifying Lindqvist’s strategy of ‘a shimmering movement’, including the experience of transness and identity as change, Abbasi’s film disrupts more forcefully our ideas about the human/nonhuman divide, sex and gender dualism, aesthetics, ethics and other normative regimes regulating our social and human lives. By examining the film as a post-celluloid adaptation, I show how Border incorporates Lindqvist’s critique of technology while also embracing the imaginative and affective possibilities of digital cinema to interrogate the responsibilities of humanity from a posthumanist perspective.

Scalable Mesh Refinement for Canonical Polygonal Schemas of Extremely High Genus Shapes.

Any closed manifold of genus g can be cut open to form a topological disk and then mapped to a regular polygon with 4g sides. This construction is called the canonical polygonal schema of the manifold, and is a key ingredient for many applications in graphics and engineering, where a parameterization between two shapes with same topology is often needed. The sides of the 4g-gon define on the manifold a system of loops, which all intersect at a single point and are disjoint elsewhere. Computing a shortest system of loops of this kind is NP-hard. A computationally tractable alternative consists of computing a set of shortest loops that are not fully disjoint in polynomial time using the greedy homotopy basis algorithm proposed by Erickson and Whittlesey and then detach them in post processing via mesh refinement. Despite this operation is conceptually simple, known refinement strategies do not scale well for high genus shapes, triggering a mesh growth that may exceed the amount of memory available in modern computers, leading to failures. In this article we study various local refinement operators to detach cycles in a system of loops, and show that there are important differences between them, both in terms of mesh complexity and preservation of the original surface. We ultimately propose two novel refinement approaches: the former greatly reduces the number of new elements in the mesh, possibly at the cost of a deviation from the input geometry. The latter allows to trade mesh complexity for geometric accuracy, bounding deviation from the input surface. Both strategies are trivial to implement, and experiments confirm that they allow to realize canonical polygonal schemas even for extremely high genus shapes where previous methods fail.

Assessing resilience of healthcare infrastructure exposed to COVID-19: emerging risks, resilience indicators, interdependencies and international standards.

In the moment of preparation of this paper, the world is still globally in grip of the Corona (COVID-19) crisis, and the need to understand the broader overall framework of the crisis increases. As in similar cases in the past, also with this one, the main interest is on the “first response”. Fully appreciating the efforts of those risking their lives facing pandemics, this paper tries to identify the main elements of the larger, possibly global, framework, supported by international standards, needed to deal with new (emerging) risks resulting from threats like Corona and assess the resilience of systems affected. The paper proposes that future solutions should include a number of new elements, related to both risk and resilience. That should include broadening the scope of attention, currently focused onto preparation and response phases, to the phases of “understanding risks”, including emerging risks, and transformation and adaptation. The paper suggests to use resilience indicators in this process. The proposed approach has been applied in different cases involving critical infrastructures in Europe (energy supply, water supply, transportation, etc., exposed to various threats), including the health system in Austria. The detailed, indicator-based, resilience analysis included mapping resilience, resilience stress-testing, visualization, etc., showing, already before the COVID-19, the resilience (stress-testing) limits of the infrastructures. A simpler (57 indicator based) analysis has, then been done for 11 countries (including Austria). The paper links these results with the options available in the area of policies, standards, guidelines and tools (such as the RiskRadar), with focus on interdependencies and global standards—especially the new ISO 31,050, linking emerging risks and resilience.

New exotic beams from the SPIRAL 1 upgrade

Since 2001, the SPIRAL 1 facility has been one of the pioneering facilities in ISOL techniques for re-accelerating radioactive ion beams: the fragmentation of the heavy ion beams of GANIL on graphite targets and subsequent ionization in the Nanogan ECR ion source has permitted to deliver beams of gaseous elements (He, N, O, F, Ne, Ar, Kr) to numerous experiments. Thanks to the CIME cyclotron, energies up to 20 AMeV could be obtained. In 2014, the facility was stopped to undertake a major upgrade, with the aim to extend the production capabilities of SPIRAL 1 to a number of new elements. This upgrade, which is presently under commissioning, consists in the integration of an ECR booster in the SPIRAL 1 beam line to charge breed the beam of different 1+ sources. A FEBIAD source (the so-called VADIS from ISOLDE) was chosen to be the future workhorse for producing many metallic ion beams. This source was coupled to the SPIRAL 1 graphite targets and tested on-line with different beams at GANIL. The charge breeder is an upgraded version of the Phoenix booster which was previously tested in ISOLDE. It was recently commissioned at LPSC and lately in the SPIRAL 1 beam lines with stable beams. The upgrade additionally permits the use of other target material than graphite. In particular, the use of fragmentation targets will permit to produce higher intensities than from projectile fragmentation, and thin targets of high Z will be used for producing beams by fusion-evaporation. The performances of the aforementioned ingredients of the upgrade (targets, 1+ source and charge breeder) have been and are still being optimized in the frame of different European projects (EMILIE, ENSAR and ENSAR2). The upgraded SPIRAL 1 facility will provide soon its first new beams for physics and further beam development are undertaken to prepare for the next AGATA campaign. The results obtained during the on-line commissioning period permit to evaluate intensities for new beams from the upgraded facility. © 2001 Elsevier Science. All rights reserved.

