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Integration Process (integration + process)
Selected AbstractsRegional Integration and the Co-ordination of Capital Income TaxationECONOMIC NOTES, Issue 1 2002Valeria De Bonis This paper addresses the question of the need for income tax harmonization in the context of regional integration. It analyses the international distortions and fiscal interdependence arising in the presence of tax rate differentials both under a theoretical and an empirical perspective, and with reference to actual experiences of harmonization attempts. Attention is also paid to the influence of the countries' size on the results, to the strategic behaviour of countries under different international taxations rules, and to the relationships with the countries excluded by the integration process. International tax uniformity does not appear to be the preferable solution, even if some form of concerted agreements might help in reducing inefficiencies deriving from taxation differentials. For instance, in the case of highly mobile factors, like financial capital, if the integrating countries apply the source principle and the interest rate is the same across them, the source-based tax rate on non residents must equal the residence country tax rate on residents. Such a rule would allow the countries to set autonomously their tax rate and, at the same time, eliminate cross-border effects. If there are more than two integrating countries, the tax rates on non residents should discriminate according to the internal tax rate of the residence country. (J.E.L.: H87, F20, H20). [source] Migration and Recognition of Diplomas in SwedenEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, Issue 2 2005ELENA DINGU-KYRKLUND Trans-national migration is now a global phenomenon, affecting an increasing amount of persons, many of whom have already completed a form of higher education in their country of origin or earlier residence at the time of migration. There is consequently a need to evaluate foreign degrees and assess migrants' professional competence beyond their initial borders. Recognition of diplomas against the background of the integration process is the core of this article. Combining considerations regarding migration and integration of highly educated international migrants on the labour market of their target countries with a closer perspective on the process of validation of foreign higher education and professional competence in Sweden, the article treats this topic as a European example of the development of an issue of increasing importance in years to come. [source] Who inhabits the European public sphere?EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2007Winners, losers, opponents in Europeanised political debates, supporters This article investigates which actors profit from and which actors stand to lose from the Europeanisation of political communication in mass-mediated public spheres. Furthermore, it asks to what extent these effects of Europeanisation can help one to understand collective actors' evaluation of European institutions and the integration process. Data is analysed on some 20,000 political claims by a variety of collective actors, drawn from 28 newspapers in seven European countries in the period 1990,2002, across seven different issue fields with varying degrees of EU policy-making power. The results show that government and executive actors are by far the most important beneficiaries of the Europeanisation of public debates compared to legislative and party actors, and even more so compared to civil society actors, who are extremely weakly represented in Europeanised public debates. The stronger is the type of Europeanisation that is considered, the stronger are these biases. For most actors, a close correspondence is found between how Europeanisation affects their influence in the public debate, on the one hand, and their public support for, or opposition to, European institutions and the integration process, on the other. [source] Free Movement of Persons and European Solidarity1EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 3 2007Stefano Giubboni The article aims to re-construct the system of Community rules regarding the free movement of persons within the EU from the point of view of the justifying criteria for the cross-border access to national welfare systems of the different categories of ,migrants'. The focus of the article is on the different degrees and models of solidarity which, at least at the present stage of the European integration process, justify correspondingly graduated and differentiated forms of cross-border access to Member States' social and welfare benefits for the various categories of persons who move about within the EU. [source] The European Commission: The Limits of Centralization and the Perils of ParliamentarizationGOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2002Giandomenico MajoneArticle first published online: 17 DEC 200 The idea of an inevitable process of centralization in the European Community (EC)/European Union (EU) is a myth. Also, the metaphor of "creeping competences," with its suggestion of a surreptitious but continuous growth of the powers of the Commission, can be misleading. It is true that the functional scope of EC/EU competences has steadily increased, but the nature of new competences has changed dramatically, as may be seen from the evolution of the methods of harmonization. The original emphasis on total harmonization, which gives the Community exclusive competence over a given policy area, has been largely replaced by more flexible but less "communitarian" methods such as optional and minimum harmonization, reference to nonbinding technical standards, and mutual recognition. Finally, the treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam explicitly excluded harmonization for most new competences. Thus, the expansion of the jurisdiction of the EC/EU has not automatically increased the powers of the Commission, but has actually weakened them in several respects. In addition, the progressive parliamentarization of the Commission risks compromising its credibility as an independent regulator, without necessarily enhancing its democratic legitimacy. Since the member states continue to oppose any centralization of regulatory powers, even in areas essential to the functioning of the internal market, the task of implementing Community policies should be entrusted to networks of independent national and European regulators, roughly modeled on the European System