Suchergebnisse

The dissertation consists of three studies examining three different regulatory issues that affect the auditing profession. The first study has two main foci. First, the study investigates the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on the Big 4 fee premium. Second, the study investigates the relationship between the size of an audit client and annual fee change. The results show that in the post-SOX environment, clients of non-Big 4 firms have experienced greater increases in audit fees than the clients of the Big 4 firms, resulting in a diminishing Big 4 premium. This is consistent with the notion that non-Big 4 clients had to make significant adjustments to meet post-SOX quality requirements by increasing their effort (and consequently audit fees). The results also show audit firms' large clients experience the largest percentage increase in audit fees. This is consistent with the theoretical view of consumer surplus, where the large clients, with more resources, have greater levels of consumer surplus, which is being captured by the audit firms. The study contributes to our understanding of the impact of SOX on audit fee premium and the economics of audit market competition in different client segments. The second study is focused on three main areas: 1) the relationship between audit fees and audit market concentration on a country level; 2) the effect of a country's litigation regime on the relationship between audit fees and market concentration and 3) the inter-relations between competition, fees, and quality in the market for audit services. The study is motivated by the current debate in the United States and the European Union about the possible problems associated with the current oligopolistic structure of the audit market. The contribution of this study lies in the fact that it provides a multi-national empirical investigation of the audit competition-fee relationship, and examination of how country-level fees affect the competition-quality relationship, while controlling for country level factors. Results show a negative relationship between country-level market concentration and audit fees but only in highly litigious countries, suggesting that the firms are able to obtain economies of scale in more concentrated markets and are willing to pass savings down to their clients. However this relationship only holds for the clients of the Big N firms. Analysis of audit quality suggests that audit quality is higher in more concentrated markets but mediation analysis did not show that the fees mediate the relationship between audit quality and market concentration. The third study addresses current regulatory debate about the responsibility of the principal auditor in the group audit environment. Current United States standards allow the principal auditor to disavow responsibility for parts of the audit which were performed by a third party auditor by referencing them in the auditor's opinion and then indicating the part of the audit which was performed by them. This disclaimer of responsibility is prohibited under the international auditing standards, which require the principal auditor to be responsible for the entire group audit. Specifically, this study examines 1) audit quality implications related to such opinions, and 2) the relationship between having a shared opinion and audit fees. The results show that the audit quality is significantly lower for the firms whose audit opinion referenced a third party auditor. The results also provide some evidence that audit fees are lower in shared responsibility situations. ; 2013-08-01 ; Ph.D. ; Business Administration, Dean's Office CBA ; Doctoral ; This record was generated from author submitted information.

SummarySeen as a whole, the failure to solve the world's food problem has also to be considered as a realtive failure of rural sociology. The inherited emphasis on micro‐sociological analysis within an accepted social order has led to research mainly concerned with adjustment problems and petty change. But a successful contribution by rural sociology to solve development problems has been hampered by other factors also.To attack real‐life problems, all relevant factors related to the problem at hand and their inter‐relatedness have to be considered. This is not possible within the borderlines of one of the existing disciplines (be it economics, sociology, anthropology, natural sciences, etc.).It seems, that the behavioural sciences can serve the function of really integrating the relevant disciplines (instead of only adding them).To bring about and direct change one needs to know the practical problems arising in practical development efforts. Research then has to be close enough to these development activities to ask the really relevant questions. The concepts, therefore, have to be action‐oriented and the research activities should be directed ‐ more than it is the case so far ‐ to provide for problem‐solving proposals.Only relatively few sociologists and rural sociologists are working in planning and action agencies. It seems that sociologists most often feel at home at the universities, not trying to bring scientific knowledge into use in development activities. On the other hand, it is obvious that the conditions for work in the existing institutions are often not favourable for sociologists (political pressure to show quick results, etc.). The present state of knowledge in relation to development is still inadequate; what is known is poorly disseminated to practitioners of development; administrators and development agents are often unwilling or unable to change their own established attitudes and the existing working procedures.If the points stated are really crucial, and rural sociologists become aware of them, it can be hoped and expected that the discipline has the capacity to bring important contributions to intentional efforts at development to solve the main pressing problems.ZusammenfassungAufgrund der Entwicklung dieser noch jungen Disziplin hat sie sich vorwiegend mit mikro‐soziologischen Studien innerhalb von Gesellschaftssystemen befaßt, die als solche unbefragt akzeptiert wurden. Die Forschung konzentrierte sich infolgedessen fast aus‐schließlich auf Anpassungsprobleme und peripheren Wandel. Da‐neben haben aber andere Faktoren einen fruchtbaren Beitrag der Ländiichen Soziologie zur Lösung von Entwicklungsproblemen verhindert:Zur Lösung realer Problemsituationen müssen alle für das jeweilige Problem relevanten Faktoren und die Beziehungen dieser Faktoren untereinander berücksichtigt werden. Das ist nicht möglich innerhalb der historisch bedingten Grenzen einer Disziplin (sei es Volkswirt‐schaftswissenschaft, Betriebswirtschaft, Soziologie, Anthropologic oder eine der naturwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen). Einen fruchtbaren Ansatz zu der notwendigen Integration (nicht einfacher Addition) der relevanten Disziplinen scheinen die Verhaltenswissenschaften zu bieten.Um Wandel hervorzubringen und ihm Richtung zu geben muß man die Probleme kennen, die sich bei praktischen Entwicklungs‐bemühungen stellen. Forschung muß daher diesen Entwicklungs‐bemühungen nahe genug sein, um die tatsächlich relevanten Fragen stellen zu können. Entsprechend müssen auch die Forschungskonzepte aktions‐orientiert sein, und die Forschungsbemühungen müssen ‐ mehr als das bisher der Fall ist ‐ darauf gerichtet sein, Problem‐losungsvorschläge zu entwickeln.In den zahlreichen nationalen und internationalen Planungs‐ und Entwicklungsinstitutionen sind unverhältnismäßig wenig Soziologen und Ländliche Soziologen tätig. Augenscheinlich fühlen sich Soziologen eher an den Universitäten zu Hause und versuchen kaum, wissenschaftliche Kenntnisse in Entwicklungsbemuhüngen zur An‐wendung zu bringen. Andererseits ist es unverkennbar, daß die Arbeitsbedingungen in den existenten Institutionen für verantwort‐liche Soziologen oft recht ungünstig sind (politischer Druck, rasch sichtbare Ergebnisse vorzuweisen etc.).Gegenwärtig ist unser Wissen hinsichtlich gezielter Entwicklung noch recht unvollkommen. Der begrenzte Bestand relativ gesicherter Einsichten wird den Praktikern in Entwicklungsaufgaben nur sehr ungenügend verfügbar gemacht. Die Zuständigen in den Planungs‐, Verwaltungs‐ und Entwicklungsinstitutionen sind häufig unfähig oder unwillig ihre eigenen etablierten Haltungen und die bestehenden Verfahrensweisen zu ändern.Wenn die vorgenannten Faktoren wirklich die wesentlichen sind hinsichtlich eines positiven Beitrages der Ländiichen Soziologie, und die Angehörigen dieser Disziplin die Bedeutung dieser Faktoren wahrnehmen, dann steht zu hofTen, daß die Ländliche Soziologie in der Lage sein wird, relevante Beiträge für gezielte Entwicklungs‐bemühungen zu liefern und die drängendsten Probleme zu bewältigen.

