External Triggers and Identity Formation: Cold War Crossroads in the Evolution of European foreign policy

This article identifies an identity/policy nexus in the literature on EC/EU foreign policy and criticizes the essentialism of existing treatments of this relationship between the internal and external planes. Using a historically grounded approach, we analyze three critical episodes in the emergence and operation of this nexus: debates about the accession of Spain and Greece to the EC, the inception of EPC and its role in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. We argue that three factors conditioned this process: external catalysts, the role of political contestation and a blend of instrumental and ideational dynamics. The inductive analysis of these factors is meant to serve as a pointer for future research and as a first step towards a theoretical model of the identity/policy nexus

Personalization of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for the Treatment of Chronic Subjective Tinnitus

Background: Personalization of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for tinnitus might be capable to overcome the heterogeneity of treatment responses. The assessment of loudness changes after short rTMS protocols in test sessions has been proposed as a strategy to identify the best protocol for the daily treatment application. However, the therapeutic advantages of this approach are currently not clear. The present study was designed to further investigate the feasibility and clinical efficacy of personalized rTMS as compared to a standardized rTMS protocol used for tinnitus. Methods: RTMS personalization was conducted via test sessions and reliable, sham-superior responses respectively short-term reductions in tinnitus loudness following active rTMS protocols (1, 10, 20 Hz, each 200 pulses) applied over the left and right temporal cortex. Twenty pulses at a frequency of 0.1 Hz served as a control condition (sham). In case of a response, patients were randomly allocated to ten treatment sessions of either personalized rTMS (2000 pulses with the site and frequency producing the most pronounced loudness reduction during test sessions) or standard rTMS (1 Hz, 2000 pulses left temporal cortex). Those participants who did not show a response during the test sessions received the standard protocol as well. Results: The study was terminated prematurely after 22 patients (instead of 50 planned) as the number of test session responders was much lower than expected (27% instead of 50%). Statistical evaluation of changes in metric tinnitus variables and treatment responses indicated only numerical, but not statistical superiority for personalized rTMS compared to standard treatment. Conclusions: The current stage of investigation does not allow for a clear conclusion about the therapeutic advantages of personalized rTMS for tinnitus based on test session responses. The feasibility of this approach is primarily limited by the low test session response rate

Heading for Personalized rTMS in Tinnitus: Reliability of Individualized Stimulation Protocols in Behavioral and Electrophysiological Responses

Background: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation tool potentially modulating pathological brain activity. Its clinical effectiveness is hampered by varying results and characterized by inter-individual variability in treatment responses. RTMS individualization might constitute a useful strategy to overcome this variability. A precondition for this approach would be that repeatedly applied protocols result in reliable effects. The condition tinnitus provides the advantage of immediate behavioral consequences (tinnitus loudness changes) after interventions and thus offers an excellent model to exemplify TMS personalization. Objective: The aim was to investigate the test–retest reliability of short rTMS stimulations in modifying tinnitus loudness and oscillatory brain activity as well as to examine the feasibility of rTMS individualization in tinnitus. Methods: Three short verum (1, 10, 20 Hz; 200 pulses) and one sham (0.1 Hz; 20 pulses) rTMS protocol were administered on two different days in 22 tinnitus patients. Before and after each protocol, oscillatory brain activity was recorded with electroencephalography (EEG), together with behavioral tinnitus loudness ratings. RTMS individualization was executed on the basis of behavioral and electrophysiological responses. Stimulation responders were identified via consistent sham-superior increases in tinnitus loudness (behavioral responders) and alpha power increases or gamma power decreases (alpha responders/gamma responders) in accordance with the prevalent neurophysiological models for tinnitus. Results: It was feasible to identify individualized rTMS protocols featuring reliable tinnitus loudness changes (55% behavioral responder), alpha increases (91% alpha responder) and gamma decreases (100% gamma responder), respectively. Alpha responses primary occurred over parieto-occipital areas, whereas gamma responses mainly appeared over frontal regions. On the contrary, test–retest correlation analyses per protocol at a group level were not significant neither for behavioral nor for electrophysiological effects. No associations between behavioral and EEG responses were found. Conclusion: RTMS individualization via behavioral and electrophysiological data in tinnitus can be considered as a feasible approach to overcome low reliability at the group level. The present results open the discussion favoring personalization utilizing neurophysiological markers rather than behavioral responses. These insights are not only useful for the rTMS treatment of tinnitus but also for neuromodulation interventions in other pathologies, as our results suggest that the individualization of stimulation protocols is feasible despite absent group-level reliability

