Towards a Union of Citizens and States: Negotiating Transnational Democracy in Europe

Aquest article dóna un cop d'ull més de prop com les qüestions de legitimitat democràtica es van negociar durant la primera de les tres etapes de la redacció de la Constitució, en la Convenció sobre el Futur d'Europa (febrer de 2002-juliol 2003), i per la posterior Conferència Intergovernamental (juliol de 2003 a juny de 2004). L'objectiu d'aquesta anàlisi és avaluar el grau en què els redactors de la Comissió Europea s'han resolt els problemes de disputes sobre la democràcia postnacional que es van debatre en la Convenció

The Impact of the Electoral System on Political Campaigning : Are Candidates for the Council of States More Moderate than their Fellow Candidates for the National Council ?

It is commonly believed that majority voting enhances parties to cluster around the centre of the political space, whereas proportional systems (PR) foster great ideological divergence. The theoretical arguments for these expectations go back to the work of Downs (1957) and Duverger (1954). More recent studies, however, produced quite contradictory empirical findings. In this paper I will test whether similar arguments hold true for the positioning of candidates campaigning in different electoral systems. The elections for the two chambers of the Swiss Parliament and the data from the Swiss Electoral Studies (SELECTS) and the Swiss Voting Advice Application (VAA) smartvote offer an excellent - almost laboratory like - opportunity to do so empirically. The analyses show clearly, the theoretical claims that majority voting necessarily fosters more moderate positions find no support. The candidates for the Council of States, elected in a majority system, are not more moderate than their fellow party candidates for the National Council which are elected in a PR system.

Ageing prisoners' health care: analysing the legal settings in Europe and the United States.

BACKGROUND: Relatively little is known about the current health care situation and the legal rights of ageing prisoners worldwide. To date, only a few studies have investigated their rights to health care. However, elderly prisoners need special attention. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this article is to critically review the health care situation of older prisoners by analysing the relevant national and international legal frameworks with a particular focus on Switzerland, England and Wales, and the United States (U.S.). METHODS: Publications on legal frameworks were searched using Web of Science, PubMed, MEDLINE, HeinOnline, and the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Searches utilizing combinations of keywords relating to ageing prisoners were performed. Relevant reports and policy documents were obtained in order to understand the legal settings in Switzerland, England and Wales, and the U.S. All articles, reports, and policy documents published in English and German between 1774 to June 2012 were included for analysis. Using a comparative approach, an outline was completed to distinguish positive policies in this area. Regulatory approaches were investigated through evaluations of soft laws applicable in Europe and U.S. Supreme Court judgements. RESULTS: Even though several documents could be interpreted as guaranteeing adequate health care for ageing prisoners, there is no specific regulation that addresses this issue completely. The Vienna International Plan of Action on Ageing contributes the most by providing an in-depth analysis of the health care needs of older persons. Still, critical analysis of retrieved documents reveals the lack of specific legislation regarding the health care for ageing prisoners. CONCLUSION: No consistent regulation delineates the provision of health care for ageing prisoners. Neither national nor international institutions have enforceable laws that secure the precarious situation of older adults in prisons. To initiate a change, this work presents critical issues that must be addressed to protect the right to health care and well-being of ageing prisoners. Additionally, it is important to design legal structures and guidelines which acknowledge and accommodate the needs of ageing prisoners.

Implications of the serpentine phase transition on the behaviour of beryllium and lithium-boron of subducted ultramafic rocks

The Totalp-Platta-Malenco ophiolites in the Eastern Central Alps offer a unique opportunity to study the behaviour of Li, Be and B in ultramafic rocks in response to serpentinization and to progressive Alpine metamorphism. These units represent the remnants of a former ocean-continent transition that was intensely serpentinized during exposure on the Jurassic seafloor of the Ligurian Tethys. From north to the south, three isograd reactions (lizardite double right arrow antigorite + brucite; lizardite + talc double right arrow antigorite; lizardite + tremolite double right arrow antigorite + diopside) have been used to quantify the evolution of the light element content of metamorphic minerals. We determined the Li, Be and B concentrations in major silicate minerals from the ultramafic bodies of Totalp, Platta and Malenco by secondary ion mass spectrometry. Mantle minerals have Be concentrations (e.g. <0.001-0.009 mu g/g in olivine) similar to the metamorphic minerals that replace them (e.g. <0.001-0.016 mu g/g in serpentine). The mantle signature of Be is thus neither erased during seafloor alteration nor by progressive metamorphism from prehnite-pumpellyite to epidote-amphibolite facies. In contrast, the Li and B inventories of metamorphic minerals are related to the lizardite-to-antigorite transition. Both elements display higher concentrations in the low-temperature serpentine polymorph lizardite (max. 156 mu/g Li, max. 318 mu g/g B) than in antigorite (max. 0.11 mu g/g Li, max. 12 mu g/g B). Calculated average B/Li ratios for lizardite (similar to 1395) and antigorite (similar to 115) indicate that Li fractionates from B during the lizardite-to-antigorite transition during prograde metamorphism in ultramafic rocks. In subduction zones, this signature is likely to be recorded in the B-rich nature of forearc fluids. Relative to oceanic mantle the Be content of mantle clinopyroxene is much higher, but similar to Be values from mantle xenoliths and subduction-related peridotite massifs. These data support previous hypothesis that the mantle rocks from the Eastern Central Alps have a subcontinental origin. We conclude that Be behaves conservatively during subduction metamorphism of ultramafic rocks, at least at low-temperature, and thus retains the fingerprint of ancient subduction-related igneous events in mantle peridotites. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Specific duplication and dorsoventrally asymmetric expression patterns of Cycloidea-like genes in zygomorphic species of Ranunculaceae.