of Central Banks. The Commission would coordinate and monitor the activities of these networks in order to ensure the coherence of EC regulatory policies. More generally, it should bring its distinctive competence more clearly into focus by concentrating on the core business of ensuring the development and proper functioning of the single European market. This is a more modest role than that of the kernel of a future government of Europe, but it is essential to the credibility of the integration process and does not overstrain the limited financial and legitimacy resources available to the Commission. [source] A variationally consistent framework for the design of integrator and updates of generalized single step representations for structural dynamicsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, Issue 8 2003R. Kanapady Abstract A variationally consistent framework leading to the concise design of both the ,integrator' and the associated ,updates' as related to the single step representations encompassing the so-called LMS methods for structural dynamics is described. The present paper shows for the first time, a consistent treatment involving both the ,integrator' and ,updates' that are inherent in the general context of designing the time integration process. Furthermore, the framework encompasses not only all the existing time integration algorithms that are dissipative and non-dissipative within the scope of LMS methods but also contains new optimal algorithms useful for practical applications,in the sense of accuracy, stability, numerical dissipation and dispersion, and overshoot characteristics of computational algorithms for time dependent problems encountered in structural dynamics. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Remarks on tension instability of Eulerian and Lagrangian corrected smooth particle hydrodynamics (CSPH) methodsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING, Issue 11 2001Javier Bonet Abstract The paper discusses the problem of tension instability of particle-based methods such as smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) or corrected SPH (CSPH). It is shown that tension instability is a property of a continuum where the stress tensor is isotropic and the value of the pressure is a function of the density or volume ratio. The paper will show that, for this material model, the non-linear continuum equations fail to satisfy the stability condition in the presence of tension. Consequently, any discretization of this continuum will result in negative eigenvalues in the tangent stiffness matrix that will lead to instabilities in the time integration process. An important exception is the 1-D case where the continuum becomes stable but SPH or CSPH can still exhibit negative eigenvalues. The paper will show that these negative eigenvalues can be eliminated if a Lagrangian formulation is used whereby all derivatives are referred to a fixed reference configuration. The resulting formulation maintains the momentum preservation properties of its Eulerian equivalent. Finally a simple 1-D wave propagation example will be used to demonstrate that a stable solution can be obtained using Lagrangian CSPH without the need for any artificial viscosity. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Computing non-Newtonian fluid flow with radial basis function networksINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS, Issue 12 2005N. Mai-Duy Abstract This paper is concerned with the application of radial basis function networks (RBFNs) for solving non-Newtonian fluid flow problems. Indirect RBFNs, which are based on an integration process, are employed to represent the solution variables; the governing differential equations are discretized by means of point collocation. To enhance numerical stability, stress-splitting techniques are utilized. The proposed method is verified through the computation of the rectilinear and non-rectilinear flows in a straight duct and the axisymmetric flow in an undulating tube using Newtonian, power-law, Criminale,Ericksen,Filbey (CEF) and Oldroyd-B models. The obtained results are in good agreement with the analytic and benchmark solutions. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Democratic demand for a social Europe?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 2 2005Preferences of the European citizenry Within the literature on European integration there is a widespread assumption that Europe is in need of intensified and more effective supranational social policy cooperation. However, on the political level it is doubtful whether such measures are welcomed by the national electorates. This article addresses this issue empirically by asking whether there is public demand for promoting greater European welfare policy cooperation and what are the determinants of such a demand. The data source used is the Eurobarometer survey 2000. A number of hypotheses dealing with socio-structural differences, the effects of welfare regime types, the subjective evaluation of the integration process and the role of identity will be scrutinised. Overall, the results indicate that at the attitudinal ,grass root' level there is no unequivocal support for a European welfare responsibility and that some fundamental cleavages are present. It is the regional and cultural aspects, especially, which turn out to be having an effect and to be influencing future political conflicts. A common European welfare arrangement, therefore, cannot be regarded as a solution to the problems the European Union is facing; rather it will raise new and severe problems of finding social and political support. [source] The Second Generation in EuropeINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 4 2003Maurice Crul The study of integration processes has now reached a crucial stage in most Western European countries with the emergence of the second generation. The oldest children born to postwar immigrants on European soil have recently entered the job market, and we can now investigate their performance in both education and employment. This opens a unique opportunity to compare the situations of second generation migrants across countries. Ostensibly the children all have the same starting position, being born in the country of settlement. The intriguing question is how differences between immigrant groups, and also differences in national contexts, work to the benefit or detriment of the second generation. We discuss the first issue briefly, confining ourselves here to Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. In