Research Agenda on Families and Family Wellbeing for Europe

This report is the final outcome of FAMILYPLATFORM and the result of the encounter between more than 170 experts and stakeholders from all over Europe and beyond, creating a lively think tank on family issues. It summarises important policy questions, research gaps and research issues that were highlighted during the 18 months of working together closely within FAMILYPLATFORM. A series of societal challenges for families, family‐related policy and research have been identified through the work of FAMILYPLATFORM. Based on these crucial societal challenges, seven important research areas are outlined in this report: 1. Family Policy, 2. Care, 3. Life Course and Transitions, 4. Doing Family, 5. Migration and Mobility, 6. Inequalities and Insecurities, 7. Media and New Information Technologies. In each research area vital research questions are identified, combined with general remarks on methodological issues and approaches. Altogether, these challenges, research areas and methodological issues are building a research roadmap for the European Union for the years ahead. The realisation of this research roadmap could help policy makers to meet future societal challenges and to improve the wellbeing of families

A Research Agenda on the Family for the European Union

Information brochure No. 2 on the main outcomes of FAMILYPLATFOR

BARLEX – the Barley Draft Genome Explorer

Colmsee C, Beier S, Himmelbach A, et al. BARLEX – the Barley Draft Genome Explorer. Molecular Plant. 2015;8(6):964-966

Determination of effective mechanical properties of biocomposite on the basis of multilevel modeling

Numerical simulation of biocomposite "zirconia-based ceramics - cortical bone" was performed using multilevel approach. The effective mechanical properties of the ceramic biocomposite were determined

The submarine Azores Plateau : Evidence for a waning mantle plume?

The submarine Azores Plateau in the Central Northern Atlantic has generally been considered to represent a large igneous plateau formed some 10 Ma by widespread volcanism, however a lack of age progression amongst the younger submarine and subaerial volcanism, an irregular distribution of platform-related magmas east and west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a strong tectonic stress regime, and a lack of abundant tholeiitic compositions that reflect initial, high degrees of melting is not easily explainable in the framework of a classic, long-lived mantle plume model. Here, we present new bathymetric and seismic data from the submarine Azores Plateau obtained during cruises M113/1 and M128 with the German R/V Meteor. Our new data combined with prior geochemical and petrological studies indicate that the majority of the western Azores Plateau may indeed have formed during the arrival of a short-lived mantle melting anomaly at 10 Ma. However, our new data also indicate that volcanismPeer reviewe

Технико-экономические характеристики работы твердотопливной котельной в условиях посезонного изменения типа и качества сжигаемого топлива

В ВКР проведена численно-аналитическая оценка технико-экономических характеристик работы твердотопливной котельной при использовании разносортного типа топлива. В качестве сырьевой базы рассмотрены уголь, продукция и отходы лесопромышленного комплекса, а также углеродосодержащий шлак. В том числе отражены достоинства и недостатки использования того или иного топлива на надежностные характеристики работы топливосжигающего оборудования.In WRC the numerical and analytical assessment of technical and economic characteristics of work of a solid-fuel boiler house is carried out at use of different-grade type of fuel. As a raw material base, coal, products and wastes of the timber industry, as well as carbon-containing slag are considered. In particular, the advantages and disadvantages of using a particular fuel for the reliability characteristics of the fuel burning equipment are reflected

Wellbeing of Families in Future Europe

FAMILYPLATFORM’s aim was to develop and publish a European Research Agenda for Research on Families and Family Policy, in order to enable policy makers and others to respond to current and future challenges facing families. Four concrete steps were taken towards elaborating the Research Agenda: 1. Charting the contemporary field of research on families and family policy in the EU. 2. Critically reviewing existing research involving a wide range of stakeholders. 3. An innovative exercise to identify future challenges facing families, so as to highlight future policy issues and develop questions for future research. 4. Bringing together all of the work into a Research Agenda on Families and Family Wellbeing for Europe. Each of these areas has a dedicated chapter in this book, presenting the main results and findings of this work. More than 120 civil society representatives, policy makers, and scientific experts were involved in the work of FAMILYPLATFORM. The sharing and negotiating of sometimes contradictory perspectives and thoughts was an exciting challenge for everyone involved, resulting in a great deal of shared learning. We hope that this book passes on some of these rich experiences, thereby improving the wellbeing of families in Europe through research and policy.Wellbeing of Families in Future Europe – Challenges for Research and Policy presents the results of the FAMILYPLATFORM project, a social platform on research for families and family policy

Soft Contributions to Hard Pion Photoproduction

Hard, or high transverse momentum, pion photoproduction can be a tool for probing the parton structure of the beam and target. We estimate the soft contributions to this process, with an eye toward delineating the region where perturbatively calculable processes dominate. Our soft process estimate is based on vector meson dominance and data based parameterizations of semiexclusive hadronic cross sections. We find that soft processes dominate in single pion photoproduction somewhat past 2 GeV transverse momentum at a few times 10 GeV incoming energy. The recent polarization asymmetry data is consistent with the perturbative asymmetry being diluted by polarization insensitive soft processes. Determining the polarized gluon distribution using hard pion photoproduction appears feasible with a few hundred GeV incoming energy (in the target rest frame).Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Catchment Soil Properties Affect Metal(loid) Enrichment in Reservoir Sediments of German Low Mountain Regions

Sediment management is a fundamental part of reservoir operation, but it is often complicated by metal(loid) enrichment in sediments. Knowledge concerning the sources of potential contaminants is therefore of important significance. To address this issue, the concentrations and the mobile fractions of metal(loid)s were determined in the sediments and the respective catchment areas of six reservoirs. The results indicate that reservoirs generally have a high potential for contaminated sediment accumulation due to preferential deposition of fine particles. The median values of the element-specific enrichment factor (EF) demonstrates slight enrichments of arsenic (EF: 3.4), chromium (EF: 2.8), and vanadium (EF: 2.9) for reservoir sediments. The enrichments of cadmium (EF: 8.2), manganese (EF: 3.9), nickel (EF: 4.8), and zinc (EF: 5.0) are significantly higher. This is enabled by a diffuse element release from the soils into the impounded streams, which is particularly favored by soil acidity. Leaching from the catchment soils partially enriches elements in stream sediments before their fine-grained portions in particular are deposited as reservoir sediment. We assume that this effect is of high relevance especially for reservoirs impounding small streams with forested catchments and weakly acid buffering parent material of soil formation