HOW TO APPRAISE THE STATE OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION TODAY?

As a prelude to the yearlong EU Intergovernmental Conference(IGC),theTurin summit of the EU held late March has once again evoked heated discussionson Europe’s integration among press and academic circles both at home andabroad.The idealists among them are grumbling that the pace of the integration

The Inspiration of European Integration to Asia-Pacific Regional Cooperation

The two different developing trends in current Asia are in sharp contrast with each other. One is relying on military means to solve regional conflicts, the other is coordinating and stabilizing inter-state relations through economic integration. The latter is undoubtedly the target to be sought after. Summarizing Europe’s experience is conducive to reaching the goal.

IMPACTED BY RIGHT-WING POPULISM, WITHER EUROPEAN INTEGRATION?

2017 is an election year for Europe,also a year on which hinges the destiny of Europe.In view of the general rise of right-wing populist parties in the EU,there have been concerns if another'black swan'would fly out of the general elections of the Netherland,France and Germany.To date,the Dutch and French

Youth Public Organizations in European Integration Processes of Ukraine

It is described in the article the participation of Ukrainian youth NGOs in the process of European integration;the stages of the formation and development of youth NGOs,that revealed the pattern in their creation connected with the appropriate transformation of the values of modern Ukrainian youth.Pointed out that the formation of value orientations of Ukrainian youth took place with the development and consolidation of democratic values in Ukrainian society.Underlined the issue of solving problems of the formation and implementation of the state youth policy in Ukraine,participation of young people and youth associations in the processes of state building and development of a democratic society.It is proved that youth is an important factor in social and political processes in Ukraine and the most active participant in the state social and political life.The character of modern youth movements and the influence on informal youth initiatives on society are revealed.Some specific features of the development of modern youth public organizations in Ukraine and their involving in the process of decentralization-participation of young people in the activities of local government bodies,at all levels are outlined.The role of international organizations in supporting the youth organizations of Ukraine and involving the younger generation in international projects is shown,which also promoted the more active integration of Ukrainian society into the European community.

Silicon-based optoelectronic heterogeneous integration for optical interconnection

The performance of optical interconnection has improved dramatically in recent years.Silicon-based optoelectronic heterogeneous integration is the key enabler to achieve high performance optical interconnection,which not only provides the optical gain which is absent from native Si substrates and enables complete photonic functionalities on chip,but also improves the system performance through advanced heterogeneous integrated packaging.This paper reviews recent progress of silicon-based optoelectronic heterogeneous integration in high performance optical interconnection.The research status,development trend and application of ultra-low loss optical waveguides,high-speed detectors,high-speed modulators,lasers and 2D,2.5D,3D and monolithic integration are focused on.

Carbon nanotube integrated circuit technology:purification,assembly and integration

As the manufacturing process of silicon-based integrated circuits(ICs)approaches its physical limit,the quantum effect of silicon-based field-effect transistors(FETs)has become increasingly evident.And the burgeoning carbon-based semiconductor technology has become one of the most disruptive technologies in the post-Moore era.As one-dimensional nanomaterials,carbon nanotubes(CNTs)are far superior to silicon at the same technology nodes of FETs because of their excellent electrical transport and scaling properties,rendering them the most competitive material in the next-generation ICs technology.However,certain challenges impede the industrialization of CNTs,particularly in terms of material preparation,which significantly hinders the development of CNT-based ICs.Focusing on CNT-based ICs technology,this review summarizes its main technical status,development trends,existing challenges,and future development directions.

Diversity, Cohesion and the Development of the European Integration

The European Union （EU） this year has entered into the next phase of its existence, not only in terms of new economic conditions of the unwinding of the financial and economic crisis, but also on the basis of the results of European Parliament elections and the adoption of the EU financial fi＇amework for the period from 2014 to 2020. These indisputable facts does not change our view of the situation in which the EU is, or at major tasks whose managing can be considered as condition of its continued existence as an important part of the global economy. As the fundamental problem of the EU, persisting differences in economic level of the member states is considered. The aim of this paper is not to formulate and even to propose how the EU should look like in the future, but to assess criteria of decision making about concept of its future direction. In this context, the verification of argument will be performed, that only the integration of the countries that have common interests and objectives respectively are able to make the same efforts to meet them, is in certain stages of integration possible and functional. Conversely, a broader territorial structured integration of countries with significantly different economic parameters is feasible and functional only at lower stages of integration. This paper starts from that the process of economic convergence among member states as a condition for integration can be realized at the lower stage of the integration process, in terms of economic and monetary union, then only the expense of reducing the dynamics of economic development of integration group as a whole. Some degree of equilibrium of economic levels represents an important condition for the success of the integration project. To meet this goal, current differences in economic level of individual EU member states （comparative analysis using indicators of growth rate and development of GDP/capita） will be analyzed, including the assessment of the cost of the EU for the implementation of cohesion policy, both in terms of the economic crisis and the phase of requirement to the revival of the European economy. In this context, also the effectiveness of institutional arrangements of decision-making procedures will be assessed.

