EASTWEB: building an integrated leading Euro-Asian higher education and research community in the field of the Semantic WEB

Based on the experience of the EC funded project EASTWEB, a project involving Universities from Italy (main partner), Austria, Ireland, Poland, China, India and Thailand, we describe a set of on going and planned collaboration activities. We highlight what we see the major advantages but also the difficulties in carrying out such a program

Global Risks 2014, Ninth Edition.

The Global Risks 2014 report highlights how global risks are not only interconnected but also have systemic impacts. To manage global risks effectively and build resilience to their impacts, better efforts are needed to understand, measure and foresee the evolution of interdependencies between risks, supplementing traditional risk-management tools with new concepts designed for uncertain environments. If global risks are not effectively addressed, their social, economic and political fallouts could be far-reaching, as exemplified by the continuing impacts of the financial crisis of 2007-2008

The Critical Challenges from International High-Tech and Computer-Related Crime at the Millennium

The automotive industry stands in front of a great challenge, to decrease its impact on the environment. One important part in succeeding with this is to decrease the structural weight of the body structure and by that the fuel consumption or the required battery power. Carbon fibre composites are by many seen as the only real option when traditional engineering materials are running out of potential for further weight reduction. However, the automotive industry lacks experience working with structural composites and the methods for high volume composite manufacturing are immature. The development of a composite automotive body structure, therefore, needs methods to support and guide the conceptual work to improve the financial and technical results. In this thesis a framework is presented which will provide guidelines for the conceptual phase of the development of an automotive body structure. The framework follows two main paths, one to strive for the ideal material diversity, which also defines an initial partition of the body structure based on the process and material selection. Secondly, a further analysis of the structures are made to evaluate if a more cost and weight efficient solution can be found by a more differential design and by that define the ideal part size. In the case and parameter studies performed, different carbon fibre composite material systems and processes are compared and evaluated. The results show that high performance material system with continuous fibres becomes both more cost and performance effective compared to industrialised discontinuous fibre composites. But also that cycle times, sometimes, are less important than a competitive feedstock cost for a manufacturing process. When further analysing the manufacturing design of the structures it is seen that further partition(s) can become cost effective if the size and complexity is large enough.      QC 20140527</p

Policies Supporting Innovation In The European Union In The Context Of The Lisbon Strategy And The Europe 2020 Strategy

In the context of increasing globalization, global competition and rapid change the EU sees innovation and its commercialization as an effective way to build long-term global competitive advantage. Innovation policy is a link between research and technological development policy and industrial policy and makes it possible to create conditions conducive to bringing ideas to the market. It is also closely linked to other EU policies regarding e.g. employment, competitiveness, environment, industry and energy. This paper presents the evolution, conditions and objectives of the innovation policy of the European, and describes the main assumptions of the Lisbon and Europe 2020 strategies. Additionally it indicates possible ways of assessing the measures undertaken within the above-mentioned policies and of determining the tools necessary to implement the strategies

The Global Risks Report 2016, 11th Edition

Now in its 11th edition, The Global Risks Report 2016 draws attention to ways that global risks could evolve and interact in the next decade. The year 2016 marks a forceful departure from past findings, as the risks about which the Report has been warning over the past decade are starting to manifest themselves in new, sometimes unexpected ways and harm people, institutions and economies. Warming climate is likely to raise this year's temperature to 1° Celsius above the pre-industrial era, 60 million people, equivalent to the world's 24th largest country and largest number in recent history, are forcibly displaced, and crimes in cyberspace cost the global economy an estimated US$445 billion, higher than many economies' national incomes. In this context, the Reportcalls for action to build resilience – the "resilience imperative" – and identifies practical examples of how it could be done.The Report also steps back and explores how emerging global risks and major trends, such as climate change, the rise of cyber dependence and income and wealth disparity are impacting already-strained societies by highlighting three clusters of risks as Risks in Focus. As resilience building is helped by the ability to analyse global risks from the perspective of specific stakeholders, the Report also analyses the significance of global risks to the business community at a regional and country-level

Integrating Diplomacy and Social Media: A Report of the First Annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology

