Conflicting objectives, neglected relationships, and authoritarian backlash: the crisis of EU democracy promotion

Democracy promotion is an integral component of EU foreign policy, however the EU has not always been successful in its efforts to foster democracy in external countries. Sonja Grimm offers several explanations for these failures, including the absence of a consensus among democracy promoters about policy objectives, and the interference of hidden agendas

Stvaranje države članice EU-a promicanjem demokracije: slučaj reforme javne uprave u Hrvatskoj

This contribution studies the process of building an EU member state through democracy promotion in the case of Croatia with a special focus on two reform initiatives in the field of Public Administration Reform (PAR). Croatia’s experience is representative of intense efforts of the international community to overcome the consequences of violent state dissolution and civil war. The EU in particular has assisted post-conflict democratization with diplomatic initiatives, the provision of aid, and political conditionality. The Croatian political elite showed great willingness to implement democratic reforms, while at the same time remaining critical of what they viewed as ‘too much’ external interference in domestic state affairs. Based on 30 interviews with Croatian officials, Croatian civil society actors, members of the EU delegation and other representatives of the International donor community, we empirically assess progress and setbacks in Croatia’s public administration reform and explain why some reform initiatives have been successfully implemented while others are still pending.Studija govori o procesu stvaranja članice EU-a promicanjem demokracije u slučaju Hrvatske, s posebnim naglaskom na dvjema reformskim inicijativama iz područja reforme javne uprave (PAR). Iskustvo Hrvatske reprezentativno je za napore međunarodne zajednice da prevlada posljedice nasilnog raspada države i građanskog rata. EU je posebno potpomogao postkonfliktnu demokratizaciju diplomatskim inicijativama, osiguranjem pomoći i političkim uvjetovanjem. Hrvatska politička elita pokazala je veliku spremnost da primijeni demokratske reforme, ali je istovremeno bila kritična prema onome što je smatrano “prevelikim” miješanjem u unutarnja pitanja države. Na temelju 30 intervjua s hrvatskim dužnosnicima, akterima civilnoga društva, članovima EU-delegacije i drugim predstavnicima međunarodne zajednice empirijski se procjenjuju napredak i poteškoće u reformi javne uprave u Hrvatskoj te se objašnjava zašto su neke reforme uspješno implementirane, a druge nisu

Verpflichten Menschenrechte zur Demokratie? Über universelle Menschenrechte, politische Teilhabe und demokratische Herrschaftsordnungen

"Um Menschenwürde und die Freiheit des Individuums zu wahren, muss jedem Menschen die Chance gewährt werden, am Zustandekommen politischer Entscheidungen zu partizipieren. Im transzendentalen Tausch erkennen Individuen gegenseitig an, dass sie ein rationales, wohlüberlegtes Interesse am Zugang zur politischen Arena, nicht zuletzt am Zugang zu politischen Ämtern haben. Politische Teilhaberechte lassen sich folglich wie die liberalen Abwehrrechte philosophisch begründen und sind als Bürgerrechte zu verwirklichen. Sie gehören damit in den Kanon der Menschenrechte, die, in drei Dimensionen unterteilt (liberale Abwehrrechte, politische Teilhaberechte, soziale Teilhaberechte), notwendig aufeinander verwiesen sind. Dies hat für die Gestaltung politischer Systeme und deren Schutz weit reichende Konsequenzen." (Autorenreferat)"In order to preserve human dignity and the freedom of the individual, every human being must have the chance to participate in political decision-making and to live in a political community. In transcendental exchange, individuals mutually recognize their rational, well-considered interest in access to political offices. This allows them to partake in political decisions irrespective of their social position. Thus, political participation rights can be philosophically justified like liberal rights and must be realized as civil rights. They belong to the canon of human rights which are analytically differentiated in three dimensions (liberal rights, political rights, social rights) and, therefore, necessarily referring to each other. This has far-reaching consequences for the building and protection of political systems." (author's abstract

Detection, Explanation and Filtering of Cyber Attacks Combining Symbolic and Sub-Symbolic Methods

Machine learning (ML) on graph-structured data has recently received deepened interest in the context of intrusion detection in the cybersecurity domain. Due to the increasing amounts of data generated by monitoring tools as well as more and more sophisticated attacks, these ML methods are gaining traction. Knowledge graphs and their corresponding learning techniques such as Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) with their ability to seamlessly integrate data from multiple domains using human-understandable vocabularies, are finding application in the cybersecurity domain. However, similar to other connectionist models, GNNs are lacking transparency in their decision making. This is especially important as there tend to be a high number of false positive alerts in the cybersecurity domain, such that triage needs to be done by domain experts, requiring a lot of man power. Therefore, we are addressing Explainable AI (XAI) for GNNs to enhance trust management by exploring combining symbolic and sub-symbolic methods in the area of cybersecurity that incorporate domain knowledge. We experimented with this approach by generating explanations in an industrial demonstrator system. The proposed method is shown to produce intuitive explanations for alerts for a diverse range of scenarios. Not only do the explanations provide deeper insights into the alerts, but they also lead to a reduction of false positive alerts by 66% and by 93% when including the fidelity metric.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2105.0874

Location Modeling of Final Palaeolithic Sites in Northern Germany

Location modeling, both inductive and deductive, is widely used in archaeology to predict or investigate the spatial distribution of sites. The commonality among these approaches is their consideration of only spatial effects of the first order (i.e., the interaction of the locations with the site characteristics). Second-order effects (i.e., the interaction of locations with each other) are rarely considered. We introduce a deductive approach to investigating such second-order effects using linguistic hypotheses about settling behavior in the Final Palaeolithic. A Poisson process was used to simulate a point distribution using expert knowledge of two distinct hunter–gatherer groups, namely, reindeer hunters and elk hunters. The modeled points and point densities were compared with the actual finds. The G-, F-, and K-function, which allow for the identification of second-order effects of varying intensity for different periods, were applied. The results reveal differences between the two investigated groups, with the reindeer hunters showing location-related interaction patterns, indicating a spatial memory of the preferred locations over an extended period of time. Overall, this paper shows that second-order effects occur in the geographical modeling of archaeological finds and should be taken into account by using approaches such as the one presented in this paper

