Europe´s political, social, and economic (dis-)integration: Revisiting the Elephant in times of crises. IHS Political Science Series Working Paper No. 143, October 2016

Since the outbreak of the European debt crisis, the EU has faced some of its greatest challenges to date. Discussions about the downsizing of the Eurozone, the UK exit referendum or the increasing success of EU-sceptic parties contradict the vision of an “evercloser union.” As disintegration becomes increasingly conceivable, so does our need for a conceptual understanding of the compound processes of European integration. In the present paper, European integration is understood as a bidirectional and multidimensional process. It is assumed that processes of integration and disintegration can occur simultaneously, and that their results can be measured with the help of the same indicators. Moreover, European integration is not limited to political integration: processes of integration and disintegration also proceed in the economic and social dimension. We exemplarily point out the complex relations between dynamics of integration and disintegration in its political, economic and social dimensions, and we specially focus on the causal relations between indicators of social and political integration

Europe's political, social, and economic (dis-)integration: revisiting the Elephant in times of crises

Since the outbreak of the European debt crisis, the EU has faced some of its greatest challenges to date. Discussions about the downsizing of the Eurozone, the UK exit referendum or the increasing success of EU-sceptic parties contradict the vision of an “ever-closer union.” As disintegration becomes increasingly conceivable, so does our need for a conceptual understanding of the compound processes of European integration. In the present paper, European integration is understood as a bidirectional and multidimensional process. It is assumed that processes of integration and disintegration can occur simultaneously, and that their results can be measured with the help of the same indicators. Moreover, European integration is not limited to political integration: processes of integration and disintegration also proceed in the economic and social dimension. We exemplarily point out the complex relations between dynamics of integration and disintegration in its political, economic and social dimensions, and we specially focus on the causal relations between indicators of social and political integration

Letaler Stromunfall in der Badewanne durch ein zum Laden angeschlossenes Smartphone

<jats:title>Zusammenfassung</jats:title><jats:p>Stromtodesfälle in der Badewanne sind üblicherweise Folge suizidaler Handlungen oder ereignen sich unfallbedingt. Berichtet wird über einen letalen Stromunfall, bei dem über ein defektes, nicht den hiesigen Normen entsprechendes Ladegerät eines Smartphones, das während eines Vollbades in der Hand gehalten wurde, die volle Netzwechselspannung auf den Körper einer jungen Frau verschleppt wurde, der dadurch Teil eines geschlossenen Stromkreises wurde. Elektrogeräte von minderwertiger Qualität stellen ein nicht abschätzbares Gefährdungspotenzial für die Benutzer dar.</jats:p&gt

The role of GPS-enabled information in transforming operational decision making: an exploratory study

Although the impact of ICT-enabled information on firm performance has been well documented in the business value of IT literature, our understanding of how Global Positioning System (GPS) adoption can transform operational decision making and foster differential firm performance is limited. In response, we conduct an exploratory comparative case study of three transport firms that have implemented the same GPS during the same year in their operations. Our results highlight that increased use of GPS-enabled information can enhance information quality and make operational decision making more fact-based and collaborative. We also find that such transformations in operational decision making, driven by increased use of GPS-enabled information, can foster differential performance impacts. However, we warn scholars and practitioners that a firm’s information management capability (in terms of availability of quality information in decision making, software tools for connectivity and access to information, IT systems integration post-GPS adoption and adaptability of the infrastructure to emerging business needs) and organizational factors (such as top management support, project management of GPS implementation, financial support, end-user involvement, rewarding, training and employee resistance) can facilitate (or inhibit) effective use of GPS-enabled information in operational decision making, and thus moderate differential performance benefits of GPS adoption

Assumptions behind grammatical approaches to code-switching: when the blueprint is a red herring

Many of the so-called ‘grammars’ of code-switching are based on various underlying assumptions, e.g. that informal speech can be adequately or appropriately described in terms of ‘‘grammar’’; that deep, rather than surface, structures are involved in code-switching; that one ‘language’ is the ‘base’ or ‘matrix’; and that constraints derived from existing data are universal and predictive. We question these assumptions on several grounds. First, ‘grammar’ is arguably distinct from the processes driving speech production. Second, the role of grammar is mediated by the variable, poly-idiolectal repertoires of bilingual speakers. Third, in many instances of CS the notion of a ‘base’ system is either irrelevant, or fails to explain the facts. Fourth, sociolinguistic factors frequently override ‘grammatical’ factors, as evidence from the same language pairs in different settings has shown. No principles proposed to date account for all the facts, and it seems unlikely that ‘grammar’, as conventionally conceived, can provide definitive answers. We conclude that rather than seeking universal, predictive grammatical rules, research on CS should focus on the variability of bilingual grammars

A Comprehensive Workflow for General-Purpose Neural Modeling with Highly Configurable Neuromorphic Hardware Systems

In this paper we present a methodological framework that meets novel requirements emerging from upcoming types of accelerated and highly configurable neuromorphic hardware systems. We describe in detail a device with 45 million programmable and dynamic synapses that is currently under development, and we sketch the conceptual challenges that arise from taking this platform into operation. More specifically, we aim at the establishment of this neuromorphic system as a flexible and neuroscientifically valuable modeling tool that can be used by non-hardware-experts. We consider various functional aspects to be crucial for this purpose, and we introduce a consistent workflow with detailed descriptions of all involved modules that implement the suggested steps: The integration of the hardware interface into the simulator-independent model description language PyNN; a fully automated translation between the PyNN domain and appropriate hardware configurations; an executable specification of the future neuromorphic system that can be seamlessly integrated into this biology-to-hardware mapping process as a test bench for all software layers and possible hardware design modifications; an evaluation scheme that deploys models from a dedicated benchmark library, compares the results generated by virtual or prototype hardware devices with reference software simulations and analyzes the differences. The integration of these components into one hardware-software workflow provides an ecosystem for ongoing preparative studies that support the hardware design process and represents the basis for the maturity of the model-to-hardware mapping software. The functionality and flexibility of the latter is proven with a variety of experimental results