A hybrid evolutionary approach based on the invasive weed optimization and estimation distribution algorithms

Hybrid evolutionary methods combine approaches extracted from different evolutionary computation techniques to build a single optimization method. The design of such systems represents a current trend in the evolutionary optimization literature. In hybrid algorithms, the objective is to extend the potential advantages of the integrated approaches and eliminate their main drawbacks. In this work, a hybrid method for solving optimization problems is presented. The proposed approach combines (A) the explorative characteristics of the invasive weed optimization method, (B) the probabilistic models of the estimation distribution algorithms and (C) the dispersion capacities of a mixed Gaussian–Cauchy distribution to produce its own search strategy. With these mechanisms, the proposed method conducts an optimization strategy over search areas that deserve a special interest according to a probabilistic model and the fitness value of the existent solutions. In the proposed method, each individual of the population generates new elements around its own location, dispersed according to the mixed distribution. The number of new elements depends on the relative fitness value of the individual regarding the complete population. After this process, a group of promising solutions are selected from the set compound by the (a) new elements and the (b) original individuals. Based on the selected solutions, a probabilistic model is built from which a certain number of members (c) are sampled. Then, all the individuals of the sets (a), (b) and (c) are joined in a single group and ranked in terms of their fitness values. Finally, the best elements of the group are selected to replace the original population. This process is repeated until a termination criterion has been reached. To test the performance of our method, several comparisons to other well-known metaheuristic methods have been made. The comparison consists of analyzing the optimization results over different standard benchmark functions within a statistical framework. Conclusions based on the comparisons exhibit the accuracy, efficiency and robustness of the proposed approach.

The Pocket Laboratory: The Blowpipe in Eighteenth-Century Swedish Chemistry

This article examines the role of the blowpipe in the discovery process of the disproportionately large number of new elements found by Swedish chemists during the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth. While individual chemists abroad used versions of the tool, in Sweden alone its use was ubiquitous across the chemical and mineralogical research community, and its consistently simple handheld design made basic dry chemical analysis quick, cheap, and portable. This shared use of the tool was crucial to the development of the mineral analysis projects that uncovered new substances, first by enabling the adoption of a system defining minerals by their chemical components and mineralogy by chemical analysis, and second by providing a simple and practical method for that analysis that facilitated collaboration across institutions, physical distance, and time.

Determination of Number of New Elements for Sequence of Fuzzy Topographic Topological Mapping

Problem involving neuro magnetic inverse problem can be solved with Fuzzy Topographic Topological Mapping (FTTM). FTTM is a model consists of four components and connected by three algorithms. FTTM version 1 and version 2 were designed to present 3D view of an unbounded single current and bounded multicurrent sources, respectively. Several definitions related to sequence of FTTM were introduced by Suhana and the feature, namely the cube of FTTM are developed. In this paper, sequence of FTTM namely FTTMn are discussed. Consequently, some theorems are proved to describe the number of the new elements produced from the FTTMn. Besides that, the number of new elements produced from combination of sequence of FTTMn can be written as a combination from cubes of FTTMn.