Tuning Superfast Curing Thiol-Norbornene-Functionalized Gelatin Hydrogels for 3D Bioprinting

Photocurable gelatin-based hydrogels have established themselves as powerful bioinks in tissue engineering due to their excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability, light responsiveness, thermosensitivity and bioprinting properties. While gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) has been the gold standard for many years, thiol-ene hydrogel systems based on norbornene-functionalized gelatin (GelNB) and a thiolated crosslinker have recently gained increasing importance. In this paper, a highly reproducible water-based synthesis of GelNB is presented, avoiding the use of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as organic solvent and covering a broad range of degrees of functionalization (DoF: 20% to 97%). Mixing with thiolated gelatin (GelS) results in the superfast curing photoclick hydrogel GelNB/GelS. Its superior properties over GelMA, such as substantially reduced amounts of photoinitiator (0.03% (w/v)), superfast curing (1–2 s), higher network homogeneity, post-polymerization functionalization ability, minimal cross-reactivity with cellular components, and improved biocompatibility of hydrogel precursors and degradation products lead to increased survival of primary cells in 3D bioprinting. Post-printing viability analysis revealed excellent survival rates of > 84% for GelNB/GelS bioinks of varying crosslinking density, while cell survival for GelMA bioinks is strongly dependent on the DoF. Hence, the semisynthetic and easily accessible GelNB/GelS hydrogel is a highly promising bioink for future medical applications and other light-based biofabrication techniques

Visualization of causation in social-ecological systems

In social-ecological systems (SES), where social and ecological processes are intertwined, phenomena are usually complex and involve multiple interdependent causes. Figuring out causal relationships is thus challenging but needed to better understand and then affect or manage such systems. One important and widely used tool to identify and communicate causal relationships is visualization. Here, we present several common visualization types: diagrams of objects and arrows, X-Y plots, and X-Y-Z plots, and discuss them in view of the particular challenges of visualizing causation in complex systems such as SES. We use a simple demonstration model to create and compare exemplary visualizations and add more elaborate examples from the literature. This highlights implicit strengths and limitations of widely used visualization types and facilitates adequate choices when visualizing causation in SES. Thereupon, we recommend further suitable ways to account for complex causation, such as figures with multiple panels, or merging different visualization types in one figure. This provides caveats against oversimplifications. Yet, any single figure can rarely capture all relevant causal relationships in an SES. We therefore need to focus on specific questions, phenomena, or subsystems, and often also on specific causes and effects that shall be visualized. Our recommendations allow for selecting and combining visualizations such that they complement each other, support comprehensive understanding, and do justice to the existing complexity in SES. This lets visualizations realize their potential and play an important role in identifying and communicating causation.Peer reviewe

Radiocarbon chronology and environmental context of Last Glacial Maximum human occupation in Switzerland

Central Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was dominated by polar desert and steppe-tundra biomes. Despite this, a human presence during this time period is evident at several locations across the region, including in Switzerland, less than 50 km from the Alpine ice sheet margin. It has been hypothesised that such human activity may have been restricted to brief periods of climatic warming within the LGM, but chronological information from many of these sites are currently too poorly resolved to corroborate this. Here we present a revised chronology of LGM human occupation in Switzerland. AMS radiocarbon dating of cut-marked reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) bones from the sites of Kastelhöhle-Nord and Y-Höhle indicates human occupation of Switzerland was most likely restricted to between 23,400 and 22,800 cal. BP. This timeframe corresponds to Greenland Interstadial 2, a brief warming phase, supporting the hypothesis that human presence was facilitated by favourable climatic episodes. Carbon, nitrogen and sulphur stable isotope analysis of the fauna provides palaeoenvironmental information for this time period. These findings contribute to our understanding of human activity in ice-marginal environments and have implications for understanding cultural connections across central Europe during the LGM

Optically Induced Avoided Crossing in Graphene

Degenerate states in condensed matter are frequently the cause of unwanted fluctuations, which prevent the formation of ordered phases and reduce their functionalities. Removing these degeneracies has been a common theme in materials design, pursued for example by strain engineering at interfaces. Here, we explore a non-equilibrium approach to lift degeneracies in solids. We show that coherent driving of the crystal lattice in bi- and multilayer graphene, boosts the coupling between two doubly-degenerate modes of E1u and E2g symmetry, which are virtually uncoupled at equilibrium. New vibronic states result from anharmonic driving of the E1u mode to large amplitdues, boosting its coupling to the E2g mode. The vibrational structure of the driven state is probed with time-resolved Raman scattering, which reveals laser-field dependent mode splitting and enhanced lifetimes. We expect this phenomenon to be generally observable in many materials systems, affecting the non-equilibrium emergent phases in matter.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Error Signals from the Brain: 7th Mismatch Negativity Conference

The 7th Mismatch Negativity Conference presents the state of the art in methods, theory, and application (basic and clinical research) of the MMN (and related error signals of the brain). Moreover, there will be two pre-conference workshops: one on the design of MMN studies and the analysis and interpretation of MMN data, and one on the visual MMN (with 20 presentations). There will be more than 40 presentations on hot topics of MMN grouped into thirteen symposia, and about 130 poster presentations. Keynote lectures by Kimmo Alho, Angela D. Friederici, and Israel Nelken will round off the program by covering topics related to and beyond MMN