Civil Society in the 'Visegrad Four': Data and Literature in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

The first of three publications on the '25 Years After -- Mapping Civil Society in the Visegrád Four' project contains an overview of existing data and literature in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. It looks at where and what kind of research on civil society has been and is being done, who is doing it and where the gaps are.To be consistent and comparable, the four country reports include the same core sections: relevant publications on civil society in the respective country; existing databases and other data sources; active centres of research, training, and policy studies. More than providing just a list, this report looks at how they can be evaluated in terms of scope, accurateness and depth. Finally, it considers the question of what the most crucial gaps in research and funding in the countries are.An academic volume is slated for the end of 2014. For other publications in English and German, see www.maecenata.eu

an analysis of policies

Thesis(Master) --KDI School:Master of Public Policy,2010masterpublishedby Agnes Eszter Markus

A Shrinking Space for Civil Society? A Conference on Civil Society and Europe's Political Culture: Wrocław, Poland, October 2016

Contents: 1. Philipp Sälhoff and Maria Skóra: Dialogue on Europe - Rebuilding Trust and Redefining Europe in Tough Times; 2. Nino Kavelashvili: Conference Report; 3. Anna Domaradzka: Mapping Civil Society in the Visegrád Countries; 4. Eszter Markus: Shrinking Space for Civil Society in the Heart of Europe; 5. Rupert Strachwitz: Postscript

A data-driven microscopic on-ramp model based on macroscopic network flows

While macroscopic traffic flow models consider traffic as a fluid, microscopic traffic flow models describe the dynamics of individual vehicles. Capturing macroscopic traffic phenomena remains a challenge for microscopic models, especially in complex road sections such as on-ramps. In this paper, we propose a microscopic model for on-ramps derived from a macroscopic network flow model calibrated to real traffic data. The microscopic flow-based model requires additional assumptions regarding the acceleration and the merging behavior on the on-ramp to maintain consistency with the mean speeds, traffic flow and density predicted by the macroscopic model. To evaluate the model's performance, we conduct traffic simulations assessing speeds, accelerations, lane change positions, and risky behavior. Our results show that, although the proposed model may not fully capture all traffic phenomena of on-ramps accurately, it performs better than the Intelligent Driver Model (IDM) in most evaluated aspects. While the IDM is almost completely free of conflicts, the proposed model evokes a realistic amount and severity of conflicts and can therefore be used for safety analysis.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Mental heartbeat tracking and rating of emotional pictures are not related

Our aim was to conceptually replicate the fndings of previous empirical studies showing that people with higher cardiac interoceptive accuracy experience more intense emotions. Apart of the mental heartbeat tracking task of Schandry, Hungarian (n=46, 76.0% female, mean age 22.28±2.228) and Norwegian (n=50, 60.0% female, mean age 24.66±3.048) participants rated the arousal and valence evoked by positive, neutral and negative pictures. Multivariate repeated analysis of variance (applying both frequentist and Bayesian approaches) did not reveal any connection between heartbeat perception scores and the subjective ratings (i.e., arousal and valence) of the pictures in any of the two groups. The lack of the expected association between cardioceptive accuracy and arousal might partly be explained by the methodological diferences between previous studies and this one; for example, we did not split or preselected the sample based on the performance on the Schandry task and applied a relatively strict instruction (i.e., by encouraging to count felt heartbeats only, and to report zero if no sensations were detected)

Micellák szénhidrogén/víz határrétegének és héjszerkezetének tanulmányozása statikus kisszögű- és dinamikus szórással = Investigation of the structure of the hydrocarbon/water interface and of the shell of micelles by static small-angle and dynamic scattering

(1) Az alkáli-alkil-szulfátok H2O- és D2O micelláris oldatából származó kisszögű röntgenszórási spektrumok izotópeffektusát a micella szórási kontraszteloszlásának újszerű modellezésével és illesztésével értelmeztük. Az illesztéssel nem dönthető el, hogy a micellák elnyújtott vagy összenyomott ellipszoidok; egy közelítő termodinamikai modell azonban az elnyújtott formát valószínűsíti. A modell pontosítása céljábó meghatároztuk az intramicelláris szórócentrumok struktúra-faktorát. (2) Az intermicelláris struktúra-faktorok elemzése azt mutatta, hogy a micelláris magot egy ~1 nm vastag "merev" vízréteg veheti körül. Kvázi-elasztikus neutronszórással az oldószerben kimutattunk egy lassan diffundáló komponenst, amely megfeleltethető volt a "merev" vízrétegnek. Az eredményeket gradiens NMR technikával megerősítettük, és valószínűsítettük, hogy a jelenséget a vízmolekulák és a lassú tenzid-monomerek fejcsoportjai között kialakult hidrogénkötés okozza. (3) Az etoxilált nonil-fenol micellák transzporttulajdonságainak tanulmányozása arra a konklúzióra vezetett, hogy az etoxiszám függvényében a hidrofil etoxiláncok konformációja fázisátalakulásra emlékeztető változást szenved. Az ABA és BAB szekvenciájú triblokk kopolimermicellák kisszögű neutron- és röntgenszórásképének összehasonlításából megállapítottuk, hogy a hidrofil láncok a blokkszekvenciától függetlenül azonos statisztikus tulajdonságokkal rendelkeznek. | (1) Solvent isotope effect was observed in small-angle X-ray scattering patterns from H2O and D2O solutions of alkali alkyl sulphate micelles and was interpreted in terms of a novel model fitted to the scattering patterns in a novel way. The fit could not decide whether the micelles are prolate or oblate ellipsoids; an approximate thermodynamic model, however, renders the prolate shape more probable. As a first step to improve the model, the structure factor of the intramicellar scatterers also has been calculated. (2) Parameters of the intermicellar structure factors suggest that the cores may be covered by 'stiff' water layers of ~1 nm thickness. A slowly diffusing water component was found by quasi-elastic neutron scattering and was confirmed by gradient NMR technique. This component could be identified as the 'stiff' layer and its formation was explained by hydrogen bonds formed between the water molecules and the head-groups of the slow, micelle forming, monomers. (3) Studying the transport properties of ethoxylated nonil phenol micelles led to the conclusion that, in function of the ethoxy number, the conformation of the hydrophilic ethoxy chains exerts a change resembling phase transition. By comparing small-angle neutron- and X-ray scattering patterns from solutions of ABA and BAB type triblock copolymer micelles we concluded that, regardless of the block sequence, the hydrophilic chains have the same statistical properties

