VTT Tiedotteita - Research Notes 2395 ; In the beginning of 2005 came in force the EU General Food Law (178/2002), where a system is required from food processors for identifying the origin of raw materials of food products and the destination of final products i.e. one step forward and one step backward in the production chain. According to this law, 'traceability' means the ability to trace and follow a food, feed, food-producing animal or substance intended to be, or expected to be incorporated into a food or feed, through all stages of production, processing and distribution. In addition to the EU regulation, several countries have enacted specific legislative measures. In addition to increased requirements of legislation, consumer demands for transparency have also increased which has led to further development of harmonious traceability systems. In Finland, the new legislation caused concern, but in reality, old operation modes had already fulfilled the requirements in many cases. Certainly data systems can and should be developed so, that they serve better and faster than earlier systems the needs of traceability. In the report by the Finnish Food and Drink Industries' Federation and the Finnish Grocery Trade Association on food traceability in Finland (2005), three development steps of traceability for food companies have been defined. The ultimate aim is that traceability systems would work totally electronically and with new technologies such as RFID and no paper records would be needed. Hazards, e.g. pathogenic microbes and allergens in food products, can cause significant health risks for people belonging to risk groups of those hazards and they must be efficiently traced in food chains. The faster the defective product is drawn from the market, the less the company receives negative publicity and the undamage to the image of a company is minimized. Process traceability, i.e. the ability to follow the manufacture of ingredients and materials into a product, is not required in EU legislation. However, the better the process traceability is, the bounded and accurate withdrawal can be performed when necessary. Traceability is a preventive, necessary, supplement of food safety systems, which increases the efficiency of food companies, when used correctly. Some pioneer companies have been developing their own traceability systems primarily to reduce business risk, but they have been lacking standards, which has resulted in very differentiated systems. As a consequence these systems have been producing different economical results. However, work on standardization has been going on as well as building of general frameworks for setting up traceability systems. Information Technology (IT) has the potential of revolutionizing product traceability. In practice the tools for traceability are labels containing alphanumerical codes (a sequence of numbers and letters of various sizes, generally "owners" codes), bar codes and automatic radio frequency identification (RFID), of which bar codes seem to be the most frequently used systems currently. RFID is a very promising technique, but problem is still the high cost of TAGs used in these systems, even though the prices have decreased significantly in recent years. In traceability investigations often the origin of plant or animal based raw material is sought, e.g. if genetically modified organisms (GMO's) have been used as raw materials or if product contains components hazardous for consumer health or e.g. raw materials of wrong quality. It is very difficult to determine the geographical origin of a food, the requirement imposed by the EU regulation 178/2002. Universal scientific methods for the determination do not exist and indirect methods have to be coupled. Modern analytical techniques in analyzing the origin of foodstuffs can be categorized into two types: the physicochemical techniques and biological techniques. The main problem in all these techniques is the need of data banks.
Effective governance of residential development and housing markets poses difficult challenges for land regulators. In theory, excessive land restrictions limit the buildable supply, tilting construction toward lower densities and larger, more expensive homes. Often, local prerogative and regional need conflict, and policymakers must make tradeoffs carefully. When higher income incumbents control the political processes by which local planning and zoning decisions are made, regions can become less affordable as prices increase. Housing assistance programs meant to benefit lower income households could be frustrated by limits on density and other restrictions on the number and size of new units. The empirical literature on the effects of regulation on housing prices varies widely in quality of research method and strength of result. A number of credible papers seem to bear out theoretical expectations. When local regulators effectively withdraw land from buildable supplies-whether under the rubric of "zoning," "growth management," or other regulation-the land factor and the finished product can become pricier. Caps on development, restrictive zoning limits on allowable densities, urban growth boundaries, and long permit-processing delays have all been associated with increased housing prices. The literature fails, however, to establish a strong, direct causal effect, if only because variations in both observed regulation and methodological precision frustrate sweeping generalizations. A substantial number of land use and growth control studies show little or no effect on price, implying that sometimes, local regulation is symbolic, ineffectual, or only weakly enforced. The literature as a whole also fails to address key empirical challenges. First, most studies ignore the "endogeneity" of regulation and price (for example, a statistical association may show regulatory effect or may just show that wealthier, more expensive communities have stronger tastes for such regulation). Second, research tends not to recognize the complexity of local policymaking and regulatory behavior. For example, enactments promoting growth and development, often present in the same jurisdictions where zoning restrictions are observed, are rarely measured or analyzed. Third, regulatory surveys are administered sparsely and infrequently. Current studies are often forced to rely on outdated land use proxies and static observations of housing price movements. Fourth, few studies utilize sophisticated price indexes, such as those measuring repeat sales of individual properties. Such methods correct for well-known biases in price means and medians typically reported. An agenda for future research in the area of regulatory effects on price should address these shortcomings and generate replicable findings relevant for policy reform efforts. Ideally, a national regulatory census would measure at regular intervals municipal enactments and implementation patterns. The most demanding aspect of this task is the development of standard regulatory indexes facilitating comparison at the municipal level and allowing for aggregation to the metropolitan and state levels. Over time, this survey should help describe changes in antecedent law and resulting land policy behavior so that time series encompassing regulation and price can be com_ piled. Existing building permit surveys can be adapted to facilitate this effort. Regular reporting from developers and builders regarding their experiences with local regulatory processes should then complement the census of laws and behaviors. An additional source of information would be a regularly refreshed, national land use survey, mapping in some detail the ever-changing patterns of residential and other development in metropolitan areas. Early efforts to improve and expand research should focus primarily on the deliberate, painstaking development of better, more current data. When better data are available, the existing community of scholars will develop methods providing more reliable tests of hypotheses about the link between regulation and the well-being of housing consumers.
