Clashing Traditions: German Foreign Policy in a New Era

A series of crises over the last decade have put pressure on Europe's fundamental ordering principles. In response, German policymakers have scrambled to reinterpret Germany's foreign policy for a new era. To understand this process, the authors utilize an interpretivist approach, analyzing the discourse of German foreign policymakers through the lens of four traditions of thought informing debates: regionalism, pacifism, realism, and hegemonism. The article suggests that despite serious challenges, prevailing patterns of belief centered round regionalism and pacifism, supported by a particular civilian understanding of hegemony, persist. Yet, Germany's allies are challenging this framework and calling for it to accept more responsibility for regional and global security. As a result, a realist tradition is reemerging in Germany's discourse. The taxonomy provided here allows a richer understanding of these debates as well as an appreciation of how policymakers mobilize ideas to resist or enable policy change

Ligand-Receptor Interactions

The formation and dissociation of specific noncovalent interactions between a variety of macromolecules play a crucial role in the function of biological systems. During the last few years, three main lines of research led to a dramatic improvement of our understanding of these important phenomena. First, combination of genetic engineering and X ray cristallography made available a simultaneous knowledg of the precise structure and affinity of series or related ligand-receptor systems differing by a few well-defined atoms. Second, improvement of computer power and simulation techniques allowed extended exploration of the interaction of realistic macromolecules. Third, simultaneous development of a variety of techniques based on atomic force microscopy, hydrodynamic flow, biomembrane probes, optical tweezers, magnetic fields or flexible transducers yielded direct experimental information of the behavior of single ligand receptor bonds. At the same time, investigation of well defined cellular models raised the interest of biologists to the kinetic and mechanical properties of cell membrane receptors. The aim of this review is to give a description of these advances that benefitted from a largely multidisciplinar approach

Empirical surveys of frontier applications: a meta-review

International audienceThis contribution is the first attempt to systematically review all empirical surveys that so far have been made available in the broad field of efficiency and productivity analysis using frontier estimation methodologies. We provide a systematic bibliometric review on the many empirical surveys in the field of efficiency and productivity analysis, the most relevant concepts, areas, overlaps, and potentials to explore from its introduction to the most recent surveys. We combine the United Nations’ International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) taxonomy for the economic activity with the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification system to classify the empirical surveys and to identify the current gaps in the literature. In addition to the most relevant/generic potential areas for applications (according to the United Nation's ISIC), this methodology provides a cluster analysis with the most relevant concepts that have been considered so far (according to the JEL codes). This overview brings an interesting guide for future work to develop the whole field