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According to experts, pasturing in Europe has been decreasing for many years. Today, a lot of different pieces of regulation in Germany and in Europe exist, affecting farmers when they bring their cows to pasture. Furthermore, there are social requirements for pasturing, which need to be considered. Factors like increasing relevance of animal welfare, environmental protection, and the recreational use of the environment and esthetics of landscape come into play. Therefore, scientific research and new solutions are needed. This paper aims to give an overview across selected pasture-related regulations affecting farmers in Germany and Europe. Furthermore, aspects which are not directly regulated by the government, but are expectations of society will be highlighted. Concluding from this, technological possibilities -already on market and in the pipeline of scientific research will be described. Results show that today several different attempts are made to improve pasturing. Most of these attempts focus on improvement of management tasks. Attempts also directly focus on technological improvements. It can be concluded that new tools for pasturing can increase productivity and simultaneously decrease management tasks. Nevertheless, pricing of these tools as well es the amount of bureaucracy will be the most crucial factors for their adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic farming systems have become widespread in recent decades due to their popularity with consumers and their beneficial effects on the environment and biodiversity. Through the increasing number of available studies from farm surveys and comparable results from long-term field trials, the various real existing forms and intensities of agricultural management were subjected to a closer examination in this review. In this paper, the mean characteristics and the range of variation in crop productivity, crop quality and soil fertility as well as the importance and the extent of environmental impacts are comparatively analyzed. From widespread cultivation systems and forms of nutrient management from Central Europe with a focus on Germany, the following fields of influence were investigated and conclusions for the future optimal design of organic cultivation methods were listed: site, soil conditions, climate, phases of conversion and consolidation, crop rotations and farm structures, application of organic and mineral fertilizer types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Medical data from family doctors are of great importance to health care researchers but seem to be locked in German practices and, thus, are underused in research. The RADAR project (Routine Anonymized Data for Advanced Health Services Research) aims at designing, implementing and piloting a generic research architecture, technical software solutions as well as procedures and workflows to unlock data from family doctor's practices. A long-term medical data repository for research taking legal requirements into account is established. Thereby, RADAR helps closing the gap between the European countries and to contribute data from primary care in Germany.Methods: The RADAR project comprises three phases: (1) analysis phase, (2) design phase, and (3) pilot. First, interdisciplinary workshops were held to list prerequisites and requirements. Second, an architecture diagram with building blocks and functions, and an ordered list of process steps (workflow) for data capture and storage were designed. Third, technical components and workflows were piloted. The pilot was extended by a data integration workflow using patient-reported outcomes (paper-based questionnaires).Results: The analysis phase resulted in listing 17 essential prerequisites and guiding requirements for data management compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Based on this list existing approaches to fulfil the RADAR tasks were evaluated-for example, re-using BDT interface for data exchange and Trusted Third Party-approach for consent management and record linkage. Consented data sets of 100 patients were successfully exported, separated into person-identifying and medical data, pseudonymised and saved. Record linkage and data integration workflows for patient-reported outcomes in the RADAR research database were successfully piloted for 63 responders.Conclusion: The RADAR project successfully developed a generic architecture together with a technical framework of tools, interfaces, and workflows for a complete infrastructure for practicable and secure processing of patient data from family doctors. All technical components and workflows can be reused for further research projects. Additionally, a Trusted Third Party-approach can be used as core element to implement data privacy protection in such heterogeneous family doctor's settings. Optimisations identified comprise a fully-electronic consent recording using tablet computers, which is part of the project's extension phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are major drivers of environmental change at all scales and are especially at risk from the ensuing effects, which include poor air quality, flooding and heat waves. Typically, these issues are studied on a city-by-city basis owing to the spatial complexity of built landscapes, local topography and emission patterns. However, to ensure knowledge sharing and to integrate local-scale processes with regional and global scale modelling initiatives, there is a pressing need for a world-wide database on cities that is suited for environmental studies. In this paper we present a European database that has a particular focus on characterising urbanised landscapes. It has been derived using tools and techniques developed as part of the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) project, which has the goal of acquiring and disseminating climate-relevant information on cities worldwide. The European map is the first major step toward creating a global database on cities that can be integrated with existing topographic and natural land-cover databases to support modelling initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Sarcoma Policy Checklist was created by a multidisciplinary expert group to provide policymakers with priority areas to improve care for sarcoma patients.Main Body: This paper draws on this research, by looking more closely at how France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom are addressing each of these priority areas. It aims to highlight key gaps in research, policy and practice, as well as ongoing initiatives that may impact the future care of sarcoma patients in different European countries. A pragmatic review of the published and web-based literature was undertaken. Telephone interviews were conducted in each country with clinical and patient experts to substantiate findings. Research findings were discussed within the expert group and developed into five core policy recommendations. The five identified priority areas were: the development of designated and accredited centres of reference; more professional training; multidisciplinary