Floral bilateral symmetry (zygomorphy) has evolved several times independently in angiosperms from radially symmetrical (actinomorphic) ancestral states. Homologs of the Antirrhinum majus Cycloidea gene (Cyc) have been shown to control floral symmetry in diverse groups in core eudicots. In the basal eudicot family Ranunculaceae, there is a single evolutionary transition from actinomorphy to zygomorphy in the stem lineage of the tribe Delphinieae. We characterized Cyc homologs in 18 genera of Ranunculaceae, including the four genera of Delphinieae, in a sampling that represents the floral morphological diversity of this tribe, and reconstructed the evolutionary history of this gene family in Ranunculaceae. Within each of the two RanaCyL (Ranunculaceae Cycloidea-like) lineages previously identified, an additional duplication possibly predating the emergence of the Delphinieae was found, resulting in up to four gene copies in zygomorphic species. Expression analyses indicate that the RanaCyL paralogs are expressed early in floral buds and that the duration of their expression varies between species and paralog class. At most one RanaCyL paralog was expressed during the late stages of floral development in the actinomorphic species studied whereas all paralogs from the zygomorphic species were expressed, composing a species-specific identity code for perianth organs. The contrasted asymmetric patterns of expression observed in the two zygomorphic species is discussed in relation to their distinct perianth architecture.

Development and validation of the Transition to Retirement Questionnaire

The aim of this study was to present the initial validation of a new questionnaire, the Transition to Retirement Questionnaire (TRQ) and to study its relationship with resistance to change and personality dimensions. Based on Schlossberg's typology of the retired, the TRQ is designed to assess five dimensions related to personal perceptions of transition to retirement, retirement, and personal plans and activities. The sample consisted of 1,054 professionally active or retired adults from the Swiss French-speaking Canton of Vaud. Exploratory principal components and confirmatory factor analyses highlighted a five-factor solution that fit coherently with Schlossberg's typology. Moreover, TRQ dimensions were related to resistance to change tendencies and personality dimensions. The TRQ seems to be an interesting tool for use in research but also for interventions with young retirees or people preparing for retirement.

Anisotropic dispersion, space competition, and the slowdown of the Neolithic transition

The front speed of the Neolithic (farmer) spread in Europe decreased as it reached Northern latitudes, where the Mesolithic (huntergatherer) population density was higher. Here, we describe a reaction diffusion model with (i) an anisotropic dispersion kernel depending on the Mesolithicpopulation density gradient and (ii) a modified population growth equation. Both effects are related to the space available for the Neolithic population. The model is able to explain the slowdown of the Neolithic front as observed from archaeological data

Reaction-diffusion waves of advance in the transition to agricultural economics

In a previous paper [J.Fort and V.Méndez, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 867 (1999)], the possible importance of higher-order terms in a human population wave of advance has been studied. However, only a few such terms were considered. Here we develop a theory including all higher-order terms. Results are in good agreement with the experimental evidence involving the expansion of agriculture in Europe

Time-Delayed Theory of the Neolithic Transition in Europe

The classical wave-of-advance model of the neolithic transition (i.e., the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural economies) is based on Fisher's reaction-diffusion equation. Here we present an extension of Einstein's approach to Fickian diffusion, incorporating reaction terms. On this basis we show that second-order terms in the reaction-diffusion equation, which have been neglected up to now, are not in fact negligible but can lead to important corrections. The resulting time-delayed model agrees quite well with observations

A new all-round density functional based on spin states and SN2 barriers

We report here a new empirical density functional that is constructed based on the performance of OPBE and PBE for spin states and SN 2 reaction barriers and how these are affected by different regions of the reduced gradient expansion. In a previous study [Swart, Sol̀, and Bickelhaupt, J. Comput. Methods Sci. Eng. 9, 69 (2009)] we already reported how, by switching between OPBE and PBE, one could obtain both the good performance of OPBE for spin states and reaction barriers and that of PBE for weak interactions within one and the same (SSB-sw) functional. Here we fine tuned this functional and include a portion of the KT functional and Grimme's dispersion correction to account for π- π stacking. Our new SSB-D functional is found to be a clear improvement and functions very well for biological applications (hydrogen bonding, π -π stacking, spin-state splittings, accuracy of geometries, reaction barriers)

Estimation of electronic coupling in π -stacked donor-bridge-acceptor systems: correction of the two-state model

Comparison of donor-acceptor electronic couplings calculated within two-state and three-state models suggests that the two-state treatment can provide unreliable estimates of Vda because of neglecting the multistate effects. We show that in most cases accurate values of the electronic coupling in a π stack, where donor and acceptor are separated by a bridging unit, can be obtained as Ṽ da = (E2 - E1) μ12 Rda + (2 E3 - E1 - E2) 2 μ13 μ23 Rda2, where E1, E2, and E3 are adiabatic energies of the ground, charge-transfer, and bridge states, respectively, μij is the transition dipole moments between the states i and j, and Rda is the distance between the planes of donor and acceptor. In this expression based on the generalized Mulliken-Hush approach, the first term corresponds to the coupling derived within a two-state model, whereas the second term is the superexchange correction accounting for the bridge effect. The formula is extended to bridges consisting of several subunits. The influence of the donor-acceptor energy mismatch on the excess charge distribution, adiabatic dipole and transition moments, and electronic couplings is examined. A diagnostic is developed to determine whether the two-state approach can be applied. Based on numerical results, we showed that the superexchange correction considerably improves estimates of the donor-acceptor coupling derived within a two-state approach. In most cases when the two-state scheme fails, the formula gives reliable results which are in good agreement (within 5%) with the data of the three-state generalized Mulliken-Hush model