Find Policy: Quick access to research from leading Think Tanks set up by IRD alumn

Think tanks offer a valuable addition to academic research. Between the day-to-day commentary of journalism and the year-on-year of academic publication, think tanks provide topical in-depth analysis on essential policy issues. Across the US and Europe, there are easily 50 or more top institutions that provide great analysis, by recognized scholars. In Latin America, Africa and Asia, too, local think tanks have much to contribute

Europa bis zum Kaukasus? EUphorie in Georgien

"In den vergangenen Jahren hat die politische und wirtschaftliche Verflechtung Georgiens mit der EU stark zugenommen. Nach der so genannten Rosenrevolution im November 2003 wurde die Republik im Südkaukasus Mitglied der Europäischen Nachbarschaftspolitik (ENP, 2004), der Schwarzmeerinitiative (2007) und der Östlichen Partnerschaft (2009) – drei Regionalprogramme, die die weitgehende Integration der teilnehmenden Länder nach Europa zum Ziel haben. Vor diesem Hintergrund beschäftigt sich der Beitrag mit der Wahrnehmung der EU und dem Verhältnis zu Europa in der georgischen Bevölkerung auf Basis einer repräsentativen Befragung im Jahr 2009. Eine Mehrheit der georgischen Bevölkerung versteht sich als europäisch und befürwortet einen Beitritt zur EU. Im Gegensatz zur Außenpolitik der Regierung von Präsident Micheil Saakaschwili wünscht die georgische Bevölkerung allerdings, dass ein gutes Verhältnis zur EU nicht zu Lasten der Beziehungen mit Russland gehen solle. Neben der Funktion als sicherheitspolitischer Partner wird eine Annäherung an die EU mit zahlreichen Attributen von Modernität verknüpft. Diese Modernität wird dabei jedoch nicht als alternatives sondern als ergänzendes Element georgischer Identität verstanden. Gerade da Georgien mittelfristig keine Perspektive für einen Beitritt zur EU besitzt, öffnet die EUphorie der georgischen Bevölkerung den Blick für ein Modell von Europa jenseits der Binarität der EUMitgliedschaft – ein Modell, in welchem die vermeintlich instabilen Ränder Europas am Kaukasus zu einer Erneuerung der europäischen Idee beitragen könnten." (Autorenreferat)"Georgia's political and economic integration with the EU has increased considerably over the past years. After the so‐called rose revolution in November 2003, Georgia became a member of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP, 2004), the Black Sea Initiative (2007) and the Eastern Partnership (2009) – three regional programmes aiming at strengthening the integration of the participating countries into Europe. Against this background, this article examines the perception of the EU in the Georgian population on the basis of a representative opinion poll in 2009. A majority of Georgians think of themselves as Europeans and support EU membership. In contrast to the foreign policy of the Saakashvili administration, however, Georgians would prefer a good relationship with the EU not to come at the expense of relations with Russia. Besides promising improvements in the areas of territorial integrity and national security, integration with the EU is associated with attributes of modernity. This modernity, however, is not regarded as an alternative but rather as a complementary element of Georgian identity. It is because Georgia does not have a membership perspective in the medium term that the Georgian EUphoria suggests a model of Europe beyond the binary of EU membership – a model, in which the allegedly unstable margins of Europe in the Caucasus might contribute to a renaissance of the European idea." (author's abstract

About the role of visual field defects in pure alexia

Pure alexia is an acquired reading disorder characterized by a disproportionate prolongation of reading time as a function of word length. Although the vast majority of cases reported in the literature show a right-sided visual defect, little is known about the contribution of this low-level visual impairment to their reading difficulties. The present study was aimed at investigating this issue by comparing eye movement patterns during text reading in six patients with pure alexia with those of six patients with hemianopic dyslexia showing similar right-sided visual field defects. We found that the role of the field defect in the reading difficulties of pure alexics was highly deficit-specific. While the amplitude of rightward saccades during text reading seems largely determined by the restricted visual field, other visuo-motor impairments—particularly the pronounced increases in fixation frequency and viewing time as a function of word length—may have little to do with their visual field defect. In addition, subtracting the lesions of the hemianopic dyslexics from those found in pure alexics revealed the largest group differences in posterior parts of the left fusiform gyrus, occipito-temporal sulcus and inferior temporal gyrus. These regions included the coordinate assigned to the centre of the visual word form area in healthy adults, which provides further evidence for a relation between pure alexia and a damaged visual word form area. Finally, we propose a list of three criteria that may improve the differential diagnosis of pure alexia and allow appropriate therapy recommendation

Search for Fragment Emission from Nuclear Shock Waves

Energy spectra and angular distributions have been measured of 3He and 4He fragments emitted from Ag and U targets, bombarded with 2.7-GeV protons, and 1.05-GeV/nucleon alpha particles and 16O ions. All cross sections increase dramatically with projectile mass. No narrow peaks are found in the angular distributions or in the energy spectra