care; greater incentives for research and innovation; and more rapid access to effective treatments. Most of the countries studied have ongoing initiatives addressing many of these priorities; however, many are in early stages of development, or require additional funding and resources.Conclusion: Gaps in access to quality care are particularly concerning in many of Europe's lower-resourced countries. Equitable access to information, clinical trials, innovative treatments and quality specialist care should be available to all sarcoma patients. Achieving this across Europe will require close collaboration between all stakeholders at both the national and European level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to study the determinants of naturalization of non-EU immigrant household heads with a fresh look at the role of integration and ethnicity. Design/methodology/approach -- Employing data on immigrant household heads from the German Socioeconomic Panel differentiation is made among those who already have been naturalized, those who plan to take citizenship, and those who do not have citizenship and do not want it, using multinomial probit models. The subject scope includes literature on naturalization, ethnicity, and integration. Findings -- A robust finding is that German citizenship is very valuable to female immigrant household heads and the generally better educated, but not to those educated in Germany. The degree of integration into German society has a differential effect on citizenship acquisition. While a longer residence in Germany has a negative influence on actual or future naturalization, arriving at a younger age and having close German friends are strong indicators of a positive proclivity to citizenship acquisition. Likewise, ethnic origins and religion also influence these decisions. Muslim immigrants in Germany are more willing to become German citizens than non-Muslim immigrants, but there are also fewer German citizens among Muslims than among non-Muslims. Research limitations/implications -- Future research should also investigate the second-generation naturalization proclivities and those of illegals. Practical implications -- Allowing for dual citizenship helps generate more naturalizations among Muslims. Originality/value -- The paper provides a test of the relative importance of the integration approach in comparison with the ethnicity model; demonstrating that integration in German society has a stronger effect on naturalization than ethnic origin and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: This opinion paper describes the regulatory hurdles for a clinical oncologist and physician scientist to activate an Investigator-Initiated Trial (IIT) before and after 2004 with German regulation as an example. Changes in legal framework with impacts on time and costs to activate a clinical trial are described. Evidence needed to reach the objective of higher patient safety and trial quality by European Union (EU) Clinical Trial Directive (CTD) 2001/20 is discussed. Shortly after the beginning of the year 2000, multiple legal changes with impacts on the regulatory framework of clinical trials became effective almost simultaneously. They included the European Union (EU) Clinical Trial Directive (CTD) 2001/20 followed by major changes in national drug laws, the change in the legal status of German University Hospitals (1998), and a new disease-related groups (DRG)-based reimbursement system for hospitals in Germany (2000). Together, these changes created enormous bureaucratic and financial inhibition of activation and conduct of academic investigator-initiated clinical trials (IIT). Examples for activating clinical trials in oncology before and after 2004 are outlined and discussed, focussing on extended time frames, the establishment of centralized responsibility structures and the exploding financial consequences. In addition, the evolution of trial numbers and the distribution of trial initiators between "commercial" and "academic" over time are discussed together with the occurrence of clinical registries. At the same time, progress in molecular biology led to a plethora of new targets for effective pharmacological therapy of life-threatening diseases such as cancer, and the overall number of clinical trials has not decreased. Yet, judging the regulatory and administrative hurdles between scientific study design and first-patient on trial before and after 2004 and weighing these against the lack of evidence that this regulation has achieved its goal to enhance patient safety and trial quality, the necessity to completely overhaul this CTD becomes obvious. A main goal of such an initiative should be to minimize bureaucracy. For the specific situation in Germany, relocation of responsibility and freedom to operate in University Hospitals and Medical Faculties back to the physician–scientists and reduction in interference by legal divisions should be a goal as well as increasing the public financial support for IITs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the legal experience of Germany, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania dealing with the films that were created in these countries during the Soviet period. These films do not only form a remarkable part of the cultural heritage of these nations, but also a possible source of revenues as well. Within this context, a particularly acute question concerns the legal fate of digitized versions of these films, inflicting a multitude of copyright law issues, as the majority of these films are still protected by copyright. In contrast to the almost identical legal regulation in the Soviet period, after the collapse of the Soviet Union all the four countries investigated in this paper chose separate ways to address copyright problems which soon arose, resulting in a surprisingly heterogeneous treatment of film copyrights, which spans from considerably user-friendly solutions to factual lockups of the film stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multifunctionality of rural areas in Europe has become an important aspect of rural development in the last years. An important instrument to ameliorate the multifunctionality is diversification of farm income. As various forms of farm income diversification have been developed throughout Europe, the paper will survey the effectiveness of undertaken measures. First the issue of farm diversification will be argued theoretically. Then case studies from Saarland, Germany, and from Slovenia will analyse the importance of diversification for rural areas. A comparison of the two regions will reveal the chances and risks of diversification in a comparable new and old EU member state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at a conference titled "The European Welfare State in a Global Context," which was held April 11-13, 2013 at the University of Frankfurt in Frankfurt, Germany, is presented. Topics included the expansion of welfare services in Europe after the end of World War II, the relationship between socialism and welfare in Germany, and how social policies impacted French decolonization.

