University of Graz

The ATEMPGRAD technology is based on the ASSISI|bf paradigm, which shows how an active dialogue can be engaged with organisms, instead of just observing them. The PocketEthoLab takes up this principle and transforms it into a cost-effective and portable device, which is designed for use in educational institutions. It offers a range of interaction possibilities with different organisms (especially insects, but also plants, micro-organisms or even chemical reaction agents), especially through a temperature gradient or more complex and dynamic thermal patterns, which in their own rightoffer a range of interaction possibilities with the organisms. In addition, the device optionally offers a way to automatically observe and analyze the organisms’ behavior and a way to adapt subsequent stimuli to the observed behaviour. Through an extensible interface, many different stimuli can act simultaneously on the organism. Thus, we can provide a simple to use yet versatile tool for small scale research and educational purposes, which we would like to make commercially available to the general public by designing it as a novel educational tool for modern interactive forms of teaching biology, physics, ecology, ethology and global change.

Solar storms, also known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), are the strongest drivers of space weather. During planetary impacts, they cause short term decreases in the galactic cosmic ray (GCR) flux, called Forbush decreases (FDs). These depressions are observed in the interplanetary space, at the surface of the Earth and recently also on the Mars’ surface by the Curiosity Rover. A large subset of FDs is caused by interplanetary flux ropes (FRs), which expand during their propagation based on observational studies. Our main goal is to develop and test a new diffusion/expansion FD model which will be able to predict FD amplitude and time-profile caused by the FR passage at a given point in the inner solar system (< 2 AU). The model will be based on the widely accepted approach of the initially empty FR which fills up slowly with particles by perpendicular diffusion, but will be supplemented with the additional mechanism-expansion. The model results will be evaluated using appropriate spacecraft and ground-based measurements at Earth and by the Mars Curiosity Rover. This modeling and multi-spacecraft observational approach will allow testing unanswered hypotheses on the FD properties. The proposed research will be carried out in a 24-months project at the University of Graz, Austria, with secondments at the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Science in Graz, and at the Department of Extraterrestrial physics at Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel. These institutions are well recognized in the field of CMEs, FR modeling and GCR detectors and offer outstanding expertise and infrastructure needed for the implementation of the project. The project will generate new knowledge on the properties of cosmic ray decreases by solar storms, which is relevant for space weather, human spaceflight and planetary and exoplanetary atmospheres.

The future of Europe will vitally depend on its ability to transform and unify the continent. Southeast Europe, with its complex historical trajectories and its own particularistic Europeanness, has been labelled difficult to Europeanize. Yet, Europeanization in Southeast Europe has a far longer history reaching back into the 19th century and earlier. The main goal of the RESEE project is to establish Europeanization research on the Southeast Europe as a complex historically grounded process, firstly through developing a meaningful narrative integration of the prevailing knowledge in the historical dimension of Europeanization of Southeast Europe; secondly through discussing the usefulness of Europeanization and its related process bringing historical cases of how Europe has influenced Southeast Europe and vice versa; and thirdly through tracing the process back we build an explanatory model that maps the events and actors, the causal mechanisms and factors that interact when a specific historical Europeanization process unfolds in Southeast Europe. RESEE is an innovative project studying a long and much disputed ‘European otherness periphery’ contributing to the rethinking of the region in such a reflexive way that it have meaning and utility in the current EU political project of European Integration. RESEE main academic outputs include a Living Review on the literature, a course proposal and a workshop on the historical dimension of Europeanization on Southeast Europe, a policy paper on best-practices of successful historical cases of Europeanization in Southeast Europe and a number of other dissemination and communication activities. These outputs will attract the attention of academia, policy-makers and also European society since they are a valuable source of scholarly knowledge; they expose high policy relevance to practitioners and they have societal importance in particular to improving citizens perceptions on Southeast Europe and European Integration.

This project aims to study the role of normative power of the EU in the post-conflict society of northern Kosovo and to explore how has the signing of the Brussels agreement changed the dynamics of relations at both intra-societal (within the community of Serbs of northern Kosovo) and inter-ethnic level (Serbs of northern Kosovo vs. Kosovo Albanians and the institutions of the Kosovo government). The project would: 1. explore the motivation and driving factors of Kosovo Serbs for their positive/negative stance regarding the signature of the Brussels agreement and the cooperation with the institutions of the Government of Kosovo and Kosovo Albanians in general; 2. assess the intra-societal split within the Serb community in northern Kosovo between those who cooperate with the institutions of the Government of Kosovo and Kosovo Albanians in general, and those who still reject any kind of cooperation, and how is the intra-societal conflict (pressure) manifested; 3. evaluate the impact of normative power of the EU in northern Kosovo; 4. assess the changes in the patterns of relations between Serbs from northern Kosovo and Kosovo Albanians on political, institutional and societal level after the signing of the Brussels agreement; 5. draw policy implications for the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy. This research project draws from three theoretical backgrounds: the theory of normative power, ‘theories’ of peacebuilding, conflict prevention and conflict resolution, and the theory of intra-societal conflict. The following research methods would be applied: interviews, surveying, focus groups (field-work in Kosovo), and study of primary and secondary sources. From theoretical viewpoint, this project is innovative, as it questions the impact of EU’s normative power in a post-conflict society. This project is relevant because certain policy implications (recommendations) for the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy could be drawn from it.