189 research outputs found
An analysis of American foreign policy: a case study of the pipeline sanctions against the Soviet Union
No full textThis thesis focuses on the following questions: What accounts for U.S. foreign policy? Where is causation located in the foreign process? What changes have taken place in this process over the past 20 years and what are its present characteristics? In providing answers to these questions I refer to James Rosenau's pretheory, a widely employed theoretical framework for the analysis of foreign policy. Rosenau identified five interrelated variable categories which together determine the foreign policy behavior of the United States. He assigned relative potencies to the variable categories thereby ranking them according to their explanatory power. In this thesis, an adapted version of Rosenau's pretheory was used for the analysis of the first major foreign policy crisis of the Reagan administration, the Soviet pipeline sanctions. This foreign policy episode proved to be an excellent illustration of how changes in the domestic and external environment have caused a transformation of U.S. foreign policy in the past two decades. It was found that the domestic foundation of U.S. foreign policy - congressional bipartisanship, executive branch unity, a supportive public and the backing of interest groups - has been replaced by a divided public, antagonist interest groups, a fragmented Executive, and an assertive Congress. These domestic changes were accompanied by external changes, especially the declining ability of the United States to control its external environment. These factors placed constraints on an independent U.S. foreign policy and most of them proved to promote continuity rather than change in the foreign policy behavior of the United States.Master of Art
Water, Sanitation and the Modern City: Colonial and Post-colonial Experiences in Lagos and Mumbai
No full texthuman development, water, sanitation
Proposal for a EU quality label for aerospace education
No full textThe paper presents a possible roadmap for the definition of a European quality label for aerospace related higher education degrees. The proposal is the result of a two-years long Horizon 2020 project that has involved a great portion of the European stakeholders in aerospace: Universities, research centres, industries (both small and large) networks, associations and accreditation agencies. The core concept established is that it is possible to establish a sector-specific, content based, quality system, that can complement the existing national or European accreditation systems, providing added value to the internal and/or external quality assurance processes that are in place in most EU countries. The tools and processes proposed are sufficiently simple to be manageable by Universities in addition to their national accreditation processes or as stand-alone assessment. The main goal of the proposed process is the evaluation of the quality of the aerospace curricula in the European context, whereas the accreditation of the programme can be seen as an optional extension of the process, subject to further national regulations. The process is proposed in view of the awarding of a sector-specific, content based, quality label, to be issued by an appropriate legally recognized and qualified institution. 8 field tests with volunteering universities throughout Europe have been performed. They experienced the method as very practical and to the point
Creating a common ground for professional development of university chemistry (STEM) lecturers in Europe
No full textToday, we are faced with immense global challenges in finding sustainable equilibria between socio-economic, political, and ecological concerns. The European Chemistry Thematic Network (ECTN), the European University Association (EUA) and the European Commission are committed to sustainable improvement of the quality of university chemistry education to cope with these challenges. In this position paper, we advocate the creation of the Eurolecturer Academy (ELA), an innovative, European state of the art higher education learning platform serving academics in their continuous professional development of teaching competences and thereby supporting academics to educate students to be successful in the changing world. Within this newly established educational entity, there will be two levels of membership, Associated membership and Full membership. The ELA will not only facilitate continuous professional development of university teaching staff but will at the same time create a structure to support recognition of teaching competences of lecturers within the European dimension in teaching and learning. The certification will profit from the new 5th European Qualification Framework for micro-credentials, providing a much needed “academic currency” for the purpose of recognition of academic credentials. The ELA micro-credentials will be issued by certifying the learning outcomes of short-term learning experiences in the field of teaching and learning in higher education. The ELA will provide a micro-credentials catalogue that will address the needs for professional development of lecturers and ensure the quality of the micro-credentials through close cooperation with the internationally operating accreditation organization ASIIN (https://www.asiin.de/en/) using quality standards and valid assessment according to international best practice
Waterlines - Wasser in Nepal ... als grundlegendes Menschenrecht und verehrtes Heilmedium ...
