3,184 research outputs found
Now so near, and yet still so far: economic relations between Ukraine and the European Union
No full textKiev is not so far away from Brussels as one might expect. Ukraine already performs quite well when compared to the other countries in the queue for entry into the EU. Especially the fiscal and external debt figures are better than in other countries. On the negative side, there is a considerable backlog with respect to the development of administrative and judicial institutional capacities, and a potential for macroeconomic instability due to monetary expansion, rising inflation rates, and real exchange rate instability. From a macro perspective, the most pressing issue is to end inflationary pressures resulting from targeting the exchange rate to a weakening dollar. Among the alternative frameworks available to Ukraine, the current exchange rate anchor can be made more flexible by targeting a basket made of the US dollar and the euro. Such an exchange rate anchor framework provides a clear indication to the public about monetary policy, disciplines fiscal policy, and is relatively easy to manage. Additionally, a clearer link to the euro may be useful for a greater integration into the EU. From a micro perspective, the most pressing issues which can be targeted in the short run are taxation and competition policy. The tax system is unstable, complex, and inconsistent. A reduction of tax exemptions could broaden the tax base and allow for lower nominal tax rates. Privatization has been rather limited in the non-traded goods sectors. Additionally, the completion of privatization needs to be coupled with a more robust and consistent regulatory framework in order to attract more FDI, as was the case in the new member states of the EU. Sandwiched between the EU and Russia, Ukraine is likely to derive substantial gains from EU integration. Excluding the energy sector reveals that Ukrainian trade with the EU already outperforms its trade with Russia. In addition, EU integration is likely to attract more inflows of foreign capital if the new government is able to provide a more attractive macroeconomic and institutional environment. Ukraine should press for fast reforms and use the ?honeymoon? period of the new government to open negotiations for EU membership by submitting a formal application. This will, among other things, help to prevent vested interest groups from blocking the reform process. A pragmatic approach for an integration strategy would include four elements: identifying reform priorities; harmonizing Ukraine?s legislation with EU law; undertaking steps to get a market economy status from the EU; and, finally, signing a free trade agreement with the EU. The EU, on its side, should actively support the continuation of the reform process in the country, especially with respect to institution building. Finally, one must stress that the EU itself will gain from this enlargement, as it has gained from all the previous ones. In our view both sides are now facing a historic opportunity that should not be missed, neither by Kiev nor by Brussels. --
Parasitic copepods from Egyptian Red Sea fishes: Bomolochidae Claus, 1875
No full text© The Author(s) 2015
Open Access - This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Claus-Peter Richter, Markus Kluge, Rainer Klinke
No full text: Spontaneous activities of pigeon auditory nerve fibres were tested for a renewal process. The experiments falsified mutually statistically independent lengths of time intervals between successive actions potentials. However, the generation of action potentials on the eighth nerve by a complex system as the inner ear might not be described by a simple renewal process. The superposition of many different stochastic processes are conceivable in composed systems as the ear. Therefore, spontaneous activities have been described in the present experiments by a doubly embedded stochastic model, the Hidden Markov Model. The model is composed of hidden and observable states. These different hidden states generate with different probabilities the action potentials (observable states) on the auditory nerve. In addition to spontaneous activities, responses of pigeon auditory nerve fibres to white noise stimuli have been evaluated to investigate signal transduction. Wiener kernels have been ident..
The Artist as Reader. Education and Non-Education of Early Modern Artists
No full textReading is apparently the greatest proof of refinement when viewed within the context of the social climb of the visual artist. It is only as reader that the artist can participate in the exclusive culture of clerics, humanists, rulers and courtiers. How did it come about that such a figure was integrated into the general history-of-knowledge context of research on the early modern period in order to outline what artists reading specifically entails. Based on the history of knowledge, the contributions to this volume will then correspondingly elucidate various aspects of how, in the early modern period, artists education, knowledge, reading and libraries were related to the ways in which they presented themselves.The volume endeavours at long last to go beyond merely publishing inventories by investigating the problem of artists libraries with a fundamentally stronger emphasis on a discourse-analytical and history-of-knowledge approach. Contributors include: Rainer Bayreuther, Maria Berbara, Cecile Beuzelin, Heiko Damm, Annette de Vries, Kelly Donahue-Wallace, Angela Dressen, Lex Hermans, Eckhard Leuschner, Alexander Marr, Martin Papenbrock, Tico Seifert, Eva Struhal, Michael Thimann, Huub van der Linden, Elsje van Kessel, Iris Wenderholm, and Claus Zittel.
