Cohesion policy in the European Union: a brief critical review

Over the past four decades the EU cohesion policy’s focus, objectives and content have experienced significant changes as a result of successive reforms aiming at adapting it to a Union in constant evolution. In the early stages, cohesion policy had eminently redistributive goals and it assumed an explicit spatial dimension. In the late nineties, the possibility of an extension towards Eastern European countries and the limited willingness of net contributors to increase funding led to a turning point in cohesion policy. The increased importance of economic growth and job creation in the 2000’s, within the cohesion policy’s context, has led to a misrepresentation of its essence and motivations. Cohesion was losing importance towards competitiveness and regional equity towards national efficiency. Today, cohesion policy is for many EU countries the main mean for mobilising investment in a context of budgetary constraints and credit rationing. In light of the available evidence, it is likely that the overall design and priorities of the current cohesion policy have a limited impact in terms of convergence in many EU regions, especially in the less developed regions. This paper’s main objectives are to analyse the evolution of European cohesion policy throughout its history, to present a picture of cohesion policy in the 2014-2020 programming period and to discuss the main problems associated with its design, priorities and programming model.

Poly lactic acid based biodegradable stents and functionalization techniques: brief review

Commercial stents, especially metallic ones, present several disadvantages, and this gives rise to the necessity of producing or coating stents with different materials, like natural polymers, in order to improve their biocompatibility and minimize the disadvantages of metallic ones. This review paper discusses some applications of natural-based polymers in stents, namely polylactic acid (PLA) for stent development and chitosan for biocompatible coatings of stents . Furthermore, some effective stent functionalization techniques will be discussed, namely Layer by Layer (LBL) technique.

Nanocellulose in biomedical area: brief review

Due to remarkable physical properties, special surface chemistry and excellent biological properties, as low toxicity, biocompatibility and biodegradability, nanocellulose has gained much attention for its use as biomedical material, applied in medical implants, tissue engineering, drug delivery, wound-healing, cardiovascular applications, among others. This paper presents a review on nanocellulose applied in biomedical area.

Depressed mothers and infants are more relaxed during breastfeeding versus bottlefeeding interactions: brief report

Depressed and non-depressed mothers and their 3-month-old infants were videotaped during breastfeeding and bottlefeeding interactions. The videotapes were subsequently coded for a number of feeding interaction behaviors as well as being rated on the Interaction Rating Scales. No differences were noted between the depressed and non-depressed mothers. Several breastfeeding versus bottlefeeding group effects were observed. The breastfeeding mothers showed less burping and less intrusive behavior during the nipple-in periods as well as during the nipple-out periods. In addition, the breastfeeding mothers and their infants received better ratings on the Interaction Rating Scales. These data suggest that the depressed mothers and their infants not unlike the non-depressed mothers and their infants were benefited by breastfeeding.

Prenatal serotonin and neonatal outcome: brief report

The purpose of the present study was to determine the relationships between prenatal serotonin levels and other biochemical values during pregnancy as well as their relationships to neonatal biochemical and behavioral variables. To address that question, the pregnant women were divided into the top and bottom tertiles based on their serotonin levels at 20 weeks gestational age.