En el Ministerio de Ambiente y Obras Públicas de Mendoza (Argentina) se desarrolló un Sistema de Información Ambiental (SIA), que ya se encuentra operando en municipios y organismos de gobierno. Por convenio entre dicho ministerio y la Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias (UNCuyo) se instaló una estación paralela del sistema en esta última para disponer de un centro especializado en el manejo de información agropecuaria mediante los SIG, actuando en conexión, complementación y apoyo con otros centros locales. Dentro de este marco, en este trabajo se han incorporado al SIA los resultados de dos estudios (4, 13) sobre la caracterización de los suelos del área de influencia del río Tunuyán en sus tramos medio e inferior. Objetivos: 1. Generar 4 coberturas en formato ArcInfo. Dos corresponden a mapas de aptitud para el riego, elaborados a nivel de reconocimiento según las normas del U.S.B. of Reclamation denominados RTMCLSUE (Río Tunuyán Medio Clases de Suelos) y RTICLSUE (Río Tunuyán Inferior Clases de Suelos). Están subdivididos en polígonos cuyas bases de datos informan sobre perímetro, superficie, n° de identificación y clase de suelo de cada polígono. Las otras dos: RTMPMSUE (Río Tunuyán Medio Puntos de Muestreo Suelos) y RTIPMSUE (Río Tunuyán Inferior Puntos de Muestreo Suelos) contienen puntos que indican dónde se extrajeron muestras de suelos (calicatas y barrenedas). En sus bases de datos, estas coberturas contienen el n° de identificación original y la clase y subclase con que fueron catalogados. 2. Procesar la información incorporada en el entorno ArcInfo, para obtener mapas con coberturas de clases de suelos y puntos de muestreo en los dptos. de San Martín, Junín, Rivadavia, Santa Rosa y La Paz. 3. Investigar un método para procesar -usando el programa Idrisi- la información incorporada y establecer una nueva modalidad de análisis y presentación, generando un mapa de aptitud de suelos del dpto. Rivadavia a partir de la información suministrada por los puntos de muestreo. ; Argentina. It contains a considerable amount of outstanding information and it is already being used by some municipalities and other government offices. A parallel EIS working station was installed in the Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (School of Agriculture, National University of Cuyo) in order to develop a GIS specialized agricultural information center. Within that reference frame, the results of two studies (4, 13) of the Tunuyán river soils (middle and lower sections) have been incorporated to the EIS. As the first objective, four coverages have been generated within ArcInfo format. Two of them are maps of suitability of soils for irrigation made according to the US Bureau of Reclamation regulations, divided in polygons. The data base supply information about perimeter, area in m2 , id number and capability class for each polygon. The others two coverages have information showing the places where the samples of soils were obtained. The data base supplies information about id number given in the original work and class and subclass for irrigation. The second objective was to analyze the collected information in order to obtain soil maps at a "departamento"(county) level. As a result, coverages with soil type and the areas where they were taken in the counties of San Martín, Junín , Rivadavia, Santa Rosa and La Paz were obtained. The third objective was to find a method of processing the information from the samples points using the Idrisi software in order to establish a new technique of analysis and representation. In this particular case, a map representing the soil aptitudes from Rivadavia County was generated. ; Fil: Cappé, Osvaldo Emilio . Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Departamento de Ingeniería Agrícola
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood-onset neurodevelopmental condition characterized by pervasive impairment of attention, hyperactivity, and/or impulsivity that can persist into adulthood. The aetiology of ADHD is complex and multifactorial and, despite the wealth of evidence for its high heritability, genetic studies have provided modest evidence for the involvement of specific genes and have failed to identify consistent and replicable results. Due to the lack of robust findings, we performed gene-wide and pathway enrichment analyses using pre-existing GWAS data from 607 persistent ADHD subjects and 584 controls, produced by our group. Subsequently, expression profiles of genes surpassing a follow-up threshold of P-value < 1e-03 in the gene-wide analyses were tested in peripheral blood mononucleated cells (PBMCs) of 45 medication-naive adults with ADHD and 39 healthy unrelated controls. We found preliminary evidence for genetic association between RNF122 and ADHD and for its overexpression in adults with ADHD. RNF122 encodes for an E3 ubiquitin ligase involved in the proteasome-mediated processing, trafficking, and degradation of proteins that acts as an essential mediator of the substrate specificity of ubiquitin ligation. Thus, our findings support previous data that place the ubiquitin-proteasome system as a promising candidate for its involvement in the aetiology of ADHD. ; Over the course of this investigation, I.G. M. has been a recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (PRED-VHIR-2012), Barcelona, Spain, and currently she is a recipient of a contract from the 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration, European Commission (AGGRESSOTYPE_FP7HEALTH2013/602805). C.S. M. is a recipient of a Sara Borrell contract from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Spain (CD15/00199) and a mobility grant from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Spain (MV16/00039). M.S. A. is a recipient of a contract from the Biomedical Research Networking Centre in Mental Health (CIBERSAM), Madrid, Spain. P.R. is a recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from the Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR), Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain (2016FI_B 00899). M.P. is recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain (PRED-VHIR-2013) and a research grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), Germany (Research Grants - Short-Term Grants, 2017). E.C. S. is a recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from the Collaborative Research Training Programme for Medical Doctors (PhD4MD), Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Barcelona, Spain (II14/00018). M.R. is a recipient of a Miguel de Servet contract from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Spain (CP09/00119 and CPII15/00023). This investigation was supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI12/01139, PI14/01700, PI15/01789, PI16/01505), and cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca-AGAUR, Generalitat de Catalunya (2014SGR1357, 2014SGR0932), Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Spain (SAF2012-33484, SAF2015-68341-R), the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP network: 'ADHD across the lifespan'), Departament de Salut, Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain, and a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. This project has also received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the grant agreements No 667302 and 643051.
University of Central Florida College of Engineering Thesis; High Frequency (HF) communication has been shown to be a useful communication technique from the very beginning of World War I and it accelerated during World War II. This is attributed to its simplicity, ability to provide near globe connectivity at low power without repeaters, moderate cost, and ease of proliferation [I]. In fact, the HF communication system utilizes the ionosphere [2][3][4] to refract the skywave signals to a distant receiver. This ionospheric channel has some disadvantages. First, it is a non-stationary channel as the HF frequency propagation is a function of the sun spot activities, solar winds, and diurnal variations of the ionization level [5]. Second, the channel produces distortion in both signal amplitude and phase. As the different ionospheric layers move up or down, independent Doppler shifts on each propagation mode are introduced. Multipath fading [6] caused by multiple refractions of the signal fiom the ionosphere with or without ground reflection causes performance degradation in the HF system. Some techniques have been developed to improve HF performance [I]. One example is Space-Diversity [7], which uses more than one antenna at distant spaces to combine the received signal. Angle-of-Arrival Diversity that takes advantage of the fact that different modes have different arrival angles at the receiver, and so, highly directional antenna for example, can be used to improve the system performance. Another method of improving HF performance is to use different frequencies to transmit and receive messages. This method is known as Frequency diversity. Using timediversity, one can add a degree of redundancy to the transmitted message through the use of different types of coding, interleaving, etc. In the military standard, MIL-STD- 1 88- 1 1 OA [8], a convolutional encoder [9][10] followed by interleaver [Ill-[14] was used to scramble and transmit the data in different bit rates. In the presence of multipath fading [ 1 51, a training sequence is transmitted in an interleaved fashion with the data symbols with a 50% duty cycle. This has the disadvantage of losing half the bandwidth. At present, the recent advances of the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) [16][17] make it possible to reduce the bit-error-rate BEY and increase the transmission bit rate [18] through the usage of adaptive equalization [ 191-[2 11 which will be the focus of this dissertation. Equalizers such as, Transversal Equalizer [ 1 61, Blind Equalizer [22], Training waveform Equalizer [23], and Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) [20] Adaptive Equalizer have been applied into various communication systems. This proposal work will be to initially apply some of the previous developed equalizer to the HF channel specifically. Thereafter, new adaptive channel equalization [24],[25] will be developed to compensate for transmission channel impairments due to bandwidth limitations, multipath propagation, and rayleigh fading [2 11 conditions in mobile environments. A new technique for frequency offset prediction has been developed and finally, a new approach for MIL-STD- 1 88- 1 1 0A high frequency single-tone modem employing orthogonal Walsh-PN codes has been implemented. ; 2002-12-01 ; Ph.D. ; Electrical Engineering and Computer Science ; Doctorate ; This record was generated from author submitted information. ; Electronically reproduced by the University of Central Florida from a book held in the John C. Hitt Library at the University of Central Florida, Orlando.
