Badania wykorzystania przez polskie biblioteki naukowe środków europejskich, grantów ministerialnych i samorządowych oraz dotacji sponsorów w latach 2000-2008

Badania dotyczące pozyskiwania środków pomocowych przez polskie biblioteki naukowe przeprowadzone zostały w ramach wewnętrznych projektów badawczych Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej w Poznaniu. Realizacji projektu podjął się Oddział Prac Naukowych, Wydawniczych i Dydaktycznych BU. Zadanie wykonano od września 2008 do czerwca 2009 roku. Zamierzeniem autorek artykułu było uzyskanie pełnej informacji na temat środków pozabudżetowych pozyskiwanych przez polskie biblioteki naukowe oraz określenie stopnia ich wykorzystania. Zastosowano metodę sondażu diagnostycznego z wykorzystaniem techniki ankiety. Przygotowany kwestionariusz ankiety wraz z informacją dla respondentów o celu prowadzonych badań skierowano do wszystkich bibliotek uniwersyteckich, bibliotek głównych uczelni technicznych, medycznych, ekonomicznych, bibliotek akademii wychowania fizycznego, uczelni pedagogicznych i rolniczych oraz do bibliotek publicznych posiadających status bibliotek naukowych. Łącznie wysłano 70 ankiet, odpowiedzi udzieliło 38 respondentów. Wskazany w artykule okres 2000-2008 był czasem zwiększonych możliwości uzyskiwania dodatkowych funduszy przez biblioteki. Najczęściej otrzymywane fundusze to dotacje ministerialne, dalej środki sponsorów na działalność podstawową. W poważnym stopniu wspierały biblioteki, głównie biblioteki publiczne, lokalne samorządy. Zauważalne były dotacje wspierające biblioteki przekazywane przez fundacje i środki ofiarowane przez sponsorów na działalność organizacyjną; ewenementem natomiast – subwencje unijne.

Rola środków Wspólnej Polityki Rolnej Unii Europejskiej w przekształceniach rolnictwa w województwie wielkopolskim

Nauk Geograficznych i Geologicznych:Geografii Społeczno-Ekonomicznej i Gospodarki Przestrzennej

The role of investor type in the fee structures of pension plans

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10693-015-0230-1

Samorządy gminne województwa lubuskiego w kształtowaniu współpracy transgranicznej

Wydział Nauk Politycznych i Dziennikarstwa

O naruszaniu podstawowych zasad postępowania naukowego. “Wzgórze przeznaczenia archeologii” górą skandalu

„We are paying a high price for the increasingly unequivocal equation drawn between knowledge and science and ordinary market product. The ideal of perfectly unrestrained cognition, the true mother of science, is threatened by the mass drive towards practical use and application of knowledge, a looming departure into nothingness. Politicians and managers of scientific life are guilty of considerable contribution in corrupting respectable university structures, and thus undermining culture of science and scholarly ethics. (…). Acquisition of funds, sponsorship, media presence, popularisation or even striving for commercial gain are recognised by politicians and scientific consultants, but most of all they are accepted by the university management as objectives worthy of effort, not to say the foremost goals of science. University rectors are nowadays interested primarily in the amounts of acquired moneys. The outcomes of research thus financed is subject to virtually no control, nor does it arouse any interest, unless it turns out to be fit to be announced in the media as a sensation, thereby serving the ‘prestige’ of the university”.

Zasada racji dostatecznej w kontekście semantycznej kontrowersji realizm–antyrealizm

"Principle of sufficient reason in the context of the realism-antirealism semantic controversy". The topic of this article is the cognitive and semantic status of Michael Dummett’s principle C. According to the principle, if a statement is true, there must be something in virtue of which it is true. The author suggests the interpretation of principle C in terms of the sufficient reason principle as a contemporary, weaker and semantic counterpart of the classical version of the principle. Considerations include such problems as: the distinction between the reason-consequence relationship and cause-effect relationship; the reductionism and justificationism in the context of the realism-antirealism semantic controversy; the reversibility of reason-consequence relationship and the question of a search for ultimate reasons. The author also distinguishes three forms of the sufficient reason principle: metaphysical, ontological and propositional.

