Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Best Friend and Worst Enemy : Bosznia-Hercegovina legjobb barátja és legnagyobb ellensége

This policy brief analyses Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) tortured politics of potential NATO membership. The topic has divided the country politically for most of its lifetime and continues to divide the public largely along ethnic lines. In December 2019, amid much domestic political confusion and acrimony, BiH submitted its first Annual National Program (ANP) to NATO, potentially a major step towards a closer relationship with the alliance. This brief outlines a number of political perspectives on the BiH–NATO relationship and examines the history of the country’s slow approach towards the alliance. It then discusses the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s armed forces and the defence budget compared with NATO guidelines, such as the targets set in the 2014 Wales Declaration, showing that BiH is far from the standards a membership will require. It concludes that although steps are being taken towards a closer relationship with NATO, the direction of travel is far from assured, and it will continue to be vulnerable to the country’s turbulent politics. Az elemzés Bosznia-Hercegovinának a potenciális NATO-tagsággal kapcsolatos, ellentmondásokkal terhelt politikáját tekinti át. A téma az ország fennállása óta az etnikai vonalak mentén osztja meg a közvéleményt. BoszniaHercegovina 2019 decemberében, belpolitikai zavarok közepette nyújtotta be első ízben az éves nemzeti programját a NATO-nak, ami jelentős lépés lehet a szorosabb együttműködés felé. Az elemzés ismerteti Bosznia-Hercegovina és a NATO kapcsolatának politikai perspektíváit, bemutatja az országnak a szövetség felé történő lassú közeledésének a történetét és a fegyveres erői helyzetét, valamint azt, hogy milyen a védelmi költségvetése a NATO iránymutatásaihoz – például a 2014. évi walesi nyilatkozatban kitűzött célokhoz – képest. Ez utóbbiból kiderül, hogy Bosznia-Hercegovina még messze van a tagság eléréséhez szükséges kritériumoktól. Az elemzés következtetése, hogy bár az ország valóban tesz lépéseket a szorosabb NATO-kapcsolatokért, de azok még korántsem egyértelműek, és az ország viharos politikája továbbra is jelentős mértékben befolyásolja őket

Bosnia and Herzegovina and European Integration : Obstacles and Challenges

This volume brings together several scholars, in order to examine the progress of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) towards EU membership from a series of perspectives. As with most things in BiH, fulfilling this stated ambition does not come easily, and it remains one of the many vexing issues facing the country. However, unlike just about all other major political choices facing the country, this one enjoys, at least on the face of it, support across all major ethnicities and political parties. According to a 2018 survey, EU accession enjoyed support from 75% of the population, including majorities of all three major ethnicities (International Republican Institute, 2018). This stands in marked contrast to potential membership of NATO, which is sharply dividing the country along ethnic lines (see chapter 8 of this volume). Like all other Western Balkan states, BiH was given the prospect of EU membership through the Thessaloniki Summit Declaration in 2003 (European Commission, 2003). If the countries desire membership, it was made clear, they will be eligible once they meet all relevant criteria. This promise was later re-affirmed at the Brdo Summit in 2021 (European Council, 2021). BiH, like all others, would not get an easy pass, but the road was laid out ahead if the countries were willing to follow it. The country subsequently negotiated its Stability and Association Agreement (SAA), which was signed in 2008. The agreement still serves as the foundation of EU-BiH relations, entailing a free trade agreement as well as support for extensive legal, administrative, institutional, and economic reforms, which would bring BiH closer to the EU, and prepare it for eventual membership negotiations. Although the agreement was provisionally applied from the time of its signing, it did not enter into full force until 2015, when the EU froze it pending major political reforms in BiH. In particular, the EU made improvements in the treatment of people not belonging to the three major ethnicities – Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats – a precondition for upgrading relations. This precondition was partially abandoned – without BiH’s compliance – and having had the SAA ratified, BiH submitted its application for full membership in February 2016

Institutions and integration (im)maturity: The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

In this paper, we analyze the integration maturity of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) on its path towards EU membership and the role of institutions in the process. Integration maturity focuses on five main parameters for readiness to make integration successful: macroeconomic stability, functioning market economy, competitiveness, access to foreign finance and convergence. We combine a discussion of BiH’s readiness on these parameters with insights from institutional economics, and show how inefficient institutions are major obstacles to BiH achieving sustained economic growth and attaining the necessary integration maturity. The main reasons for the institutional deficiencies relate to BiH being an ethnically divided country, but just as much it reflects corruption and elite capture of institutions. Only by thoroughly rethinking and reforming its institutional framework will Bosnia and Herzegovina be able to move forward

