An analytical method for capacity dimensioning of WCDMA with high speed wireless link

Capacity dimensioning is one of the key problems in wireless network planning. Analytical and simulation methods are usually used to pursue the accurate capacity dimensioning of wireless network. In this paper, an analytical capacity dimensioning method for WCDMA with high speed wireless link is proposed based on the analysis on relations among system performance and high speed wireless transmission technologies, such as H-ARQ, AMC and fast scheduling. It evaluates system capacity in closed-form expressions from link level and system level. Numerical results show that the proposed method can calculate link level and system level capacity for WCDMA system with HSDPA and HSUPA.

Observed adaptation to climate change as initiated transition

This paper investigates whether and to what extent a wide range of actors in the UK are adapting to climate change, and whether this is evidence of a social transition. We document evidence of over 300 examples of early adopters of adaptation practice to climate change in the UK. These examples span a range of activities from small adjustments (or coping), to building adaptive capacity, to implementing actions and to creating deeper systemic change in public and private organisations in a range of sectors. We find that adaptation in the UK has been dominated by government initiatives and has principally occurred in the form of research into climate change impacts. These government initiatives have stimulated a further set of actions at other scales in public agencies, regulatory agencies and regional government (and the devolved administrations), though with little real evidence of climate change adaptation initiatives trickling down to local government level. The sectors requiring significant investment in large scale infrastructure have invested more heavily than those that do not in identifying potential impacts and adaptations. Thus we find a higher level of adaptation activity by the water supply and flood defence sectors. Sectors that are not dependent on large scale infrastructure appear to be investing far less effort and resources in preparing for climate change. We conclude that the UK government-driven top-down targeted adaptation approach has generated anticipatory action at low cost in some areas. We also conclude that these actions may have created enough niche activities to allow for diffusion of new adaptation practices in response to real or perceived climate change. These results have significant implications for how climate policy can be developed to support autonomous adaptors in the UK and other countries.

Palm oil, land rights and ecosystem services in Gbarpolu County, Liberia

As part of the rebuilding efforts following the long civil war, the Liberian government has renegotiated long-term contracts with international investors to exploit natural resources. Substantial areas of land have been handed out in large-scale concessions across Liberia during the last five years. While this may promote economic growth at the national level, such concessions are likely to have major environmental, social and economic impacts on local communities, who may not have been consulted on the proposed developments. This report examines the potential socio-economic and environmental impacts of a proposed large-scale oil palm concession in Bopolu District, Gbarpolu County in Liberia. The research provided an in-depth mapping of current resource use, livelihoods and ecosystems services, in addition to analysis of community consultation and perceptions of the potential impacts of the proposed development. This case study of a palm oil concession in Liberia highlights wider policy considerations regarding large-scale land acquisitions in the global South: • Formal mechanisms may be needed to ensure the process of Free, Prior, Informed Consent takes place effectively with affected communities and community land rights are safeguarded. • Rigorous Environmental and Social Impact Assessments need to be conducted before operations start. Accurate mapping of customary land rights, community resources and cultural sites, livelihoods, land use, biodiversity and ecosystems services is a critical tool in this process. • Greater clarity and awareness-raising of land tenure laws and policies is needed at all levels. Good governance and capacity-building of key institutions would help to ensure effective implementation of relevant laws and policies. • Efforts are needed to improve basic services and infrastructure in rural communities and invest in food crop cultivation in order to enhance food security and poverty alleviation. Increasing access to inputs, equipment, training and advice is especially important if male and female farmers are no longer able to practice shifting cultivation due to the reduction/ loss of customary land and the need to farm more intensively on smaller areas of land.

Government policy under price uncertainty: a source of volatility in illegal immigration

In this paper we provide an alternative explanation for why illegal immigration can exhibit substantial fluctuation. We develop a model economy in which migrants make decisions in the face of uncertain border enforcement and lump-sum transfers from the host country. The uncertainty is extrinsic in nature, a sunspot, and arises as a result of ambiguity regarding the commodity price of money. Migrants are restricted from participating in state-contingent insurance markets in the host country, whereas host country natives are not. Volatility in migration flows stems from two distinct sources: the tension between transfers inducing migration and enforcement discouraging it and secondly the existence of a sunspot. Finally, we examine the impact of a change in tax/transfer policies by the government on migration.

e-Government as a regulatory response to the financial crisis: the case of the UK

