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"Issues and Conclusions Reforming NATO's Partnerships Since 1994, NATO has created partnerships as an institutional framework for its relations with countries that cannot or do not want to become Alliance members. In the past 20 years, the circle of countries involved has become ever larger, the associated agenda ever more heterogeneous, and the goals pursued by NATO ever more diverse. The institutional proliferation of partnerships contrasts increasingly with what is potentially expected of them. The existing formats are now overdue for an effectiveness check so that they can be prioritised politically. The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) groups together twelve post-Soviet states, among others. NATO has supported them in reforming their respective security sectors in line with western standards and bringing them closer to the Alliance. The forum also includes Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden, non-allied states that need no assistance with their domestic transformation. What matters to them is the security cooperation with NATO. The countries of the Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) - Egypt, Algeria, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Mauretania and Tunisia - were meant to receive NATO support primarily for cooperating with each other on security policy. In turn, this was intended to contribute to regional security. For a number of political reasons, however, the Dialogue has been only a limited success. The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), which aspired to intra-regional cooperation between Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, has likewise limped along. Saudi Arabia and Oman have been invited to join this forum, but have so far stood apart. Finally, there is Partners across the Globe (PATG), consisting of countries that, for various reasons, are strategically important to NATO or have extensively contributed to its operations: Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Korea. Alongside this, there are consultations with India and China that to date have been informal. Special committees that handle relations with Georgia, Russia and the Ukraine - all of which are already members of the EAPC - complete the partnership picture. Finally, NATO's summit in 2014 created further partnership formats in the Partnership Interoperability Initiative (PII) and the Defence and related Security Capacity Building Initiative (DCB), whose functions overlap to some extent with already existing formats. Most recently, two developments have attracted sustained attention to the NATO partnerships. First, NATO's transformative potential and its experience in reforming national security sectors seem to be transferable to other regions. Such was the hope expressed during the wave of transformations in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011, as well as for Ukraine and Georgia. Current efforts to support Tunisia in reforming its security policy underline this approach. Second, for political and financial reasons, NATO will only be able or willing to carry out fewer crisis-management operations in the coming years than to date. However, crises and conflicts necessitating a NATO intervention can still be expected to occur on the Euro-Atlantic periphery. It is likely to be the rule, rather than the exception, that such operations will be jointly planned and carried out with partners from outside the Alliance. Only a few years ago, this would have applied exclusively to international crisis management; given the crisis in the Euro-Atlantic security order, however, it could now also be the case in collec-tive defence. Against this backdrop, NATO will need to reorganise its partnership policy. This should be based on a shared idea of how to order political priorities and institu-tional forms of cooperation, even though political considerations may differ greatly from case to case. The study is intended to contribute to this reorganisation process by analysing two key questions: a) What priorities should NATO members set in designing the partnership formats, given the most recent developments in the security environment? Should the focus be on transforming partner countries, or on their security cooperation with each other, or on "strengthening" them according to the Alliance's terms? Should the level of cooperation be measured in terms of the operative usefulness to NATO or the Alliance's potential influence in a specific region? b) What institutional formats can be derived from these priorities? A whole spectrum of reorganisation models can be imagined. NATO members could keep the existing structure unchanged because they assume that it is logical to use different formats for different security policy interests. Or else they might discard the current formats to make room for a complete restructuring.

Abstract: In March 2022, the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) want to adopt a "Strategic Compass" (SC) that is intended to make the Union a provider of international security by 2030 and strengthen its strategic sovereignty. The first draft of this document has been available since mid-November, and it shows serious deficits: strategic fragmentation, over-institutionalization, and diffusion of responsibility remain hallmarks of EU security and defense policy. In the upcoming revision of the compass, Berlin is called upon in particular to clarify its status and set a clear target of ambition. Otherwise, the Strategic Compass is likely to encourage an EU security policy whose motto is "Everything can be done, nothing must be done." (author's abstract)

Zusammenfassung: Although Joseph Biden has now been elected 46th president of the United States, transatlantic relations do not automatically revert to their pre-2017 status quo. Too much has changed in the international sphere, too central has great power competition become to the international order. Europe will have to be much more clear than in the past about what it expects from Washington - and what it is prepared to contribute. Berlin and Brussels should work toward a new transatlantic agenda with the Biden administration, with five priorities including joint action against political disinformation and a transatlantic vaccine alliance

The area of molecular imaging has matured over the past decade and is still growing rapidly. Many concepts developed for molecular biology and cellular imaging have been successfully translated to in vivo imaging of intact organisms. Molecular imaging enables the study of processes at a molecular level in their full biological context. Due to the high specificity of the molecular readouts the approach bears a high potential for diagnostics. It is fair to say that molecular imaging has become an indispensable tool for biomedical research and drug discovery and development today.This volume familiarizes the reader with the concepts of imaging and molecular imaging in particular. Basic principles of imaging technologies, reporter moieties for the various imaging modalities, and the design of targeted probes are described in the first part. The second part illustrates how these tools can be used to visualize relevant molecular events in the living organism. Topics covered include the studies of the biodistribution of reporter probes and drugs, visualization of the expression of biomolecules such as receptors and enzymes, and how imaging can be used for analyzing consequences of the interaction of a ligand or a drug with its molecular target by visualizing signal transduction, or assessing the metabolic, physiological, or structural response of the organism studied. The final chapter deals with visualization of cell migration, for example in the context of cell therapies.The second edition covers novel developments over recent years, in particular regarding imaging technologies (hybrid techniques) and novel reporter concepts. Novel biomedical applications have been included, where appropriate. All the chapters have been thoroughly reworked and the artwork updated.