Complying with the NIH Public Access Policy - Copyright Considerations and Options

On January 11, 2008, the National Institutes of Health ('NIH') adopted a revised Public Access Policy for peer-reviewed journal articles reporting research supported in whole or in part by NIH funds. Under the revised policy, the grantee shall ensure that a copy of the author's final manuscript, including any revisions made during the peer review process, be electronically submitted to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central ('PMC') archive and that the person submitting the manuscript will designate a time not later than 12 months after publication at which NIH may make the full text of the manuscript publicly accessible in PMC. NIH adopted this policy to implement a new statutory requirement under which: The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law. This White Paper is written primarily for policymaking staff in universities and other institutional recipients of NIH support responsible for ensuring compliance with the Public Access Policy. The January 11, 2008, Public Access Policy imposes two new compliance mandates. First, the grantee must ensure proper manuscript submission. The version of the article to be submitted is the final version over which the author has control, which must include all revisions made after peer review. The statutory command directs that the manuscript be submitted to PMC 'upon acceptance for publication.' That is, the author's final manuscript should be submitted to PMC at the same time that it is sent to the publisher for final formatting and copy editing. Proper submission is a two-stage process. The electronic manuscript must first be submitted through a process that requires input of additional information concerning the article, the author(s), and the nature of NIH support for the research reported. NIH then formats the manuscript into a uniform, XML-based format used for PMC versions of articles. In the second stage of the submission process, NIH sends a notice to the Principal Investigator requesting that the PMC-formatted version be reviewed and approved. Only after such approval has grantee's manuscript submission obligation been satisfied. Second, the grantee also has a distinct obligation to grant NIH copyright permission to make the manuscript publicly accessible through PMC not later than 12 months after the date of publication. This obligation is connected to manuscript submission because the author, or the person submitting the manuscript on the author's behalf, must have the necessary rights under copyright at the time of submission to give NIH the copyright permission it requires. This White Paper explains and analyzes only the scope of the grantee's copyright-related obligations under the revised Public Access Policy and suggests six options for compliance with that aspect of the grantee's obligation. Time is of the essence for NIH grantees. As a practical matter, the grantee should have a compliance process in place no later than April 7, 2008. More specifically, the new Public Access Policy applies to any article accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008 if the article arose under (1) an NIH Grant or Cooperative Agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008, (2) direct funding from an NIH Contract signed after April 7, 2008, (3) direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program, or (4) from an NIH employee. In addition, effective May 25, 2008, anyone submitting an application, proposal or progress report to the NIH must include the PMC reference number when citing articles arising from their NIH funded research. (This includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 and subsequent due dates.) Conceptually, the compliance challenge that the Public Access Policy poses for grantees is easily described. The grantee must depend to some extent upon the author(s) to take the necessary actions to ensure that the grantee is in compliance with the Public Access Policy because the electronic manuscripts and the copyrights in those manuscripts are initially under the control of the author(s). As a result, any compliance option will require an explicit understanding between the author(s) and the grantee about how the manuscript and the copyright in the manuscript are managed. It is useful to conceptually keep separate the grantee's manuscript submission obligation from its copyright permission obligation because the compliance personnel concerned with manuscript management may differ from those responsible for overseeing the author's copyright management. With respect to copyright management, the grantee has the following six options: (1) rely on authors to manage copyright but also to request or to require that these authors take responsibility for amending publication agreements that call for transfer of too many rights to enable the author to grant NIH permission to make the manuscript publicly accessible ('the Public Access License'); (2) take a more active role in assisting authors in negotiating the scope of any copyright transfer to a publisher by (a) providing advice to authors concerning their negotiations or (b) by acting as the author's agent in such negotiations; (3) enter into a side agreement with NIH-funded authors that grants a non-exclusive copyright license to the grantee sufficient to grant NIH the Public Access License; (4) enter into a side agreement with NIH-funded authors that grants a non-exclusive copyright license to the grantee sufficient to grant NIH the Public Access License and also grants a license to the grantee to make certain uses of the article, including posting a copy in the grantee's publicly accessible digital archive or repository and authorizing the article to be used in connection with teaching by university faculty; (5) negotiate a more systematic and comprehensive agreement with the biomedical publishers to ensure either that the publisher has a binding obligation to submit the manuscript and to grant NIH permission to make the manuscript publicly accessible or that the author retains sufficient rights to do so; or (6) instruct NIH-funded authors to submit manuscripts only to journals with binding deposit agreements with NIH or to journals whose copyright agreements permit authors to retain sufficient rights to authorize NIH to make manuscripts publicly accessible.