Article in Report from Rutgers about Brooks Hays' appointment as consultant to President Lyndon Johnson ; And So, Back To The White House Brooks Hays is courtly, Southern and a soft-spoken teller of tales. He savors the low-keyed humor of his native Arkansas, delighting in stories like the one about the old gentleman who, when asked "How do you feel this morning?", replied, "Have you got time to listen?" Hays looks and sounds like a benevolent, small-town minister. (In fact, he is one of the very few laymen ever to have headed the Southern Baptist Convention.) But he has spent the major part of his life in the thick of politics. As a member of the 78th through the 85th Congresses, and as an advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, he has been in the center of some of the most explosive issues of the last two decades. Recently, he was asked by President Johnson to end his two years of service as Arthur T. Vanderbilt Professor of Public Affairs at Rutgers to become a consultant to the President and White House representative in the Community Relations Service, the agency which serves as peace-maker in civil rights disputes. Hays describes his years at Rutgers as "one of the happiest experiences of my life." "I've had a pleasant retreat from political buffeting and the chance to reflect and recharge myself. Now it's time to take what I've learned and put it back to work," he says. Hays first became nationally identified with the civil rights issue in 1958. He lost an election for the Arkansas Congressional seat he had held for 16 years when he took a moderate civil rights position during the Little Rock school crisis. His book, A Southern Moderate Speaks, is an outgrowth of that crisis. While at Rutgers, Hays served both students and his adopted state of New Jersey. He helped teach a weekly seminar at the School of Law on the role of the lawyer in the legislative process, gave numerous lectures before student groups and accepted many invitations to talk to civic and community organizations. "This is the first time I've lived in a state with two political parties, and I've learned a lot from it," he says. "I'm a product of the rural South and I've never ceased to love my home area. But now I've learned to love the industrial North as well." Despite his heavy new Washington responsibilities, Hays has agreed to continue at Rutgers as a Visiting Professor, giving several days each month to the University. Hays' reputation as a story-teller once documentary record on wit in Washington was issued and excerpts were contained from the speeches of two White House officials. One, of course, was John F. Kennedy. The other was Brooks Hays." Hays and Donald Herzberg, executive director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, himself a skilled raconteur, have combined talents to co-author a book on political humor which is nearing completion. Hays says his years at Rutgers have given him new insight into the inter-relationships of urban and rural problems. "Our racial problems are not the same in the North and the South, but they are related," he says. "I'm more convinced than ever that the Negro's human dignity is not respected as much as it should be, either North or South." A Brief Report from Rutgers, The State University Published monthly except in July and August by Rutgers, The State University Second Class Postage Paid at New Brunswick, New Jersey Vol. XVIII, No. 1 April, 1966

Dr. Carl Robert Eklund, posthumous Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America, prominent in arctic and antarctic research, Chief of the Polar and Arctic Branch of the U.S. Army Research Office, died on November 3, 1962 at the age of 53. His gregarious friendly nature, good humour and knack of story-telling made him a cherished friend of all who knew him. For 23 years he was a leading American specialist in ornithology and geographic research in both the north and south polar regions. His U.S. Government service in the Department of the Interior and the Department of the Army was approaching 29 years. Carl was born in Tomahawk, Wisconsin on January 27, 1909. . With solid training and experience he answered the lure of the polar regions. From 1939-41 he served as ornithologist at the East Base of the U.S. Antarctic Service. This was the first modern U.S. Government-sponsored expedition to Antarctica, and the third of Rear Admiral Richard E. Bird's Antarctic commands. In addition to his collection of animal life for the Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Carl made one of the longest antarctic dog sled journeys accompanying Finn Ronne in a landward encirclement of Alexander I Island from the Palmer Peninsula Station on Stonington Island. Islands sighted near the turning point of this journey were named the Eklund Islands in his honour by the Board of Geographical Names. From 1941 to 43 he returned to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as research biologist in charge of game conservation and education on Indian reservations at Minneapolis, Minnesota. During World War II he served as commissioned officer, advancing to Major in the U.S. Army Air Force. He served in the Arctic Section of the Arctic Desert Tropic Information Center. . The call of the polar regions drew him south again. His skill and experience were needed by the IGY organizers of the National Academy of Sciences. He was appointed as the first Scientific Station Leader of the Wilkes Station, Antarctica. His field leadership was outstanding, and he vigorously pursued his own program of biological and ornithological research. His bird banding program became international in scope around the entire continent. His field studies provided a basis for his doctoral thesis on the south-polar skua. He received his Ph.D. in zoology and geography from the University of Maryland in 1959. To maintain an intimate pursuit of polar research he accepted in 1958 the position of Chief of the Polar and Arctic Branch, Environmental Research Division of the U.S. Army Research Office, Washington, D.C. In this capacity he directed an extensive inter-disciplinary research program in the Arctic, necessitating frequent visits to Greenland and Alaska. Meanwhile, he served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Polar Research advising on research for Antarctica. His national and international reputation grew rapidly and his service as a lecturer and consultant on polar matters were in constant demand. His selection as the first president of the Antarctican Society of Washington, D.C. was a natural one. Dr. Eklund's publications during the last 20 years, mostly on zoological and ornithological topics, number close to 30. His first book, co-authored with Joan Beckman, "Antarctica, Land of Science", was in draft form at the time of his death. . In spite of average build, his warm human kindliness, his mischievous humorous blue eyes, broad smile, short-cropped hair, and ready wit interspersed with clearly thought out serious observations made him a colourful figure in the polar world at its critical transition from the days of hard-fought polar discoveries to the modern research area.