Fr. M. D. Leroy O.P. (1828-1905) - průkopník možnosti katolické recepce evolučního vzniku lidského těla

This study presents the life and work of the French Catholic theologian M. D. Leroy (1828–1905) regarding the issue of the evolutionary origin of humans. His book, published in 1891, met with harsh reactions from the side of transformism opponents, after which it was followed by the process of the Sacred Congregation of the Index. The work was condemned and the author was reprimanded. Leroy formally submitted himself to the Congregation’s decision. The implicit dualism was the basic problem of the so-called Mivart thesis. Leroy claims that the human body can be called human, if the body is united with its essential form only, ergo its immortal soul. By means of the evolution, the creator could prepare a certain pre-human species, the substrate of the creation of a human body by the infusion of the immortal soul. The study by Leroy contains a number of new elements: an explanation of the apparently contradictory attitudes of Pope Leo XIII, a reference to the views of the remarkable French apologist F. Duilhe. Although he did not accept Leroy’s point of view, he did take sides on the right for liberal research in this area for Catholic theologians in 1897. There are essential links of the detection in between, as to what was the French and Czech natural science point-of-view in relation to Darwinism at this period. Leroy’s thesis is still relevant as it corrects the implicit dualism in the area of anthropology, which is implicitly presented in the widespread solution of the Catholic world today. The human body, in his view, came into being through evolution and was provided with a human soul at a certain moment.

Bronzino’s Dante

Bronzino’s Dante Deborah Parker Bronzino’s Portrait of Dante (1532–33) differs from earlier representations of the poet in a number of striking ways.1 The earliest portraits, such as the one in the Capella della Maddalena in the Bargello attributed to the school of Giotto and the fresco in the former Palazzo dei giudici e notai by an unknown artist, show the poet in profile with the aquiline nose, dark hair and serious countenance noted by Boccaccio in his Trattatello in laude di Dante. In 1465 Domenico di Michelino introduced a number of new elements to the Dante portrait: a laurel crown now graces the poet’s cappuccio, his cap, and he wears a red lucco, a long tunic-like garment. Domenico depicts Dante amidst the three realms of the afterlife: above loom the heavens of Paradise, to the left we see the Mountain of Purgatory, and in the lower left corner, a mixture of infernal elements–the Gate of Hell, the neutrals, and Satan. To the right we see Florence—more precisely, Quattrocento Florence, with Brunelleschi’s dome prominently displayed. Dante holds a book of the Commedia open to the first lines of Inferno 1. Bronzino’s Portrait of Dante adapts some elements from Domenico’s work and introduces some notable new ones.2 Dante himself has never appeared more grandly majestic. The work displays many of the hallmarks of the third age of art extolled by Vasari in the Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori: the features of Dante’s face, shown off profile, have been softened and show the fine modeling typical of the bella maniera. His red garment falls in soft sweeping folds and Bronzino has foreshortened the artist’s right arm. With his other hand Dante holds a large folio volume of his poem. Like Domenico di Michelino, Bronzino shows Dante amidst the three realms of the Commedia. In the painting Dante sits majestically [End Page 156] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Title page, Dante con l’espositione di Christophoro Landino, et di Alessandro Vellutello, 1564. Photo: Courtesy of Small Special Collections, University of Virginia. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 2. Artist unknown, Allegorical Portrait of Dante, late sixteenth century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Photo: Courtesy of the National Gallery. [End Page 157] on a rocky promontory, gazing meditatively towards the Mountain of Purgatory, three of whose terraces can be discerned—the proud, the wrathful and the lustful, not to mention the Earthly Paradise atop the mountain. A sailboat with one figure standing on the stern and two seated figures is visible in the middle ground.3 While Domenico da Michelino places Florence to Dante’s left in his work, Bronzino places the city to the poet’s right. His right hand hovers over Florence; below the city we see the fires of hell. Dante appears in partial darkness, his face and torso illuminated by a light that shines down from above, which also irradiates the large folio edition of the Commedia he holds. A light shines brightly on the upper left page, making the passage on the page he holds open with his left hand manifestly apparent: Paradiso 25.1–48. The portrait has a dual focus: while the figure of Dante dominates the painting, the large book he holds also commands the attention of viewers. The earliest allusions to this work occur in Vasari’s Vite. In the “Life of Pontormo,” Vasari reports that Bronzino had begun to paint portraits of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio in the lunettes of his patron Bartolomeo Bettini’s bedroom, and he planned to add portraits of other Tuscan love poets. Later, in the “Life of Bronzino,” Vasari notes that the half-length portraits (“figure di mezzo in su”) of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio had been completed.4 Until Philippe Costamagna discovered the original in the 1990s, Bronzino’s Portrait of Dante was only known through some preparatory drawings, a workshop copy in Washington’s National Gallery of Art entitled Allegorical Portrait of Dante (Fig. 2), and a woodcut bust of Dante that appears in Francesco Sansovino’s 1564 edition of the poem that includes the commentaries...