About the role of visual field defects in pure alexia

Pure alexia is an acquired reading disorder characterized by a disproportionate prolongation of reading time as a function of word length. Although the vast majority of cases reported in the literature show a right-sided visual defect, little is known about the contribution of this low-level visual impairment to their reading difficulties. The present study was aimed at investigating this issue by comparing eye movement patterns during text reading in six patients with pure alexia with those of six patients with hemianopic dyslexia showing similar right-sided visual field defects. We found that the role of the field defect in the reading difficulties of pure alexics was highly deficit-specific. While the amplitude of rightward saccades during text reading seems largely determined by the restricted visual field, other visuo-motor impairments-particularly the pronounced increases in fixation frequency and viewing time as a function of word length-may have little to do with their visual field defect. In addition, subtracting the lesions of the hemianopic dyslexics from those found in pure alexics revealed the largest group differences in posterior parts of the left fusiform gyrus, occipito-temporal sulcus and inferior temporal gyrus. These regions included the coordinate assigned to the centre of the visual word form area in healthy adults, which provides further evidence for a relation between pure alexia and a damaged visual word form area. Finally, we propose a list of three criteria that may improve the differential diagnosis of pure alexia and allow appropriate therapy recommendations

Central collisions of relativistic heavy ions

The energy spectra of protons and light nuclei produced by the interaction of 4He and 20Ne projectiles with Al and U targets have been investigated at incident energies ranging from 0.25 to 2.1 GeV per nucleon. Single fragment inclusive spectra have been obtained at angles between 25° and 150°, in the energy range from 30 to 150 MeV/nucleon. The multiplicity of intermediate and high energy charged particles was determined in coincidence with the measured fragments. In a separate study, fragment spectra were obtained in the evaporation energy range from 12C and 20Ne bombardment of uranium. We observe structureless, exponentially decaying spectra throughout the range of studied fragment masses. There is evidence for two major classes of fragments; one with emission at intermediate temperature from a system moving slowly in the lab frame, and the other with high temperature emission from a system propagating at a velocity intermediate between target and projectile. The high energy proton spectra are fairly well reproduced by a nuclear fireball model based on simple geometrical, kinematical, and statistical assumptions. Light cluster emission is also discussed in the framework of statistical models. NUCLEAR REACTIONS U(20Ne,X), E=250 MeV/nucl.; U(20Ne,X), U(α,X) E=400 MeV/nucl.; U(20Ne,X), Al(20Ne,X), E=2.1 GeV/nucl.; measured σ(E,θ), X=p, d, t, 3He,4He. U(20Ne,X), U(α,X), E=400 MeV/nucl.; U(20Ne,X), E=2.1 GeV/nucl.; measured σ(E, θ), Li to O. U(20Ne,X), U(12C,X), E=2.1 GeV/nucl.; measured σ(E, 90°), 4He to B. Nuclear fireballs, coalescence, thermodynamics of light nuclei production

Nuclear fireball model for proton inclusive spectra from relativistic heavy-ion collisions

A simple model is proposed for the emission of nucleons with velocities intermediate between those of the target and projectile. In this model, the nucleons which are mutually swept out from the target and projectile form a hot quasiequilibrated fireball which decays as an ideal gas. The overall features of the proton-inclusive spectra from 250- and 400-MeV/nucleon 20Ne ions and 400-MeV/nucleon 4He ions interacting with uranium are fitted without any adjustable parameters

Pion production in the 40Ar+40Ca reaction at 1.05 GeV/nucleon

Pion-production cross sections have been measured for the reaction 40Ar+40Ca--> pi ++X at a laboratory energy of 1.05 GeV/nucleon. A maximum in the pi + cross section occurs at mid-rapidity, which is anomalous relative to p+p and p+nucleus reactions and compared to many other heavy-ion reactions. Calculations based on cascade and thermal models fail to fit the data

Azimuthal Anisotropy of Photon and Charged Particle Emission in Pb+Pb Collisions at 158 A GeV/c

The azimuthal distributions of photons and charged particles with respect to the event plane are investigated as a function of centrality in Pb + Pb collisions at 158 A GeV/c in the WA98 experiment at the CERN SPS. The anisotropy of the azimuthal distributions is characterized using a Fourier analysis. For both the photon and charged particle distributions the first two Fourier coefficients are observed to decrease with increasing centrality. The observed anisotropies of the photon distributions compare well with the expectations from the charged particle measurements for all centralities.Comment: 8 pages and 6 figures. The manuscript has undergone a major revision. The unwanted correlations were enhanced in the random subdivision method used in the earlier version. The present version uses the more established method of division into subevents separated in rapidity to minimise short range correlations. The observed results for charged particles are in agreement with results from the other experiments. The observed anisotropy in photons is explained using flow results of pions and the correlations arising due to the decay of the neutral pion