No full textWo Wasser zu finden ist, dort gibt es Leben.
Am 28. Juli 2010 erklärte die Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen das Recht auf sauberes Trinkwasser und Sanitärversorgung zum Menschenrecht. Die vorliegende Diplomarbeit „WATERLINES – ZUGÄNGE ZU WASSER IN NEPAL“ stellt zu diesem Thema eine Aufarbeitung von empirisch erhobenem Forschungsmaterial dar. Durch den Vergleich mit identifizierten Sekundärquellen öffnet sich für die Leserschaft ein Forschungsfeld, das kulturelle Aspekte von Wassermanagement diskutiert.
Wasser stellt in Nepal die größte, natürlich vorhandene Ressource dar. Dennoch haben nicht alle Menschen einen Zugang zu einer ausreichenden Wasserversorgung. Davon am stärksten betroffen sind arme sowie marginalisierte Bevölkerungsgruppen. Die Autorin will in ihrer Arbeit diesen Menschen eine Stimme verleihen. Folglich konzentriert sich die Fallstudie in Dhuwakot (Dhading-Distrikt) auf kulturelle Werte und Rechte indigener Nationalitäten. Indigene Gemeinschaften in Nepal teilen eine reiche Kultur des Heilens und es wird ersichtlich, dass diese eine besondere Beziehung zum Wasser pflegen. Das Element ist mit ihrem Lebenssystem aufs Engste verwoben. Dementsprechend werden in dieser Arbeit folgende Fragen reflektiert: Gibt es vor Ort eine funktionierende Infrastruktur hinsichtlich der Wasserversorgung, und ist in der Beziehung zwischen der symbolischen Bedeutung von Wasser in traditionell schamanischen Kosmologien für Heilzwecke und dem Zugang zu sauberem Wasser als grundlegendes Menschenrecht ein Zusammenhang herzustellen?Where there is water, there is life.
On 28th July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly declared the right to clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right. Concerning this matter the current thesis “WATERLINES – ACCESS TO WATER IN NEPAL” presents a work-up of empirically collected research material. To the reader, the comparison with identified secondary sources reveals a field of investigation that deals with cultural aspects of water management.
Water is Nepal´s largest known natural resource, but not all inhabitants have access to sufficient water supply. Those most affected are the poor and marginalised. The author wants to lend a voice to these people. Consequently, the case study in Dhuwakot (Dhading-District) focuses on the cultural values and rights of indigenous nationalities. Indigenous communities in Nepal share a rich culture of healing; they have a very special relationship with water. The element seems to be interlinked with their whole life system. Thus, this thesis intends to reflect on the following questions: Is there a local water supply infrastructure and is there also a connection in the relationship between the symbolic meaning of water in traditional shamanic cosmologies for healing purposes and the access to clean water as a basic human right
Eröffnung. Begrüßung durch den Stellvertretenden Vorsitzenden der Akkreditierungskommission I und den Geschäftsführer der ASIIN
No full textAn object-oriented representation for efficient reinforcement learning
No full textAgents (humans, mice, computers) need to constantly make decisions to survive and thrive in their environment. In the reinforcement-learning problem, an agent needs to learn to maximize its long-term expected reward through direct interaction with the world. To achieve this goal, the agent needs to build some sort of internal representation of the relationship between its actions, the state of the world and the reward it expects to obtain. In this work, I show how the way in which the agent represents state and models the world plays a key role in its ability to learn effectively. I will introduce a new representation, based on objects and their interactions, and show how it enables several orders of magnitude faster learning on a large class of problems. I claim that this representation is a natural way of modeling state and that it bridges a gap between generality and tractability in a broad and interesting class of domains, namely those of relational nature. I will present a set of learning algorithms that make use of this representation in both deterministic and stochastic environments, and present polynomial bounds that prove their efficiency in terms of learning complexity.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Carlos Gregorio Diuk Wasse