Lorentzian proper vertex amplitude: Classical analysis and quantum derivation

Spin foam models, an approach to defining the dynamics of loop quantum gravity, make use of the Plebanski formulation of gravity, in which gravity is recovered from a topological field theory via certain constraints called simplicity constraints. However, the simplicity constraints in their usual form select more than just one gravitational sector as well as a degenerate sector. This was shown, in previous work, to be the reason for the "extra" terms appearing in the semiclassical limit of the Euclidean EPRL amplitude. In this previous work, a way to eliminate the extra sectors, and hence terms, was developed, leading to the what was called the Euclidean proper vertex amplitude. In the present work, these results are extended to the Lorentzian signature, establishing what is called the Lorentzian proper vertex amplitude. This extension is non-trivial and involves a number of new elements since, for Lorentzian bivectors, the split into self-dual and anti-self-dual parts, on which the Euclidean derivation was based, is no longer available. In fact, the classical parts of the present derivation provide not only an extension to the Lorentzian case, but also, with minor modifications, provide a new, more four dimensionally covariant derivation for the Euclidean case. The new elements in the quantum part of the derivation are due to the different structure of unitary representations of the Lorentz group.

Ocupación humana y monumentalidad durante la Prehistoria Reciente en el islote de Guidoiro Areoso (Ría de Arousa, Pontevedra): investigaciones en el marco de las dinámicas litorales atlánticas actuales

The prehistoric occupation of the islet of Guidoiro Areoso, in the Ria de Arosa, has been known since the late 1980s when work led by one of us revealed the existence of several funerary monuments and a Bronze Age occupation site. In recent years, the erosion has caused a rapid alteration of the dune and the shoreline, exposing a number of new elements and critically threatening the integrity of the sites. As a result of recent coastal erosion and extreme weather events two funerary monuments (Mamoa 5 and Cista 1) and part of the paleosol located in the western coast of the islet have been destroyed. The present paper reports the first results of both the latest survey and monitoring procedures and of the recent study and interpretation of the Bronze Age ceramic assemblages. As a result, the paper highlights the relevance of the islet and of the proposed methodologies for the study of the prehistoric occupation of the coast in Iberia and other parts of Atlantic Europe.

Comparative classification of elements of Russian universities innovative structure

The article deals with the classification of the elements of Russian universities innovative struc- ture, made a comparative analysis of some classification of the elements. Classification supple- mented by a number of new elements. The basic position of the effect on the functioning of innova-tion structures of Russian universities.

Book review: Globalisation and European Integration: Critical Approaches to Regional Order and International Relations, by Petros Nousios, Henk Overbeek and Andreas Tsolakis (eds.)

Petros Nousios, Henk Overbeek and Andreas Tsolakis (eds.) Globalisafion and European Integration: Critical Approaches to Regional Order and International Relations, Routledge: London, 2012, 280 pp: 9780415-611848, 80 [pounds sterling] (hbk) This collection of papers is rooted in a conference held at the University of Warwick in June 2009. As such, it is aimed at a fast-moving target: the swift and sometimes unexpected developments across Europe during the ongoing global and especially Eurozone crises, and what this means for the study of European integration. Nevertheless, any disadvantages that may accrue from being unable to cover new developments and twists in the crises--because they occurred after the manuscript was completed--are overcome by the case for critical approaches to European integration that the current period makes much more apparent. Critical political economy perspectives on European integration have become increasingly prominent over the last 15 years, but within the field of European studies, they are very much a minority view. As an example, I recently had a debate with a doctoral student who asserted that this state of affairs was due to the unwillingness of critical political economy scholars to engage with the mainstream literature. My view was that these attempts have been made, yet the field is largely impervious to alternative viewpoints. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, a number of the papers in this volume are written by authors whose earlier arguments--on both European integration and/or the field of European studies--have been vindicated to a large degree. Therefore, it is possible that some readers will not find much value-added in the volume, because chapters by (for example) Alan Cafruny and Magnus Ryner, Kees van der Pijl, Hans-Jurgen Biding and Henk Overbeek contain arguments that are well-known among critical political economy researchers. In my view, this would be a mistake, for there are still a number of new elements--not least the post-2007 period of crisis; and the chapters dovetail nicely with those written by authors who have come to this topic more recently (Owen Parker, Hubert Buch-Hansen and Angela Wigger, Jan Drahokoupil and Martin Myant), or bring new aspects to the discussion (Werner Bonefeld, Bob Jessop, Andreas Bieler). Furthermore, the concluding chapter by Peter Nousios and Andreas Tsolakis does an excellent job in looking forward to the years ahead. In essence, many of the chapters revolve around the thesis that, following the drive for a single European market in the 1980s, European integration has become an increasingly neoliberal process. Primary in shaping this process has been transnational capital, particularly the financial fractions, in inscribing deeply into the EU's institutional architecture a series of policies and regulations which have proved to be increasingly hostile to labour (in terms of both the percentage of GDP taken up by labour and labour as a social and political actor) and, more broadly, the notion of a European 'social' model (for two classic statements, see Gill 1998, or van Apeldoorn 2002). The reasons offered vary across the chapters. For instance, Werner Bonefeld argues that contemporary neoliberal processes are rooted in the fact that the capitalist state is fundamentally a liberal state, which points us towards more classical accounts (such as Hayek's) on supranationalism as the means of containing democratic demands. Owen Parker's Foucauldian analysis in the subsequent chapter, on the other hand, challenges Marxist accounts on what he sees as an overly strong focus on the extension of market rationalities rather than their ethical ambiguities--but there are clear points of agreement. Although there are many benefits to be gained from alerting us to the ignorance by mainstream scholarship of the capitalist elephant in the room (cf. Bruff 2011), and the significance of these insights for understanding the current crises, there is a danger of overstating the case. …