This guidance report is a product of activity 4.1 under work package 4 "Best practices in chemicals management in the industry" of the HAZBREF-project. This report addresses the chemical industry and its two sub-sectors: manufacture of large volume inorganic chemicals (with the focus on production of fertilizers) and polymers. The other case sectors are textile industry and surface treatment of metals and plastics which are addressed in separate reports. Aims, areas of interest, methodology and structure This sector-specific report provides guidance to key actors at national level (chemical industries and competent authorities) on how to improve chemical management at installation level. In this respect, it takes reference to relevant requirements such as the Industrial Emission Directive (IED) and the sectoral Best Available Techniques Reference Documents (BREFs). The findings of the guidance, especially concerning BAT candidates in chapter 5, will also feed into the anticipated forthcoming revision of the BREFs for the Chemical industry sectors (LVIC and possibly others). They are further used for HELCOM recommendations on how to reduce the discharge of hazardous substances into the Baltic Sea. The document summarises key findings of interviews and discussions with HAZBREF experts, representatives from chemical industry and relevant authorities as well as insights from case studies in Finland, Estonia and Sweden. In addition to that two polymer installations in Poland were selected for analysing circular economy issues. The report focuses on prevalent practices and challenges related to the IED permitting process, with special reference to hazardous chemicals for polymer and fertilizer installations. The report also reflects findings of other Work packages under HAZBREF and refers to recommendations published under the European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL). The first chapter of the report provides a short introduction to the scope of this report. The second chapter provides an introduction to the chemical sector, focusing on Europe and the production of fertilizers and polymers. The third chapter describes relevant hazardous chemicals related to the production of fertilizers and polymers, regulatory framework for the hazardous chemicals and both regulatory and non-regulatory chemical reference lists. The section also describes how identification of relevant substances in the polymer and fertilizer industry can be done. The fourth chapter describes legal obligations laid down in IED, REACH, CLP, WFD and other relevant legislation as well as recommendations from HELCOM. It also contains information about using and producing safety data sheets and exposure scenarios. Furthermore, it describes how chemical inventories can be developed and how substance flow analysis (SFA) and material flow analysis (MFA) can be used. It also contains a short description of how to use an interactive scheme, developed in HAZBREF, for the identification of relevant hazardous substances. Best practice in chemical management and identification of BAT candidates are described in the fifth section. The section also contains guidance on chemical management system (CMS), chemical and raw material inventories, chemical storage and transportation, optimization of process integrated recycling, substitution, process mapping of hazardous substances, management of hazardous waste and waste water treatment. The section contains both generally applicable practices and recommendations on BAT candidates. Most of the BAT candidates are applicable to all installations. All the BAT candidates are described in detail in Annex 1. The sixth section explains the different steps of the IED permitting procedure and provides guidance and good practices and recommendations to both operators and permitting authorities on how to carry out the respective steps with particularly focusing on good chemicals management. Circular economy issues in the polymer sector and findings from the case studies are described in the seventh section. Main findings and proposals Chemical industry covers many types of different processes and installations. There are many laws regarding the installation, and this leads to challenges in chemical management for both operators and authorities. The requirements from authorities are based on law but often the companies have their own programs and rules which are stricter than the requirements based on current law. The authorities need a lot of knowledge on chemical issues, but this information is not always readily available. Proposal for improvement of chemical management system A Chemical Management System (CMS) provides a systematic way of managing chemicals. The CMS can be integrated with the Environmental Management System (EMS). The purpose of the CMS is to control the chemicals and hazardous substances at the site, increase knowledge of the characteristics, risks and impact and improve the processes to reduce emissions of hazardous substances. The HAZBREF project recommends the use of a CMS following the principles described as BAT candidate 1 in Annex 1. HAZBREF also recommends that a requirement to establish and maintain a CMS at installations is included to the revised BREFs. Proposal for development of inventories and databases In order to know which hazardous substances are used or generated at the site, a chemical inventory is needed. It is important to list all types of chemicals and raw materials used in all processes and activities at the site in a database. The chemical list or database is a key part of chemical management allowing for systematic risk assessment, management of chemicals flows and their storage. It is also useful in the permitting processes as it provides easy access to data for chemicals used in the installations. The information in the chemical list/database must be searchable and the list should be updated regularly. Most of the information needed is available in the safety data sheets (SDS). If some information is missing from the SDS, the supplier should be asked to provide this. The HAZBREF project recommends the development and use of a chemical and raw material inventory following the principles described as BAT candidate 2 in Annex 1. HAZBREF also recommends that such a requirement to perform inventories at installations is included to the revised BREFs. Proposal for quality and use of safety data sheets To allow for efficient chemicals management, it must be assured that all SDS keep a good quality level. If a chemical supplier fails to provide SDS with good quality, it is the duty of both the operator and the competent authority to demand the missing information from the chemical supplier. Better SDSs, including improved data on environmental hazards, and exposure scenarios would make risk assessment of individual chemicals in specific process easier for the installations. This would lead to more efficient monitoring and help to focus more on most the problematic substances. The SDSs of raw materials should contain more information on impurities. Also, the chemical inventory could be improved if detailed data about the impurities or intentionally added constituents would be available in SDS. Exposure Scenarios are not usually directly usable for the operators. Sector specific environmental release categories (SPERCs), based on measurements and info about the typical environmental fate of substances in the sites could help but they have not yet been developed for many industrial uses. Proposal for process mapping of hazardous substances In order to be able to take measures to reduce emissions of hazardous substances, good knowledge of the production processes is needed. One way to do this is to use process mapping of hazardous substances. The purpose of the method is to identify the mass flows and release routes of the substances. The purpose is also to optimise monitoring and identify cost efficient ways to reduce emissions. The process mapping is a tool which supports the chemical inventory. The HAZBREF project recommends mapping of hazardous substances following the principles described as BAT candidate 3 in Annex 1. Proposal for substitution Substitution is an important measure to minimise chemical risks at the installation. A successful substitution work can be performed in four stages; Identification of hazardous substances - Screening for possible alternatives - Evaluation and choice of alternatives and Development of new alternatives. Regrettable substitution should be avoided. Proposal for the permitting process The permit process should be streamlined with more communication during the application phase between the applicant and permitting authorities and communication with WWTP operators should be ensured in case of indirect emissions. More co-operation between chemical, environmental and occupational health authorities is suggested to achieve smooth information flow and reduce double work. More