Prüfungen aus Perspektive der Prüfungsdidaktik

30426

The identity/policy nexus in European foreign policy

Published online: 10 Jun 2015Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe; Contingency; EU foreign policy; European Community; Identity This article analyses the relationship between identity and foreign policy in the European Union (EU) – a linkage that we term the ‘identity/policy nexus’. Our principal argument is that the collective identity of the EU exerts a systematic yet contingent influence on its foreign policy. We develop this argument in three steps. First, we observe that much of the existing literature under-specifies how identity translates into foreign policy, resulting in a problematic tendency to essentialize the nexus. To remedy this weakness, we propose an inductive approach that empirically traces the political processes constituting the nexus. Second, to facilitate such analysis, we introduce a novel heuristic framework. The framework delineates two translation processes – identity construction and identity operationalization – both of which are conditioned by the political dynamics of the supranational space in which the processes unfold. Finally, we apply this framework to the time period between 1962 and 1975. We observe that the operation of the nexus was characterized by a high degree of contingency. This finding, we suggest, validates an inductive approach to the study of the nexus

En situationsstudie av dissipation beräknad i HIRLAM

Detta arbete har syftat till att göra en situationsstudie av dissipation beräknad i HIRLAM, en numerisk prognosmodell, över Danmark och att ge författarna kunskap om fenomenet turbulens. Studien gjordes genom att bearbeta data erhållen från HIRLAM i MATLAB. Den nedersta delen av troposfären där jordytan har en påverkan på atmosfären kallas för gränsskiktet. När vinden blåser i gränsskiktet kommer den variera slumpmässigt i riktning och styrka då de stora variationerna från ytan påverkar strömningen. Vinden definieras som ett medelvärde och alla avvikelser från detta medelvärde kallas för turbulens. Vid turbulens skapas virvlar som ger upphov till mindre virvlar o.s.v. Till slut påverkas dessa små virvlar av molekylär diffusion och dissiperar, rörelseenergi omvandlas till inre energi. Dissipation är en nettoeffekt, det finns ingen omvänd process. När detta modelleras i HIRLAM måste det parametriseras eftersom längdskalan är för liten för att lösas upp. Turbulens och dissipation parametriseras med hjälp av similaritetsteorin som gör en uppskattning av medelflödet genom att klumpa ihop variabler till nya variabler med enkla dimensioner. Då tre olika vädersituationer analyserades kunde vissa generella slutsatser dras. Dissipationen berodde nästan enbart på den turbulenta kinetiska energin och endast indirekt på stabilitet. Dissipationen var mycket låg över hav då vårens kalla vatten gjorde att det blev stabila förhållanden över hav. Det har också setts en tydlig variation över dygnet, med högre dissipation över dagen och lägre på natten, som en följd av termiskt producerad turbulens. Dissipationen ökade även med ökad vindhastighet. Högre vindhastighet ger större shear som leder till mer turbulens.This case study aimed at analyzing dissipation calculated in HIRLAM, a numerical forecast model, over Denmark and to give the authors more knowledge about the phenomenon of turbulence. The study was done by processing data obtained from HIRLAM in MATLAB. The lowest part of the troposphere where the surface of the earth has an impact on the air is called the planetary boundary layer. When the wind blows in the boundary layer it varies randomly in direction and strength as the variability of the surface affects the flow. The wind is defined as an average over time and any deviation from this mean value is called turbulence. The turbulence creates eddies which give rise to smaller eddies and so on. In the end these whirls are affected by molecular diffusion and dissipate, kinetic energy is converted into internal energy. Dissipation is a net effect; there is no reverse process. When this is modeled in HIRLAM it has to be parameterized because the scale is too small to be resolved. Turbulence and dissipation are parameterized using the similarity theory that provides an estimate of the mean flow by clustering variables into new variables with simple dimensions. When three different weather situations were analyzed some general conclusions could be made. Dissipation depended almost entirely on the turbulent kinetic energy and only indirectly on the stability. The dissipation was very low over sea because the low water temperature during spring generates high stability. A great diurnal variation has been noticed, with higher dissipation during the daytime, due to thermally generated turbulence. Higher wind speed generated more dissipation. This was because higher wind speed led to greater wind shear and more turbulence was generated