During the years, neuroprosthetic applications have obtained a great deal of attention by the international research, especially in the bioengineering field, thanks to the huge investments on several proposed projects funded by the political institutions which consider the treatment of this particular disease of fundamental importance for the global community. The aim of these projects is to find a possible solution to restore the functionalities lost by a patient subjected to an upper limb amputation trying to develop, according to physiological considerations, a communication link between the brain in which the significant signals are generated and a motor prosthesis device able to perform the desired action. Moreover, the designed system must be able to give back to the brain a sensory feedback about the surrounding world in terms of pressure or temperature acquired by tactile biosensors placed at the surface of the cybernetic hand. It in fact allows to execute involuntarymovements when for example the armcomes in contact with hot objects. The development of such a closed-loop architecture involves the need to address some critical issues which depend on the chosen approach. Several solutions have been proposed by the researches of the field, each one differing with respect to where the neural signals are acquired, either at the central nervous systemor at the peripheral one,most of themfollowing the former even that the latter is always considered by the amputees amore natural way to handle the artificial limb. This research work is based on the use of intrafascicular electrodes directly implanted in the residual peripheral nerves of the stump which represents a good compromise choice in terms of invasiveness and selectivity extracting electroneurographic (ENG) signals from which it is possible to identify the significant activity of a quite limited number of neuronal cells. In the perspective of the hardware implementation of the resulting solution which can work autonomously without any intervention by the amputee in an adaptive way according to the current characteristics of the processed signal and by using batteries as power source allowing portability, it is necessary to fulfill the tight constraints imposed by the application under consideration involved in each of the various phases which compose the considered closed-loop system. Regarding to the recording phase, the implementation must be able to remove the unwanted interferences mainly due to the electro-stimulations of themuscles placed near the electrodes featured by an order of magnitude much greater in comparison to that of the signals of interest amplifying the frequency components belonging to the significant bandwidth, and to convert them with a high resolution in order to obtain good performance at the next processing phases. To this aim, a recording module for peripheral neural signals will be presented, based on the use of a sigma-delta architecture which is composed by two main parts: an analog front-end stage for neural signal acquisition, pre-filtering and sigma-delta modulation and a digital unit for sigma-delta decimation and system configuration. Hardware/software cosimulations exploiting the Xilinx System Generator tool in Matlab Simulink environment and then transistor-level simulations confirmed that the system is capable of recording neural signals in the order of magnitude of tens of μV rejecting the huge low-frequency noise due to electromyographic interferences. The same architecture has been then exploited to implement a prototype of an 8-channel implantable electronic bi-directional interface between the peripheral nervous system and the neuro-controlled hand prosthesis. The solution includes a custom designed Integrated Circuit (0.35μm CMOS technology), responsible of the signal pre-filtering and sigma-delta modulation for each channel and the neural stimuli generation (in the opposite path) based on the directives sent by a digital control systemmapped on a low-cost Xilinx FPGA Spartan-3E 1600 development board which also involves the multi-channel sigma-delta decimation with a high-order band-pass filter as first stage in order to totally remove the unwanted interferences. In this way, the analog chip can be implanted near the electrodes thanks to its limited size avoiding to add a huge noise to theweak neural signals due to longwires connections and to cause heat-related infections, shifting the complexity to the digital part which can be hosted on a separated device in the stump of the amputeewithout using complex laboratory instrumentations. The system has been successfully tested from the electrical point of view and with in-vivo experiments exposing good results in terms of output resolution and noise rejection even in case of critical conditions. The various output channels at the Nyquist sampling frequency coming from the acquisition system must be processed in order to decode the intentions of movements of the amputee, applying the correspondent electro-mechanical stimulation in input to the cybernetic hand in order to perform the desired motor action. Different decoding approaches have been presented in the past, the majority of them were conceived starting from the relative implementation and performance evaluation of their off-line version. At the end of the research, it is necessary to develop these solutions on embedded systems performing an online processing of the peripheral neural signals. However, it is often possible only by using complex hardware platforms clocked at very high operating frequencies which are not be compliant with the low-power requirements needed to allow portability for the prosthetic device. At present, in fact, the important aspect of the real-time implementation of sophisticated signal processing algorithms on embedded systems has been often overlooked, notwithstanding the impact that limited resources of the former may have on the efficiency/effectiveness of any given algorithm. In this research work it has been addressed the optimization of a state-of-the-art algorithmfor PNS signals decoding that is a step forward for its real-time, full implementation onto a floating-point Digital Signal Processor (DSP). Beyond low-level optimizations, different solutions have been proposed at an high level in order to find the best trade-off in terms of effectiveness/efficiency. A latency model, obtained through cycle accurate profiling of the different code sections, has been drawn in order to perform a fair performance assessment. The proposed optimized real-time algorithmachieves up to 96% of correct classification on real PNS signals acquired through tf-LIFE electrodes on animals, and performs as the best off-line algorithmfor spike clustering on a synthetic cortical dataset characterized by a reasonable dissimilarity between the spikemorphologies of different neurons. When the real-time requirements are joined to the fulfilment of area and power minimization for implantable/portable applications, such as for the target neuroprosthetic devices, only custom VLSI implementations can be adopted. In this case, every part of the algorithmshould be carefully tuned. To this aim, the first preprocessing stage of the decoding algorithmbased on the use of aWavelet Denoising solution able to remove also the in-band noise sources has been deeply analysed in order to obtain an optimal hardware implementation. In particular, the usually overlooked part related to threshold estimation has been evaluated in terms of required hardware resources and functionality, exploiting the commercial Xilinx System Generator tool for the design of the architecture and the co-simulation. The analysis has revealed how the widely used Median Absolute Deviation (MAD) could lead o hardware implementations highly inefficient compared to other dispersion estimators demonstrating better scalability, relatively to the specific application. Finally, two different hardware implementations of the reference decoding algorithm have been presented highlighting pros and cons of each one of them. Firstly, a novel approach based on high-level dataflow description and automatic hardware generation is presented and evaluated on the on-line template-matching spike sorting algorithmwhich represents the most complex processing stage. It starts from the identification of the single kernels with the greater computational complexity and using their dataflow description to generate the HDL implementation of a coarse-grained reconfigurable global kernel characterized by theminimumresources in order to reduce the area and the energy dissipation for the fulfilment of the low-power requirements imposed by the application. Results in the best case have revealed a 71%of area saving compared tomore traditional solutions,without any accuracy penalty. With respect to single kernels execution, better latency performance are achievable stillminimizing the number of adopted resources. The performance in terms of latency can also be improved by tuning the implemented parallelismin the light of a defined number of channels and real-time constraints, by using more than one reconfigurable global kernel in order that they can be exploited to perform the same or different kernels at the same time in a parallel way, due to the fact that each one can execute the relative processing only in a sequential way. For this reason, a second FPGA-based prototype has been proposed based on the use of aMulti-Processor System-on-Chip (MPSoC) embedded architecture. This prototype is capable of respecting the real-time constraints posed by the application when clocked at less than 50 MHz, in comparison to 300 MHz of the previous DSP implementation. Considering that the application workload is extremely data dependent and unpredictable due to the sparsity of the neural signals, the architecture has to be dimensioned taking into account critical worst-case operating conditions in order to always ensure the correct functionality. To compensate the resulting overprovisioning of the system architecture, a software-controllable power management based on the use of clock gating techniques has been integrated in order tominimize the dynamic power consumption of the resulting solution. Summarizing, this research work can be considered a sort of proof-of-concept for the proposed techniques considering all the design issues which characterize each stage of the closed-loop system in the perspective of a portable low-power real-time hardware implementation of the neuro-controlled prosthetic device.
Die Inhalte der verlinkten Blogs und Blog Beiträge unterliegen in vielen Fällen keiner redaktionellen Kontrolle.
Warnung zur Verfügbarkeit
Eine dauerhafte Verfügbarkeit ist nicht garantiert und liegt vollumfänglich in den Händen der Herausgeber:innen. Bitte erstellen Sie sich selbständig eine Kopie falls Sie diese Quelle zitieren möchten.
Solar panels on the roof of Centre Gabriela Mistral in Santiago, Chile, part of the Ministry of Energy's Public Solar Roofs Program.
How can we leverage new technologies, such as blockchain, to unleash the power of climate markets?