exchange of information and good experiences between Member States would in the long run also contribute to more harmonised and better practices on European level. The format for a chemical inventory should be standardised. An appropriate approach is given in Annex 5. It is the duty of the operator to provide information in a way that it can be quickly assessed and that conclusions in the form of permit requirements, stipulations and conditions can be more easily drawn. ; Denna vägledningsrapport har tagits fram inom aktivitet 4.1 i arbetspaket 4 "Bästa praxis för kemikaliehantering i branschen" i HAZBREF-projektet. Rapporten behandlar den kemiska industrin och dess två delsektorer: produktion av oorganiska högvolymkemikalier (med fokus på produktion av gödselmedel) och polymerer. Textilindustrin och ytbehandling av metaller och plast behandlas i separata rapporter. Mål, intresseområden, metodik och struktur Denna sektorsspecifika rapport ger vägledning till nyckelaktörer på nationell nivå (kemiska industrier och behöriga myndigheter) om hur man kan förbättra kemikaliehanteringen på anläggningsnivå. I detta avseende hänvisas till relevanta krav, såsom industriutsläppsdirektivet (IED) och referensdokumenten för bästa tillgängliga teknik (BREF). De resultat som redovisas i vägledningen, särskilt beträffande BAT-kandidater i kapitel 5, kommer också att ingå i kommande revision av BREF-dokument för kemisk industri (LVIC och eventuellt andra). De används vidare för HELCOM-rekommendationer om hur man kan minska utsläppen av farliga ämnen i Östersjön. Rapporten sammanfattar viktiga resultat från intervjuer och diskussioner med HAZBREF-experter, representanter från kemisk industri och relevanta myndigheter samt från genomförda fallstudier i Finland, Estland och Sverige. Även två polymerverksamheter i Polen har analyserats med avseende på cirkulär ekonomi. Rapporten fokuserar på tillämpningar och utmaningar relaterade till IEDtillståndsprocessen, och speciellt på användningen av farliga kemikalier i polymeroch gödselmedeltillverkning. Rapporten återspeglar också slutsatserna från andra arbetspaket i HAZBREF-projektet och hänvisar till rekommendationer som publicerats av Europeiska unionens nätverk för genomförande och efterlevnad av miljölagstiftningen (IMPEL). Det första kapitlet i rapporten ger en kort introduktion av tillämpningsområdet. Det andra kapitlet ger en introduktion till den kemiska sektorn med fokus på Europa och produktion av gödselmedel och polymerer. Det tredje kapitlet beskriver relevanta farliga kemikalier relaterade till produktion av gödselmedel och polymerer, regelverk för de farliga kemikalierna och både reglerande och icke-reglerande kemiska referenslistor. Kapitlet beskriver också hur identifiering av relevanta ämnen i polymer- och gödselmedelsindustrin kan göras. Det fjärde kapitlet beskriver krav enligt IED, REACH, CLP, WFD och annan relevant lagstiftning samt rekommendationer från HELCOM. Det innehåller också information om användning och framtagande av säkerhetsdatablad och exponeringsscenarier. Vidare beskrivs hur kemikalieinventeringar kan utvecklas och hur substansflödesanalys och materialflödesanalys kan användas. Den innehåller också en kort beskrivning av hur man använder ett interaktivt verktyg, utvecklat i HAZBREF, för identifiering av relevanta farliga ämnen. Bästa praxis för kemikaliehantering samt identifiering av BAT-kandidater beskrivs i det femte kapitlet. Kapitlet innehåller också vägledning om kemikaliehanteringssystem, kemikalie- och råvaruinventeringar, lagring och transport av kemikalier, optimering av processintegrerad återvinning, substitution, processkartläggning av farliga ämnen, hantering av farligt avfall och avloppsvattenbehandling. Kapitlet innehåller både allmänt tillämplig praxis och rekommendationer om BATkandidater. De flesta av BAT-kandidaterna är allmänt tillämpliga. Alla BATkandidater beskrivs i detalj i bilaga 1. Det sjätte kapitlet förklarar de olika stegen i tillståndsförfarandet enligt IED och ger vägledning, goda exempel och rekommendationer till både verksamhetsutövare och tillståndsmyndigheter om hur man utför respektive steg med särskilt fokus på bra kemikaliehantering. Frågor om cirkulär ekonomi inom polymersektorn och resultat från fallstudier beskrivs i det sjunde kapitlet. Huvudsakliga resultat och förslag Kemisk industri omfattar många olika typer av processer och verksamheter. Det finns många lagar som gäller för verksamheterna, och detta leder till utmaningar i kemikaliehantering för både operatörer och myndigheter. Kraven från myndigheter är lagbaserade men ofta har företagen egna program och regler som är strängare än kraven enligt gällande lag. Myndigheterna behöver mycket information om kemikaliefrågor, men denna information är inte alltid lättillgänglig. Förslag till förbättring av kemikaliehanteringssystem För att veta vilka farliga ämnen som används eller uppkommer i verksamheten krävs en kemikalieinventering. Det är viktigt att lista alla typer av kemikalier och råvaror som används i verksamheten i en databas. Kemikalielistan eller databasen är en viktig del av kemikaliehanteringen och möjliggör systematisk riskbedömning, hantering av kemikalieflöden och kemikalielagring. Det är också användbart i tillståndsprocesserna eftersom det ger enkel åtkomst till data för de kemikalier som används i verksamheterna. Informationen i kemikalielistan/databasen måste vara sökbar och listan bör uppdateras regelbundet. Merparten av den information som behövs finns i säkerhetsdatabladen. Om viss information saknas i säkerhetsdatabladet bör leverantören uppmanas att lämna denna. HAZBREF-projektet rekommenderar framtagande och användning av en kemikalie- och råvaruinventering enligt principerna som beskrivs som BAT-kandidat 2 i bilaga 1. HAZBREF rekommenderar också att framtagande och användning av kemikalie- och råvaruinventeringar förs in som krav i de reviderade BREF-dokumenten. Förslag rörande kvalitet och användning av säkerhetsdatablad För att möjliggöra effektiv kemikaliehantering måste det säkerställas att alla säkerhetsdatablad håller en god kvalitetsnivå. Om en kemikalieleverantör inte tillhandahåller säkerhetsdatablad av god kvalitet, är det både operatörens och den behöriga myndighetens skyldighet att kräva den saknade informationen från kemikalieleverantören. Bättre säkerhetsdatablad, inklusive förbättrad data om risker för miljön, och exponeringsscenarier skulle göra riskbedömning av enskilda kemikalier i specifika processer enklare för verksamheterna. Detta skulle leda till effektivare övervakning och bidra till att fokusera på de mest problematiska ämnena. Säkerhetsdatablad för råvaror bör innehålla mer information om ingående föroreningar. Kemikalieinventeringen skulle också kunna förbättras om detaljerade data om föroreningar eller avsiktligt tillsatta beståndsdelar skulle finnas tillgängliga i säkerhetsdatabladen. Exponeringsscenarier är vanligtvis inte direkt användbara för operatörerna. Sektorsspecifika miljöutsläppskategorier (SPERC), baserade på mätningar och information om ämnens karakteristik och typiska rörelsemönster på anläggningen kan hjälpa, men de har ännu inte utvecklats för många industriella användningar. Förslag till processkartläggning av farliga ämnen För att kunna vidta åtgärder för att minska utsläppen av farliga ämnen behövs god kunskap om produktionsprocesserna. Ett sätt att få det är att göra processkartläggningar av farliga ämnen. Syftet med metoden är att identifiera ämnets massflöde och läckagevägar. Syftet är också att optimera övervakningen och identifiera kostnadseffektiva sätt att minska utsläppen. Processkartläggningen är ett verktyg som stöder kemikalieinventeringen. HAZBREF-projektet rekommenderar kartläggning av farliga ämnen enligt principerna som beskrivs som BAT-kandidat 3 i bilaga 1. Förslag till substitution Substitution är en viktig åtgärd för att minimera kemiska risker vid verksamheten. Ett framgångsrikt substitutionsarbete kan utföras i fyra steg; Identifiering av farliga ämnen - Screening efter möjliga alternativ - Utvärdering och val av alternativ och Utveckling av nya alternativ. Substitution som senare kan komma att ångras bör undvikas. Förslag till förbättring av tillståndsprocessen Tillståndsprocessen bör effektiviseras genom mer kommunikation under ansökningsfasen mellan den sökande och tillståndsmyndigheterna och även med reningsverkets operatörer vid indirekta utsläpp. Mer samarbete mellan kemikalie-, miljö- och arbetsmiljömyndigheter föreslås för att uppnå ett smidigt informationsflöde och minska dubbelarbete. Mer utbyte av information och goda erfarenheter mellan medlemsstaterna skulle på sikt också bidra till mer harmoniserad och bättre praxis på europeisk nivå. Hur en kemikalieinventering ska vara utformad bör standardiseras. En lämplig metod ges i bilaga 5. Det är operatörens skyldighet att tillhandahålla information så att den lätt kan bedömas och att slutsatser i form av tillståndskrav och villkor lättare kan dras.