Shifting the Burden of HIV/AIDS

As the economic burden of HIV/AIDS increases in sub-Saharan Africa, the allocation of the burden among levels and sectors of societies is changing. The private sector has greater scope than government, households, or NGOs to avoid the economic burden of AIDS, and a systematic shifting of the burden away from the private sector is underway. Common practices that shift the AIDS burden from businesses to households and government include pre-employment screening, reduced employee benefits, restructured employment contracts, outsourcing of less skilled jobs, selective retrenchments, and changes in production technologies. In South Africa, more than two thirds of large employers have reduced health care benefits or required larger contributions by employees. Most firms have replaced defined benefit retirement funds, which expose the firm to large annual costs but provide long-term support for families, with defined contribution funds, which eliminate firm risk but provide little to families of younger workers who die of AIDS. Contracting out of previously permanent jobs also shields firms from costs while leaving households and government to care for affected workers and their families. Many of these changes are responses to globalization and would have occurred in the absence of AIDS, but they are devastating for employees with HIV/AIDS. This paper argues that the shifting of the economic burden of AIDS is a predictable response by business to which a thoughtful public policy response is needed. Countries should make explicit decisions about each sector’s responsibilities if a socially desirable allocation is to be achieved.

On the Effectiveness of Genetic Search in Combinatorial Optimization

In this paper, we study the efficacy of genetic algorithms in the context of combinatorial optimization. In particular, we isolate the effects of cross-over, treated as the central component of genetic search. We show that for problems of nontrivial size and difficulty, the contribution of cross-over search is marginal, both synergistically when run in conjunction with mutation and selection, or when run with selection alone, the reference point being the search procedure consisting of just mutation and selection. The latter can be viewed as another manifestation of the Metropolis process. Considering the high computational cost of maintaining a population to facilitate cross-over search, its marginal benefit renders genetic search inferior to its singleton-population counterpart, the Metropolis process, and by extension, simulated annealing. This is further compounded by the fact that many problems arising in practice may inherently require a large number of state transitions for a near-optimal solution to be found, making genetic search infeasible given the high cost of computing a single iteration in the enlarged state-space.

Differential and numerical models of hysteretic systems with stochastic and deterministic inputs

Many deterministic models with hysteresis have been developed in the areas of economics, finance, terrestrial hydrology and biology. These models lack any stochastic element which can often have a strong effect in these areas. In this work stochastically driven closed loop systems with hysteresis type memory are studied. This type of system is presented as a possible stochastic counterpart to deterministic models in the areas of economics, finance, terrestrial hydrology and biology. Some price dynamics models are presented as a motivation for the development of this type of model. Numerical schemes for solving this class of stochastic differential equation are developed in order to examine the prototype models presented. As a means of further testing the developed numerical schemes, numerical examination is made of the behaviour near equilibrium of coupled ordinary differential equations where the time derivative of the Preisach operator is included in one of the equations. A model of two phenotype bacteria is also presented. This model is examined to explore memory effects and related hysteresis effects in the area of biology. The memory effects found in this model are similar to that found in the non-ideal relay. This non-ideal relay type behaviour is used to model a colony of bacteria with multiple switching thresholds. This model contains a Preisach type memory with a variable Preisach weight function. Shown numerically for this multi-threshold model is a pattern formation for the distribution of the phenotypes among the available thresholds.

Inclusive education policy, the general allocation model and dilemmas of practice in primary schools