U-Net Models for Representing Wind Stress Anomalies over the Tropical Pacific and Their Integrations with an Intermediate Coupled Model for ENSO Studies

El Niño-Southern Oscillation(ENSO)is the strongest interannual climate mode influencing the coupled ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific,and numerous dynamical and statistical models have been developed to simulate and predict it.In some simplified coupled ocean-atmosphere models,the relationship between sea surface temperature(SST)anomalies and wind stress(τ)anomalies can be constructed by statistical methods,such as singular value decomposition(SVD).In recent years,the applications of artificial intelligence(AI)to climate modeling have shown promising prospects,and the integrations of AI-based models with dynamical models are active areas of research.This study constructs U-Net models for representing the relationship between SSTAs andτanomalies in the tropical Pacific;the UNet-derivedτmodel,denoted asτUNet,is then used to replace the original SVD-basedτmodel of an intermediate coupled model(ICM),forming a newly AI-integrated ICM,referred to as ICM-UNet.The simulation results obtained from ICM-UNet demonstrate their ability to represent the spatiotemporal variability of oceanic and atmospheric anomaly fields in the equatorial Pacific.In the ocean-only case study,theτUNet-derived wind stress anomaly fields are used to force the ocean component of the ICM,the results of which also indicate reasonable simulations of typical ENSO events.These results demonstrate the feasibility of integrating an AI-derived model with a physics-based dynamical model for ENSO modeling studies.Furthermore,the successful integration of the dynamical ocean models with the AI-based atmospheric wind model provides a novel approach to ocean-atmosphere interaction modeling studies.

The Role of the European Union in Socio-economic Integration of Immigrants Residing in Azerbaijan: Current Problems, Tendencies, and Perspectives

The chosen study mainly concerns on the migration issue,which has become a phenomenon in the European Union’s political economy in the contemporary era,within the recent years,which identifies the role of migrants in Azerbaijani labor market and other areas of economic integration involving the current trends,challenges,and perspectives in the political or socio-economic fields.The long-brewing Civil War in Syria created a large-scale trajectory of migrants,resulting in a massive influx of refugees from Turkey to Greece and then to Germany.Recently,the issue of migration is now transforming into a phenomenon among the member states of the European Union prompting them to take immediate action and make crucial decisions in the country’s political economy.As a result,modern migration can play a pivotal role both for the EU and for Azerbaijan in the direction of flow of people,capital and services,remittances,improving socio-economic well-being and the cheap labor force in the international labor market.The key criterion of the study is to identify specific ways in which persons or migrants who are involved in the migration process can be able to also contribute to the sustainable economic development of the region by positively influencing IDPs on the local population,labor market activities,and overall political and economic activity.The main idea behind the research is to investigate the economic integration of immigrants in Azerbaijan through its original theoretical and empirical study of migration that plays an important role in the EU’s political economy.The research aims to better regulate labor migration processes in Azerbaijan with the help of the European Union and to optimize the impact on labor productivity in the country by providing economic integration of migrants in the local labor market.The main focus of this study is to identify the role of the European Union in the economic integration of immigrants in Azerbaijan,the legal migration and migration process,based on the Joint Declaration on Resettlement Partnership launched between the EU and Azerbaijan.

A stable implicit nodal integration-based particle finite element method(N-PFEM)for modelling saturated soil dynamics

In this study,we present a novel nodal integration-based particle finite element method(N-PFEM)designed for the dynamic analysis of saturated soils.Our approach incorporates the nodal integration technique into a generalised Hellinger-Reissner(HR)variational principle,creating an implicit PFEM formulation.To mitigate the volumetric locking issue in low-order elements,we employ a node-based strain smoothing technique.By discretising field variables at the centre of smoothing cells,we achieve nodal integration over cells,eliminating the need for sophisticated mapping operations after re-meshing in the PFEM.We express the discretised governing equations as a min-max optimisation problem,which is further reformulated as a standard second-order cone programming(SOCP)problem.Stresses,pore water pressure,and displacements are simultaneously determined using the advanced primal-dual interior point method.Consequently,our numerical model offers improved accuracy for stresses and pore water pressure compared to the displacement-based PFEM formulation.Numerical experiments demonstrate that the N-PFEM efficiently captures both transient and long-term hydro-mechanical behaviour of saturated soils with high accuracy,obviating the need for stabilisation or regularisation techniques commonly employed in other nodal integration-based PFEM approaches.This work holds significant implications for the development of robust and accurate numerical tools for studying saturated soil dynamics.