Hushållens bidrag av tvättvatten från textiltvätt till de kommunala avloppsreningsverken uppskattas till ca 2% av det totala volymflödet. Registerdata över kemikalier som används vid tillverkning av textilier/kläder samt analyser av tvättvatten visar att textilfibrer, mikroplastfibrer och många miljöstörande ämnen når våra reningsverk via textiltvätt. Dessa fibrer och kemiska ämnen kan bidra till förorening av avloppsreningsslam som används för gödsling av åkermark eller av vattenmiljö nedströms reningsverken. Ett av Sveriges miljömål är En Giftfri Miljö och dess delmål innefattar bl.a. information om farliga ämnen i varor (Ds 2012:23). Textilier är en av de varugrupper som Miljömålberedningen föreslagit (SOU 2012:38) bli föremål för ett regeringsuppdrag avseende innehåll av farliga ämnen och riskbegränsande åtgärder samt frivillig miljömärkning. I det svenska miljömålsystemet ingår också generationsmål om att materialkretsloppen skall vara så fria från farliga ämnen som möjligt och att våra konsumtionsmönster av varor ska ge så små hälso- och miljöproblem som möjligt även i varornas tillverkningsländer utanför Sverige. Generationsmålet innebär att svensk politik behöver ta hänsyn till den miljö- och hälsopåverkan som svensk konsumtion orsakar i andra länder. EU:s ramdirektiv för avfall (2008/96/EG) har vidare slagit fast en avfallshierarki som sätter återanvändning av uttjänta varor, t. ex. kläder, före materialåtervinning av avfall. Syfte Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka i vilken utsträckning som vattentvätt av fem klädtyper (t-tröjor av bomull med plasttryck, bomullsjeans, arbetsbyxor, fleecetröjor samt allvädersjackor) bidrar till förekomsten av miljögifter i slam samt i utgående vatten från representativt utvalda svenska reningsverk. Utförande Kläder av fem olika klädtyper, enligt specifikation från naturvårdsverket (baserat på en tidigare studie av Swerea) köptes in från affärer i Umeå under januari 2014. Det var 8 st t-tröjor av bomull med plasttryck, 3 st bomullsjeans, 2 st arbetsbyxor, 8 st fleecetröjor samt 3 st allvädersjackor. Kläderna tvättades i en vanlig tvättmaskin 2 gånger efter varandra utan att torka mellan och allt tvättvatten samlades upp. Delprov av tvättvattnet togs ut och analyserades för 126 utvalda ämnena på tre olika laboratorier (Miljökemiska Laboratoriet, Umeå Universitet, Svenska Miljöinstitutet (IVL) och Stockholms Universitet (ACES)). Ämnena var processkemikalier såsom pentaklorfenol, och triklosan, funktionskemikalier såsom ftalater och organofosfater samt oönskade kemikalier såsom dioxiner, klorfenoler och klorbensener. 2 Resultat Studien visar på att det mängdmässigt främst är funktionskemikalier som släpper från kläderna vid tvätt. Det här var väntat då dessa kemikalier är avsiktligt och oftast inte kemiskt bundet till tyget. Processkemikalier avges i mindre mängd och oönskade kemikalier såsom till exempel klorerade fenoler och bensener hittades i väldigt små mängder i tvättvattnet oavsett vilken typ av klädesplagg som tvättats. Vare sig processkemikalierna eller de oönskade kemikalierna borde finnas i plaggen och därför var det väntat att dessa kemikalier inte skulle hittas i samma utsträckning som funktionskemikalierna. Om man ser till detektionsfrekvensen, d.v.s. hur ofta de ämnen som ingår i en ämnesklass påträffas, blir bilden delvis en annan. Mer än 75% av de funktionskemikalier (38 av 50), ca 50% av funktionskemikalierna (26 av 49) och ca. 30% av processkemikalierna (8 av 27) detekterades i tvättvattenproverna. T-tröjor och skaljackorna var de klädtyper som avgav störst mängd kemikalier per kg 47 mg/kg (0.005% w/w) för t-tröjor följt av 23 mg/kg (0.002% w/w) för skaljackor. Jeans, arbetsbyxor och fleecetröjor släppte mycket mindre mängd kemikalier 0.001, 0.001 and 0.0005% vid tvätt till tvättvattnet. De fem klädtyperna släppte alla bisfenol AF, organofosfater, ftalater, formaldehyd, bromerade och klorerade fenoler samt klorerade bensener till tvättvattnet vid de två första tvättarna. Några föreningar som inte kunde detekteras i tvättvattnet var 4 stycken siloxaner, 9 stycken olika aniliner och majoriteten av de 17 dioxinerna och furanerna som ingick i studien. T-tröjor släppte mer textilfibrer (0,85 mg/kg) jämfört med de andra klädtyperna. De andra klädtyperna släppte betydlig mindre fibrer vid tvätt: jeans 0,46 mg/kg, skaljackor 0,02 mg/kg, arbetsbyxor 0,07 mg/kg och fleecetröjor 0,1 mg/kg. Diskussion Om man tar hänsyn till den årliga användningsvolymen av de olika klädestyperna avger t-tröjorna den största mängden kemikalier (469 kg funktionella kemikalier, 0,5 kg processkemikalier och 0,07 kg oönskade kemikalier) vid de två första tvättarna av plaggen. Arbetsbyxor var den klädestyp som släppte minst kemikalier (30 kg funktionella kemikalier, 7 kg processkemikalier och 0,9 g oönskade kemikalier). Ftalater och organofosfater frigjordes i stora mängder från kläderna (302 kg och 7,6 kg) och bidrar med 50% respektive 5% vardera till vad som återfinns i utgående vatten och slam från avloppsreningsverken. Klorfenoler och perfluorerade ämnen frigjordes i betydligt mindre mängder (430 g och 300 g) men bidrar i teorin med mer (167% respektive 223%) än vad som återfinns i utgåendevatten och slam från avloppsreningsverken för respektive grupp, vilket är orealistiskt. Brister i dataunderlaget eller degradering av föroreningar i reningsprocessen kan vara möjliga orsaker till överskattningen. Det är dock klart att tvätt av kläder ger ett betydande bidrag till vad som återfinns i reningsverksvatten och slam. 3 Slutsatser Kemikalier som är förbjudna enligt t ex Reach ska naturligtvis inte förekomma i kläder. Trots det så hittas de ändå ibland vid inspektion. Det är ett stort problem eftersom kemikalierna fortfarande kan vara lagliga att använda i visa länder. Exempelvis är det förbjudet att använda arylaminer inom EU, ändå återfinner vi en av dessa 4,4'-diaminodiphenylmethane i tvättvatten från alla typer av kläder i denna studie. Idag sker produktion av kläder över hela världen och det är svårt att få information om vilka kemikalier som har använts för ett visst plagg. Denna spårbarhet skulle behöva förbättras. I den här studien har vi hittat 72 av 126 föreningar, alla icke-naturliga föreningar, i tvättvattnet. De föreningar som frigjordes i störst mängder till tvättvattnet i den här studien var BPS, ftalater (DBP, BBP, DEHP, DINP, DIDP), DINCH, organofosfater (TPP, TCEP, TCPP, TEHP, TBEP) och formaldehyd. Med hänsyn taget till nettotillförseln av nya kläder kommer den mängden kemikalier på årlig basis som avges från nya kläder som tvättas de två första gångerna att vara betydande. Även om en del av de föreningar som avges från kläderna kommer att brytas ner under behandlingen av avloppsvattnet i avloppsreningsverken så kommer många av dem att hamna i det utgående vattnet eller i slammet. Dessa kommer hamna i recipienten eller där slam används för att tillföra näringsämnen. Fortsatt arbete För att få en ännu bättre bild av hur mycket kemikalier som frigörs från kläder vid tvätt skulle det vara intressant att studera fler klädtyper. Det skulle också vara av intresse att analysera kläderna i sig för att kunna avgöra hur stor andel av det som finns i kläderna som avges vid tvätt, men också vad som finns kvar i kläderna när de så småningom blir textilavfall. Slutligen skulle det vara intressant att genom så kallad "non-target analysis" av både kläder och tvättvatten få veta vilka andra föreningar som förekommer i både kläder och tvättvatten. Rätt använt skulle "non-target anaysis" kunna fånga upp ett brett spektrum av kemikalier och ge en "totalbild" av substansflödet från textilier, via tvättvatten och reningsverk, till olika recipienter. ; Water from household laundry has been estimated to make up about 2% of the total volume flowing into municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Records of the chemicals used in the manufacture of textiles/clothing and analyses of both washed clothes and laundry wastewater indicate that a large number of environmentally harmful substances can potentially reach treatment plants. These