What are Climate Markets? Article 6 of the Paris Agreement intends to provide a basis for countries to voluntarily cooperate with each other to deliver on their NDCs and raise ambition. Effectively, this Article signals the use of carbon markets globally, allowing for decentralized bilateral cooperation approaches, including through internationally transferred mitigation outcomes.
The size of the prize of these next-generation carbon markets? According to a recent study, they could halve the cost of implementing NDCs, saving $250 billion per year by 2030, unleashing the power of markets to tackle climate change.
Current and future markets, however, pose challenges: different countries and operate under different technological systems, different governance rules. Information about mitigation outcomes (MOs) is currently collected in a variety of repositories, including spreadsheets, databases reflecting pipeline activities, and registries at the country, regional, or institutional level. The differences in these processes and systems constrain market integration making for complicated transactions.
The Kyoto Protocol utilized an International Transaction Log, operated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to facilitate communication between registries. This meant the UNFCCC undertook centralized functions, including a clearance process for transactions. [Article 6 will be front and center in the negotiations at the upcoming COP25 in Madrid.] Negotiators are still determining whether a centralized infrastructure should continue, the functions it could perform, and to which market mechanisms or transactions it would apply.
The World Bank's Approach to Next-Generation Climate Markets The World Bank's Carbon Markets and Innovation team (CMI) is developing a Climate Warehouse ecosystem to demonstrate the viability of a decentralized information technology approach to connect climate markets systems. In this ecosystem, a meta-registry system connects to country, regional, and institutional databases and registries to surface publicly-available information on MOs and record status changes to provide information on how MOs are used. The objective of the Warehouse is to enhance transparency and trust among market participants and enable the tracking of MOs across different systems.
According to our recent research, blockchain, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and other disruptive technologies hold significant promise in terms of addressing the needs of next-generation climate markets. CMI is, therefore, partnering with the World Bank's Information Technology Services Technology and Innovation Lab to explore how these new technologies can be used to develop the Climate Warehouse system.
Among its advantages, blockchain is a decentralized, distributed digital ledger that records information across multiple computers so that any involved record cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, boosting transparency. Blockchain also has the capabilities to simplify data sharing among diverse registries and ensures that MOs can be traceable from their origin to their eventual retirement. The decentralized and immutable nature of the system provides resilience against attacks and can boost confidence that information has not been tampered with. Furthermore, the peer-to-peer arrangement could give participating entities the flexibility to interact with their own blockchain node and manage their access rights based on their own requirements and institutional frameworks.
However, blockchain may not be a suitable repository for storing large amounts of information about climate actions. For instance, the measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) processes needed to verify project and MO information currently rely on extensive use of audit reports, detailed project information, and imagery. Blockchains, however, were built to store transactional data linked together that grows as more transactions are added. As the chain grows, so too does its demand for storage and computing power to process transactions. This can affect the cost of running the system on a public blockchain.
Also, blockchain cannot assure the quality of data: it is only as good as the quality of data entered into the system. Some of this can be alleviated through processes and governance practices put in place that dictate the format of information and its flow into the meta-registry. And if duplications occur, at the very least, blockchain provides a record of the occurrence, and corrections can be fully traceable among participating parties.What's next? The Bank is undertaking a simulation of the Climate Warehouse concept involving partner institutions that are implementing or planning to implement databases or registry solutions. Because the Climate Warehouse is a new concept, there is much to gain through co-existence with current systems and parallel processes. Along with the Bank, partners are connecting their systems to the Climate Warehouse simulation to surface publicly-available information from their systems. The team is planning for upcoming engagements to share lessons learned and support policy-makers.
Continuing negotiations on Article 6 means that piloting efforts are more important than ever. The Bank is well-placed to demonstrate innovative solutions to address key challenges and build client capacities through collaborative pilots. Moving forward, the Bank hopes to continue to facilitate regular exchange with Governments, non-governmental standards-setting organizations, the private sector, and other expert groups to explore opportunities to leverage emerging technologies for post-2020 climate markets.
Learn more about World Bank's Blockchain, and Climate Markets visit our Program Page.
Topics
Climate Change Energy Environment
Regions
The World Region
Authors
Chandni Dinakaran Knowledge and Learning Analyst More Blogs By Chandni
Susan Carevic Susan Carevic, IT Officer, Business Management II More Blogs By Susan
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie--rogers/
Stephanie Rogers Senior Financial Specialist More Blogs By Stephanie
This dissertation investigates two key transportation policies influencing travel behavior and location decisions in London towards sustainability: bus priority and congestion charging. Traffic congestion is a problem faced by cities worldwide, imposing time delays on travelers and decreasing economic efficiency. Congestion is increasing as cities are successful at attracting population and employment growth. This increasing urban density increases competition for urban road space, resulting in traffic congestion and forcing prioritization among road users. At the same time, sustainability goals increasingly set reduction targets for vehicle miles travelled (VMT). Transportation policy must both reduce congestion and VMT, while maintaining a fair distribution of costs and benefits among residents. London has navigated these challenges through pairing bus priority as a 'carrot' and congestion charging as a 'stick' policy. Beginning in the late 1990s with the introduction of a bus priority network, and continuing with the 2003 introduction of congestion charging in the central business district, London has achieved a decade-long trend of declining VMT and mode shift to transit and non-motorized modes. This research investigates the processes of how they were implemented, including consideration of the necessary politics, financing, and institutional authority. The synergistic impacts of these two policies over a decade is investigated in three dimensions: travel behavior, costs and benefits, and firm location decisions. First, the role of bus priority in the successful implementation of congestion charging is explored. Built from 1994 to 2003, London's regional bus priority network was in place when congestion charging implemented in 2003. The development and scope of this bus priority network is discussed using previously unpublished data. It was found that approximately 15% of London's arterial road network was reallocated to create a 1,100 mile (1,800 km) regional network of dedicated bus lanes. An analysis of Census travel to work data before and after congestion charging showed that declines in driving and increases in bus ridership were highest along bus network corridors. It is argued that bus priority explains why car use and VMT began to decline the London region in 1999, and then played a key role in preparing transport system capacity to absorb drivers switching to transit.Secondly, the costs and benefits of London's congestion charging policy are evaluated over the decade since it was implemented in 2003. Due to the rare implementation of congestion charging, this study is the first longer-term evaluation of a congestion charging policy using empirical data. It is the first to consider impacts on Londoner's culture and attitudes, and reasons why the central charge zone was non-controversial while the western extension zone was removed. The research revealed congestion charging has had wider impacts on traffic levels beyond the charged zone, leading to travel time savings for vehicular traffic throughout Inner London. It had mixed results in meeting its stated goals of reducing traffic volumes, increasing vehicle travel speeds, improving public transit service, reducing vehicle emissions, and improving safety for bicycles and pedestrians. Traffic volumes entering the charged area fell immediately and remained stable, while transit ridership increased and has continued an upward trend. However, travel speeds increased in the short term but fell in the longer term, such that congestion levels today in the charged zone are approximately the same as they were before congestion charging. The study found that this is not considered a negative outcome by city officials. By clearing cars off the roads, congestion charging allowed for a 'capacity grab' where road space and travel time savings were reallocated to buses and pedestrians. Bus speeds and reliability have vastly improved, pedestrian fatality and serious injury rates have plummeted, bicycle use has more than doubled, and air quality has shown some small benefits. City officials assert these outcomes would not have been achievable without the network reconfigurations made possible by released capacity.Thirdly, the longer-term impacts of the accessibility improvements realized in the central charged zone (CCZ) due to bus priority and congestion charging were investigated. It was hypothesized that improved accessibility in the congestion charging zone is being capitalized into higher land and rent costs. Firms valuing accessibility were expected to be the most likely to remain or to move in, in spite of rising rents. This hypothesis was tested using two panels of firms for the period 1997 to 2012 created with microdata from the UK Business Structure Database (BSD). One panel had only micro enterprises with ten or fewer employees, the other had larger firms with more than ten employees. Rent and accessibility data was added to each panel to explore the role of these factors. The study found the concentration of larger firms has been increasing inside the CCZ since 2004. Industry sectors that depend upon agglomeration economies have been concentrating there at the highest rate, especially 'knowledge' industries like Computers/Telecomm/Research & Development and Business Management Consulting. Evidence was found of increased churn, or rates of firm relocation into and out of the CCZ. For larger firms, the ratio of moves in to moves out increased from 1.02 in 1998-2002 to 1.14 in 2008-2012, indicating a preference for locating in the CCZ. Most firms that moved into the CCZ improved their transit accessibility by 20% to 40%. The net flow of jobs moving in to out also increased from .80 in 1998-2002 to 1.16 in 2008-2012. Retention of tourism sector firms increased in the CCZ, including Theatre & Cinema and Sports & Culture. Sectors vulnerable to rising rents and factor costs, including Retail and Restaurants, had increased odds of moving out of the CCZ. Rising rents were a statistically significant factor for firms moving out, and these firms were likely to have reduced accessibility after the move. The pull of accessibility on firms moving into the CCZ was stronger than the push of rising rents on those moving out. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the findings, policy implications, and next steps for research.
