What the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue says about the EU’s role as a peace mediator

What conditions influence EU effectiveness in international mediation? A recent study by Julian Bergmann and Arne Niemann assesses how we can better evaluate the role of the EU institutions as a peace mediator by investigating the case of the Belgrade – Pristina dialogue, brokered by the EU between 2011 and 2013

Development policy under fire? The politicization of European external relations

In the past few years decision‐making processes and the normative underpinnings of EU external relations have become subject to intense debate in the European institutions, member states and the wider public. Previous research suggests that there is variation in the extent to which individual domains of EU external relations are politicized and contested. This special issue aims to theorize further and investigate empirically this, using the example of European development policy and its relations with other external policies. We introduce two new mechanisms that drive politicization dynamics. We argue that politicization can be diffused horizontally from one policy field to another, which we call horizontal politicization. We also investigate how the politicization of EU external policies in third countries occurs and influences politicization dynamics in the EU, which we call outside‐in politicization. The introduction to the special issue presents our theoretical approach and summarizes the key findings from the special issue

EU-Friedensmediation auf dem Prüfstand: zwischen hohem Anspruch und komplexer Wirklichkeit

Die Europäische Union hat seit den 2000er Jahren eine beachtliche Bilanz als Mediatorin in innerstaatlichen Konflikten aufzuweisen Insbesondere in ihrer unmittelbaren Nachbarschaft, den Ländern des Westlichen Balkan, hat die EU eine Reihe von Mediationsinitiativen unternommen. Mediation ist dabei ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der Bemühungen der EU, Krisen und gewaltsame Konflikt mit zivilen Mitteln zu verhindern und zu bewältigen. Doch inwiefern ist es der EU bereits gelungen, den eigenen Anspruch im Bereich der zivilen Konfliktbearbeitung einzulösen? Dieser Frage widmet sich der folgende Artikel und geht ihr im Bereich Friedensmediation in zwei Dimensionen nach: erstens hinsichtlich des Anspruchs der Entwicklung und Stärkung der Mediationskapazitäten, und zweitens in Bezug auf die Frage, inwiefern EU-Friedensmediation erfolgreich ist und somit einen positiven Beitrag zur Konfliktbearbeitung leistet. In Bezug auf die erste Dimension zeigt sich, dass die EU tatsächlich ihre Fähigkeiten und institutionellen Strukturen für Friedensmediation deutlich ausgebaut und damit ihren eigenen Anspruch eingelöst hat. Gleichwohl hat dies auch zu einer institutionellen Fragmentierung geführt, die den Koordinationsbedarf zwischen den einzelnen Institutionen deutlich erhöht. Hinsichtlich der zweiten Dimension zeigt die Analyse von zwei Fallbeispielen (Belgrad-Pristina Dialog und die Genfer Gespräche über Georgiens Territorialkonflikte) dass EU-Friedensmediation in den beiden Fällen einen positiven Effekt auf die Konfliktdynamik hat. Trotz einiger Teilerfolge muss jedoch auch konstatiert werden, dass die EU in beiden Konflikten keine vollständige Konfliktbeilegung erreichen konnte. Gerade in Bezug auf zwei Konfliktsituationen in der EU-Nachbarschaft, in der die EU durch die EU-Beitrittsperspektive einen vergleichsweise langen "Hebel" gegenüber Konfliktparteien besitzt, macht dieser Befund die Grenzen der Einflussmöglichkeiten der EU deutlich.Since the early 2000s the European Union has established a considerable track record as a mediator in intrastate conflict. Particularly in the countries of the Western Balkans, the EU has undertaken a number of mediation initiatives. Mediation is a corner stone of the EU’s approach to managing and preventing crisis and violent conflicts through civilian means. But to what extent has the EU lived up to its own aspirations in the field of civilian conflict prevention and mediation in particular? This article addresses this question along two dimensions. First, it examines the EU’s ambitions to develop and strengthen its capacities in the field of mediation. Second, it focuses on the actual outcomes of EU peace mediation efforts and their contribution to successful conflict resolution. Regarding the first dimension, the article draws the conclusion that the EU has indeed lived up to its aspirations by strengthening its institutional architecture and capacities for peace mediation. Nevertheless, this has also led to institutional fragmentation, which increased the need for coordination between the involved institutions. With regard to the second dimension, two case studies (the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue and the Geneva Talks on the territorial conflicts of Georgia) demonstrate that EU peace mediation had a positive influence on the dynamics of both conflicts. Having reached partial successes, the mediation processes, however, could not provide a comprehensive resolution in both conflicts. The specific context of these conflicts, in which the EU would be assumed to have political leverage due to the prospect of future EU membership, demonstrates the limits of its effectiveness in peace mediation

Dynamic benthic communities: assessing temporal variations in benthic community structure, megafaunal composition and diversity at the Arctic deep-sea observatory HAUSGARTEN between 2004 and 2015