Background: Inclusive education is central to contemporary discourse internationally reflecting societies’ wider commitment to social inclusion. Education has witnessed transforming approaches that have created differing distributions of power, resource allocation and accountability. Multiple actors are being forced to consider changes to how key services and supports are organised. This research constitutes a case study situated within this broader social service dilemma of how to distribute finite resources equitably to meet individual need, while advancing inclusion. It focuses on the national directive with regard to inclusive educational practice for primary schools, Department of Education and Science Special Education Circular 02/05, which introduced the General Allocation Model (GAM) within the legislative context of the Education of Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act (Government of Ireland, 2004). This research could help to inform policy with ‘facts about what is happening on the ground’ (Quinn, 2013). Research Aims: The research set out to unearth the assumptions and definitions embedded within the policy document, to analyse how those who are at the coalface of policy, and who interface with multiple interests in primary schools, understand the GAM and respond to it, and to investigate its effects on students and their education. It examines student outcomes in the primary schools where the GAM was investigated. Methods and Sample The post-structural study acknowledges the importance of policy analysis which explicitly links the ‘bigger worlds’ of global and national policy contexts to the ‘smaller worlds’ of policies and practices within schools and classrooms. This study insists upon taking the detail seriously (Ozga, 1990). A mixed methods approach to data collection and analysis is applied. In order to secure the perspectives of key stakeholders, semi-structured interviews were conducted with primary school principals, class teachers and learning support/resource teachers (n=14) in three distinct mainstream, non-DEIS schools. Data from the schools and their environs provided a profile of students. The researcher then used the Pobal Maps Facility (available at www.pobal.ie) to identify the Small Area (SA) in which each student resides, and to assign values to each address based on the Pobal HP Deprivation Index (Haase and Pratschke, 2012). Analysis of the datasets, guided by the conceptual framework of the policy cycle (Ball, 1994), revealed a number of significant themes. Results: Data illustrate that the main model to support student need is withdrawal from the classroom under policy that espouses inclusion. Quantitative data, in particular, highlighted an association between segregated practice and lower socioeconomic status (LSES) backgrounds of students. Up to 83% of the students in special education programmes are from lower socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds. In some schools 94% of students from LSES backgrounds are withdrawn from classrooms daily for special education. While the internal processes of schooling are not solely to blame for class inequalities, this study reveals the power of professionals to order children in school, which has implications for segregated special education practice. Such agency on the part of key actors in the context of practice relates to ‘local constructions of dis/ability’, which is influenced by teacher habitus (Bourdieu, 1984). The researcher contends that inclusive education has not resulted in positive outcomes for students from LSES backgrounds because it is built on faulty assumptions that focus on a psycho-medical perspective of dis/ability, that is, placement decisions do not consider the intersectionality of dis/ability with class or culture. This study argues that the student need for support is better understood as ‘home/school discontinuity’ not ‘disability’. Moreover, the study unearths the power of some parents to use social and cultural capital to ensure eligibility to enhanced resources. Therefore, a hierarchical system has developed in mainstream schools as a result of funding models to support need in inclusive settings. Furthermore, all schools in the study are ‘ordinary’ schools yet participants acknowledged that some schools are more ‘advantaged’, which may suggest that ‘ordinary’ schools serve to ‘bury class’ (Reay, 2010) as a key marker in allocating resources. The research suggests that general allocation models of funding to meet the needs of students demands a systematic approach grounded in reallocating funds from where they have less benefit to where they have more. The calculation of the composite Haase Value in respect of the student cohort in receipt of special education support adopted for this study could be usefully applied at a national level to ensure that the greatest level of support is targeted at greatest need. Conclusion: In summary, the study reveals that existing structures constrain and enable agents, whose interactions produce intended and unintended consequences. The study suggests that policy should be viewed as a continuous and evolving cycle (Ball, 1994) where actors in each of the social contexts have a shared responsibility in the evolution of education that is equitable, excellent and inclusive.

Resonant power conversion topologies for inductive charging of electrical vehicle batteries

This thesis is concerned with inductive charging of electric vehicle batteries. Rectified power form the 50/60 Hz utility feeds a dc-ac converter which delivers high-frequency ac power to the electric vehicle inductive coupling inlet. The inlet configuration has been defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers in Recommended Practice J-1773. This thesis studies converter topologies related to the series resonant converter. When coupled to the vehicle inlet, the frequency-controlled series-resonant converter results in a capacitively-filtered series-parallel LCLC (SP-LCLC) resonant converter topology with zero voltage switching and many other desirable features. A novel time-domain transformation analysis, termed Modal Analysis, is developed, using a state variable transformation, to analyze and characterize this multi-resonant fourth-orderconverter. Next, Fundamental Mode Approximation (FMA) Analysis, based on a voltage-source model of the load, and its novel extension, Rectifier-Compensated FMA (RCFMA) Analysis, are developed and applied to the SP-LCLC converter. The RCFMA Analysis is a simpler and more intuitive analysis than the Modal Analysis, and provides a relatively accurate closed-form solution for the converter behavior. Phase control of the SP-LCLC converter is investigated as a control option. FMA and RCFMA Analyses are used for detailed characterization. The analyses identify areas of operation, which are also validated experimentally, where it is advantageous to phase control the converter. A novel hybrid control scheme is proposed which integrates frequency and phase control and achieves reduced operating frequency range and improved partial-load efficiency. The phase-controlled SP-LCLC converter can also be configured with a parallel load and is an excellent option for the application. The resulting topology implements soft-switching over the entire load range and has high full-load and partial-load efficiencies. RCFMA Analysis is used to analyze and characterize the new converter topology, and good correlation is shown with experimental results. Finally, a novel single-stage power-factor-corrected ac-dc converter is introduced, which uses the current-source characteristic of the SP-LCLC topology to provide power factor correction over a wide output power range from zero to full load. This converter exhibits all the advantageous characteristics of its dc-dc counterpart, with a reduced parts count and cost. Simulation and experimental results verify the operation of the new converter.