Possible Methodology for Assessing Latvia’s Integration Process in the European Union

In May 2019,the 15th anniversary of Latvia’s membership in the European Union is celebrated.Apart from purely economic results,membership in the European Union undoubtedly also affects the functioning of the state public administration system.The EU encourages to maximise the rational use of human resources,ensure the efficient functioning of institutions,and provide modern,high-quality,and convenient services to the population,while reducing the administrative burden and simplifying the regulatory framework.At the same time,even after 15 years,the assessment of the impact of Latvia’s membership in the EU is rather hypothetical,since the evaluation of the actual impact of integration and joining the European Union has been largely fragmented.At this paper,the author focuses on analysing the possible methodology which can be used for assessing Latvia’s integration process in the European Union.The impact assessment method has also found its way of being applied to the process of European integration.In the context of this integration,the impact assessment aims to provide with information on the political,economic,social,and environmental impact of implementing the Community policy or certain regulations and directives.The author wants to stress that the EU integration is not the only area where impact assessment method could be applied in the public governance.This method can(and actually is)widely used for evaluation of different public policy strategies and programs.This paper deals with case research using the“comparative research on public management policy”proposed by Michael Barzelay.Its purpose is to understand the changes in public administration policy by using case studies.Barzelay suggests using one of the models—the Kingdon’s model,the Baumgartner and Jones’s model,or Levitt and March’s model allowing one to analyse the public policy-making process.

The Challenges of the European Union＇s Migration and Integration Policy-The Road to a Common Immigration Policy

This study is about the main problem of the European Union arising from the social status of migrant or migrant background population. It is trying to reveal the real causes, why migrants have difficulties in adapting to the conventions of the receiver countries. The study also focuses on three main questions： the social status of women, public education, and the anomalies of the labour market. It is also trying to find the possible way for the EU communities how to establish and develop a common immigration policy, which can solve the problem in an integrated package system and also fit into the characteristic features of the member-states. This paper is going to give an overview on issues affecting both migrant and migrant-originated communities and is going to analyse cause-reason connections. We also must find efficient responses adequate for applying as strategies for tackling challenges of this nature, which Hungary performs its EU Presidency in first term of the year 2011.

On the Praxis-Oriented Semiotic Aesthetics in Eastern European Marxism

Eastern European Marxism,taking a critical stance towards structuralism,gave rise to a unique paradigm of praxis-oriented semiotic aesthetics.This novel approach posits that signs emerge from humans’social praxis and also function as a means of praxis.It further delves into the principle governing the generation and usage of signs,i.e.,the Economy Principle,the homogenization of signs,the situatedness or contextual constraints,as well as their aesthetic features and transcendental attributes.As a result,the praxis-oriented semiotic aesthetics within Eastern European Marxism exhibits distinct theoretical value.

The Impact of Big Five Personality Traits on Older Europeans’ Physical Health

Investigating the role of Big Five personality traits in relation to various health outcomes has been extensively studied. The impact of “Big Five” on physical health is here explored for older Europeans with a focus on examining age groups differences. The study sample included 378,500 respondents derived from the seventh data wave of Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The physical health status of older Europeans was estimated by constructing an index considering the combined effect of well-established health indicators such as the number of chronic diseases, mobility limitations, limitations with basic and instrumental activities of daily living, and self-perceived health. This index was used for an overall physical health assessment, for which the higher the score for an individual, the worst health level. Then, through a dichotomization process applied to the retrieved Principal Component Analysis scores, a two-group discrimination (good or bad health status) of SHARE participants was obtained as regards their physical health condition, allowing for further con-structing logistic regression models to assess the predictive significance of “Big Five” and their protective role for physical health. Results showed that neuroti-cism was the most significant predictor of physical health for all age groups un-der consideration, while extraversion, agreeableness and openness were not found to significantly affect the self-reported physical health levels of midlife adults aged 50 up to 64. Older adults aged 65 up to 79 were more prone to open-ness, whereas the oldest old individuals aged 80 up to 105 were mainly affected by openness and conscientiousness. .

The European Cup Has Limited Effect to “Save” Europe

On June 15th,the one-month European Football Championship(hereinafter referred to as the European Cup)kicked off in Germany.In 2023,Germany’s GDP shrank by 0.3%,which was the worst performance among the world’s major economies.This year,Germany is pinning its hopes on the European Championship to stimulate consumption and boost the economy.