Abstract: The present paper addresses the issue of urban sprawl in Europe from a multidimensional point of view, identifying the most sprawled areas and characterizing them in terms of population size. The literature is reviewed to categorize and extract the most relevant six dimensions that define the concept and several indices are specified to implement them. These are then calculated for a sample of the main European cities that uses several sources to obtain the best possible dataset to measure urban sprawl. All this information is brought together using the self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm to be visualized and further studied, taking advantage of its properties as a data-reduction as well as a clustering technique. The analysis locates the hot-spots of urban sprawl in Europe in the centre of the continent, around Germany, and characterizes such urban areas as small, always half the size of the average city of the sample. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Only a decade ago, slow growth and high unemployment plagued Germany, but the "sick man of Europe" has now moved to outperform the Eurozone average growth since the second quarter of 2010. This confirms Germany's recovery and its status as the growth engine of the continent. This surely is a success story. While Germany (also Austria and the Netherlands) is prospering, the peripheral countries in the Eurozone are confronted with a severe sovereign debt crisis. Starting in Greece, it soon spread to countries such as Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. In the course of the debate, Germany was blamed for the imbalances in Europe. In short, German export performance and the sustained pressure for moderate wage increases have provided German exporters with the competitive advantage to dominate trade and capital flows within the Eurozone. Thus, Germany is seen as the main beneficiary of the EURO. This argument, however, is vehemently disputed within Germany. Many economists and political leaders reject this argument and point to the flagrant lack of fiscal discipline in many of the peripheral countries. Some prominent economists, such as Hans-Werner Sinn, even disputes that Germany was the main beneficiary of the Eurozone. The paper analyzes the two sides of the controversy, and asks whether we are witnessing a more inwardlooking and Euroskeptic Germany. These issues will be analyzed by first focusing on the role of Germany in resolving the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, and the European Union negotiations for a permanent rescue mechanism. We conclude by discussing some possible explanations for Germany's more assertive and more Euroskeptic position during these negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a new social and political phenomenon in Europe, which has become evident along with the visibility of Islam in the European public space. Revealing the current social-political context in Western Europe, which is mainly characterized by a growing drift of securitization of Islam and migration, this paper argues that there are two simultaneously running processes regarding the changing nature of Euro-Islam, which seem to are antithetical: individualization of Islam vs. institutionalization of Islam. Drawing upon the findings of the field research in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, this article shows that while the processes of globalization seem to prompt younger generations with Muslim background to liberate themselves from the constraints of their patriarchal parental and community culture, western states as well as ethnocultural and religious brokers tend to reify, or reinforce, their existing communal and religious boundaries. That is to say that the descendants of migrants seem to have been squeezed between individualization and institutionalization of Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about papers presented at the conference "Flows of Images and Media: Annual Conference 2009 of the Cluster of Excellence 'Asia and Europe in a Global Context'" held in October 2009 at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Topics discussed relate to the concept of "transculturation" as it applies to historical and cultural flows between Europe and Asia.