Education has long been the target of utopianinterventions, and with technological interventions, offering to change drastically or even eliminates classroom-based learning, traditional education research needs to focus on introducing technology tools at an early age through media literacy. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of media literacy and cognitive abilities on the introduction of laptop-based media. This study used a quasi-experimental design involving 46 children. Data collection techniques throughtests and data collection tools using statement sheets, which were processed using t-test. The results showed that the experimental class using the original laptop media had a high average value of 86.66 compared to the control class using the imitation laptop media which had a value of 81.66. There is a significant effect of media literacy and cognitive ability on the introduction of laptop-based media in children. On the introduction of laptop-based media in children, media literacy and cognitive capacities can have a big impact. The comparison of the average value of the control and experimental classes demonstrates this. When children are introduced to media via a genuine laptop, they become more excited and engaged in the experimental lesson. Keywords: media literacy, cognitive ability, laptop-based learning media References: Adams, D., & Hamm, M. (2001). Literacy in a multimedia age. MA: Christopher- Gordon Publishers. Ames, M. G. (2016). Learning consumption: Media, literacy, and the legacy of One Laptop per Child. The Information Society, 32(2), 85–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2016.1130497 Arsyad. (2013). Media Pembelajaran [Learning Media]. Raja Grafindo Persada. Bedford, D. (2021). Evaluating confidence in information literacy: A red/amber/green approach. Journal of Information Literacy, 15(1), 96–104. https://doi.org/10.11645/15.1.2833 Buckingham, D., Banaji, S., Burn, A., Carr, D., Cranmer, S., & Willett, R. (2015). The Media Literacy of Children and Young People (p. 76). Youth and Media Institute of Education. www.ofcom.org.uk Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. C. (2015). Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Ravenio Books. https://books.google.co.id/books?id=KCTrCgAAQBAJ Colom, R., Escorial, S., Shih, P. C., & Privado, J. (2007). Fluid intelligence, memory span, and temperament difficulties predict academic performance of young adolescents. Personality and Individual Differences, 42(8), 1503–1514. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2006.10.023 Dodonova, Y. A., & Dodonov, Y. S. (2012). Processing speed and intelligence as predictors of school achievement: Mediation or unique contribution? Intelligence, 40(2), 163–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2012.01.003 Ebbeck, M., Yim, H. Y. B., Chan, Y., & Goh, M. (2016). Singaporean Parents' Views of Their Young Children's Access and Use of Technological Devices. Early Childhood Education Journal, 44(2), 127–134. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-015-0695-4 Faigenbaum, G., Sigman, M., & Casiraghi, L. P. (2018). Young Children Use Discovery and Creation Significantly More Than Adults for Deciding Ownership. Child Development Research, 2018(4). https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/1517904 Ferguson, B. A., Downey, J. L., Shriver, A. E., Goff, K. L., Ferguson, A. M., & De Mello, M. C. (2018). Improving Early Childhood Development among Vulnerable Populations: A Pilot Initiative at a Women, Infants, and Children Clinic. Child Development Research, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/3943157 Hirsh-Pasek, K., Zosh, J. M., Golinkoff, R. M., Gray, J. H., Robb, M. B., & Kaufman, J. (2015). Putting Education in "Educational" Apps: Lessons from the Science of Learning. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(1), 3–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100615569721 Hobbs, R. (2011). The state of media literacy: A response to potter. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 55(3), 419–430. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2011.597594 Hwang, G.-J., Lai, C.-L., & Wang, S.-Y. (2015). Seamless flipped learning: A mobile technology-enhanced flipped classroom with effective learning strategies. Journal of Computers in Education, 2(4), 449–473. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-015-0043-0 Juditha, C. (2013). Literasi Media pada Anak di Daerah Perbatasan Indonesia dan Timor Leste [Media Literacy for Children in the Border Areas of Indonesia and Timor Leste]. JURNAL IPTEKKOM: Jurnal Ilmu Pengetahuan & Teknologi Informasi, 15(1), 47. https://doi.org/10.33164/iptekkom.15.1.2013.47-62 Kaushal S and Singh CK. (2021). Home Stimulation and Cognitive Abilities of Disadvantaged Children. Journal of Scientific Research, 65(1). https://doi.org/DOI:10.37398/JSR.2021.650413 Kellner, D., & Share, J. (2007). Critical Media Literacy, Democracy, and the Reconstruction of Education. Peter Lang Publishing. www.centerxgseis.ucla.edu Leena Rantala. (2011). Finnish Media Literacy Education Policies and Best Practices in Early Childhood Education and Care Since 2004. The National Association for Media Literacy Education's Journal of Media Literacy Education, 3, 123–133. Liu, W., Tan, L., Huang, D., Chen, N., & Liu, F. (2021). When Preschoolers Use Tablets: The Effect of Educational Serious Games on Children's Attention Development. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 37(3), 234–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2020.1818999 Livingstone, S., Marsh, J., Plowman, L., & Fletcher-Watson, B. (2015). Young Children (0-8) and Digital Technology(p. 55). Joint Research Centre. http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC93239 Macias, C., & Choi, K. (2021). Preschoolers' beliefs about media technologies: The role of family income. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 3(4), 572–584. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.278 Papadakis, S., Kalogianakis, M., Sifaki, E., & Monnier, A. (2021). Editorial: The Impact of Smart Screen Technologies and Accompanied Apps on Young Children Learning and Developmental Outcomes. Frontiers in Education, 6, 790534. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.790534 Papadakis, S., & Kalogiannakis, M. (2017). Mobile educational applications for children: What educators and parents need to know. Int. J. Mobile Learning and Organisation, 11(3), 22. Papadakis, S., Kalogiannakis, M., & Zaranis, N. (2016a). Developing fundamental programming concepts and computational thinking with ScratchJr in preschool education: A case study. International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation, 10(3), 187. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJMLO.2016.077867 Papadakis, S., Kalogiannakis, M., & Zaranis, N. (2016b). Comparing Tablets and PCs in teaching Mathematics: An attempt to improve Mathematics Competence in Early Childhood Education. Preschool and Primary Education, 4(2), 241. https://doi.org/10.12681/ppej.8779 Potter, W. J. (2010). The state of media literacy. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 54(4), 675–696. