Worldwide, soft regulation such as codes of conduct and benchmarks has been introduced to cope with the uncertain risks and benefits of nanotechnologies. However, it seems that these regulations are facing effectiveness problems. For instance, the European Commission's 2008 Nano Code of Conduct has not yet been implemented in the member states. Using the analytical framework of responsive regul...

We investigate which event structures can be denoted by means of closed CCS CSP expressions. Working up to isomorphism we find that all denotable event structures are bundle event structures, upon adding an infinitary parallel composition all bundle event structures are denotable, without it every finite bundle event structure can be denoted, as well as every countable prime event structure wit...

A revised conception of the relationship between psychological science and professional practice is proposed in the light of postmodern changes in perspectives on knowledge. Positivistic science, which has dominated the traditional interpretation of scientist-practitioner training, is considered from a constructivist point of view to be only one possible foundation of psychological knowledge. I...

This paper examines variation in the expression of aspect both from a language-internal and a cross-linguistic perspective. We make the following proposals: (i) the morpheme already encodes the meaning of two contrasting phases; (ii) several types of event structures, including that of the Perfect, also encode a similar meaning of contrasting phases, but with particular orderings of phases spec...

This paper explores what educational technologists in one South African Institution consider innovation to be. Ten educational technologists in various faculties across the university were interviewed and asked to define and answer questions about innovation. Their answers were coded and the results of the overlaps in coding have been assimilated into a definition. Soft systems methodology (SSM...

This paper describes an approach to determine whether people participate in the events they tweet about. Specifically, we determine whether people are participants in events with respect to the tweet timestamp. We target all events expressed by verbs in tweets, including past, present and events that may occur in the future. We present new annotations using 1,096 event mentions, and experimenta...

BACKGROUND Core outcome sets (COS) help to minimise bias in trials and facilitate evidence synthesis. Delphi surveys are increasingly being used as part of a wider process to reach consensus about what outcomes should be included in a COS. Qualitative research can be used to inform the development of Delphi surveys. This is an advance in the field of COS development and one which is potentially...

The dramatic increase in interorganizational partnering in the last two decades raises questions regarding the value impact of alliances. Using event study methodology, this paper tests whether stock market reactions differ when an alliance formation or termination is announced. In addition, it provides an in-depth analysis of potential determinants of stock market reactions. The results show t...

Over the last few years, increasing attention has been directed toward the problems inherent to measuring the quality of healthcare and implementing benchmarking strategies. Besides offering accreditation and certification processes, recent approaches measure the performance of healthcare institutions in order to evaluate their effectiveness, defined as the capacity to provide treatment that mo...