The political economy of Baltic States’ accession into the EU: The impact on the role of the state. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 5 No. 21, July 2005

[From the introduction]. This paper aims at providing a broad analysis of the EU’s impact on the CEECs which is not sector or policy specific by focusing on the changing role of the state in these countries as a result of direct and indirect impact of the EU. It draws on the concepts developed by the Europeanization studies, debates on the regulation in EU and in particular studies of transition reforms. The studies of the two processes of transition and EU accession, in particular the character and outcomes of their interaction, have for a long time been fragmented and divided into two separate fields. Some analysts go as far as to claim that, “the two not only pass each other as ships in the night, but rarely even sail in the same sea.” (6) This paper starts with the premise that integrating the results of studies from the transition reforms and EU accession policies can provide new insights about the changing role of the state, boundaries between private and public, and potential implications for the success of public policies in the CEECs and growth of their economies. In addition, the paper also critically examines the prevailing arguments concerning the character of EU’s impact on CEECs and provides a different perspective on the issue. Although the literature on the impact of the EU on the redrawing of boundaries between market and the state so far has been rather limited, there have been several arguments which are made explicitly by the authors or are tacitly accepted as the conventional wisdom in policy specific analysis

Parallel Budgeted Optimization Applied to the Design of an Air Duct

This work explores the benefits of cloud computing in the development of kriging-based parallel optimization algorithms dedicated to expensive-to-evaluate functions. We first show how the application of a multi-point expected improvement criterion allows to gain insights into the problem of shape optimization in a turbulent fluid flow, which arises in the automobile industry. Our work then proceeds with a variety of experiments conducted on the ProActive PACA Grid cloud. Due to a multiplicative increase in search space dimensionality, the multi-point criterion cannot exploit a large number of computing nodes. Therefore, we employ the criterion with an asynchronous access to the simulation resources, when the available nodes are immediately updated while accounting for the remaining running simulations. Comparisons are made with domain decomposition which is applied here as an alternative parallelization technique. Our experiments indicate weaknesses in the use of the multi-point criterion with a synchronous node access, and benefits when working in the asynchronous mode. Finally, a relatively fast and accurate method is developed for the estimation of the expected improvement at multiple points

Modal Logics for Nominal Transition Systems

We define a uniform semantic substrate for a wide variety of process calculi where states and action labels can be from arbitrary nominal sets. A Hennessy-Milner logic for these systems is introduced, and proved adequate for bisimulation equivalence. A main novelty is the use of finitely supported infinite conjunctions. We show how to treat different bisimulation variants such as early, late and open in a systematic way, and make substantial comparisons with related work. The main definitions and theorems have been formalized in Nominal Isabelle

De novo synthesis and functional analysis of the phosphatase-encoding gene acI-B of uncultured Actinobacteria from Lake Stechlin (NE Germany)

The National Center for Biotechnology Information [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/guide/taxonomy/] database enlists more than 15,500 bacterial species. But this also includes a plethora of uncultured bacterial representations. Owing to their metabolism, they directly influence biogeochemical cycles, which underscores the the important status of bacteria on our planet. To study the function of a gene from an uncultured bacterium, we have undertaken a de novo gene synthesis approach. Actinobacteria of the acI-B subcluster are important but yet uncultured members of the bacterioplankton in temperate lakes of the northern hemisphere such as oligotrophic Lake Stechlin (NE Germany). This lake is relatively poor in phosphate (P) and harbors on average ~1.3 x 106 bacterial cells/ml, whereby Actinobacteria of the ac-I lineage can contribute to almost half of the entire bacterial community depending on seasonal variability. Single cell genome analysis of Actinobacterium SCGC AB141-P03, a member of the acI-B tribe in Lake Stechlin has revealed several phosphate-metabolizing genes. The genome of acI-B Actinobacteria indicates potential to degrade polyphosphate compound. To test for this genetic potential, we targeted the exoP-annotated gene potentially encoding polyphosphatase and synthesized it artificially to examine its biochemical role. Heterologous overexpression of the gene in Escherichia coli and protein purification revealed phosphatase activity. Comparative genome analysis suggested that homologs of this gene should be also present in other Actinobacteria of the acI lineages. This strategic retention of specialized genes in their genome provides a metabolic advantage over other members of the aquatic food web in a P-limited ecosystem. [Int Microbiol 2016; 19(1):39-47]Keywords: acI-B in Actinobacteria · phosphatases · single cell genomics · phosphate limitation · Lake Stechlin, NE German

De novo synthesis and functional analysis of the phosphatase-encoding gene acI-B of uncultured Actinobacteria from Lake Stechlin (NE Germany)

The National Center for Biotechnology Information [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/guide/taxonomy/] database enlists more than 15,500 bacterial species. But this also includes a plethora of uncultured bacterial representations. Owing to their metabolism, they directly influence biogeochemical cycles, which underscores the the important status of bacteria on our planet. To study the function of a gene from an uncultured bacterium, we have undertaken a de novo gene synthesis approach. Actinobacteria of the acI-B subcluster are important but yet uncultured members of the bacterioplankton in temperate lakes of the northern hemisphere such as oligotrophic Lake Stechlin (NE Germany). This lake is relatively poor in phosphate (P) and harbors on average ~1.3 x 106 bacterial cells/ml, whereby Actinobacteria of the ac-I lineage can contribute to almost half of the entire bacterial community depending on seasonal variability. Single cell genome analysis of Actinobacterium SCGC AB141-P03, a member of the acI-B tribe in Lake Stechlin has revealed several phosphate-metabolizing genes. The genome of acI-B Actinobacteria indicates potential to degrade polyphosphate compound. To test for this genetic potential, we targeted the exoP-annotated gene potentially encoding polyphosphatase and synthesized it artificially to examine its biochemical role. Heterologous overexpression of the gene in Escherichia coli and protein purification revealed phosphatase activity. Comparative genome analysis suggested that homologs of this gene should be also present in other Actinobacteria of the acI lineages. This strategic retention of specialized genes in their genome provides a metabolic advantage over other members of the aquatic food web in a P-limited ecosystem. [Int Microbiol 2016; 19(1):39-47]Keywords: acI-B in Actinobacteria · phosphatases · single cell genomics · phosphate limitation · Lake Stechlin, NE German