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2011.521462 Ren, X., Tong, Y., Peng, P., & Wang, T. (2020). Critical thinking predicts academic performance beyond general cognitive ability: Evidence from adults and children. Intelligence, 82, 101487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2020.101487 Rusydiyah, E. F., Ummah, F. S., & Mudlofir, A. (2020). The Implementation of Laptop Mobile in the Teaching-Learning Process in Islamic Boarding School. TARBIYA: Journal of Education in Muslim Society, 7(1), 67–77. https://doi.org/10.15408/tjems.v7i1.13650 Salomon, G. (1990). Cognitive Effects with and Of Computer Technology. Communication Research, 17(1), 26–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365090017001002 Schaeffer, J. (2021). The influence of cognitive abilities on article choice and scrambling performance in Dutch-speaking children with autism. Language Acquisition, 28(2), 166–194. https://doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2020.1724293 Seftiani, I. (2019). Alat Evaluasi Pembelajaran Interaktif Kahoot pada Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Indonesia di Era Revolusi Industri [Kahoot Interactive Learning Evaluation Tool for Indonesian Language Subjects in the Industrial Revolution Era] 4. 0. Prosiding Seminar Nasional Bulan Bahasa (Semiba) 2019, 284–291. Syarah, E. S., Mayuni, I., & Dhieni, N. (2020). Understanding Teacher's Perspectives in Media Literacy Education as an Empowerment Instrument of Blended Learning in Early Childhood Classroom. JPUD - Jurnal Pendidikan Usia Dini, 14(2), 201–214. https://doi.org/10.21009/JPUD.142.01 Trimmel, M., & Bachmann, J. (2004). Cognitive, social, motivational and health aspects of students in laptop classrooms. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 20(2), 151–158. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2004.00076.x Zou'bi, R. A.-. (2021). The impact of media and information literacy on acquiring the critical thinking skill by the educational faculty's students. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 39, 100782. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2020.100782
Problem setting. The COVID-19 pandemic, global quarantine, quarantine restrictions created the conditions for society to react quickly. Digital technologies are now being used more intensively, and the public administration sector is no exception. At the same time, the country's development requires systematic strategic and tactical decisions that will accelerate the introduction of modern digital technologies in all spheres of Ukrainian society, also forming and implementation of public policy at various levels of government. The analysis of recent researches and publications. Problems of digital society are studied by such Ukrainian scientists as O.Klepanchuk, O.Petryk, S.Lisovsky, S.Romanyuk, L.Rudenko (the emphasis – achieving by Ukraine the goals of sustainable development, where the development of the digital society is considered as one of the tools); issues of implementation of e-government and e-democracy are studied by A.Emelyanova, S.Loboyko, O.Maevska, A.Semenchenko, V.Dreshpak; research on the implementation of public policy in a particular area, including in the field of justice and the provision of administrative services, are among the research interests of Y.Starylov, J.Sobko, I.Markvych and others. Among foreign researchers, these issues are being investigated by C. Emmanuelli, N. Jain, N. Maechler, D.Malfara etc. Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem: the main contradictions, trends, problems and prospects for the provision of digital public services, based on the conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, namely – the application of quarantine restrictions; influence of digitalization on the public policy forming in Ukraine. Paper main body. The article analyzes the problems inherent in modern Ukrainian society in connection with the rapid digitalization processes, that have taken place over the past year. The influence of digitalization on the forming and implementation of public policy is considered on the example of the activity of the Ministry of justice of Ukraine. Based on the results of a survey of civil servants and local government officials conducted by the author, the main trends, problems and prospects for providing public services online are identified. 2020 turned out to be the crisis year for all mankind on the one hand, and on the other hand – it encouraged the rapid development of certain industries, including the field of digital transformation. In public administration, this has been embodied in promoting the use of digital services and governance platforms. In the direction of forming and implementation of justice state policy main efforts are aimed at building online interaction between citizens and the state, reducing the number of paper documents, more efficient administration of open state registers, ensuring control at each step of citizens' appeals, reducing corruption risks. minimization of the human factor in the processes of providing administrative services. The author conducted the survey among students of the Lviv Regional Institute for Public Administration of the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine on the provision of administrative services online. 66 applicants from eight regions of Ukraine were involved in the survey. The question was asked: what hinders the development of administrative services online? Among the answers, the most common are (in order from most popular to least): low technical literacy of service consumers; technical unpreparedness of networks; unpreparedness of the citizens; unpreparedness of officials; insecurity of the information processed; lack of habit to use online; distrust to the state. Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Contradictions of the digital society development in Ukraine include: the digital divide (the gap in the level of digital equipment); technological unemployment; digital dependence and digital control; digital opportunities for crime; unlimited digital space and its content; the need for large-scale efforts and resources to address the digital space, and needs will only increase; unavailability of information created by bodies-not information managers; form of obtaining information, information is created or obtained in a form unsuitable for machine processing; method of information processing – non-interoperability of data sets from different managers. Among the factors that will determine digitalization processes on the public policy forming in Ukraine, we consider: increasing the technical literacy of service consumers; improving the technical readiness of networks; work with the population to promote the tools of consumption of administrative services online; training of officials to work in the digital space; taking measures to protect information held by the authorities; forming the habit of using online in the field of forming and implementation the public policy; increasing the level of trust to the state. ; Проаналізовано проблеми, притаманні сучасному суспільству у зв'язку зі стрімкими процесами діджиталізації, що відбулися за останній рік. На прикладі діяльності органів юстиції розглянено впливи діджиталізації на формування і реалізацію публічної політики. Базуючись на результатах анкетування державних службовців та посадових осіб місцевого самоврядування, які були проведені автором, визначено основні тенденції, проблеми і перспективи надання публічних послуг он-лайн. Крізь призму готовності надавати та споживати публічні послуги он-лайн вивчено вплив процесів діджиталізації на формування публічної політики.