Au nanorods-semiconductor nanowire hybrid nanostructures : nanofabrication techniques and optoelectronic properties

The objective of this thesis is the exploration and characterization of novel Au nanorod-semiconductor nanowire hybrid nanostructures. I provide a comprehensive bottom-up approach in which, starting from the synthesis and theoretical investigation of the optical properties of Au nanorods, I design, nanofabricate and characterize Au nanorods-semiconductor nanowire hybrid nanodevices with novel optoelectronic capabilities compared to the non-hybrid counterpart. In this regards, I first discuss the seed-mediated protocols to synthesize Au nanorods with different sizes and the influence of nanorod geometries and non-homogeneous surrounding medium on the optical properties investigated by theoretical simulation. Novel methodologies for assembling Au nanorods on (i) a Si/SiO2 substrate with highly-ordered architecture and (ii) on semiconductor nanowires with spatial precision are developed and optimized. By exploiting these approaches, I demonstrate that Raman active modes of an individual ZnO nanowire can be detected in non-resonant conditions by exploring the longitudinal plasmonic resonance mediation of chemical-synthesized Au nanorods deposited on the nanowire surface otherwise not observable on bare ZnO nanowire. Finally, nanofabrication and detailed electrical characterization of ZnO nanowire field-effect transistor (FET) and optoelectronic properties of Au nanorods - ZnO nanowire FET tunable near-infrared photodetector are investigated. In particular we demonstrated orders of magnitude enhancement in the photocurrent intensity in the explored range of wavelengths and 40 times faster time response compared to the bare ZnO FET detector. The improved performance, attributed to the plasmonicmediated hot-electron generation and injection mechanism underlying the photoresponse is investigated both experimentally and theoretically. The miniaturized, tunable and integrated capabilities offered by metal nanorodssemicondictor nanowire device architectures presented in this thesis work could have an important impact in many application fields such as opto-electronic sensors, photodetectors and photovoltaic devices and open new avenues for designing of novel nanoscale optoelectronic devices.

Rent-seekers' lost El Dorado: Vietnam's financial turmoil, 2007-2013

In this investigation, we examined 256 cases of financial failure and fraud in Vietnam’s chaotic years from 2007 to 2013. Categorical data analyses suggest that the rent-seeking approach, or resource-based orientation, alone does not help explain the outcome of a business intention while the association between Orientation and Approach is the best-fit predictor. Rampant financial collapse not only increases the cost of funds but also erodes trust in the economy. Entrepreneurship development and creativity capacity building, in light of this, are necessary to improve socio-economic conditions and the environment. In this manuscript, we also introduce intuitive and cognitive factors to predict ex-ante outcome of a financing scheme.

Scale-wise evolution of rainfall probability density functions fingerprints the rainfall generation mechanism

© 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.The cross-scale probabilistic structure of rainfall intensity records collected over time scales ranging from hours to decades at sites dominated by both convective and frontal systems is investigated. Across these sites, intermittency build-up from slow to fast time-scales is analyzed in terms of heavy tailed and asymmetric signatures in the scale-wise evolution of rainfall probability density functions (pdfs). The analysis demonstrates that rainfall records dominated by convective storms develop heavier-Tailed power law pdfs toward finer scales when compared with their frontal systems counterpart. Also, a concomitant marked asymmetry build-up emerges at such finer time scales. A scale-dependent probabilistic description of such fat tails and asymmetry appearance is proposed based on a modified q-Gaussian model, able to describe the cross-scale rainfall pdfs in terms of the nonextensivity parameter q, a lacunarity (intermittency) correction and a tail asymmetry coefficient, linked to the rainfall generation mechanism.