addressing the issue of national contexts, we focus primarily on policies and practices rather than on broad-reaching national integration models. We examine in detail the integration process itself in the context of vital institutional arrangements such as the education system and the mechanisms for transition to the labor market. How do such arrangements differ between countries, and how do they affect the outcomes for the second generation? [source] The Europeanization of Higher Education: Markets, Politics or Learning?,JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2006IAN BACHE This article looks at increased European co-operation in higher education, taking as its main case study the proposal for universities to adopt a common core curriculum for European studies. The article situates higher education co-operation in the context of political and economic imperatives promoting ,ever closer union' and highlights immanent dangers for academic goals. However, it also identifies the scale of European co-operation as an opportunity for national higher education actors to resist together what they may be unable to resist alone: namely, greater economic and political intrusion into academic life. Long term, this may prove crucial to the vitality of the European integration process. [source] International Relations Theory and European IntegrationJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2001Mark A. Pollack The explicit effort to theorize about the process of European integration began within the field of international relations (IR), where neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism long remained the dominant schools of thought. With the relaunching of the integration process in the 1980s and 1990s, however, IR scholars have begun to approach the study of the European Union using more general, and generalizable, theoretical approaches. This article examines the recent debate among realists, liberals, rational-choice institutionalists, and constructivists regarding the nature of the integration process and the EU as an international organization. Although originally posed as competing theories, I argue, realist, liberal and institutionalist approaches show signs of convergence around a single rationalist model, with constructivism remaining as the primary rival, but less developed, approach to the study of European integration. [source] The European Union and the Securitization of MigrationJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 5 2000Jef Huysmans This article deals with the question of how migration has developed into a security issue in western Europe and how the European integration process is implicated in it. Since the 1980s, the political construction of migration increasingly referred to the destabilizing effects of migration on domestic integration and to the dangers for public order it implied. The spillover of the internal market into a European internal security question mirrors these domestic developments at the European level. The Third Pillar on Justice and Home Affairs, the Schengen Agreements, and the Dublin Convention most visibly indicate that the European integration process is implicated in the development of a restrictive migration policy and the social construction of migration into a security question. However, the political process of connecting migration to criminal and terrorist abuses of the internal market does not take place in isolation. It is related to a wider politicization in which immigrants and asylum-seekers are portrayed as a challenge to the protection of national identity and welfare provisions. Moreover, supporting the political construction of migration as a security issue impinges on and is embedded in the politics of belonging in western Europe. It is an integral part of the wider technocratic and political process in which professional agencies , such as the police and customs , and political agents , such as social movements and political parties , debate and decide the criteria for legitimate membership of west European societies. [source] Cognitive therapy integrated with life review techniques: an eclectic treatment approach for affective symptoms in older adultsJOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 1 2004William J. Puentes DNSc Background., An important aspect of nursing theory development has been the adaptation of theory from other disciplines within the metaparadigm of nursing. This eclectic approach to theory development enhances the broad humanistic theory base on which effective, professional nursing practice is based. Aims and objectives., The aim of this article is to describe the process of integrating two distinct psychotherapeutic approaches into one coherent mental health nursing intervention for the treatment of affective symptoms in older adults. Guidelines for using this integration process in psychiatric mental health nursing clinical practice are presented and illustrated through the case study approach. Methods., A case study is presented describing a clinical situation in which life review techniques were used to enhance the outcomes of a cognitive therapy experience for older adults enrolled in outpatient psychotherapy treatment for acute adjustment disorder with an affective component. Conclusions and relevance to clinical practice., The advanced practice psychiatric mental health nurse who approaches psychotherapeutic interventions with older adult clients from an eclectic approach can achieve successful outcomes by having a clear understanding of (i) the dynamics of the various psychotherapeutic approaches, (i) the skill level of the practitioner, (iii) the psychosocial sophistication of the client, and (iv) the pathology being treated. In addition, active involvement by the client in a treatment process that matches his/her psychosocial skill and coping resource level will contribute to effective resolution of pathology. A cognitive therapy approach supplemented by life review techniques is an excellent example of an effective, eclectic treatment approach of affective disorders in older adults. [source] Explaining the Emergence of Different European Union Crisis and Emergency Management StructuresJOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2010Cécile Wendling Two European Union (EU) tools were adopted to enhance cooperation among Member States in the case of crises and emergencies (natural, industrial or man-made) occurring both inside and outside the EU borders: first, the EU has developed a new tool in the field of civil