Problem setting. The COVID-19 pandemic, global quarantine, quarantine restrictions created the conditions for society to react quickly. Digital technologies are now being used more intensively, and the public administration sector is no exception. At the same time, the country's development requires systematic strategic and tactical decisions that will accelerate the introduction of modern digital technologies in all spheres of Ukrainian society, also forming and implementation of public policy at various levels of government. The analysis of recent researches and publications. Problems of digital society are studied by such Ukrainian scientists as O.Klepanchuk, O.Petryk, S.Lisovsky, S.Romanyuk, L.Rudenko (the emphasis – achieving by Ukraine the goals of sustainable development, where the development of the digital society is considered as one of the tools); issues of implementation of e-government and e-democracy are studied by A.Emelyanova, S.Loboyko, O.Maevska, A.Semenchenko, V.Dreshpak; research on the implementation of public policy in a particular area, including in the field of justice and the provision of administrative services, are among the research interests of Y.Starylov, J.Sobko, I.Markvych and others. Among foreign researchers, these issues are being investigated by C. Emmanuelli, N. Jain, N. Maechler, D.Malfara etc. Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem: the main contradictions, trends, problems and prospects for the provision of digital public services, based on the conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, namely – the application of quarantine restrictions; influence of digitalization on the public policy forming in Ukraine. Paper main body. The article analyzes the problems inherent in modern Ukrainian society in connection with the rapid digitalization processes, that have taken place over the past year. The influence of digitalization on the forming and implementation of public policy is considered on the example of the activity of the Ministry of justice of Ukraine. Based on the results of a survey of civil servants and local government officials conducted by the author, the main trends, problems and prospects for providing public services online are identified. 2020 turned out to be the crisis year for all mankind on the one hand, and on the other hand – it encouraged the rapid development of certain industries, including the field of digital transformation. In public administration, this has been embodied in promoting the use of digital services and governance platforms. In the direction of forming and implementation of justice state policy main efforts are aimed at building online interaction between citizens and the state, reducing the number of paper documents, more efficient administration of open state registers, ensuring control at each step of citizens' appeals, reducing corruption risks. minimization of the human factor in the processes of providing administrative services. The author conducted the survey among students of the Lviv Regional Institute for Public Administration of the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine on the provision of administrative services online. 66 applicants from eight regions of Ukraine were involved in the survey. The question was asked: what hinders the development of administrative services online? Among the answers, the most common are (in order from most popular to least): low technical literacy of service consumers; technical unpreparedness of networks; unpreparedness of the citizens; unpreparedness of officials; insecurity of the information processed; lack of habit to use online; distrust to the state. Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Contradictions of the digital society development in Ukraine include: the digital divide (the gap in the level of digital equipment); technological unemployment; digital dependence and digital control; digital opportunities for crime; unlimited digital space and its content; the need for large-scale efforts and resources to address the digital space, and needs will only increase; unavailability of information created by bodies-not information managers; form of obtaining information, information is created or obtained in a form unsuitable for machine processing; method of information processing – non-interoperability of data sets from different managers. Among the factors that will determine digitalization processes on the public policy forming in Ukraine, we consider: increasing the technical literacy of service consumers; improving the technical readiness of networks; work with the population to promote the tools of consumption of administrative services online; training of officials to work in the digital space; taking measures to protect information held by the authorities; forming the habit of using online in the field of forming and implementation the public policy; increasing the level of trust to the state. ; Проаналізовано проблеми, притаманні сучасному суспільству у зв'язку зі стрімкими процесами діджиталізації, що відбулися за останній рік. На прикладі діяльності органів юстиції розглянено впливи діджиталізації на формування і реалізацію публічної політики. Базуючись на результатах анкетування державних службовців та посадових осіб місцевого самоврядування, які були проведені автором, визначено основні тенденції, проблеми і перспективи надання публічних послуг он-лайн. Крізь призму готовності надавати та споживати публічні послуги он-лайн вивчено вплив процесів діджиталізації на формування публічної політики.
As there are changes in today's needs of the information society, the development of information technologies, the information behavior of scientists, the habits of information processing and its management in modern scientific libraries form their unique, atypical and constantly changing functions. This forces scientific libraries to take on new roles while ensuring the stability of their traditional roles. The vision for the future of the academic library is to become an academic partner from the service provider [1]. Preparation of employees for doing the right job is becoming more and more important and challenging. The combination of individual self-expression, knowledge and skills undoubtedly contributes to the successful implementation of changes, therefore it is important to focus on and distinguish significant employee competencies to ensure organizational goals.In recent decades academic libraries conditioned by the changes happening in information society have fundamentally changed their activities: reorganize structures, carry out reorganization in collections, improve information search systems, organize open access to scientific resources, redistribute budget priorities, expand collaboration with academic community, organize the training and participate in the training process, focus on employee learning, implementation and adaptation of new technologies, conduct scientific research, constantly improve services.The role of today's scientific libraries is not limited to the diversity of book collections and the ways in which they are stored, they play an active role in building technology and knowledge infrastructures. It is now more evident that the functions of libraries' dissemination of information, accessibility, storage and social functions are crucial. "In the age of technology, the availability of information streams and the efficiency of their processing are becoming critical criteria for determining the quality and attractiveness of libraries" [2]. The abundance and variety of exploring scientific research sources are equally important for their availability and presentation. Therefore, the transformation of library staff from a curator of publications to a high-tech specialist or IT consultant in modern scientific libraries is an inevitable phenomenon.Having done the systematic analysis of scientific literature [3-7], the article presents the refined competencies of library employees as a result of changes in library activities and necessary for their successful implementation (see Table). Taking into account that organizational intelligence is one of the main guarantees of the quality of activities, which ensures the possibility to implement organizational changes, such competencies as personal knowledge, skills (abilities) and personal qualities (internal readiness) are necessary for implementing library changes. It can be noted that the greatest success of change implementation is determined by the skills (abilities) and personal qualities of the employees. This demonstrates that the library staff should be flexible, operational, tolerant, able to successfully develop their skills, and effectively apply other personal qualities to prepare for changes in the organization.Table 1. Necessary staff competencies to implement library changesKnowledgeProfessional; Knowledge of technologyManagement of information resourcesOrganized management of information resourcesPractical application of advanced technologiesBudget managementManagement of information and communicationInterest in scientific communication trendsAbilities (skills)Academic perceptivity; Development of activity projectsAnalyzing digital systems; Planning changeAbility to recognize and characterize information environment featuresIntegration into educational and scientific research processesPlanning and coordination of activities· Conducting trainings for student information educationAbility to acquire information and manage its contentCommunicationGuidance on political and legal issuesIntegration of library information into study processesManagement and coordination of electronic resourcesAbility to work in a teamCreating the most acceptable and comfortable conditions for the users working with informationAbility to negotiate; Development of operating methodsIntegration of new planned activitiesUnderstanding and applying digital systemsInformation search engine developmentDeveloping a library training programManagement of organization's knowledgePersonal qualitiesPerssistence; FlexibilityCreativity; PromptnessCuriosity DiscretionSocial networkingAnalytical and logical thinkingTolerance to changeOptimism; Realization of consumer claimsLeadership; EnthusiasmSelf-confidence; Confidentiality Librarians are skillful creators of information and knowledge, users and organizers who can make an effective contribution to science and learning when operating effectively. This can be seen in the library employees' distinguished functional, managerial, organizational, negotiation (communication, cooperation), education, coordination (planning, integration), understanding and analysis of digital systems, development of projects and methodologies, and data analysis and evaluation abilities. The knowledge of the library staff was detailed based on the main knowledge groups, i.e. professional, theoretical, technological, management, scientific communication, digital systems. It is almost certain that in recent decades changes in libraries have created new concepts of librarians' erudition.Knowledge such as technological, digital systems and, to some extent, scientific communication were certainly not on the list of key competencies of the traditional library staff. This proves the fundamental transformation of library staff competence in an inclusive digital environment.In conclusion, it could be stated that changes of activities in academic libraries initiate changes in staff competences - in the context of changes, there is a need for the staff to develop new or existing competences that are attributed to skill and knowledge, and personal qualities groups. It is these competences that need to be strengthened, since only a combination of them will lead to successful implementation of change.