Potential of the Arkhangelsk seismic network for European Arctic monitoring

The Arkhangelsk Seismic Network(ASN)of the N.Laverov Federal Center for Integrated Arctic Research of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences,founded in 2003,includes 10 permanent seismic stations located on the coasts of the White,Barents,and Kara Seas and on the Arctic archipelagos of Novaya Zemlya,Franz Josef Land,and Severnaya Zemlya.The network is registered with the International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks and the International Seismological Center.We used not only ASN data to process earthquakes but also the waveforms of various international seismic stations.The 13,000 seismic events were registered using ASN data for 2012-2022,and for 5,500 of them,we determined the parameters of the earthquake epicenters from the European Arctic.The spatial distribution of epicenters shows that the ASN monitors not only the main seismically active zones but also weak seismicity on the shelf of the Barents and Kara Seas.The representative magnitude of ASN was ML,rep=3.5.The level of microseismic noise has seasonal variations that affect the registration capabilities of each station included in the ASN and the overall sensitivity of the network as a whole.In summer,the sensitivity of the ASN decreased owing to the increasing microseismic and ambient noises,whereas in winter,the sensitivity of the ASN increased significantly because of the decrease.

The launch of European technical committee on carbon capture, utilization and storage

The Dutch Standardization Institute(NEN) has initiated the establishment of a European technical committee(CEN/TC 474) that will develop European Standards across the CCUS(carbon capture, utilization and storage) value chain. With broad participation from CEN Members and European organizations, the committee kicked off in Brussels and finalized its scope and first work programme.

Cardiovascular diseases in European ethnic minorities: Beyond the traditional cardiovascular risk factors

This editorial is intended to be a reflection on cardiovascular disease(CVD)burden in European ethnic minorities.In some European countries,ethnic minority realities,due to their recent appearance,are still to be studied in depth.The experience of several European countries,where the migration processes started earlier,even more than a century ago,can help by being an example.Many studies have shown that major differences in CVD burden exist not only between countries,but also within the same country when considering different social strata and ethnic groups.The CV risk factors underlying heart disease have been well established.Important epidemiological studies have helped us understand that the underlying causes of heart disease as well as the behaviors that can help prevent them are the same.We are now well aware that CVD should be treated by considering a holistic approach.This is why the social determinants(SDs)of health that may worsen the disease burden or that,vice versa,may improve the treatment,and even more significantly,the prognosis of a patient’s illness should be taken into consideration.For ethnic minority patients,this holistic,hermeneutic approach is of importance.Several SDs of health that influence CVDs have been identified but their relevance for the health of ethnic minorities has not yet been clearly defined.In some European countries,most ethnic minorities are largely also religious minorities.Only a few studies have evaluated the role of religion,which is an important SD that affects the probability of having CV risk factors and diseases.Adolescents,particularly those belonging to the second generation,seem to be the weak link.If we believe that these young people are really citizens of their country of birth,then a way of recognizing their belonging to the community starts from a will to better understand their condition,in order to assist them while they grow physically and mentally.Thinking about safeguarding the health of this population should be more than a health task,rather a goal of social justice.

A novel self-alignment method for high precision silicon diffraction microlens arrays preparation and its integration with infrared focal plane arrays

Silicon(Si)diffraction microlens arrays are usually used to integrating with infrared focal plane arrays(IRFPAs)to improve their performance.The errors of lithography are unavoidable in the process of the Si diffrac-tion microlens arrays preparation in the conventional engraving method.It has a serious impact on its performance and subsequent applications.In response to the problem of errors of Si diffraction microlens arrays in the conven-tional method,a novel self-alignment method for high precision Si diffraction microlens arrays preparation is pro-posed.The accuracy of the Si diffractive microlens arrays preparation is determined by the accuracy of the first li-thography mask in the novel self-alignment method.In the subsequent etching,the etched area will be protected by the mask layer and the sacrifice layer or the protective layer.The unprotection area is carved to effectively block the non-etching areas,accurately etch the etching area required,and solve the problem of errors.The high precision Si diffraction microlens arrays are obtained by the novel self-alignment method and the diffraction effi-ciency could reach 92.6%.After integrating with IRFPAs,the average blackbody responsity increased by 8.3%,and the average blackbody detectivity increased by 10.3%.It indicates that the Si diffraction microlens arrays can improve the filling factor and reduce crosstalk of IRFPAs through convergence,thereby improving the perfor-mance of the IRFPAs.The results are of great reference significance for improving their performance through opti-mizing the preparation level of micro nano devices.