Can religion give impetus for change in North Korea?

Characteristics of the Christian movement in North Korea and the former GDR are fundamentally different and based on the facts presented before. While the Christians in the North can only operate in the underground, at risk of being sentenced to work in a labour camp, to torture or even to execution when identified as Christian, the Christians in the GDR were freer although they suffered from repression, too. Compared to non-members they had clearly many disadvantages. However, as a state-independent organization, they were officially recognised and therefore an institution that was capable of leading a dialogue with the government. Moreover, they were able to connect themselves to other political alternative groups representing together a quite large group that was dissatisfied with the present situation without having the prior goal to overthrow the state. Awareness, dialogue and organization - these factors can be considered as decisive advantages in this process. As for North Korea creating awareness and dialogue seems to be a target for support. Even from a humanitarian angle alone. Awareness comes through information and that should be increased, e.g. through mutual development projects, continuous human and food aid, or why not initiating town twining? Just to name a few. More contact will generate more awareness and people will start rethinking their attitudes. Even if the elite benefits it may have a positive impact. Dialogue is pivotal in order to exchange one’s ideas und rethink one’s standpoints. Thus, a dialogue with the outside world shall be maintained and a dialogue among the people within the country shall be supported. Time will show if the introduction of mobile phones and the internet in North Korea will increase dialogue and will finally lead to the third suggested step of grass roots community building - organization. An ecclesial movement alone did not cause the change in East Germany and it will not do in North Korea. But it provided an important ground to connect people and accelerate change in the long run

Resistivity measurements of neutron-irradiated pure metals and Al-Zn alloys

Report presents resistivity measurements and their interpretation for neutron-irradiated pure metals and Al-Zn alloys. The influence of temperature, the role of point defects, and the aging behavior on resistivity are considered. The experimental procedures and results are discussed in detail

Hugo Münsterberg: a German Jew (?) in America

An historical account by Jan-Christopher Horak of Hugo Münsterberg's life and work in America – or, more exactly, upon the nature and consequences of being a German Jew at work within Harvard University during the first decades of the 20th-century

Outpatient alcohol detoxification: Implementation efficacy and outcome effectiveness of a model project

Background: The aim of the study was to examine the practicability and implementation efficacy of an alcohol outpatient detoxification model and the concomitant `motivational' psychotherapeutic approach. Method: This was an open prospective study to examine the implementation efficacy, practicability and medical safety of a novel psychotherapy-based, integrated outpatient detoxification model in alcohol-dependent patients. Patients were carefully screened for relevant neuropsychiatric disorders and other exclusion criteria and then seen on a daily outpatient basis for 5 - 7 days. Patients received psychotropic or other medication, if necessary (CIWA-A score >16). Beside management of withdrawal symptoms, psychotherapeutic interventions were conducted to motivate the patient for further alcohol therapy. Results: Of 557 patients screened 331 entered the program. For medical reasons 226 patients had to be admitted for inpatient detoxification, 122 patients in a special alcohol unit, 101 patients in a general hospital. 198 (60%) of the outpatients received psychotropic medication during treatment. 312 (94%) of these patients successfully completed treatment. 301 (91% of the initial sample) patients entered a consecutive 3-month motivational phase of a two-phase alcohol treatment program. 139 (46%) patients successfully completed the 1-year consecutive outpatient treatment. Conclusions: Outpatient detoxification, at least in a highly structured frame, can be considered as a safe and efficient therapeutic approach. The data of this study also indicate that psychotherapeutic interventions and motivation for further abstinence and treatment may work in alcohol-dependent patients on an outpatient basis. Further controlled trials are necessary to compare the effects of outpatient versus inpatient withdrawal. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel

Aspects of Inner-Korean relations examined from a German viewpoint

This paper series takes a look at several aspects of inner-Korean relations, primarily in the area of international relations and economic cooperation, from a German viewpoint. In fact, the complexity of the respective subjects touched in this frame would require a deeper and more comprehensive analysis than developed here. The underlying idea is to stimulate further thought in several areas of pre- and post unification aspects by deriving inspiration from Germany's historical experience. The pre-unification phase and, specifically, the post-unification experience in Germany are of value to both Koreas. Further joint research is recommended on historical and contemporary aspects of German reunification that is relevant and suitable to Korea. --international relations,policy,economic development,Korea,Germany

Speeding up Deciphering by Hypergraph Ordering

The "Gluing Algorithm" of Semaev [Des.\ Codes Cryptogr.\ 49 (2008), 47--60] --- that finds all solutions of a sparse system of linear equations over the Galois field $GF(q)$ --- has average running time $O(mq^{\max \left\vert \cup_{1}^{k}X_{j}\right\vert -k}),$ where $m$ is the total number of equations, and $\cup_{1}^{k}X_{j}$ is the set of all unknowns actively occurring in the first $k$ equations. Our goal here is to minimize the exponent of $q$ in the case where every equation contains at most three unknowns. %Applying hypergraph-theoretic methods we prove The main result states that if the total number $\left\vert \cup_{1}^{m}X_{j}\right\vert$ of unknowns is equal to $m$, then the best achievable exponent is between $c_1m$ and $c_2m$ for some positive constants $c_1$ and $c_2.

Polarization of light from warm clouds above an accretion disk: effects of strong-gravity near a black hole

We study polarization from scattering of light on a cloud in radial motion along the symmetry axis of an accretion disk. Radiation drag from the disk and gravitational attraction of the central black hole are taken into account, as well as the effect of the cloud cooling in the radiation field. This provides us with a self-consistent toy-model for predicted lightcurves, including the linear polarization that arises from the scattering. Strong gravitational lensing creates indirect images; these are formed by photons that originate from the disk, get backscattered onto the photon circular orbit and eventually redirected towards an observer. Under suitable geometrical conditions the indirect photons may visibly influence the resulting magnitude of polarization and light-curve profiles. Relevant targets are black holes in active galactic nuclei and stellar-mass Galactic black-holes exhibiting episodic accretion/ejection events.Comment: Accepted for publication in PASJ; 7 pages, 4 figure