The upgrade of JT-60U to JT-60 Super Advanced (JT-60SA), a fully superconducting tokamak, will be performed in the framework of the Broader Approach (BA) agreement between Europe (EU) and Japan. In particular, the Toroidal Field (TF) system, which includes 18 coils, is foreseen to be procured by France, Italy and Germany. This work covers activities from design and manufacturing to shipping to Japan. The present paper is mainly devoted to the analyses that lead to the conductor design and to the technical specifications of the joints for the JT-60SA TF coils. The conductor geometry is described, which is derived from Cable-In-Conduit concept and adapted to the actual JT-60SA tokamak operating conditions, principally the ITER-like scenario. The reported simulations and calculations are particularly dealing with the stability analysis and the power deposition during normal and off-normal conditions (AC losses, nuclear heating). The final conductor solution was selected through a trade-off between scientific approach and industrial technical orientation. Besides, the TF system connections layout is shown, derived from the industrially assessed twin-box concept, together with the associated thermo-hydraulic calculations ensuring a proper temperature margin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hopper, a concept for a reusable launch system was developed and found attractive in the frame of FESTIP, ESA''s Furure European Space Transportation Initiation Programme Later, in the national German ASTRA programme this concept was adapted to newly emerged requirement and subjected to a detailed design loop. Taking off horizontally and staging at high sub-orbital velocity, the Hopper needs a rail-guided launch sled, downrange landing, re-transportation back to the launch site, and one, but only one upper stage. Horizontal take-off is used to improve safety and to reduce thrust requirement, and number, mass, and cost of main engines, and also problems with vehicle centering. Transportang of the cargo (e.g.) payload and expendable upper stage) in the RLV results in only one aerodynamically affected flight configuration. Staging at high sub-orbital velocity above the sensible atmosphere enables the use of only one standardised upper stage for all missions. Using a cryogenic upper stage the Hopper system is nearly optimally staged for the dimensioning GTO mission. The paper describes the consolidated unmaanned RLV concept and highlights areas of special interest, evolution potential, and further steps. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The decline of human fertility that occurred in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century, and elsewhere in the twentieth, remains a topic of debate largely because there is no accepted explanation for the event. This paper uses district-level data from Bavaria to study the correlates of the decline of fertility in that German kingdom in the nineteenth century, Bavaria's fertility transition was later and less dramatic than in other parts of Germany. Our results for Bavaria indicate that the European Fertility Project was right about the role of religion and secularization, but missed an important role for the economic and structural effects stressed by economic historians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new retrofitting strategy by using prefabricated elements window machine. • Minimization of the renovation costs and speeding up the retrofit action. • A potential in energy saving and improving the Indoor Environment Quality. • Further significance in retrofit and healthy home office working environments. The renovation of existing residential buildings across Europe has become a key factor for energy saving and the improvement of Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ). This paper presents an investigation of IEQ for a typical 1960s single-family house in Germany before and after a new retrofitting strategy (prefabricated element with integrated ventilation and new thermal envelope). In-situ measurements were applied to investigate the energy efficiency and IEQ improvement for the new retrofitting strategy in temperate winter regions of Europe. The simulation model replicates the measured data to be closer to reality and simulates a home office (COVID-19) scenario. The in-situ measurements showed that our retrofitting strategy increases the indoor air temperature during the heating period by up to 2.5 °C, decreases relative humidity by up to 3.8% and increases CO 2 by up to 24 ppm than before. As the simulation results shows, the retrofitted home office scenario allows a reduction in heating energy of up to 77%, an increase in CO 2 concentration of up to 41.8 ppm, 0.5% less relative humidity and 1.6 °C higher indoor air temperature than that without retrofitting. The new approach to retrofit residential buildings thus showed a potential in energy saving and improving the IEQ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When COVID-19 pandemic spread in Europe, governments imposed unprecedented confinement measures with mostly unknown repercussions on contemporary societies. In some cases, a considerable drop in energy consumption was observed, anticipating a scenario of sizable low-cost energy generation, from renewable sources, expected only for years later. In this paper, the impact of governmental restrictions on electrical load, generation and transmission was investigated in 16 European countries. Using the indices provided by the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, precise restriction types were found to correlate with the load drop. Then the European grid was analysed to assess how the load drop was balanced by the change in generation and transmission patterns. The same restriction period from 2020 was compared to previous years, accounting for yearly variability with ad hoc statistical technique. As a result, generation was found to be heavily impacted in most countries with significant load drop. Overall, generation from nuclear, and fossil coal and gas sources was reduced, in favour of renewables and, in some countries, fossil gas. Moreover, intermittent renewables generation increased in most countries without indicating an exceptional amount of curtailments. Finally, the European grid helped balance those changes with an increase in both energy exports and imports, with some net exporting countries becoming net importers, notably Germany, and vice versa. Together, these findings