This paper seeks to discuss EU policies relating to securities markets, created in the wake of the financial crisis and how ICT and specifically e-Government can be utilised within this context. This study utilises the UK as a basis for our discussion. The recent financial crisis has caused a change of perspective in relation to government services and polices. The regulation of the financial sector has been heavily criticised and so is undergoing radical change in the UK and the rest of Europe. New regulatory bodies are being defined with more focus on taking a risk-based system-wide approach to regulating the financial sector. This approach aims to prevent financial institutions becoming too big to fail and thus require massive government bail outs. In addition, a new wave of EU regulation is in the wind to update risk management practices and to further protect investors. This paper discusses the reasons for the financial crisis and the UK’s past and future regulatory landscape. The current and future approach and strategies adopted by the UK’s financial regulators are reviewed as is the lifecycle of EU Directives. The regulatory responses to the crisis are discussed and upcoming regulatory hotspots identified. Discussion of these issues provides the context for our evaluation of the role e-Government and ICT in improving the regulatory system. We identify several processes, which are elementary for regulatory compliance and discuss how ICT is elementary in their implementation. The processes considered include those required for internal control and monitoring, risk management, record keeping and disclosure to regulatory bodies. We find these processes offer an excellent opportunity to adopt an e-Government approach to improve services to both regulated businesses and individual investors through the benefits derived from a more effective and efficient regulatory system.

Fibroblast growth factor 2 maintains the neurogenic capacity of embryonic neural progenitor cells in vitro but changes their neuronal subtype specification

Many in vitro systems used to examine multipotential neural progenitor cells (NPCs) rely on mitogens including fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) for their continued expansion. However, FGF2 has also been shown to alter the expression of transcription factors (TFs) that determine cell fate. Here, we report that NPCs from the embryonic telencephalon grown without FGF2 retain many of their in vivo characteristics, making them a good model for investigating molecular mechanisms involved in cell fate specification and differentiation. However, exposure of cortical NPCs to FGF2 results in a profound change in the types of neurons generated, switching them from a glutamatergic to a GABAergic phenotype. This change closely correlates with the dramatic upregulation of TFs more characteristic of ventral telencephalic NPCs. In addition, exposure of cortical NPCs to FGF2 maintains their neurogenic potential in vitro, and NPCs spontaneously undergo differentiation following FGF2 withdrawal. These results highlight the importance of TFs in determining the types of neurons generated by NPCs in vitro. In addition, they show that FGF2, as well as acting as a mitogen, changes the developmental capabilities of NPCs. These findings have implications for the cell fate specification of in vitro-expanded NPCs and their ability to generate specific cell types for therapeutic applications. Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is found at the end of this article.

Do IMF and World Bank programs induce government crises? an empirical analysis

We examine whether and under what circumstances World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs affect the likelihood of major government crises. We find that crises are, on average, more likely as a consequence of World Bank programs. We also find that governments face an increasing risk of entering a crisis when they remain under an IMF or World Bank arrangement once the economy's performance improves. The international financial institution's (IFI) scapegoat function thus seems to lose its value when the need for financial support is less urgent. While the probability of a crisis increases when a government turns to the IFIs, programs inherited by preceding governments do not affect the probability of a crisis. This is in line with two interpretations. First, the conclusion of IFI programs can signal the government's incompetence, and second, governments that inherit programs might be less likely to implement program conditions agreed to by their predecessors.

Privatisation, empowerment and accountability: What are the policy implications for establishing effective farmer organisations?

Weak institutional development and information flows have constrained the extent to which the small-holder farming sector in developing countries can significantly drive growth and poverty reduction. Thisis despite widely implemented economic liberalisation policies focussing on market efficiency. Farmerorganisations are viewed as a potential means of addressing public and private institutional failure but thishas frequently been limited by inequalities in access to power and information. This article investigatestwo issues that have received little research attention to date: what role downward accountability plays inenabling farmer organisations to improve services and markets, and what influences the extent to whichdownward accountability is achieved. Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), one of the largest farmerorganisations in the world (>400,000 farmers) is examined alongside wider literature. Mixed methodswere used including key informant interviews, and eight months of participant observation followedby a questionnaire survey. The article concludes that without effective downward accountability farmerorganisations can become characterised by institutions and mechanisms that favour elites, restrictedweak coordination and regulation, and manipulated information flows. This in turn reduces individuals’incentives to invest. If farmer organisations are to realise their potential as a means of enabling the small-holder sector to significantly contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction, policy and researchneeds to address key factors which influence accountability including: how to ensure initial processes information of farmer organisations establish appropriate structures and rules; strong state regulation toenhance corporate accountability; transparent information provision regarding actions of farmer organi-sation leaders; and the role independent non-government organisations can play. Consequently attentionneeds to focus on developing means of legitimising rights, building poor people’s capacity to challengeexclusion, and moving from rights to obligations regarding information provision.