This report is a result of the first annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology, or what we call ADDTech. The concept for this Dialogue originated with longtime communications executive and Aspen Institute Trustee Marc Nathanson. Since his tenure as Chairman of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Nathanson has been concerned with how American diplomacy could more rapidly embrace the changing world of social media and other technologies. He is also a graduate of the University of Denver where former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's father, Josef Korbel, namesake of the Josef Korbel School of International Relations there, was his professor. Thus, Albright, another Institute Trustee, was a natural partner to create the first Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology. The cast is ably supplemented with Korbel School Dean and former U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson, who himself was also recently the chair of the BBG.The topic for this inaugural dialogue is how the diplomatic realm could better utilize new communications technologies. The group focused particularly on social media, but needed to differentiate among the various diplomacies in play in the current world, viz., formal state diplomacy, public diplomacy, citizen diplomacy and business diplomacy. Each presents its own array of opportunities as well as problems. In this first Dialogue, much of the time necessarily had to be used to define our terms and learn how technologies are currently being used in each case. To help us in that endeavor, we focused on the Middle East. While the resulting recommendations are therefore rather modest, they set up the series of dialogues to come in the years ahead

Innovation Levels in the Economies of Central and Eastern Europe

The statistical data presented in this paper indicates that the innovative position of the CEECs is still unfavourable and relatively weak, with the exception of Slovenia and Estonia. Poland is in a particularly difficult situation, with many signs of stagnation with respect to innovation, keeping it at a low level (next to Bulgaria and Romania).Dane statystyczne przedstawione w artykule wskazują, że pozycja innowacyjna CEEC jest ciągle niekorzystna i relatywnie słaba, z wyjątkiem Słowenii i Estonii. W szczególnie trudnej sytuacji jest Polska, w której występuje najwięcej (obok Bułgarii i Rumunii) oznak stagnacji innowacyjnej na niskim poziomie

Investing in Freedom: Democracy Support in the U.S. Budget

The U.S. Congress should fully fund the administration's $47.8 billion request for base international affairs for Fiscal Year (FY) 2014. This request represents a 6$38.7 billion for FY 14, 20% less than the President's request, and a staggering 29% less than the FY 12 actual numbers. Cuts of that magnitude would have a devastating effect on the ability of the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to carry out their diplomatic work and assistance programs. While it is important at present for every federal agency to eliminate redundancies, streamline operations, and reevaluate priorities, such sweeping cuts to an already miniscule budget would do great and needless harm. The Senate budget resolution proposes $45.6 billion in base international affairs funding.Funding for Democracy and Human Rights represents 9% of the total request for foreign assistance for FY 14, less than 1/10th of 1% of the total U.S. budget. The administration's proposal will support important initiatives that protect and promote democracy, rule of law, and human rights, including:Flexible funding to support democratic change in the Middle East through a Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund.Increased funding for priority regions, including Asia and Africa.Robust funding for priority countries and territories including Afghanistan, Mexico, South Sudan, the West Bank and Gaza, and Burma.Increases in some areas are balanced by decreases in others, including:The elimination of the Assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia Account (AEECA) and decreases in the Europe and Eurasia region overall.Large decreases in democracy funding for Iraq and Pakistan.Regional and country-level decreases in the Western Hemisphere and in South and Central Asia.While the administration understandably has had to make difficult tradeoffs to reach budget goals, there are some areas where decreased funding would be harmful to achieving U.S. strategic policy goals and Congress can provide additional support:Congress should fund the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and USAID's Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) at the FY 12 levels. These two bureaus provide leadership within their agencies on democracy and human rights policy and require adequate resources to continue doing so.Congress should allow the administration to meet the United States' assessed obligations to the United Nations for FY14. Moreover, Congress should reinstate funding for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which supports many cultural, social, and educational programs in line with the U.S.'s own values.The administration must work with Congress to identify innovative ways to support civil society in countries with difficult operating environments, including Russia, Bolivia, Egypt, and Ethiopia.Robust funding for international affairs in FY 14 will give America's diplomats the tools they need to advance U.S. interests abroad and maintain the United States' role as a global leader. Such funding alone is not enough, however. The administration must match a strong budget with clear policy decisions and a consistently forceful message, communicated both publicly and privately, that democracy and human rights are of the utmost importance to the United States.This report summarizes the most notable requests, changes, and new developments within the administration's democracy and human rights budget for FY14. It also offers policy recommendations and suggestions for budget adjustments to better align funding allocations with U.S. interests