The area of molecular imaging has matured over the past decade and is still growing rapidly. Many concepts developed for molecular biology and cellular imaging have been successfully translated to in vivo imaging of intact organisms. Molecular imaging enables the study of processes at a molecular level in their full biological context. Due to the high specificity of the molecular readouts the approach bears a high potential for diagnostics. It is fair to say that molecular imaging has become an indispensable tool for biomedical research and drug discovery and development today.This volume familiarizes the reader with the concepts of imaging and molecular imaging in particular. Basic principles of imaging technologies, reporter moieties for the various imaging modalities, and the design of targeted probes are described in the first part. The second part illustrates how these tools can be used to visualize relevant molecular events in the living organism. Topics covered include the studies of the biodistribution of reporter probes and drugs, visualization of the expression of biomolecules such as receptors and enzymes, and how imaging can be used for analyzing consequences of the interaction of a ligand or a drug with its molecular target by visualizing signal transduction, or assessing the metabolic, physiological, or structural response of the organism studied.The third edition has been extended considerably. This holds for the chapter on imaging modalities, which now includes sections on intravital microscopy and mass spectrometric imaging. All chapters have been updated and a new chapter on the challenges of translating molecular imaging solutions for clinical use has been added.

This book focuses primarily on evolutionary processes (rather than evolutionary history). Topics covered are abiotic framework conditions, morphology and physiology of living organisms, fossil and molecular evidence of evolutionary developments. The basic processes of biological evolution are already established in unicellular organisms. Evolutionary options for multicellular organisms arise in a simplified way from the usable energetic transformation potentials and the dynamics of abiotic and biotic interactions. Evolutionary processes of multicellular organisms are therefore predominantly determined by the conditions of the surrounding systems. This is most clearly shown by comparisons of the evolutionary development of vertebrates under marine and terrestrial conditions. For reasons of efficiency alone, no single species can have the equipment to capture and sustainably shape the surrounding systems in the long term. Depending on the available energetic transformation potentials, a single species is very well able to change the surrounding systems - but without being able to capture the resulting long-term consequences. This gives rise to fundamentally new questions for the design and limits of social action that makes sense in the long term. This book is a translation of an updated and revised version of the original German work: Relativität der Evolution, ISBN 978-3-662-63936-8. Translated by Robert D. Martin. The Author Dr. Markus Knoflacher studied Zoology and Botany at the University of Vienna in Austria and acquired a doctoral degree in philosophy. His professional career in extra-university institutions was focussed on interdisciplinary research tackled from the perspective of systems theory. After retirement he conducts research as an independent scientist.

Abstract: A European Security Council (ESC) would -so the German government has suggested- make the European Union (EU) better prepared for making decisions about international politics and thus better able to act. It believes that if the EU and its member states do not manage to take and implement coherent decisions more quickly, their ability to (further) enforce European rules and strengthen multilateral formats will be weakened. The EU-27's diplomatic, financial and military resources should therefore be supplemented by a format for more effective intergovernmental cooperation. However, this idea can only take shape if the German government can demonstrate the added value of such a body, and if it shows more willingness itself to shape foreign policy within the EU framework. (Autorenreferat)

Zentrales Thema der vorliegenden Dissertation ist die Untersuchung von Modellkomplexen des Nitrosylham-Zentrums der loslichen Guanylatcyclase. Sechs Ruthenium- und ein Osmiumporphyrinkomplex wurden synthetisiert, charakterisiert und bezuglich ihres Elektronentransferverhaltens untersucht. Alle Komplexe besitzen mindestens einen kationischen pi-aziden non-innocent-Liganden (A_ pi)^+in der Axialposition. Erstmalig werden Porphyrin-Modellkomplexe vorgestellt, die nicht das Nitrosylkation, sondern dessen "organische Analoga", das N-Methylpyrazinium-Kation (mpz)^+und das N-Methylbipyridinium-Kation (Methylquat-Kation) (MQ)^+als axialen Liganden besitzen. Alle Modellkomplexe wurden cyclovoltammetrisch, UV/Vis/NIR-, IR-, und ESR-spektroelektrochemisch untersucht. The main topic of this thesis is the examination of model complexes for the nitrosyl heme centre of the soluble guanylate cyclase. Six ruthenium porphine complexes and one osmium porphine complex were synthesized, characterized and examined concerning their electron transfer behavior. All complexes have at least one cationic pi-acidic non-innocent-ligand (A_ pi)^+in axial position. First-time porphine model complexes are introduced, which not have a nitrosyl cation, but ``organic analogues'', the N-methylpyrazinium cation (mpz)^+and the N-methylbipyridium cation (MQ)^+in axial ligation. All model complexes were examined concerning electrochemistry, UV/Vis/NIR-, IR- and EPR-spectroelectrochemistry.

Un poema para cada elemento, como si fuese un poema para cada amor, así recorre Markus la tabla periódica. Los elementos químicos descubiertos son algunas de las respuestas maravillosas que nos conforman el cuerpo, que nos llenan el espíritu de una plenitud duradera e irrepetible.