DIPL 6402 European Union Governance and Policy

The course addresses the following main objectives: The course takes a thorough look at contemporary Europe as a partner, ally or, alternatively, potential competitor to so-called US hegemony. Building on the assumption that Europe is still more than ‘EU-Europe’, students will deal with the following questions: Where do European-American relations stand almost five years after September 11, 2006 and fifteen years after the end of the Cold War era? Will the West prevail in the face of globalization and energy scarcity on the one hand, and transnational threats, such as terrorism or proliferation on the other? The course will discuss prospects for a common European foreign and security policy and will analyze the challenge of further EU enlargement Under which conditions might Turkey become a member state of the European Union? How will Russia define its future relations with the West given its enormous energy resources? Where are the new geo-political and geo-strategic borders of Europe? Can it over-reach? What are the domestic implications? Will there be a ‘two-speed’ Europe that favors further political integration of a‘core’ over ‘widening’ Europe’ s frontiers? What are the implications of ‘out-of-area’ peacekeeping contributions by the European Union (EU), as in Congo for its inter-operability with other regional and international organizations? On the other hand, what are the implications for Europeans and American alike, of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ‘going global where the threat is’, whether through peacekeeping in Afghanistan, flying aid to Kashmir after an earthquake, or supporting the African Union logistically in Sudan? To which extent differ European interest vis-a-vis the Middle East from American interest? Students will focus their final paper on either a case study or a grounded-theory study addressing a (theoretical) phenomenon covering a policy or polity issue in the context of Europe. Students will address these complex questions of contemporary relevance based on thorough study and reflection of the polity dimensions of the European integration process

DIPL 6422 Transatlantic Relations

The course discusses developments in transatlantic and US-European relations. It analyzes the impact of Europe \u27moving east\u27 given NATO and EU extension and the last enlargement round in 2004. Core questions are: Which role will Central and Eastern European countries play to transform the alliance and its organizations, like NATO? How will Russia use its influence? Will Turkey become a member of EU? The course examines the changing reality within the European theatre itself and explains European difficulty to speak with a common voice on a variety of transatlantic issues. While the course takes historic developments in transatlantic relations into consideration, it provides an outlook onto how US-European relations might develop in the 21st century: from the post-Cold War era to the aftermath of September 11, 2001. We will analyze and discuss topics that are of continued relevance and common interest to the transatlantic community, through lecture presentations, reading synthesis and active discussions. Students will be encouraged to focus their theoretical research paper on a specific policy or polity issue that has been shaping the transatlantic discourse

DIPL 2105 AA/AB Sustaining Global Ecology

The course will analyze and discuss the policy, polity and politics involved to balance economic growth and development with environmental protection. We will do so in the overall context of an international system that is characterized by globalization. Emphasis will be on the conceptual links between sustainable development and access to free trade by developing countries on the one hand and environmental and social standards on the other hand. Students will engage in considerable case study research. We will, for instance, explore how transnational politics (of actors such as the European Union or NAFTA, but also so-called INGOs, international nongovernmental organizations) have shaped environmental policy. The course, in general, will focus on both, actors and theory in global sustainable ecology

DIPL 6114 Actors and Theory in Conflict Prevention: a particular focus on conflict prevention post-9/11

The course addresses the following main objectives: 1. To Identify actors addressing in theory, and dealing in practice with conflict prevention. Particular focus will be on actors from Northern America and Europe. However, students\u27 own insights into the field, or particular interest in an actor\u27 s work in a certain conflict area are welcome and will be taken into consideration; 2. To analyze and understand the theoretical background of actors, and what their concept of conflict prevention may imply for the field. We will actively discuss the link between theory and practice in this regard; 3. To develop an own understanding, what the (so-called wider field of) conflict prevention can and may mean, particularly in a post-9/11 world. We will examine the different methods, approaches and tools of an exemplary variety of actors that focuses on conflict prevention, through lecture presentations, reading synthesis and active discussions. Opportunity to further develop a student\u27 s own conflict related expertise will be provided by assisting students to focus their written research paper on a specific regional conflict case study

SUMO (Simulation of Urban MObility) - an open-source traffic simulation

As no exact model of traffic flow exists due to its high complexity and chaotic organisation, researchers mainly try to predict traffic using simulations. Within this field, many simulation packages exist and differ in their software architecture paradigm as well as in the models that describe traffic itself. We will introduce yet another system which, in contrast to most of the other simulation software packages, is available as on open-source programm and may therfore be extended in order to fit a researcher´s own needs and also be used as a reference testbed for new traffic models

