Why Northern Ireland’s Institutions Need Stability

Northern Ireland’s consociational institutions were reviewed by a committee of its Assembly in 2012–13. The arguments of both critics and exponents of the arrangements are of general interest to scholars of comparative politics, powersharing and constitutional design. The authors of this article review the debates and evidence on the d’Hondt rule of executive formation, political designation, the likely impact of changing district magnitudes for assembly elections, and existing patterns of opposition and accountability. They evaluate the scholarly, political and legal literature before commending the merits of maintaining the existing system, including the rules under which the system might be modified in future.

An accelerated method of developing DBT projects using CDIO partner institutions as parallel processors

The cycle of the academic year impacts on efforts to refine and improve major group design-build-test (DBT) projects since the time to run and evaluate projects is generally a full calendar year. By definition these major projects have a high degree of complexity since they act as the vehicle for the application of a range of technical knowledge and skills. There is also often an extensive list of desired learning outcomes which extends to include professional skills and attributes such as communication and team working. It is contended that student project definition and operation, like any other designed product, requires a number of iterations to achieve optimisation. The problem however is that if this cycle takes four or more years then by the time a project’s operational structure is fine tuned it is quite possible that the project theme is no longer relevant. The majority of the students will also inevitably experience a sub-optimal project experience over the 5 year development period. It would be much better if the ratio were flipped so that in 1 year an optimised project definition could be achieved which had sufficient longevity that it could run in the same efficient manner for 4 further years. An increased number of parallel investigators would also enable more varied and adventurous project concepts to be examined than a single institution could undertake alone in the same time frame.
This work-in-progress paper describes a parallel processing methodology for the accelerated definition of new student DBT project concepts. This methodology has been devised and implemented by a number of CDIO partner institutions in the UK & Ireland region. An agreed project theme was operated in parallel in one academic year with the objective of replacing a multi-year iterative cycle. Additionally the close collaboration and peer learning derived from the interaction between the coordinating academics facilitated the development of faculty teaching skills in line with CDIO standard 10.

The perspectives of ‘disengaged’ students in the 14–19 phase on motivations and barriers to learning within the contexts of institutions and classrooms

In addressing educational disengagement, government policy in England focuses primarily on raising the age of educational participation, promoting vocationalism and directing resources at the population of young people not engaged in any education, employment or training (NEETs). However, ‘disengagement’ is a more fluid and dynamic concept than policy allows for and is visible within a wide range of students, even those deemed to be engaged by their presence in education and educational settings. This paper presents students’ accounts of their educational experiences which suggest that the context of the classroom, student–teacher relationships, peer relationships and pedagogical methods used in classrooms are salient factors in understanding engagement.

Cytotoxic assessment of the regulated, co-existing mycotoxins aflatoxin B1, fumonisin B1 and ochratoxin, in single, binary and tertiary mixtures

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), ochratoxin A (OTA) and fumonisin B1 (FB1) are contaminants which have been shown to regularly co-occur in a range of foods. However, only a small number of studies have evaluated the interactive effect of binary and tertiary mycotoxins. The present study evaluated the effects of low levels of each mycotoxin in combination at their EU regulatory limits. Toxic effect with respect to cell viability was measured by MTT and neutral red assays, assessing mitochondria and lysosome integrities respectively. Individual toxicity showed that OTA (10 μg/ml) was the most cytotoxic mycotoxin in all three cell lines studied (caco-2, MDBK and raw 264.7). Binary combinations were cytotoxic to the MDBK cell line in the order [OTA/FB1] > [AFB1/FB1] > [AFB1/OTA], whilst all effects observed were classified as being additive. Tertiary combinations of AFB1, FB1 and OTA at the EU regulatory limits were tested and not found to exhibit measurable cytotoxicity in MDBK, caco-2 or raw 264.7 cells. However by increasing these concentrations above the legal limits to OTA (3 μg/ml), FB1 (8 μg/ml) and AFB1 (1.28 μg/ml), cytotoxicity was observed with up to 26% reduction in cell viability and synergistic effects were evident with regard to mitochondrial integrity. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Size Matters: The Effect of the Scramble for Africa on Informal Institutions and Development

We argue that the partition of ethnic groups following the Scramble for Africa does not itself matter for development in Africa. It matters only when the partitioned groups are relatively small because small groups lack political representation which may promote ethnic mobilization and foster support for informal (rather than formal) institutions which then may a ect development. Furthermore, the analysis of data from the Afrobarometer shows that the persistence of informal/tribal institutions related to property rights and the rule of law is one of the possible channels through which the size of the partitioned group a ects development.

New governance for higher education institutions:prospects for female university careers and equality law

This paper analyses the reforms in employment conditions at German public universities from the 1990s to the 2000s, considering how these impact on practical equal opportunities between women and men. It concludes that while the so called "new governance" in universities would have offered opportunities to integrate positive measures to increase female participation in research and teaching, these opportunities were missed in most German states.

Stability in a Network Economy: The Role of Institutions

We consider an economy in which agents are embedded in a network of potential value-generating relationships. Agents are assumed to be able to participate in three types of economic interactions: Autarkic self-provision; bilateral interaction; and multilateral collaboration through endogenously provided platforms.
We introduce two stability concepts and provide sufficient and necessary conditions on the network structure that guarantee existence, in cases of the absence of externalities, link-based externalities and crowding externalities. We show that institutional arrangements based on socioeconomic roles and leadership guarantee stability. In particular, the stability of more complex economic outcomes requires more strict and complex institutional rules to govern economic interactions. We investigate strict social hierarchies, tiered leadership structures and global market places.