EU accession has had an ambiguous impact on regionalization in the Czech Republic. While EU membership necessitated the creation of regional administrative structures to manage the Structural Funds, the role of new regional authorities was often undermined by the centralized nature of the accession process itself. Developments since accession have created a new dynamic in the debate over region...

This chapter reviews the evolution of mathematical and statistical models that have been used for the development of theory and policy analysis in regional economics. The benefits of mathematical approaches are outlined. Theories and estimation techniques have developed in tandem with developments in the availability of geo-referenced data, new technologies and particularly computing power. Reg...

The comparison of long-term care (LTC) expenditures is a difficult task. National LTC systems differ widely in terms of eligibility criteria, level of benefits, institutional variety and regional heterogeneity. In this commentary I will first give some general remarks on cross country comparisons. Then I discuss the role of the informal sector which is the most importan...

the growth of regional trade blocks has been one of the major developments in international relations in recent years. regional agreements vary widely but, all have the objective of reducing barriers to trade between member countries that in most cases result in increasingly trade flows and economic growth. this paper attempts to explore the results of trade integration in eco, eu and oic block...

Our understanding of the physical underpinnings of the assessment of cardiac function is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Recent developments in cardiac ultrasound permit exploitation of many of these newer physical concepts with current echocardiographic machines. This review will first focus on the current approach to the assessment of cardiovascular hemodynamics by cardiac ultrasound. Th...

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