substances, including fibers and micro plastics fromlaundry, may contribute to the pollution of sewage sludge used for fertilization of arable land, or pollute the receiving waters downstream of wastewater treatment plants. Textiles are one of the groups of consumer goods that the Environmental Objectives Committee proposed (SOU 2012: 38) be subject to a government mandate regarding the use of hazardous chemicals, environmental risk reduction measures and voluntary eco-labeling. The government has also decided (Ds 2012: 23) on interim measures aimed at removing toxic material from the environment, including providing information on hazardous substances in clothing. The Swedish environmental objectives system also includes the so-called "Generation target", that states that material life cycles should be as free as possible from hazardous substances and that consumption of goods should produce as few health and environmental problems as possible, including in all the countries where they were manufactured. The Generation target means that the Swedish government needs to take into account environmental and health impacts that Swedish consumption may cause in other countries. The EU Waste Framework Directive (2008/96 / EC) defines a waste hierarchy that puts the recycling of old products, such as clothing, before the recycling of waste. This study may inform those working on developing such directives. Aim The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which laundering of five types of clothing (cotton t-shirts, cotton jeans, work trousers, fleece sweaters and weatherproof jackets) contributes to the presence of toxic pollutants in sludge and effluent water from a representative sample of treatment plants. Experimental The choice of clothing was based on the study "Kartläggning av kemikalieanvändning i kläder" (Swerea IVF, Report 09/52) and were purchased in Umeå during January 2014. The different categories of clothing were washed twice in a washing machine, without drying them in between and all wastewater was collected from the washer. Immediately after washing, samples of this water were transferred into 2 L glass containers and were analyzed for 126 compounds by three different laboratories (Miljökemiska Laboratoriet, Umeå Universitet, Svenska Miljöinstitutet (IVL) och Stockholms Universitet (ACES)). 5 Results The results show that the main types of chemicals that were released when the clothing was washed, regardless of the type of clothing, were process and functional chemicals. This was expected since functional chemicals are added to the garment and are usually not chemically bonded to the fabric, whilst the process chemicals should not be present in the final product at all. Chemicals belonging to the group unwanted chemicals were released in very small amounts to the wastewater whatever type of clothing washed. The functional chemicals represented 30 % of the analyzed target compounds but accounted for up to 99% (for t-shirts) of the release when the clothing was washed. The lowest contribution of functional chemicals to the total release of chemicals was from weatherproof jackets. Process chemicals dominated those released from weatherproof jackets (90%) and fleece sweaters (72%); for working pants, the contribution was 41%. The unwanted chemicals were present in much lower amounts in the laundry wastewater than the functional and process chemicals: they represented 1% or less of the chemicals detected. T-shirts is estimated to release the largest amount of chemicals (469 kg functional chemicals, 0.5 kg process chemicals and 0.07 kg unwanted chemicals) based on the yearly net supply and the first two washing cycles. Fleece sweaters released the least amount of chemicals; 1.8 kg functional chemicals, 2.9 kg process chemicals and 3 g unwanted chemicals. Phthalates, DINCH (a phthalate substitute), bisphenols, formaldehyde, and organophosphates were the groups of chemicals estimated to be released in largest amounts from the five types of clothing included in the study, contributing 47%, 25%, 12%, 12%, and 3%, respectively, to the total amount. Based on the yearly net supply of clothing included in this study, the estimated release of textile fibers varies between 100 kg for fleece sweaters up to 8,500 kg for t-shirts. T-shirts released 0.85 mg fibers per kg, jeans released 0.46 mg/kg, weatherproof jackets 0.02 mg/kg, working pants 0.07 mg/kg and fleece sweaters 0.1 mg/kg. Discussion Phthalates and organophosphates were estimated to be released in large amounts (302 kg and 7.6 kg) contribute with 50% and 5% respectively to the amounts found in effluents from wastewater treatment plants. Chlorophenols and perfluorinated compounds were estimated to be released in very low amounts (430 g and 300 g respectively). This is however still more, 167% and 223% respectively, than what is found annually in the effluents and sewage sludge of all Swedish WWTPs. The estimated contribution to sewage sludge for the different compound classes was far higher than the calculated contribution to effluent. The estimation produced a contribution figure of over 100% for some compound groups. Short chain chloroparaffins and chlorophenols were estimated to contribute to the amount found in sewage sludge to such a large degree that it exceeded what is actually found in the sewage sludge. Chlorophenols are distributed between both effluent and sewage sludge, but reference data was only found for sludge, so this could be the reason for the overestimation of the amount that ends up in the sewage sludge. It can also not be excluded that the selection of clothing was not representative of what is on the market. 6 Conclusions Chemicals that are banned according to legislation such as Reach should, in principle, not be present in clothing. Even so, they are sometimes found during inspections of manufacturing facilities and analyses of clothing. This is a large problem since the use of a chemical can be banned in some countries but not in others. Arylamines are, for example, forbidden within the EU, but one of those 4,4'-diaminodiphenylmethane could still be detected in all types of clothing. Now, the clothing that we wear comes from all over the world, and it is difficult to find information on which chemicals have been used in its production since that can take place in many different countries. This tractability needs to be improved. In this study, we detected 72 out of 126 compounds that are non-naturally occurring compounds, in the laundry wastewater. Among the compound groups that could not be detected were anilines, triclosan, triclocarban, and siloxanes. The compounds released in large amounts into the laundry wastewater in this study were the process chemical bisphenol S (BPS), and the functional chemicals phthalates (DBP, BBP, DINP, DIDP), DINCH, organophosphates (TPP, TCEP, TCPP, TEHP, TBEP) and formaldehyde. Considering the net supply of new clothing to Sweden, the estimated annual contribution of the release of such compounds from new clothing being washed for the first time will be substantial. Even though some of these chemicals will be degraded during the treatment process in the WWTP, many of them will end up in effluent or sewage sludge and, to different degrees, contribute to the compounds that risk ending up in WWTPs or where nutrients are recycled from sewage sludge. Future work To obtain a better picture of the volume of chemicals flowing to the WWTPs and, potentially, the environment, originating from the laundering of clothing, it would be of interest to study the release of chemicals from a broader range of clothing types. It would also be interesting to include analysis of the fabric to see what proportion of chemicals are released during laundry, and what proportion remain and are then potentially released during later washing or enter the textile waste stream. It would also be of great interest to carry out non-target analysis on both the textiles and the wastewater to form an even broader picture of which chemicals are present in the textiles and the wastewater.