Sprache und Wirklichkeitsentwürfe bei Marica Bodrožić. Sterne erben, Sterne färben und Das Wasser unserer Träume als Fallbeispiele
No full textThis essay delves into the intricate interplay between language and identity in selected works by the German-language intercultural author Marica Bodrožić. Focusing on metaphor usage and embedded layers of meaning, the study examines identity representation in Sterne erben, Sterne färben. Meine Ankunft in Wörtern and Das Wasser unserer Träume. The study strives to uncover the author’s use of language as a tool for identity construction while generating metaphoric alternatives to reality.Dieser Aufsatz befasst sich mit dem komplexen Zusammenspiel zwischen Sprache und Identität in zwei Werken der deutschsprachigen interkulturellen Autorin Marica Bodrožić. Mit einem Fokus auf Metapherngebrauch und eingebettete Bedeutungsebenen untersucht der Aufsatz die Identitätsreflexion sowie die Wirklichkeitsentwürfe in Sterne erben, Sterne färben. Meine Ankunft in Wörtern und Das Wasser unserer Träume. Die Studie zielt in diesem Sinne darauf ab, den Sprachgebrauch durch die Autorin als Werkzeug zur Identitätskonstruktion sowie zur Gestaltung metaphorischer Alternativen bzw. Wirklichkeitsentwürfe in Betracht zu ziehen
Zukunftsfähiger Umgang mit Wasser im Raum
No full textDas Handlungsfeld Wasser- und Raummanagement erfordert integrierte Planungsansätze und ein konzertiertes Vorgehen der beteiligten Akteure. Aktuelle Veränderungsprozesse wie der Klimawandel und der demographische, wirtschaftliche und technologische Wandel sowie die Vorgaben durch gewässerbezogene EU-Richtlinien stellen neue Anforderungen an die Gewässerbewirtschaftung, das Hochwasserrisikomanagement sowie an die Raumordnung und Bauleitplanung. Die klassische Aufgabenteilung von Raumplanung und Wasserwirtschaft (sowie anderer Umweltplanungen, insbesondere Naturschutz) erscheinen zum Teil als überholt. Die interdisziplinäre Autorengruppe aus Praktikern und Wissenschaftlern diskutiert die Aufgaben von Wasserwirtschaft und Raumplanung sowie Steuerungsoptionen und spricht Empfehlungen zu Maßnahmen für die gemeinsame Strategieentwicklung, Instrumentenbündelung und Abstimmung der Planungsprozesse aus. Zu einzelnen Empfehlungen werden Beispiele aus der Praxis vorgestellt.Water and land use management require integrated planning approaches and concerted actions
by the actors involved. Challenges of global change as well as the water-related EU directives
put new demands on water management planning, fl ood risk management, spatial planning and urban land-use planning. The traditional division of responsibilities between spatial planning and water management authorities (as well as other environmental planning authorities, especially nature conservancy) is proving increasingly inadequate. The interdisciplinary author group of practitioners and scientists discusses future tasks of both water management planning and spatial planning. Recommendations are given on how to develop joint planning and implementation strategies, link instruments, and coordinate planning processes. These recommendations are illustrated with practical exemples
Untersuchungen zum Fallverhalten würfelförmiger Einzelkörper in Wasser
No full textThe underwater fall of cubes (as reference bodies for sharp edged quarry rock material) of different sizes and densities has . been examined. The experimental study has been carried out by using a shaft (diameter: 5 m) filled with water. Due to rotary motion (Magnus' effect), the trajectories of such cubes deviate from vertical lines. The direction of such deviation cannot be predicted, because the axis of rotation changes irregularly during the fall. The cubes reach their settling velocities very fast. The observed settling velocities are in accordance with the values obtained from the general quadratic law for resistance. The drag coefficient Cw is 0,8 - independent of the size and density of the cube - referred to the maximum projection area. Since the effected projection area changes during a cube's fall, the instantaneous velocity of this object oscillates. The oscillation can sometimes be as large as 25 % of the calculated mean value
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