As there are changes in today's needs of the information society, the development of information technologies, the information behavior of scientists, the habits of information processing and its management in modern scientific libraries form their unique, atypical and constantly changing functions. This forces scientific libraries to take on new roles while ensuring the stability of their traditional roles. The vision for the future of the academic library is to become an academic partner from the service provider [1]. Preparation of employees for doing the right job is becoming more and more important and challenging. The combination of individual self-expression, knowledge and skills undoubtedly contributes to the successful implementation of changes, therefore it is important to focus on and distinguish significant employee competencies to ensure organizational goals.In recent decades academic libraries conditioned by the changes happening in information society have fundamentally changed their activities: reorganize structures, carry out reorganization in collections, improve information search systems, organize open access to scientific resources, redistribute budget priorities, expand collaboration with academic community, organize the training and participate in the training process, focus on employee learning, implementation and adaptation of new technologies, conduct scientific research, constantly improve services.The role of today's scientific libraries is not limited to the diversity of book collections and the ways in which they are stored, they play an active role in building technology and knowledge infrastructures. It is now more evident that the functions of libraries' dissemination of information, accessibility, storage and social functions are crucial. "In the age of technology, the availability of information streams and the efficiency of their processing are becoming critical criteria for determining the quality and attractiveness of libraries" [2]. The abundance and variety of exploring scientific research sources are equally important for their availability and presentation. Therefore, the transformation of library staff from a curator of publications to a high-tech specialist or IT consultant in modern scientific libraries is an inevitable phenomenon.Having done the systematic analysis of scientific literature [3-7], the article presents the refined competencies of library employees as a result of changes in library activities and necessary for their successful implementation (see Table). Taking into account that organizational intelligence is one of the main guarantees of the quality of activities, which ensures the possibility to implement organizational changes, such competencies as personal knowledge, skills (abilities) and personal qualities (internal readiness) are necessary for implementing library changes. It can be noted that the greatest success of change implementation is determined by the skills (abilities) and personal qualities of the employees. This demonstrates that the library staff should be flexible, operational, tolerant, able to successfully develop their skills, and effectively apply other personal qualities to prepare for changes in the organization.Table 1. Necessary staff competencies to implement library changesKnowledgeProfessional; Knowledge of technologyManagement of information resourcesOrganized management of information resourcesPractical application of advanced technologiesBudget managementManagement of information and communicationInterest in scientific communication trendsAbilities (skills)Academic perceptivity; Development of activity projectsAnalyzing digital systems; Planning changeAbility to recognize and characterize information environment featuresIntegration into educational and scientific research processesPlanning and coordination of activities· Conducting trainings for student information educationAbility to acquire information and manage its contentCommunicationGuidance on political and legal issuesIntegration of library information into study processesManagement and coordination of electronic resourcesAbility to work in a teamCreating the most acceptable and comfortable conditions for the users working with informationAbility to negotiate; Development of operating methodsIntegration of new planned activitiesUnderstanding and applying digital systemsInformation search engine developmentDeveloping a library training programManagement of organization's knowledgePersonal qualitiesPerssistence; FlexibilityCreativity; PromptnessCuriosity DiscretionSocial networkingAnalytical and logical thinkingTolerance to changeOptimism; Realization of consumer claimsLeadership; EnthusiasmSelf-confidence; Confidentiality Librarians are skillful creators of information and knowledge, users and organizers who can make an effective contribution to science and learning when operating effectively. This can be seen in the library employees' distinguished functional, managerial, organizational, negotiation (communication, cooperation), education, coordination (planning, integration), understanding and analysis of digital systems, development of projects and methodologies, and data analysis and evaluation abilities. The knowledge of the library staff was detailed based on the main knowledge groups, i.e. professional, theoretical, technological, management, scientific communication, digital systems. It is almost certain that in recent decades changes in libraries have created new concepts of librarians' erudition.Knowledge such as technological, digital systems and, to some extent, scientific communication were certainly not on the list of key competencies of the traditional library staff. This proves the fundamental transformation of library staff competence in an inclusive digital environment.In conclusion, it could be stated that changes of activities in academic libraries initiate changes in staff competences - in the context of changes, there is a need for the staff to develop new or existing competences that are attributed to skill and knowledge, and personal qualities groups. It is these competences that need to be strengthened, since only a combination of them will lead to successful implementation of change.
This scientific opinion is an evaluation of a risk assessment for placing on the market the genetically modified (GM) insect resistant and herbicide tolerant maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 for food and feed uses, import and processing. Maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 5912 was produced by conventional crossing and the F1 plant is hemizygous for all newly introduced genes. The maize contains cry1A.105, cry2Ab2, cry1F, pat, cry3Bb1, CP4 epsps, cry34Ab1 and cry35Ab1 genes conferring resistance against certain lepidopteran and coleopteran target pests and tolerance to glufosinate-ammonium- and glyphosate-based herbicides. The maize events MON 89034, 1507, MON 88017 and 59122 crossed together to create maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122, behave as independent genetic loci. The F2 grain harvested from maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 is expected to contain a mixture of MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 and all combinations of the individual events which will be imported and processed for food and feed uses. The EFSA GMO Panel has evaluated the risk assessment with respect to safety concerns which might arise through any potential combination of the following events MON 89034, 1507, MON 88017, and 59122 in maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 and in its segregating progeny. Molecular analyses indicated that the structure of the inserts in the single events was retained in maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122. Updated bioinformatic analyses of the flanking sequences and the open reading frames spanning the insert-plant DNA junctions did not raise any safety concern. Levels of the newly expressed proteins in maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 were demonstrated to be comparable with those of the single events. Comparative analyses established that maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 does not differ compositionally, agronomically and phenotypically from its conventional counterpart, and is equivalent to commercial maize varieties, except for the newly introduced traits. The safety assessment identified no concerns regarding potential toxicity and allergenicity of maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122. A feeding study on broiler chickens confirmed the nutritional equivalence of maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 to its conventional counterpart and commercial maize varieties. Considering the intended uses of maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122, which excludes cultivation within the European Union, no scientific assessment of potential environmental effects associated with cultivation of this maize was required. In case of accidental release of viable grains produced by maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 into the environment during transportation and processing, there are no indications of an increased likelihood of establishment or survival of feral maize plants, except in the presence of glufosinate-ammonium- and/or glyphosate-based herbicides and/or under infestation by target pests. It is highly unlikely that the recombinant DNA will be transferred and establish itself in the genome of bacteria in the environment or human and animal digestive tracts. In conclusion, the EFSA GMO Panel considers that the maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122, as described in this application, is as safe as its conventional counterpart and commercial maize varieties with respect to potential effects on human and animal health and the environment. In addition, the EFSA GMO Panel is of the opinion that crossing of maize events MON 89034, 1507, MON 88017 and 59122 to produce maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 does not result in interactions between the events which would affect the safety of maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 with respect to potential effects on human and animal health and on the environment, in the context of its intended uses. Based on the data provided for maize stack MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122, the single maize events and for the two parental double stacks 1507 x 59122 and MON 89034 x MON 88017, the EFSA GMO Panel is of the opinion that there is no biological reason to expect that any of the other sub-combinations of the individual events present in its segregating progeny would raise a safety concern. The EFSA GMO Panel concludes that maize MON 89034 x 1507 x MON 88017 x 59122 is unlikely to have adverse effects on human and animal health and the environment, in the context of its intended uses.
"Der Artikel beschäftigt sich mit ethnographischer Methodologie als Beitrag zu einer praxeologisch orientierten Unterrichtsforschung am Beispiel der Verteilung des Rederechtes. Der Beitrag soll erstens eine weitere Auseinandersetzung über die Frage nach dem Erkenntnispotential von Ethnographie anregen. Ausgangspunkt ist dabei die Frage, wie aus ethnographischen Beobachtungen Erkenntnisse generiert werden können, die generalisierbare Aussagen über Ordnungsstrukturen von Unterricht zulassen. Dies geschieht, indem zweitens ethnographisches Material zur Handhabung des Rederechtes im Schulunterricht analysiert wird. Die Interaktionssequenz Fragen-Melden-Aufrufen realisiert sich innerhalb einer erheblichen Variationsbreite. Der Beitrag unterscheidet exemplarisch anhand der Verteilung des Rederechtes mit Routine und Bruch zwei unterschiedliche Modi, in denen sich auf je spezifische Weise Praktiken realisieren und Ordnungen sichtbar werden." (Autorenreferat)