This thesis is a compendium of scientific works and engineering specifications that have been contributed to a large community of stakeholders to be copied, adapted, mixed, built upon and exploited in any way possible to achieve a common goal: Integrating Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Language Resources Using Linked Data The explosion of information technology in the last two decades has led to a substantial growth in quantity, diversity and complexity of web-accessible linguistic data. These resources become even more useful when linked with each other and the last few years have seen the emergence of numerous approaches in various disciplines concerned with linguistic resources and NLP tools. It is the challenge of our time to store, interlink and exploit this wealth of data accumulated in more than half a century of computational linguistics, of empirical, corpus-based study of language, and of computational lexicography in all its heterogeneity. The vision of the Giant Global Graph (GGG) was conceived by Tim Berners-Lee aiming at connecting all data on the Web and allowing to discover new relations between this openly-accessible data. This vision has been pursued by the Linked Open Data (LOD) community, where the cloud of published datasets comprises 295 data repositories and more than 30 billion RDF triples (as of September 2011). RDF is based on globally unique and accessible URIs and it was specifically designed to establish links between such URIs (or resources). This is captured in the Linked Data paradigm that postulates four rules: (1) Referred entities should be designated by URIs, (2) these URIs should be resolvable over HTTP, (3) data should be represented by means of standards such as RDF, (4) and a resource should include links to other resources. Although it is difficult to precisely identify the reasons for the success of the LOD effort, advocates generally argue that open licenses as well as open access are key enablers for the growth of such a network as they provide a strong incentive for collaboration and contribution by third parties. In his keynote at BNCOD 2011, Chris Bizer argued that with RDF the overall data integration effort can be "split between data publishers, third parties, and the data consumer", a claim that can be substantiated by observing the evolution of many large data sets constituting the LOD cloud. As written in the acknowledgement section, parts of this thesis has received numerous feedback from other scientists, practitioners and industry in many different ways. The main contributions of this thesis are summarized here: Part I – Introduction and Background. During his keynote at the Language Resource and Evaluation Conference in 2012, Sören Auer stressed the decentralized, collaborative, interlinked and interoperable nature of the Web of Data. The keynote provides strong evidence that Semantic Web technologies such as Linked Data are on its way to become main stream for the representation of language resources. The jointly written companion publication for the keynote was later extended as a book chapter in The People's Web Meets NLP and serves as the basis for "Introduction" and "Background", outlining some stages of the Linked Data publication and refinement chain. Both chapters stress the importance of open licenses and open access as an enabler for collaboration, the ability to interlink data on the Web as a key feature of RDF as well as provide a discussion about scalability issues and decentralization. Furthermore, we elaborate on how conceptual interoperability can be achieved by (1) re-using vocabularies, (2) agile ontology development, (3) meetings to refine and adapt ontologies and (4) tool support to enrich ontologies and match schemata. Part II - Language Resources as Linked Data. "Linked Data in Linguistics" and "NLP & DBpedia, an Upward Knowledge Acquisition Spiral" summarize the results of the Linked Data in Linguistics (LDL) Workshop in 2012 and the NLP & DBpedia Workshop in 2013 and give a preview of the MLOD special issue. In total, five proceedings – three published at CEUR (OKCon 2011, WoLE 2012, NLP & DBpedia 2013), one Springer book (Linked Data in Linguistics, LDL 2012) and one journal special issue (Multilingual Linked Open Data, MLOD to appear) – have been (co-)edited to create incentives for scientists to convert and publish Linked Data and thus to contribute open and/or linguistic data to the LOD cloud. Based on the disseminated call for papers, 152 authors contributed one or more accepted submissions to our venues and 120 reviewers were involved in peer-reviewing. "DBpedia as a Multilingual Language Resource" and "Leveraging the Crowdsourcing of Lexical Resources for Bootstrapping a Linguistic Linked Data Cloud" contain this thesis' contribution to the DBpedia Project in order to further increase the size and inter-linkage of the LOD Cloud with lexical-semantic resources. Our contribution comprises extracted data from Wiktionary (an online, collaborative dictionary similar to Wikipedia) in more than four languages (now six) as well as language-specific versions of DBpedia, including a quality assessment of inter-language links between Wikipedia editions and internationalized content negotiation rules for Linked Data. In particular the work described in created the foundation for a DBpedia Internationalisation Committee with members from over 15 different languages with the common goal to push DBpedia as a free and open multilingual language resource. Part III - The NLP Interchange Format (NIF). "NIF 2.0 Core Specification", "NIF 2.0 Resources and Architecture" and "Evaluation and Related Work" constitute one of the main contribution of this thesis. The NLP Interchange Format (NIF) is an RDF/OWL-based format that aims to achieve interoperability between Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools, language resources and annotations. The core specification is included in and describes which URI schemes and RDF vocabularies must be used for (parts of) natural language texts and annotations in order to create an RDF/OWL-based interoperability layer with NIF built upon Unicode Code Points in Normal Form C. In , classes and properties of the NIF Core Ontology are described to formally define the relations between text, substrings and their URI schemes. contains the evaluation of NIF. In a questionnaire, we asked questions to 13 developers using NIF. UIMA, GATE and Stanbol are extensible NLP frameworks and NIF was not yet able to provide off-the-shelf NLP domain ontologies for all possible domains, but only for the plugins used in this study. After inspecting the software, the developers agreed however that NIF is adequate enough to provide a generic RDF output based on NIF using literal objects for annotations. All developers were able to map the internal data structure to NIF URIs to serialize RDF output (Adequacy). The development effort in hours (ranging between 3 and 40 hours) as well as the number of code lines (ranging between 110 and 445) suggest, that the implementation of NIF wrappers is easy and fast for an average developer. Furthermore the evaluation contains a comparison to other formats and an evaluation of the available URI schemes for web annotation. In order to collect input from the wide group of stakeholders, a total of 16 presentations were given with extensive discussions and feedback, which has lead to a constant improvement of NIF from 2010 until 2013. After the release of NIF (Version 1.0) in November 2011, a total of 32 vocabulary employments and implementations for different NLP tools and converters were reported (8 by the (co-)authors, including Wiki-link corpus, 13 by people participating in our survey and 11 more, of which we have heard). Several roll-out meetings and tutorials were held (e.g. in Leipzig and Prague in 2013) and are planned (e.g. at LREC 2014). Part IV - The NLP Interchange Format in Use. "Use Cases and Applications for NIF" and "Publication of Corpora using NIF" describe 8 concrete instances where NIF has been successfully used. One major contribution in is the usage of NIF as the recommended RDF mapping in the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0 W3C standard and the conversion algorithms from ITS to NIF and back. One outcome of the discussions in the standardization meetings and telephone conferences for ITS 2.0 resulted in the conclusion there was no alternative RDF format or vocabulary other than NIF with the required features to fulfill the working group charter. Five further uses of NIF are described for the Ontology of Linguistic Annotations (OLiA), the RDFaCE tool, the Tiger Corpus Navigator, the OntosFeeder and visualisations of NIF using the RelFinder tool. These 8 instances provide an implemented proof-of-concept of the features of NIF. starts with describing the conversion and hosting of the huge Google Wikilinks corpus with 40 million annotations for 3 million web sites. The resulting RDF dump contains 477 million triples in a 5.6 GB compressed dump file in turtle syntax. describes how NIF can be used to publish extracted facts from news feeds in the RDFLiveNews tool as Linked Data. Part V - Conclusions. provides lessons learned for NIF, conclusions and an outlook on future work. Most of the contributions are already summarized above. One particular aspect worth mentioning is the increasing number of NIF-formated corpora for Named Entity Recognition (NER) that have come into existence after the publication of the main NIF paper Integrating NLP using Linked Data at ISWC 2013. These include the corpora converted by Steinmetz, Knuth and Sack for the NLP & DBpedia workshop and an OpenNLP-based CoNLL converter by Brümmer. Furthermore, we are aware of three LREC 2014 submissions that leverage NIF: NIF4OGGD - NLP Interchange Format for Open German Governmental Data, N^3 – A Collection of Datasets for Named Entity Recognition and Disambiguation in the NLP Interchange Format and Global Intelligent Content: Active Curation of Language Resources using Linked Data as well as an early implementation of a GATE-based NER/NEL evaluation framework by Dojchinovski and Kliegr. Further funding for the maintenance, interlinking and publication of Linguistic Linked Data as well as support and improvements of NIF is available via the expiring LOD2 EU project, as well as the CSA EU project called LIDER, which started in November 2013. Based on the evidence of successful adoption presented in this thesis, we can expect a decent to high chance of reaching critical mass of Linked Data technology as well as the NIF standard in the field of Natural Language Processing and Language Resources.:CONTENTS i introduction and background 1 1 introduction 3 1.1 Natural Language Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2 Open licenses, open access and collaboration . . . . . . 