Nationalised large-scale mining, trade unions and community representation: perspectives from Northern Madagascar

This article critically explores the nature and purpose of relationships and inter-dependencies between stakeholders in the context of a parastatal chromite mining company in the Betsiboka Region of Northern Madagascar. An examination of the institutional arrangements at the interface between the mining company and local communities identified power hierarchies and dependencies in the context of a dominant paternalistic environment. The interactions, inter alia, limited social cohesion and intensified the fragility and weakness of community representation, which was further influenced by ethnic hierarchies between the varied community groups; namely, indigenous communities and migrants to the area from different ethnic groups. Moreover, dependencies and nepotism, which may exist at all institutional levels, can create civil society stakeholder representatives who are unrepresentative of the society they are intended to represent. Similarly, a lack of horizontal and vertical trust and reciprocity inherent in Malagasy society engenders a culture of low expectations regarding transparency and accountability, which further catalyses a cycle of nepotism and elite rent-seeking behaviour. On the other hand, leaders retain power with minimal vertical delegation or decentralisation of authority among levels of government and limit opportunities to benefit the elite, perpetuating rent-seeking behaviour within the privileged minority. Within the union movement, pluralism and the associated politicisation of individual unions restricts solidarity, which impacts on the movement’s capacity to act as a cohesive body of opinion and opposition. Nevertheless, the unions’ drive to improve their social capital has increased expectations of transparency and accountability, resulting in demands for greater engagement in decision-making processes.

Demand side response: patterns in Europe and future policy perspectives under capacity mechanisms

Demand Side Response (DSR) has been slow to emerge in European electricity markets. This paper aims to both examine the reasons for low levels of DSR in Europe and reflect on factors that might affect the participation of DSR in capacity mechanisms. It relies on available evidence from the literature, secondary data on existing DSR programmes and energy aggregator's data from industries participating in DSR. Findings show that changes to the duration of contracted loads under existing or new programmes might increase the penetration of DSR. The introduction of capacity mechanisms may increase DSR from demand turn down if longer response times were available.

How culture and government shape entrepreneurial innovation: the case of Korean and UK online gaming firms

This paper examines institutional sources of product innovation with reference to the online gaming sector of Korea and the UK. It examines the combined impact of formal and informal institutions and their interaction with multiple case studies. Despite the growing importance of innovative products in contemporary entertainment (including interactive games), the ‘informal’ source of innovation has attracted limited attention. By closely looking at the idea exploration, generation and selection process (where creativity plays a major role), we intend to find out how values and public policy affect product innovation. This study shows that the value of Korean and UK online gaming firms (regardless of their different socio-economic contexts) plays an important role in generating product innovation. An additional point is that Korean firms are likely to take advantage of government policy support to overcome inadequate institutional settings in conjunction with the initial conditions of online game development.

Enrichment and stability: a phenomenological coupling of energy value and carrying capacity

Simple predator–prey models with a prey-dependent functional response predict that enrichment (increased carrying capacity) destabilizes community dynamics: this is the ‘paradox of enrichment’. However, the energy value of prey is very important in this context. The intraspecific chemical composition of prey species determines its energy value as a food for the potential predator. Theoretical and experimental studies establish that variable chemical composition of prey affects the predator–prey dynamics. Recently, experimental and theoretical approaches have been made to incorporate explicitly the stoichiometric heterogeneity of simple predator–prey systems. Following the results of the previous experimental and theoretical advances, in this article we propose a simple phenomenological formulation of the variation of energy value at increased level of carrying capacity. Results of our study demonstrate that coupling the parameters representing the phenomenological energy value and carrying capacity in a realistic way, may avoid destabilization of community dynamics following enrichment. Additionally, under such coupling the producer–grazer system persists for only an intermediate zone of production—a result consistent with recent studies. We suggest that, while addressing the issue of enrichment in a general predator–prey model, the phenomenological relationship that we propose here might be applicable to avoid Rosenzweig’s paradox.

Developing government policies for distance education: lessons learnt from two Sri Lankan case studies

Education, especially higher education, is considered vital for maintaining national and individual competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. Following the introduction of its “Free Education Policy” as early as 1947, Sri Lanka is now the best performer in basic education in the South Asian region, with a remarkable record in terms of high literacy rates and the achievement of universal primary education. However, access to tertiary education is a bottleneck, due to an acute shortage of university places. In an attempt to address this problem, the government of Sri Lanka has invested heavily in information and communications technologies (ICTs) for distance education. Although this has resulted in some improvement, the authors of this article identify several barriers which are still impeding successful participation for the majority of Sri Lankans wanting to study at tertiary level. These impediments include the lack of infrastructure/resources, low English language proficiency, weak digital literacy, poor quality of materials and insufficient provision of student support. In the hope that future implementations of ICT-enabled education programmes can avoid repeating the mistakes identified by their research in this Sri Lankan case, the authors conclude their paper with a list of suggested policy options.