protection that has been managed by the Directorate General Environment of the European Commission under the label of the Community Civil Protection Mechanism since 2001. Second, the Emergency and Crisis Coordination Arrangements (CCA), under the responsibility of the European Council, have been developed since 2005. Using a sociological neo-institutionalist approach based on the concept of ,divergent isomorphism', the paper explains who and what the sources of EU integration process were leading to the coexistence of these two structures. Two case studies are presented using process tracing to demonstrate that two different pre-existing organizational models were copied to create the EU structures of crisis and emergency management: that of the Community Marine pollution framework for the Community Civil Protection Mechanism and that of NATO for the CCA. [source] Becoming A Leader In A Complex OrganizationJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 8 2000Jean-Louis Denis For a new leader, the process of entering and establishing a position of leadership in a complex organization presents a major challenge. This challenge seems particularly acute when authority, goals and technology are ambiguous, as in many professional service organizations. In this paper, we integrate ideas from the literature on socialization and role theory as well as that on executive succession processes to view new leader integration as a mutual adjustment process between two trajectories , that of the organization and that of the new leader. It is argued that this may lead to four possible types of integration outcomes: assimilation, transformation, accommodation and parallelism. Drawing on a case study of a large hospital, the paper identifies several mechanisms that can be mobilized by the new leader to enhance his or her room for man,uvre as the integration process evolves. The mechanisms can be classified as collaborative or affirmative, with each type having different risks and advantages. The case analysis further reveals that leader integration processes may be differentiated between different activity domains, dynamic over time (as the use of one type of integration approach alters the potential for another later), and interactive across different activity domains (as events in one part of the organization have consequences for those occurring in another). [source] Loudness summation and the mismatch negativity event-related brain potential in humansPSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY, Issue 1 2006Attila Oceák Abstract Infrequently omitting a sound from a repetitive sequence elicits the mismatch negativity (MMN) ERP response when the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) is less than 200 ms. We contrasted two alternative explanations of omission MMN. (1) Each sound starts a separate temporal integration process. Omissions violate the constancy of the temporal structure within the integration window. (2) Sounds preceding an omission are perceived to be louder than those followed by a sound within the integration period, because omissions allow the full stimulus aftereffect to be included in perceived loudness. We varied the SOA between 117 and 217 ms. For this case, the temporal structure explanation predicts that no MMN will be elicited, whereas the loudness summation explanation predicts that MMN will be elicited. MMN was elicited by tone omissions with random SOA, suggesting that loudness summation plays an important role in the elicitation of omission MMN. [source] The Second Generation in EuropeINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 4 2003Maurice Crul The study of integration processes has now reached a crucial stage in most Western European countries with the emergence of the second generation. The oldest children born to postwar immigrants on European soil have recently entered the job market, and we can now investigate their performance in both education and employment. This opens a unique opportunity to compare the situations of second generation migrants across countries. Ostensibly the children all have the same starting position, being born in the country of settlement. The intriguing question is how differences between immigrant groups, and also differences in national contexts, work to the benefit or detriment of the second generation. We discuss the first issue briefly, confining ourselves here to Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. In addressing the issue of national contexts, we focus primarily on policies and practices rather than on broad-reaching national integration models. We examine in detail the integration process itself in the context of vital institutional arrangements such as the education system and the mechanisms for transition to the labor market. How do such arrangements differ between countries, and how do they affect the outcomes for the second generation? [source] Food consumption in the European Union: Main determinants and country differencesAGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2001A. Gracia Consumers in the European Union are involved in integration processes that head towards homogenization of food consumption patterns. Several factors are encouraging these homogenization trends based on consumers' similarities and corporate activities. In this article a review of the food consumption structure, across European Union countries, is undertaken. First, food consumption trends in different countries are described and, second, factors, which determine consumer choices, are presented. Despite the fact that European consumers face more homogeneous food market conditions, food consumption differences exist because preferences and food habits are still different among European consumers, and the market is fragmented (EconLit: L660). © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] Becoming A Leader In A Complex OrganizationJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 8 2000Jean-Louis Denis For a new leader, the process of entering and establishing a position of leadership in a complex organization presents a major challenge. This challenge seems particularly acute when authority, goals and technology are ambiguous, as in many professional service organizations. In this paper, we integrate ideas from the literature on socialization and role theory as well as that on executive succession processes to view new leader integration as a mutual adjustment process between two trajectories , that of the organization and that of the new leader. It is argued that this may