Established in the Fram Strait in 1999, the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) observatory HAUSGARTEN enables us to study changes on the deep Arctic seafloor. Repeated deployments of a towed camera system (Ocean Floor Observation System) along the same tracks allowed us to build a time series longer than a decade (2004 - 2015). Here, we present the first time-series results from a northern and the southernmost station of the observatory (N3 and S3, ~2650m and 2350m depth respectively) obtained via the analysis of still imagery. We assess temporal variability in community structure, megafaunal densities and diversity, and use a range of biotic and abiotic factors to explain the patterns observed. There were significant temporal differences in megafaunal abundances, diversity and abiotic factors at both stations. A particularly high increase in megafaunal abundance was recorded at N3 from 12.08 (±0.39; 2004) individuals m-2 to 35.21 (±0.97; 2007) ind. m-2 alongside a ten-fold increase in (drop-)stones. At S3, megafaunal densities peaked in 2015 (22.74 ±0.61 ind. m-2) after an increasing trend since 2004 (12.44 ±0.32 ind. m-2). Holothurians showed particularly striking temporal differences: densities of the small sea cucumber Elpidia heckeri densities rose ten-fold from 0.31 ind. m-2 (±0.04; 2004) to 3.74 ind. m-2 (±0.14; 2015) at S3, coinciding with a sustained increase in phytodetritial matter (chloroplastic pigment equivalents) at the seafloor. Initially entirely absent from N3, densities of the larger holothurian Kolga hyalina peaked in 2007 (5.87 ±0.22 ind. m-2) and declined continuously since then. Overall diversity (γ) increased at both stations over the course of the study, however, with varying contributions of α and β diversities. Our results highlight the importance of time-series studies as megafaunal community composition is characterised by continuous changes. This indicates that epibenthic communities from the deep seafloor are reactive and dynamic, with no “null” community state. To continue to monitor them is therefore crucial in understanding natural and anthropogenic impacts in an area exposed to the effects of climate change

Anpassung von Gebäuden

Dies ist ein Faktenblatt aus dem REGKLAM-Vorhaben zum Thema "Anpassung von Gebäuden"

Analysis of the impact of data compression on condition monitoring algorithms for ball screws

The overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a management ratio to evaluate the added value of machine tools. Unplanned machine downtime reduces the operational availability and therefore, the OEE. Increased machine costs are the consequence. An important cause of unplanned machine downtimes is the total failure of ball screws of the feed axes due to wear. Therefore, monitoring of the condition of ball screws is important. Common concepts rely on high-frequency acceleration sensors from external control systems to detect a change of the condition. For trend and detailed damage analysis, large amounts of data are generated and stored over a long time period (>5 years), resulting in corresponding data storage costs. Additional axes or machine tools increase the data volume further, adding to the total storage costs. To minimize these costs, data compression or source coding has to be applied. To achieve maximum compression ratios, lossy coding algorithms have to be used, which introduce distortion in a signal. In this work, the influence of lossy coding algorithms on a condition monitoring algorithm (CMA) using acceleration signals is investigated. The CMA is based on principal component analysis and uses 17 features such as standard deviation to predict the preload condition of a ball screw. It is shown that bit rate reduction through lossy compression algorithms is possible without affecting the condition monitoring - as long as the compression algorithm is known. In contrast, an unknown compression algorithm reduces the classification accuracy of condition monitoring by about 20 % when coding with a quantizer resolution of 4 bit/sample

Purification of a factor that restores translation of vesicular stomatitis virus mRNA in extracts from poliovirus-infected HeLa cells

It was previously shown that the poliovirus-induced inhibition of translation of capped mRNAs can be reversed by a protein found in preparations of the eukaryotic initiation factor eIF-4B [Rose, J. K., Trachsel, H., Leong, K. & Baltimore, D. (1978) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 75, 2732--2736]. This "restoring factor" has now been purified from a high-salt wash of rabbit reticulocyte ribosomes by taking advantage of its tight association with factor eIF-3 at low salt concentrations. It did not copurify with the major M_r 80,000 polypeptide of eIF-4B preparations but did copurify with a M_r 24,000 polypeptide previously shown to bind to the cap structures of mRNAs [Sonenberg, N., Rupprecht, K. M., Hecht, S. M. & Shatkin, A. J. (1979) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 76, 4345--4349]. Both the electrophoretic mobility and the tryptic peptide pattern of the restoring factor were indistinguishable from those of the cap-binding protein, and the restoring factor could be crosslinked to the 5'-terminal cap on mRNA. Thus, is appears that poliovirus inhibits cellular protein synthesis by inactivation of some crucial property of the cap-binding protein

Introduction: The EU as International Mediator – Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

In this introductory article, we conceptualise EU mediation practice and identify different conceptual and empirical perspectives from which EU mediation practice can be analysed. First, we briefly present different understandings of mediation in research and practice, and offer a definition and terminological/conceptual clarification of EU mediation practice that both covers EU mediation efforts and mediation support activities. Second, we present the institutional architecture for EU mediation activities. Third, we specify the focus of the special issue and derive a number of research questions that have not been sufficiently addressed in EU foreign policy studies and mediation research, yet. Based on these questions, we propose some tentative avenues for studying EU mediation along three key concepts: (1) drivers of EU mediation, (2) EU mediation roles and strategies, and (3) EU mediation effectiveness. Finally, we provide an overview of the contributions to this special issue