VLTI status update: a decade of operations and beyond

We present the latest update of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope interferometer (VLTI). The operations of VLTI have greatly improved in the past years: reduction of the execution time; better offering of telescopes configurations; improvements on AMBER limiting magnitudes; study of polarization effects and control for single mode fibres; fringe tracking real time data, etc. We present some of these improvements and also quantify the operational improvements using a performance metric. We take the opportunity of the first decade of operations to reflect on the VLTI community which is analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Finally, we present briefly the preparatory work for the arrival of the second generation instruments GRAVITY and MATISSE.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, Proceedings of the SPIE, 9146-1

The GRAVITY instrument software / High-level software

GRAVITY is the four-beam, near- infrared, AO-assisted, fringe tracking, astrometric and imaging instrument for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). It is requiring the development of one of the most complex instrument software systems ever built for an ESO instrument. Apart from its many interfaces and interdependencies, one of the most challenging aspects is the overall performance and stability of this complex system. The three infrared detectors and the fast reflective memory network (RMN) recorder contribute a total data rate of up to 20 MiB/s accumulating to a maximum of 250 GiB of data per night. The detectors, the two instrument Local Control Units (LCUs) as well as the five LCUs running applications under TAC (Tools for Advanced Control) architecture, are interconnected with fast Ethernet, RMN fibers and dedicated fiber connections as well as signals for the time synchronization. Here we give a simplified overview of all subsystems of GRAVITY and their interfaces and discuss two examples of high-level applications during observations: the acquisition procedure and the gathering and merging of data to the final FITS file.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, published in Proc. SPIE 9146, Optical and Infrared Interferometry IV, 91462

Comprehensive Antigen Screening Identifies Moraxella catarrhalis Proteins That Induce Protection in a Mouse Pulmonary Clearance Model

Moraxella catarrhalis is one of the three most common causative bacterial pathogens of otitis media, however no effective vaccine against M. catarrhalis has been developed so far. To identify M. catarrhalis vaccine candidate antigens, we used carefully selected sera from children with otitis media and healthy individuals to screen small-fragment genomic libraries that are expressed to display frame-selected peptides on a bacterial cell surface. This ANTIGENome technology led to the identification of 214 antigens, 23 of which were selected by in vitro or in vivo studies for additional characterization. Eight of the 23 candidates were tested in a Moraxella mouse pulmonary clearance model, and 3 of these antigens induced significantly faster bacterial clearance compared to adjuvant or to the previously characterized antigen OmpCD. The most significant protection data were obtained with the antigen MCR_1416 (Msp22), which was further investigated for its biological function by in vitro studies suggesting that Msp22 is a heme binding protein. This study comprises one of the most exhaustive studies to identify potential vaccine candidate antigens against the bacterial pathogen M. catarrhalis

Discovery of a novel class of highly conserved vaccine antigens using genomic scale antigenic fingerprinting of pneumococcus with human antibodies

Pneumococcus is one of the most important human pathogens that causes life-threatening invasive diseases, especially at the extremities of age. Capsular polysaccharides (CPSs) are known to induce protective antibodies; however, it is not feasible to develop CPS-based vaccines that cover all of the 90 disease-causing serotypes. We applied a genomic approach and described the antibody repertoire for pneumococcal proteins using display libraries expressing 15–150 amino acid fragments of the pathogen's proteome. Serum antibodies of exposed, but not infected, individuals and convalescing patients identified the ANTIGENome of pneumococcus consisting of ∼140 antigens, many of them surface exposed. Based on several in vitro assays, 18 novel candidates were preselected for animal studies, and 4 of them showed significant protection against lethal sepsis. Two lead vaccine candidates, protein required for cell wall separation of group B streptococcus (PcsB) and serine/threonine protein kinase (StkP), were found to be exceptionally conserved among clinical isolates (>99.5% identity) and cross-protective against four different serotypes in lethal sepsis and pneumonia models, and have important nonredundant functions in bacterial multiplication based on gene deletion studies. We describe for the first time opsonophagocytic killing activity for pneumococcal protein antigens. A vaccine containing PcsB and StkP is intended for the prevention of infections caused by all serotypes of pneumococcus in the elderly and in children