Steady-state fracture toughness of elastic-plastic solids: Isotropic versus kinematic hardening

The fracture toughness for a mode I/II crack propagating in a ductile material has been subject to numerous investigations. However, the influence of the material hardening law has received very limited attention, with isotropic hardening being the default choice if cyclic loads are absent. The present work extends the existing studies of monotonic mode I/II steady-state crack propagation with the goal to compare the predictions from an isotropic hardening model with that of a kinematic hardening model. The work is conducted through a purpose-built steady-state framework that directly delivers the steady-state solution. In order to provide a fracture criterion, a cohesive zone model is adopted and embedded at the crack tip in the steady-state framework, while a control algorithm for the far-field, that significantly reduces the number of equilibrium iterations is employed to couple the far-field loading to the correct crack tip opening. Results show that the steady-state fracture toughness (shielding ratio) obtained for a kinematic hardening material is larger than for the corresponding isotropic hardening case. The difference between the isotropic and kinematic model is tied to the nonproportional loading conditions and reverse plasticity. This also explains the vanishing difference in the shielding ratio when considering mode II crack propagation as the non-proportional loading is less pronounced and the reverse plasticity is absent

Experimental poisoning by Baccharis megapotamica var. weirii in buffalo

Five male 6-8 month-old Murrah buffalo calves were orally dosed with the fresh aerial parts of Baccharis megapotamica var. weirii at doses of 1, 3, 4, 5 and 10g/kg body weight (bw) (~1-10mg macrocyclic trichothecenes/kg/bw). The B. megapotamica used for the experiment was harvested on a farm where a recent spontaneous outbreak of poisoning caused by such plant had occurred. Clinical signs appeared 4-20 hours and 4 buffaloes died 18-49 hours after the ingestion of the plant. Clinical signs were apathy, anorexia, and watery diarrhea, fever, colic, drooling, muscle tremors, restlessness, laborious breathing and ruminal atony, and dehydration. The most consistent gross findings were restricted to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract consisted of varying degrees of edema and reddening of the mucosa of the forestomach. Histopathological findings consisted of varying degrees of necrosis of the epithelial lining of the forestomach and of lymphocytes within lymphoid organs and aggregates. Fibrin thrombi were consistently found in sub-mucosal vessels of the forestomach and in the lumen of hepatic sinusoids. It is suggested that dehydration, septicemia and disseminated intravascular coagulation participate in the pathogenesis of the intoxication and play a role as a cause of death. A subsample of B. megapotamica var. weirii was frozen-dried and ground and analyzed using UHPLC (Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatography) with high resolution Time of Flight mass spectrometry and tandem mass spectrometry, it was shown that the plant material contained at least 51 different macrocyclic trichothecenes at a total level of 1.1-1.2mg/g. About 15-20% of the total trichothecenes contents was found to be monosaccharide conjugates, with two thirds of these being glucose conjugates and one third constituted by six aldopentose conjugates (probably xylose), which has never been reported in the literature

SPECT/CT imaging reveals CNS-wide modulation of glymphatic cerebrospinal fluid flow by systemic hypertonic saline

Intrathecal administration enables central nervous system delivery of drugs that do not bypass the blood-brain barrier. Systemic administration of hypertonic saline (HTS) enhances delivery of intrathecal therapeutics into the neuropil, but its effect on solute clearance from the brain remains unknown. Here, we developed a dynamic in vivo single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/computed tomography (CT) imaging platform to study the effects of HTS on whole-body distribution of the radiolabeled tracer (99)mTc-diethylenetriaminepen-taacetic acid (DTPA) administered through intracisternal, intrastriatal, or intravenous route in anesthetized rats. Co-administration of systemic HTS increased intracranial exposure to intracisternal (99)mTc-DTPA by similar to 80% during imaging. In contrast, HTS had minimal effects on brain clearance of intrastriatal (99)mTc-DTPA. In sum, SPECT/CT imaging presents a valuable approach to study glymphatic drug delivery. Using this methodology, we show that systemic HTS increases intracranial availability of cerebrospinal fluid-administered tracer, but has marginal effects on brain clearance, thus substantiating a simple, yet effective strategy for enhancing intrathecal drug delivery to the brain.Peer reviewe