The European Commission’s stronger role in economic governance has made it an unexpected ‘winner’ from the Eurozone crisis

Several commentators have argued that the Eurozone crisis has resulted in more intergovernmental EU decision-making, with the European Commission in particular being weakened by the role taken on by the European Council in the area of economic governance. Michael W. Bauer and Stefan Becker write, however, that while the Commission’s agenda setting powers have been curtailed, it has been considerably strengthened in managerial terms. They argue that far from being weakened, the Commission has emerged as an unexpected institutional ‘winner’ from the recent transformations of economic governance in the EU

The impact of public employment: evidence from Bonn

This paper evaluates the impact of public employment on private sector activity using the relocation of the German federal government from Berlin to Bonn in the wake of the Second World War as a source of exogenous variation. To guide our empirical analysis, we develop a simple economic geography model in which public sector employment in a city can crowd out private employment through higher wages and house prices, but also generates potential productivity and amenity spillovers. We find that relative to a control group of cities, Bonn experiences a substantial increase in public employment. However, this results in only modest increases in private sector employment with each additional public sector job destroying around 0.2 jobs in industries and creating just over one additional job in other parts of the private sector. We show how this finding can be explained by our model and provide several pieces of evidence for the mechanisms emphasised by the mode

Intracellular Transport and Processing of the Marburg Virus Surface Protein in Vertebrate and Insect Cells

AbstractThe surface protein (GP) of Marburg virus (MBG) is synthesized as a 90-kDa precursor protein which is cotranslationally modified by the addition of high-mannose sugars (140 kDa). This step is followed by the conversion of the N-linked sugars to endoglycosidase H (endo H)-resistant species and the addition of O-linked oligosaccharides leading to a mature protein of 170–200 kDa approximately 30 min after pulse labeling. The mature form of GP is efficiently transported to the plasma membrane. GP synthesized using the T7 polymerase-driven vaccinia virus expression system was transported with essentially the same kinetics as the authentic GP. However, the protein that is shown to appear 30 min after pulse labeling at the plasma membrane was slightly smaller (160 kDa) than GP incorporated into the virions (170 kDa). Using a recombinant baculovirus, GP was expressed at high levels in insect cells. Three different species could be identified: a 90-kDa unglycosylated GP localized in the cytoplasm and two 140-kDa glycosylated proteins. Characterization of the glycosylated GPs revealed that processing of the oligosaccharides of GP was less efficient in insect cells than in mammalian cells. The majority of GP remained endo H sensitive containing high-mannose type N-linked glycans, whereas only a small fraction became endo H resistant carrying processed N-glycans and O-glycans. Tunicamycin treatment of the GP-expressing cells demonstrated that N-glycosylation is essential for the transport of the MBG surface protein

Management of Uncertainty by Statistical Process Control and a Genetic Tuned Fuzzy System

In food industry, bioprocesses like fermentation often are a crucial part of the manufacturing process and decisive for the final product quality. In general, they are characterized by highly nonlinear dynamics and uncertainties that make it difficult to control these processes by the use of traditional control techniques. In this context, fuzzy logic controllers offer quite a straightforward way to control processes that are affected by nonlinear behavior and uncertain process knowledge. However, in order to maintain process safety and product quality it is necessary to specify the controller performance and to tune the controller parameters. In this work, an approach is presented to establish an intelligent control system for oxidoreductive yeast propagation as a representative process biased by the aforementioned uncertainties. The presented approach is based on statistical process control and fuzzy logic feedback control. As the cognitive uncertainty among different experts about the limits that define the control performance as still acceptable may differ a lot, a data-driven design method is performed. Based upon a historic data pool statistical process corridors are derived for the controller inputs control error and change in control error. This approach follows the hypothesis that if the control performance criteria stay within predefined statistical boundaries, the final process state meets the required quality definition. In order to keep the process on its optimal growth trajectory (model based reference trajectory) a fuzzy logic controller is used that alternates the process temperature. Additionally, in order to stay within the process corridors, a genetic algorithm was applied to tune the input and output fuzzy sets of a preliminarily parameterized fuzzy controller. The presented experimental results show that the genetic tuned fuzzy controller is able to keep the process within its allowed limits. The average absolute error to the reference growth trajectory is 5.2 × 106 cells/mL. The controller proves its robustness to keep the process on the desired growth profile

Untersuchung und Optimierung des induktiven Aufheizverhaltens von textilverstärkten CFK-Organoblechen

Die induktive Erwärmung stellt insbesondere aufgrund der schnellen intrinsischen Erwärmung eine Schlüsseltechnologie für die zunehmende industrielle Anwendung von textilverstärkten CFK-Organoblechen dar. Allerdings kann deren großes Potenti-al nicht vollständig ausgeschöpft werden, da sich bei konventionellen CFK-Organoblechen über der Laminatdicke physikalisch bedingt eine mit zunehmendem Abstand zum Induktor abfallende Temperaturkurve ergibt. Speziell für CFK-Organobleche bestehend aus textilen Verstärkungshalbzeugen wurde im Rahmen dieser Arbeit zunächst der Einfluss der Textil- und Laminatparameter grundlegend untersucht. Zusätzlich wurde ein analytisches Modell in Form eines elektrischen Er-satzschaubilds einer im CFK-Organoblech vorliegenden Leiterschleife entwickelt, an-hand dessen der dominierende Heizmechanismus identifiziert werden kann. Ab-schließend wurde basierend auf den zuvor gewonnenen Erkenntnissen ein speziell für das kontinuierliche Induktionsschweißen angepasster Laminataufbau entwickelt und validiert.Induction heating provides a key technology for the increasing industrial application of textile-reinforced CFRPC organic sheets, in particular due to its rapid intrinsic heating. However, the great potential of this technology cannot be fully exploited, since there is a physically inherent temperature curve in laminate thickness direction, which decreases especially for conventionally CFRPC organic sheets with increasing distance from the inductor. Within the frame of this work, the influence of the textile and laminate parameters was initially investigated in detail for CFRPC organic sheets consisting of textile reinforcement semi-finished products. In addition, an analytical model was developed in the form of an electrical equivalent circuit of a conductor loop present in the CFRPC organic sheet, whereby the dominant heating mechanism can be identified. Finally, a laminate structure adapted for continuous induction weld-ing was developed based on the previously gained findings and subsequently validat-ed