Lowering the sintering temperature of barium strontium titanate bulk ceramics by barium strontium titanate-gel and BaCu(B₂O₅)

In this paper the influence of barium strontium titanate (BST) xerogel as a sinter additive and BaCu(B$_{2}$O$_{5}$) (BCB) as a liquid phase sintering aid on the sintering behavior of BST bulk ceramics is investigated. BST as well as BCB powders were synthesized via a mixed oxide route and BST gel via a sol-gel process. Compared to pure BST bulk ceramics, BST gel reduces the sintering start (onset temperature) by up to 174°C and increases the density for a sintering temperature of 1200°C. By adding BCB to the BST powder the sintering was completed much faster and the onset temperatures were reduced by 281°C and 312°C for 1 mol. % and 2.5 mol. %, respectively. With 2.5 mol. % BCB, the highest density of 96 % (5.41 g∙cm$^{-3}$) was achieved at 950°C

High-precision frequency measurements: indispensable tools at the core of the molecular-level analysis of complex systems

This perspective article provides an assessment of the state-of-the-art in the molecular-resolution analysis of complex organic materials. These materials can be divided into biomolecules in complex mixtures (which are amenable to successful separation into unambiguously defined molecular fractions) and complex nonrepetitive materials (which cannot be purified in the conventional sense because they are even more intricate). Molecular-level analyses of these complex systems critically depend on the integrated use of high-performance separation, high-resolution organic structural spectroscopy and mathematical data treatment. At present, only high-precision frequency-derived data exhibit sufficient resolution to overcome the otherwise common and detrimental effects of intrinsic averaging, which deteriorate spectral resolution to the degree of bulk-level rather than molecular-resolution analysis. High-precision frequency measurements are integral to the two most influential organic structural spectroscopic methods for the investigation of complex materials—NMR spectroscopy (which provides unsurpassed detail on close-range molecular order) and FTICR mass spectrometry (which provides unrivalled resolution)—and they can be translated into isotope-specific molecular-resolution data of unprecedented significance and richness. The quality of this standalone de novo molecular-level resolution data is of unparalleled mechanistic relevance and is sufficient to fundamentally advance our understanding of the structures and functions of complex biomolecular mixtures and nonrepetitive complex materials, such as natural organic matter (NOM), aerosols, and soil, plant and microbial extracts, all of which are currently poorly amenable to meaningful target analysis. The discrete analytical volumetric pixel space that is presently available to describe complex systems (defined by NMR, FT mass spectrometry and separation technologies) is in the range of 108–14 voxels, and is therefore capable of providing the necessary detail for a meaningful molecular-level analysis of very complex mixtures. Nonrepetitive complex materials exhibit mass spectral signatures in which the signal intensity often follows the number of chemically feasible isomers. This suggests that even the most strongly resolved FTICR mass spectra of complex materials represent simplified (e.g. isomer-filtered) projections of structural space

Sargassum sp. Act as a Large Regional Source of Marine Dissolved Organic Carbon and Polyphenols

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) plays critical roles in marine carbon cycling, but its sources and sinks remain uncertain. In this study, we monitored DOC exudation rates of Sargassum natans under visible light (lambda > 390 nm) and solar radiation. DOC release rates ranged from 7 to 10 mu g C g(biomass)(-1) hr(-1) (wet weight) under visible light, but increased to 23 to 41 mu g C g(biomass)(-1) hr(-1) when exposed to natural sunlight. Results indicate that DOC released by Sargassum could amount to 0.3 to 1.2 Tg C/year, potentially contributing significantly to the marine DOC pool in the Gulf of Mexico and Western North Atlantic. We employed the Folin-Ciocalteu phenolic content method, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and ultrahigh resolution Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) to characterize the diverse pool of organic compounds exuded from Sargassum. Results from these complementary methods showed that Sargassum release large quantities of phlorotannins, a class of polyphenols that have very similar properties to terrestrial DOC. These phlorotannins and their oxygenated phenolic derivatives exhibit a high hydrogen deficiency and functionalization (i.e., 4 to 6 oxygen atoms per aromatic ring), representing 5 to 18% of the released DOC isolated by solid phase extraction. Thus, Sargassum is the largest biological source of open ocean polyphenols recorded to date. The amount of polyphenolic DOC released by Sargassum challenges previous beliefs that all polyphenols found within the oceans are remnants of terrestrial organic matter, although the stability of phlorotannins and their derivatives needs to be further evaluated