lead to four possible types of integration outcomes: assimilation, transformation, accommodation and parallelism. Drawing on a case study of a large hospital, the paper identifies several mechanisms that can be mobilized by the new leader to enhance his or her room for man,uvre as the integration process evolves. The mechanisms can be classified as collaborative or affirmative, with each type having different risks and advantages. The case analysis further reveals that leader integration processes may be differentiated between different activity domains, dynamic over time (as the use of one type of integration approach alters the potential for another later), and interactive across different activity domains (as events in one part of the organization have consequences for those occurring in another). [source] Differential integration efforts of mandatory and optional sentence constituentsPSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY, Issue 5 2006Anat Prior Abstract We investigated the online sensitivity of the semantic integration system to the different roles played by sentence constituents that are necessary (verbs and nouns) or optional (adjectives) for argument completion. We compared the effect of semantic incongruities introduced in both types of words on the N400 ERP component. Participants read sentences for meaning, half of which were rendered anomalous by an incongruent verb, noun, or an early/late adjective. Incongruent adjectives led to smaller N400 effects than did incongruent nouns and verbs, and the congruity effect for sentence-final adjectives was not significant. All incongruities are therefore not created equal: Incongruent optional sentence constituents create less of an integrative burden than incongruent mandatory sentence constituents, suggesting that online sentence integration processes are sensitive to the distinct roles played by different words in shaping sentence meaning. [source] Functional role of cyclic nucleotide-gated channels in rat medial vestibular nucleus neuronsTHE JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY, Issue 3 2008Maria Vittoria Podda Although cyclic nucleotide-gated (CNG) channels are expressed in numerous brain areas, little information is available on their functions in CNS neurons. The aim of the present study was to define the distribution of CNG channels in the rat medial vestibular nucleus (MVN) and their possible involvement in regulating MVN neuron (MVNn) excitability. The majority of MVNn expressed both CNG1 and CNG2 A subunits. In whole-cell current-clamp experiments carried out on brainstem slices containing the MVNn, the membrane-permeant analogues of cyclic nucleotides, 8-Br-cGMP and 8-Br-cAMP (1 mm), induced membrane depolarizations (8.9 ± 0.8 and 9.2 ± 1.0 mV, respectively) that were protein kinase independent. The cGMP-induced depolarization was associated with a significant decrease in the membrane input resistance. The effects of cGMP on membrane potential were almost completely abolished by the CNG channel blockers, Cd2+ and l - cis -diltiazem, but they were unaffected by blockade of hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated channels. In voltage-clamp experiments, 8-Br-cGMP induced non-inactivating inward currents (,22.2 ± 3.9 pA) with an estimated reversal potential near 0 mV, which were markedly inhibited by reduction of extracellular Na+ and Ca2+ concentrations. Membrane depolarization induced by CNG channel activation increased the firing rate of MVNn without changing the action potential shape. Collectively, these findings provide novel evidence that CNG channels affect membrane potential and excitability of MVNn. Such action should have a significant impact on the function of these neurons in sensory,motor integration processes. More generally, it might represent a broad mechanism for regulating the excitability of different CNS neurons. [source] Comprehension skill and word-to-text integration processesAPPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2008Charles Perfetti We examine comprehension skill differences in the processes of word-to-text integration, the connection of the meaning of a word, as it is read, to a representation of the text. We review two ,on-line' integration studies using event related potentials (ERPs) to provide fine-grain temporal data on the word-to-text processes of adult readers. The studies demonstrate indicators for word-to-text integration and show differences in these indicators as a function of adult reading comprehension skill. For skilled comprehenders, integration processes were reflected in N400 indicators when a critical word had an explicit link to a word in the prior text and by both N400 and P300 indicators when its meaning was a paraphrase of a prior word. When forward inferences were required for subsequent word-to-text integration, effects for skilled comprehenders were not reliable. Less skilled comprehenders showed delayed and less robust ERP effects, especially when meaning paraphrase was the basis of the integration. We discuss the significance of skill differences in integration processes with a focus on the use of context-dependent word meaning as a possible source of these differences. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Relationship Development and Workplace Integration: An Evolutionary PerspectiveCOMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 4 2005JC. Bruno Teboul In this article, the authors argue that recent scholarship emanating from the field of evolutionary psychology (EP) promises to further current understanding of relationship development processes in organizations. To this end, they briefly review EP's core assumptions about human nature and behavior and then examine three adaptive mechanisms that underlie close relational functioning in the workplace. Specifically, the authors describe how reciprocal altruism and preference for similarity, coupled with sensitivity toward prestige hierarchies, underscore the exchange and coordination activities of employees' relationships at work. The proposed model of relationship development is discussed in terms of employee adjustment and integration processes. In conclusion, the authors highlight the potential of EP as both (a) a metatheoretic framework through which seemingly disparate areas of scholarship can be unified, and (b) a vehicle for theoretical development, a catalyst of novel predictions about communication in organizations, grounded in ultimate, rather than proximate, causation. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||