Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen (1982)

Manfred Schmitz Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen (1982) text by Heinrich Heine, Poem 39 of Lyrisches Intermezzo (Buch der Lieder

Planck mass and inflation as consequences of dynamically broken scale invariance

Classical scale invariance represents a promising framework for model building beyond the Standard Model. However, once coupled to gravity, any scale-invariant microscopic model requires an explanation for the origin of the Planck mass. In this paper, we provide a minimal example for such a mechanism and show how the Planck mass can be dynamically generated in a strongly coupled gauge sector. We consider the case of hidden SU(N_c) gauge interactions that link the Planck mass to the condensation of a scalar bilinear operator that is nonminimally coupled to curvature. The effective theory at energies below the Planck mass contains two scalar fields: the pseudo-Nambu--Goldstone boson of spontaneously broken scale invariance (the dilaton) and a gravitational scalar degree of freedom that originates from the R^2 term in the effective action (the scalaron). We compute the effective potential for the coupled dilaton-scalaron system at one-loop order and demonstrate that it can be used to successfully realize a stage of slow-roll inflation in the early Universe. Remarkably enough, our predictions for the primordial scalar and tensor power spectra interpolate between those of standard R^2 inflation and linear chaotic inflation. For comparatively small gravitational couplings, we thus obtain a spectral index n_s ~= 0.97 and a tensor-to-scalar ratio as large as r ~= 0.08.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures. v2: updated references, minor changes, results unchanged, matches version published in PR

Imposing a unilateral carbon constraint on European energy-intensive industries and its impact on their international competitiveness - data & analysis

This paper investigates the implications of EU climate change policy for energy intensive industries. Specifically, it calculates, for a range of energy-intensive processes and products, the product price increases that would be required to maintain unit profits at present levels, based on likely values of allowance prices in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme up to 2020. For most of the energy- and carbon-intensive products considered here, an allowance price of €20 per tonne of carbon dioxide would require price increases of between 0.1 to 5% to maintain profits, assuming full pass-through of the allowance price along the value chain. Doubling the allowance price to €40/tonne would double the required increase. The activities that risk being most challenged by the carbon constraint appear to be container glass production using virgin inputs, primary aluminium production, primary steel production based on the basic oxygen furnace process, and some basic chemicals production. However, the analysis has also shown that for many of these cases alternative production processes exist, based on recycled inputs, for example. The cement sector, although very energy- and carbon-intensive, is relatively little exposed to international competition. Indeed, the paper also investigates in how far it would be possible for the affected activities to pass through cost increases to their clients, by analysing their exposure to domestic and international competition. It concludes that the sectors analysed are typically relatively highly concentrated (sometimes even at the world level) and form parts of vertically integrated and locally-clustered value chains. This tends to increase market entry and exit barriers and, thus, to reduce the risk of large output losses and delocalisation.climate change, competitiveness, energy-intensive industries, emissions trading

Imposing a unilateral carbon constraint on European energy-intensive industries and its impact on their international competitiveness - data & analysis

We examine the implications of EU climate policy for energy intensive industries by calculating, for a range of energy-intensive processes and products, the product price increases that would be required to maintain unit profits at present levels, based on likely values of allowance prices in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme up to 2020. We also investigate in how far it would be possible for the affected activities to pass through cost increases to their clients, by analysing their exposure to domestic and international competition. It concludes that the sectors analysed are typically relatively highly concentrated (sometimes even at the world level) and form parts of vertically integrated and locally-clustered value chains. This tends to increase market entry and exit barriers and, thus, to reduce the risk of large output losses and delocalisation.climate change, competitiveness, energy-intensive industries, emissions trading, bergmann, schmitz, hayden, gerday, kosonen

The VERBMOBIL domain model version 1.0

This report describes the domain model used in the German Machine Translation project VERBMOBIL. In order make the design principles underlying the modeling explicit, we begin with a brief sketch of the VERBMOBIL demonstrator architecture from the perspective of the domain model. We then present some rather general considerations on the nature of domain modeling and its relationship to semantics. We claim that the semantic information contained in the model mainly serves two tasks. For one thing, it provides the basis for a conceptual transfer from German to English; on the other hand, it provides information needed for disambiguation. We argue that these tasks pose different requirements, and that domain modeling in general is highly task-dependent. A brief overview of domain models or ontologies used in existing NLP systems confirms this position. We finally describe the different parts of the domain model, explain our design decisions, and present examples of how the information contained in the model can be actually used in the VERBMOBIL demonstrator. In doing so, we also point out the main functionality of FLEX, the Description Logic system used for the modeling