show the far reaching implications of the COVID-19 crisis, and contribute to the understanding and planning of higher renewables share scenarios, which will become more prevalent in the battle against climate change. • During COVID-19 spread, energy load dropped significantly in most European countries. • Only some restrictions strongly correlate with load drop. • Generation mix and exchange changed in most countries. • The biggest decrease in generation was from nuclear, fossil coal and oil. • Intermittent renewable generation continued to increase also in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Pathogenic nematode Ostertagia leptospicularis, as the sole member of the subfamily Ostertagiinae, occurs in both cervid and bovid host species. The broad host specificity of this parasite draws special attention and requires a more in-depth investigation. This study was carried out to find out whether the differences in the nematode morphology were only due to the host influence, or whether genetic differences should be taken into account. To resolve this issue, the classification of O. leptospicularis was raised and discussed based on its host specificity, as well as morphological and genetic characteristics. A combined morphological–molecular approach was used to compare specimens resembling O. leptospicularis collected from naturally infected hosts of various ruminant species (roe deer, red deer, fallow deer, and cattle). Both morphological and molecular analyses highlighted the distinctiveness of O. leptospicularis collected from cattle in Germany, and therefore should now be considered to be a different strain that those collected form cervids in central Europe. Ostertagia leptospicularis Assadov, 1953 was formally described in roe deer Capreolus capreolus and has been reported in a wide range of ruminants, including other Cervidae, as well as Bovidae. Nematode specimens derived from various host species exhibit morphological similarity; however, some differences can be observed. It is unclear if this is due to the differential reaction of one nematode species in different host species (i.e., host-induced changes) or because of distinct nematode species in these hosts (i.e., species complex). This paper focuses on specimens resembling O. leptospicularis f. leptospicularis and its closely related species (Ostertagia ostertagi f. ostertagi) collected from various hosts. Morphometric and molecular techniques were applied to assess host-induced changes in nematode morphology and to clarify its systematic classification. There was an overall effect of host species on measurements of nematodes resembling O. leptospicularis (both males and females), but the distinctiveness of the specimens from cattle Bos taurus were highlighted. The results obtained may suggest that the specimens of O. leptospicularis from cattle in Germany and cervids in central Europe belong to different strains. Furthermore, nematodes from the cervid strain appear to circulate within particular host species, which can be seen in the stated morphological variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under this theme, a conference for geographers from South Eastern Europe, Germany and Austria was held at the Centre for Advances Academic Studies (CAAS) - International Centre of Croatian Universities in Dubrovnik (Croatia) from Monday, September 27 to Friday, October 1, 2004. It was organized by the Department of Geography, University of Zagreb (Croatia), and sponsored by funds from the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe through Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service). Altogether, 34 papers were presented and intensively discussed by the 39 participants from 28 universities, Academies of Sciences and research institutes in Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and Slovenia. At the end of the conference, a Round Table on "Starting a geographical research and teaching network between academic institutions in South Eastern Europe and Germany" resulted in a number of proposals on further cooperation between the institutions involved. Some of them will be put into practice relatively soon. It is also hoped that a long-term network of geographical institutions in South Eastern Europe and Germany will be established under the DAAD programme "Academic Reconstruction of South Eastern Europe". The conference proceedings will be issued on CD-ROM. A selection of papers will also be printed in a volume edited by the Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde (Institute of Regional Studies) in Leipzig. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the August 1994 issue of "IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering", which contains papers chosen from the 1993 European Conference in Software Engineering held in Germany. The conference was oriented towards presenting the strengths of European software engineering and in exploring the interaction between software engineering and other related areas of computer science and engineering. Of the six papers chosen, three are concerned with system specification where European work has traditionally been strong. The other three papers cross boundaries in that they address issues of distributed software engineering and software engineering and cooperative work.

The article focuses on how this special issue of the periodical was conceived, planned and executed. The fall of the Berlin Wall catalyzed a crisis for scientists and technologists in the former communist countries so serious as to be without precedent. On 28 to 31 August 1994, in Budapest, the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) held a Conference under the overall title of "Science, Technology and Change: New Theories, Realities, Institutions." One major theme at this meeting was the presentation of a large number of papers, at several sessions, describing and analyzing the present state, and likely future prospects, of what has become the topic of this Special Issue: "The Research System in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe." Those present were impressed, shocked and moved: the idea now appearing between covers was born. All concerned realized that the enterprise was caught between conflicting priorities: to be done at all, it had to be done both quickly since the situation itself is changing rapidly and well, since its gravity must be matched by the seriousness of its presentation, and the thoroughness of its analysis.