Alternative Scenarios for Health, Life Expectancy and Social Expenditure: The Influence of Living Longer in Better Health on Health Care and Pension Expenditures and Government Finances in the EU

This report investigates the effect of population ageing on public health- and long-term care expenditures, public pensions and government finances in EU countries in the projection period 2002-50. The authors specifically consider new insights about the development of demography and health on these projections. In this regard, the view has been expressed that people may live substantially longer in the future than estimated by current demographic projections and may spend part of these additional years in better health. Both developments have obvious implications for the correct projection of public expenditures and finances. To assess the effects of living longer in better health, four core scenarios are developed: a base case and scenarios for living longer, living in better health and living longer in better health.The analysis also contains a number of new elements. First, it includes the costs incurred during the last years of life in the projections, which will be postponed by an increase in life expectancy. Hence, the calculations in the study correct for the overestimation of future health-care expenditure that arises when no account is made for mortality-related costs. Second, the cost of mortality is disaggregated into a health- and long-term care component, which differs by age. Third, tax revenues are incorporated into the projections for government finances. With this information, the analysis is able to project government finances in the future and assess whether government finances are sustainable under current social policy rules.

Bodies, kinship and power(s) in the Baruya culture

The themes developed in the present text, written in 1998, appeared in conclusion to an earlier piece of work on the relationship between the sexes and the different forms of power and hierarchy among the Baruya, a population living in the interior highlands of New Guinea (Godelier 1982; 1986). This was the theme of the ―sexed‖ body, which functions as a ventriloquist‘s dummy, constantly invited to speak about and to testify for (or against) the prevailing social order. The idea was that the way the body is represented stamps each person‘s innermost subjectivity with the order or orders that prevail in his or her society and which must be respected if the society is to be reproduced. A body is made of flesh, blood, bone, breath and one or more spirits, all of which are possessed by everyone, male or female; but there are also organs – a penis, a clitoris, a vagina, breasts – and substances – semen, menstrual blood, milk – which not all people have and which make individuals different or alike. All cultures have answers to the questions of where the bones, the flesh, the blood, the breath or a person‘s spirit come from: from the father, from the mother, from both, from neither and in that case, from where? But not all cultures bother to account for every component of the body: some say nothing about semen, others pass over blood, or bone, … and these silences speak volumes. Among the many representations of the body, those having to do with the making of children – conception, intra-uterine growth, development after birth – occupy a strategic position because it seems that they usually fulfill two important functions for a society. First of all they legitimize the appropriation of each child that is born by a group of adults that regards itself as the child‘s kin. And secondly, they assign this child a future destiny and position in society according to its sex, male or female, which it has from birth. It is specifically this category of representations that we will address in the following pages.

The idea of the algorithm of extrapolating the nonstationary hydrometeorological series using an optimized empirical model

The problem of extrapolating the nonstationary time series from data of its observations in the past is considered. General requirements to the desired solution are formulated. A number of new elements of the algorithm of problem solving are suggested, which have potential to obtain the more accurate and reliable forecasts of actual hydrometeorological series under climate change. The principal steps in determining the optimal predictive empirical model for the series and constructing, based on it, approximate probability predictions of the values of variables under investigation are discussed.