The Artist as Reader. Education and Non-Education of Early Modern Artists
No full textReading is apparently the greatest proof of refinement when viewed within the context of the social climb of the visual artist. It is only as reader that the artist can participate in the exclusive culture of clerics, humanists, rulers and courtiers. How did it come about that such a figure was integrated into the general history-of-knowledge context of research on the early modern period in order to outline what artists reading specifically entails. Based on the history of knowledge, the contributions to this volume will then correspondingly elucidate various aspects of how, in the early modern period, artists education, knowledge, reading and libraries were related to the ways in which they presented themselves.The volume endeavours at long last to go beyond merely publishing inventories by investigating the problem of artists libraries with a fundamentally stronger emphasis on a discourse-analytical and history-of-knowledge approach. Contributors include: Rainer Bayreuther, Maria Berbara, Cecile Beuzelin, Heiko Damm, Annette de Vries, Kelly Donahue-Wallace, Angela Dressen, Lex Hermans, Eckhard Leuschner, Alexander Marr, Martin Papenbrock, Tico Seifert, Eva Struhal, Michael Thimann, Huub van der Linden, Elsje van Kessel, Iris Wenderholm, and Claus Zittel.
Hugo Claus, homo (non-)politicus
No full textThis is a review of 'De plicht van de dichter', an edited volume on the political views and agency of the highly influential Flemish-Belgian author Hugo Claus (1929-2008)
The Problem of Legitimacy in the European Polity. Is Democratization the Answer?
No full textThe authors discuss potential sources of legitimacy of the EU, i. e. of the normative bindingness of its decisions. After rejecting the views that such legitimacy is either not needed, not feasible, or provided for already, they focus upon the corrosive impact of the EU upon democratic legitimacy within member states. Brussels-based 'governance' is essentially uncontested and can hardly provide for the legitimacy that results from the interplay between government and opposition within nation states. The problem boils down to achieving legitimacy in the absence of the political community of a 'demos'. The paper outlines a solution to this problem that relies on the apparently oxymoronic model of a 'republican empire' - a political community, that is, which is held together not by the bonds of some presumed sameness, but, to the contrary, by the shared contractual recognition of the dissimilarity of its constituent parts from which legitimacy can flow.democracy; legitimacy; diversity/homogeneity; governance; democratization
Claus - Enabling last-mile delivery in urban environments with limited mobility access
No full textIn this report the development and design of Claus is presented. Claus is an auxiliary drive train module for last-mile delivery hand trucks. The objective of the concept is to enable delivery workers to deliver parcels to the growing amount of addresses in urban environments with limited mobility access.Due to the combination of urbanization, the rising popularity of e-commerce and rising congestion levels in cities, delivery companies are increasingly struggling to transport their goods to the customer. Conventional delivery fleets, consisting of big delivery vans to handle the rising delivery volumes, are not suited to the urban environment anymore as cities are undergoing rising congestion rates and as automobiles are becoming a less prioritized mode of transport. Consequently, delivery workers have to cover larger distances from the van to the front door of the customer by foot. Usually, delivery workers use hand trucks to cover these last meters, but as these distances increase, walking the hand truck becomes a time consuming job.Claus is proposed as a solution for this last leg of parcel delivery. Claus is an auxiliary module with a built in electric drive train that connects to any regular hand truck. By connecting Claus to a hand truck, a four-wheel vehicle is created that can transport a the delivery worker along with his or her cargo. The hand truck acts as both the cargo carrier as well as the steering device, while Claus acts as a standing deck and a drive train. Thanks to Claus’ geometry and volume, Claus can be transported in a conventional delivery van similarly to the hand truck. By bringing both a hand truck and Claus during delivery shifts, delivery workers are enabled to quickly and easily cover areas that are becoming less accessible to delivery vans.Two prototypes were created that were used to validate the concept. A technical prototype acted as a means to validate the driving characteristics and the ergonomics. Furthermore, it was used to validate technical aspects such as the battery capacity and the drive train system. An aesthetic prototype was used to communicate the design to the stakeholders.Integrated Product Desig
‘De Regenkoning’ van Hugo Claus
No full textThe investigation in this article comprises the analysis of a poem by the Flemish author Hugo Claus, namely "De regenkoning". It is one of the poems in a sequence entitled "De ingewijde" (The initiated) which forms part of his volume of poetry "De Oostakkerse Gedichten” (1955). These poems are extremely esoteric and an attempt is made here to “decode” the "hidden mysteries” in this particular poem. Claus’ method of using a kind of secret language corresponds to a basic feature of (universal) initiation ceremonies, namely that everything that takes place is shrouded in secrecy. It was found that the nucleus of traditional initiations, namely sexual and mental maturation, likewise form a fundamental characteristic in Claus’ poem. Yet his "neophyte” is not (re)born into a "new” (sacred) world, but initiated into the broken (profane) realities of modern society
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