Enhancing Europe’s power: a rejoinder

This rejoinder responds to the eight comments to our report on ‘Enhancing Europe’s Global Power: A Scenario Exercise with Eight Proposals’. We address questions related to our definition of Europe, the notion of power, context and appropriateness of the scenario approach, the feasibility of enhancing European power, the rationale behind the proposed eight measures as well as the way ahead. Finally, we highlight green policies together with media and communication as promising candidates to increase European power

Privacy and transparency in the 4th space : implications for conspirary theories

This article investigates the role of privacy and transparency in the 4th Space and outlines their implications for the development and dissemination of conspiracy theories. We argue that privacy can be exploited by individuals and organizations to spread conspiracy theories online, while organizational transparency, intended to increase accountability and ultimately trust, can have the adverse effect and nurture conspiracy beliefs. Through the lens of the 4th Space concept, we offer suggestions on how to approach those challenges which emerge as a result of the complex entanglements of both actual and virtual world across time

Echinacea purpurea-derived alkylamides exhibit potent anti-inflammatory effects and alleviate clinical symptoms of atopic eczema

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Impact of a Glycolic Acid-Containing pH 4 Water-in-Oil Emulsion on Skin pH

The skin pH is crucial for physiological skin functions. A decline in stratum corneum acidity, as observed in aged or diseased skin, may negatively affect physiological skin functions. Therefore, glycolic acid-containing water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions adjusted to pH 4 were investigated regarding their effect on normal or increased skin pH. A pH 4 W/O emulsion was applied on three areas with pathologically increased skin surface pH in diabetics (n = 10). Further, a 28-day half-side trial (n = 30) was performed to test the long-term efficacy and safety of a pH 4 W/O emulsion (n = 30). In summary, the application of a pH 4 W/O emulsion reduced the skin pH in healthy, elderly and diabetic subjects, which may improve epidermal barrier functions

Everybody Lies: Misinformation and Its Implications for the 4th Space

Combining earlier spatial typologies of places and communities with computer-mediated communication technologies, Hardegger developed the idea of the 4th space. Given that misinformation has become a crucial problem in many online environments over the course of the last few years, this article attempts to assess the implications of this development for the 4th space. This article begins with an analysis of people’s tendency to lie in different environments. Afterwards, properties of the 4th space are assessed that create opportunities for misinformation-based communities to emerge. Finally, open questions in relation to misinformation and the 4th space that deserve further attention are addressed

Strong nonlocal-to-local convergence of the Cahn-Hilliard equation and its operator

We prove convergence of a sequence of weak solutions of the nonlocal Cahn-Hilliard equation to the strong solution of the corresponding local Cahn-Hilliard equation. The analysis is done in the case of suffi-ciently smooth bounded domains with Neumann boundary condition and a W1,1-kernel. The proof is based on the relative entropy method. Additionally, we prove the strong L2-convergence of the nonlocal operator to the negative Laplacian together with a rate of convergence