5 1.3 Linked Data in Linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.4 NLP for and by the Semantic Web – the NLP Inter- change Format (NIF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.5 Requirements for NLP Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.6 Overview and Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2 background 15 2.1 The Working Group on Open Data in Linguistics (OWLG) 15 2.1.1 The Open Knowledge Foundation . . . . . . . . 15 2.1.2 Goals of the Open Linguistics Working Group . 16 2.1.3 Open linguistics resources, problems and chal- lenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.1.4 Recent activities and on-going developments . . 18 2.2 Technological Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.3 RDF as a data model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.4 Performance and scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.5 Conceptual interoperability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 ii language resources as linked data 25 3 linked data in linguistics 27 3.1 Lexical Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.2 Linguistic Corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.3 Linguistic Knowledgebases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 3.4 Towards a Linguistic Linked Open Data Cloud . . . . . 32 3.5 State of the Linguistic Linked Open Data Cloud in 2012 33 3.6 Querying linked resources in the LLOD . . . . . . . . . 36 3.6.1 Enriching metadata repositories with linguistic features (Glottolog → OLiA) . . . . . . . . . . . 36 3.6.2 Enriching lexical-semantic resources with lin- guistic information (DBpedia (→ POWLA) → OLiA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 4 DBpedia as a multilingual language resource: the case of the greek dbpedia edition. 39 4.1 Current state of the internationalization effort . . . . . 40 4.2 Language-specific design of DBpedia resource identifiers 41 4.3 Inter-DBpedia linking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 4.4 Outlook on DBpedia Internationalization . . . . . . . . 44 5 leveraging the crowdsourcing of lexical resources for bootstrapping a linguistic linked data cloud 47 5.1 Related Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 5.2 Problem Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 5.2.1 Processing Wiki Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 5.2.2 Wiktionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 5.2.3 Wiki-scale Data Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 5.3 Design and Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 5.3.1 Extraction Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 5.3.2 Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 5.3.3 Language Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 5.3.4 Schema Mediation by Annotation with lemon . 58 5.4 Resulting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 5.5 Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 5.6 Discussion and Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 5.6.1 Next Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 5.6.2 Open Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 6 nlp & dbpedia, an upward knowledge acquisition spiral 63 6.1 Knowledge acquisition and structuring . . . . . . . . . 64 6.2 Representation of knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 6.3 NLP tasks and applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 6.3.1 Named Entity Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 6.3.2 Relation extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 6.3.3 Question Answering over Linked Data . . . . . 67 6.4 Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 6.4.1 Gold and silver standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 6.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 iii the nlp interchange format (nif) 73 7 nif 2.0 core specification 75 7.1 Conformance checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 7.2 Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 7.2.1 Definition of Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 7.2.2 Representation of Document Content with the nif:Context Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 7.3 Extension of NIF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 7.3.1 Part of Speech Tagging with OLiA . . . . . . . . 83 7.3.2 Named Entity Recognition with ITS 2.0, DBpe- dia and NERD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 7.3.3 lemon and Wiktionary2RDF . . . . . . . . . . . 86 8 nif 2.0 resources and architecture 89 8.1 NIF Core Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 8.1.1 Logical Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 8.2 Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 8.2.1 Access via REST Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 8.2.2 NIF Combinator Demo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 8.3 Granularity Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 8.4 Further URI Schemes for NIF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 8.4.1 Context-Hash-based URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 9 evaluation and related work 101 9.1 Questionnaire and Developers Study for NIF 1.0 . . . . 101 9.2 Qualitative Comparison with other Frameworks and Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 9.3 URI Stability Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 9.4 Related URI Schemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 iv the nlp interchange format in use 109 10 use cases and applications for nif 111 10.1 Internationalization Tag Set 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 10.1.1 ITS2NIF and NIF2ITS conversion . . . . . . . . . 112 10.2 OLiA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 10.3 RDFaCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 10.4 Tiger Corpus Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 10.4.1 Tools and Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 10.4.2 NLP2RDF in 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 10.4.3 Linguistic Ontologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 10.4.4 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 10.4.5 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 10.4.6 Related Work and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 10.5 OntosFeeder – a Versatile Semantic Context Provider for Web Content Authoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 10.5.1 Feature Description and User Interface Walk- through . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 10.5.2 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 10.5.3 Embedding Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 10.5.4 Related Work and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . 135 10.6 RelFinder: Revealing Relationships in RDF Knowledge Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 10.6.1 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 10.6.2 Disambiguation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 10.6.3 Searching for Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 10.6.4 Graph Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 10.6.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 11 publication of corpora using nif 143 11.1 Wikilinks Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 11.1.1 Description of the corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 11.1.2 Quantitative Analysis with Google Wikilinks Cor- pus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 11.2 RDFLiveNews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 11.2.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 11.2.2 Mapping to RDF and Publication on the Web of Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 v conclusions 149 12 lessons learned, conclusions and future work 151 12.1 Lessons Learned for NIF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 12.2 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 12.3 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

The European Union has been negotiating regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States since 2002 with different outcomes. For instance, while the negotiation with the Caribbean Forum concluded as envisaged in 2007, those with the Economic Community of West African States and other ACP countries have extended for nearly a decade after the initial deadline. This study discusses the rationale behind these different outcomes. The study concludes that for the European Union to have effective trade negotiations with the ACP countries, it needs to look beyond its market size attraction and policy to promote the idea of free trade. Moreover, it should analyse alternative trade options available to those regions and develop appropriate negotiation positions and strategies.