Selbstbestimmtes, berufsbegleitendes Studieren im digitalen pandemiegeprägten Studium. Perspektiven für eine nachhaltige postpandemische Gestaltung von Lehre

Der Beitrag stellt dar, wie Selbstbestimmung im pandemiebedingten berufsbegleitenden Studium erlebt wurde. Basierend auf der Selbstbestimmungstheorie von Deci und Ryan (2000,1993) wurden die Kategorien Kompetenz, Autonomie und soziale Eingebundenheit fokussiert. Für eine nachhaltige, postpandemische Lehre mit individueller Selbstbestimmung wird als didaktischer Lösungsansatz die hybride, selbstbestimmte Lerngruppe mit Blick auf Interaktion und Kollaboration zwischen digital und präsent Teilnehmenden dargestellt. Aus der Befragung über zwei pandemiegeprägte digitale Semester wurden mit Blick auf die soziale Dimension von Nachhaltigkeit u.a. Vorteile der digitalen Lehre für die Vereinbarkeit von Studium, Beruf und Familie deutlich. (DIPF/Orig.

Preserving cultural heritage: Analyzing the antifungal potential of ionic liquids tested in paper restoration

Early industrialization and the development of cheap production processes for paper have led to an exponential accumulation of paper-based documents during the last two centuries. Archives and libraries harbor vast amounts of ancient and modern documents and have to undertake extensive endeavors to protect them from abiotic and biotic deterioration. While services for mechanical preservation such as ex post de-acidification of historic documents are already commercially available, the possibilities for long-term protection of paper-based documents against fungal attack (apart from temperature and humidity control) are very limited. Novel processes for mechanical enhancement of damaged cellulosic documents use Ionic Liquids (IL) as essential process components. With some of these ILs having azolefunctionalities similar to well-known fungicides such as Clotrimazole, the possibility of antifungal activities of these ILs was proposed but has not yet been experimentally confirmed. We evaluated the potency of four ILs with potential application in paper restoration for suppression of fungal growth on five relevant paper-infesting molds. The results revealed a general antifungal activity of all ILs, which increased with the size of the non-polar group. Physiological experiments and ultimate elemental analysis allowed to determine the minimal inhibitory concentration of each IL as well as the residual IL concentration in process-treated paper. These results provide valuable guidelines for IL-applications in paper restoration processes with antifungal activity as an added benefit. With azoles remaining in the paper after the process, simultaneous repair and biotic protection in treated documents could be facilitated

Imposing a unilateral carbon constraint on European energy-intensive industries and its impact on their international competitiveness - data & analysis

This paper investigates the implications of EU climate change policy for energy intensive industries. Specifically, it calculates, for a range of energy-intensive processes and products, the product price increases that would be required to maintain unit profits at present levels, based on likely values of allowance prices in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme up to 2020. For most of the energy- and carbon-intensive products considered here, an allowance price of €20 per tonne of carbon dioxide would require price increases of between 0.1 to 5% to maintain profits, assuming full pass-through of the allowance price along the value chain. Doubling the allowance price to €40/tonne would double the required increase. The activities that risk being most challenged by the carbon constraint appear to be container glass production using virgin inputs, primary aluminium production, primary steel production based on the basic oxygen furnace process, and some basic chemicals production. However, the analysis has also shown that for many of these cases alternative production processes exist, based on recycled inputs, for example. The cement sector, although very energy- and carbon-intensive, is relatively little exposed to international competition. Indeed, the paper also investigates in how far it would be possible for the affected activities to pass through cost increases to their clients, by analysing their exposure to domestic and international competition. It concludes that the sectors analysed are typically relatively highly concentrated (sometimes even at the world level) and form parts of vertically integrated and locally-clustered value chains. This tends to increase market entry and exit barriers and, thus, to reduce the risk of large output losses and delocalisation

Dendritic Cell-Based Immunotherapy for Prostate Cancer

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs), which display an extraordinary capacity to induce, sustain, and regulate T-cell responses providing the opportunity of DC-based cancer vaccination strategies. Thus, clinical trials enrolling prostate cancer patients were conducted, which were based on the administration of DCs loaded with tumor-associated antigens. These clinical trials revealed that DC-based immunotherapeutic strategies represent safe and feasible concepts for the induction of immunological and clinical responses in prostate cancer patients. In this context, the administration of the vaccine sipuleucel-T consisting of autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells including APCs, which were pre-exposed in vitro to the fusion protein PA2024, resulted in a prolonged overall survival among patients with metastatic castration-resistent prostate cancer. In April 2010, sipuleucel-T was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for prostate cancer therapy