Pathophysiology of Circulating Biomarkers and Relationship With Vascular Aging: A Review of the Literature From VascAgeNet Group on Circulating Biomarkers, European Cooperation in Science and Technology Action 18216

Impairment of the arteries is a product of sustained exposure to various deleterious factors and progresses with time; a phenomenon inherent to vascular aging. Oxidative stress, inflammation, the accumulation of harmful agents in high cardiovascular risk conditions, changes to the extracellular matrix, and/or alterations of the epigenetic modification of molecules, are all vital pathophysiological processes proven to contribute to vascular aging, and also lead to changes in levels of associated circulating molecules. Many of these molecules are consequently recognized as markers of vascular impairment and accelerated vascular aging in clinical and research settings, however, for these molecules to be classified as biomarkers of vascular aging, further criteria must be met. In this paper, we conducted a scoping literature review identifying thirty of the most important, and eight less important, biomarkers of vascular aging. Herein, we overview a selection of the most important molecules connected with the above-mentioned pathological conditions and study their usefulness as circulating biomarkers of vascular aging.

7. Social Constructivism

This chapter examines the social constructivist theory of IR. It first discusses the rise of social constructivism and why it has established itself as an important approach in IR. It then considers constructivism as social theory, and more specifically as both a meta-theory about the nature of the social world and as a set of substantial theories of IR. Several examples of constructivist IR theory are presented, followed by reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the constructivist approach. The chapter proceeds by exploring constructivist theories of international relations, focusing on cultures of anarchy, norms of International Society, the power of international organizations, a constructivist approach to European cooperation, and domestic formation of identity and norms. The chapter concludes with an analysis of some of the major criticisms of constructivism and by emphasizing internal debates within constructivism.

European Integration in the teachings of John Paul II: Selected aspects

Nowadays, European integration is going through a crisis that has been observed for several years. The financial crisis, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and anti-democratic tendencies in many countries (unfortunately also including the EU member states) are leading to a new rise of the ideology of nation states. Moreover, many politicians are also promoting anti-EU slogans, highlighting the concept of national sovereignty and the need to protect it. Following this type of rhetoric and political narrative, the United Kingdom left the European Union in 2020. This situation encourages reflection on how this process was perceived by John Paul II, who is still regarded by many Poles as an unquestionable authority figure, and his teachings remain an important signpost for the future for many Poles. This paper is an attempt to explore the issue of European integration in the teachings of the Polish Pope. John Paul II’s statements on European integration were always deeply balanced and dealt primarily with the spiritual and cultural aspects. However, he did not omit economic or even political issues whenever he deemed them rightful and meaningful. In fact, up until the end of his life and his pontificate, John Paul II was an avid supporter of the idea of European integration, and this attitude shines through in his texts and speeches analysed for this study. Of course, in his perceptive mind, the Pope did notice the flaws and imperfections of European integration projects and warned clearly against reducing the European cooperation only to economic aspects, disregarding the spiritual, cultural or moral dimension. Above all, however, he noticed and appreciated the achievements of European cooperation mechanisms, which ensured peace and robust economic development in the second half of the 20th century for the countries which were actively involved in it.

Analysis Of Quality Control Plans For Bridge Over The River Maza Jugla Accoring To COST TU 1406 Methodology

Bridges are one of the most expensive elements of the road network, and therefore in the bridge management process, it is very important to make the most technically efficient and cost-effective decisions about planned actions such as maintenance, rehabilitation and reconstruction works. Decisions have to be based both on the current situation and possible future options and alternatives. The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) during the action TU 1406 “Quality specifications for roadway bridges, standardization at a European level (BridgeSpecs)” in the period from 2014 to 2019 has developed the framework for the development of bridge Quality Control Plans (QCP) including the system of data collection, data processing and outcomes. This article analyses and compares different Quality Control Plans developed according to COST TU 1406 methodology for the existing bridge over the river Maza Jugla, located on regional road P10 at km 34.80 in Latvia.

Patchwork of Counterterrorism: Analyzing European Types of Cooperation in Sahel

The overlapping of a series of events in the region has brought the Sahel under the spotlight of many European countries. It has been argued that the peculiar transnational nature of many terrorist groups of the area represents a concrete threat to European security. France, specifically, has led and encouraged a series of European initiatives, which aim to stabilize the region, calling for different degrees of counterterrorism cooperation with its European allies. Many European countries, such as Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, or Italy, have indeed increased their engagement in the area. Yet, not only a variety of new actors are now involved in the response to terrorism, but European cooperation among key actors is also developing along political-strategic, organizational, and procedural dimensions largely unexplored by the existing literature. This paper specifically accounts for the different multilevel configurations of European counterterrorism cooperation in the Sahel between 2012 and 2018. More specifically, the aim of this contribution is twofold. First, theoretically, through the concept of “patchwork” the paper proposes a conceptual framework able to investigate and analyze the apparently confusing multidimensional and multi-actor European cooperation in counterterrorism. Second, it empirically researches and analyzes the types of cooperation and the actors that fulfil key strategic positions in the patchwork. Overall, this paper provides a first complete account of the universe of European actors involved in the region and the types of cooperative patterns.

Economic and Social Development Strategies and Models Specific for Romania Situation

The Paper begins with the presentation and analyze of some models and strategies for economic and social development meant to the Romanian needs and specific for the development of the rural area – as the main area in the country for the agriculture field development and also following some points and conditions used inside the European Union Member States. The named strategies and models was selected from a large group of strategies using, as the criteria, the Romanian needs and specific and also the European cooperation needs.The second part of the paper presents the algorithm used for selecting model and strategy elements for creating a possible model for Romania situation.

A New Tool for Faster Construction of Marine Biotechnology Collaborative Networks

The increasing and rapid development in technologies, infrastructures, computational power, data availability and information flow has enabled rapid scientific advances. These entail transdisciplinary collaborations that maximize sharing of data and knowledge and, consequently, results, and possible technology transfer. However, in emerging scientific fields it is sometimes difficult to provide all necessary expertise within existing collaborative circles. This is especially true for marine biotechnology that directly addresses global societal challenges. This article describes the creation of a platform dedicated to facilitating the formation of short or mid-term collaborative networks in marine biotechnology. This online platform (https://www.ocean4biotech.eu/map/) enables experts (researchers and members of the marine biotechnology community in general) to have the possibility to showcase their expertise with the aim of being integrated into new collaborations/consortia on the one hand, or to use it as a search tool to complement the expertise in planned/running collaborations, on the other. The platform was created within the Ocean4Biotech (European transdisciplinary networking platform for marine biotechnology) Action, funded under the framework of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). To build the platform, an inquiry was developed to identify experts in marine biotechnology and its adjunct fields, to define their expertise, to highlight their infrastructures and facilities and to pinpoint the main bottlenecks in this field. The inquiry was open to all experts in the broad field of marine biotechnology, including non-members of the consortium. The inquiry (https://ee.kobotoolbox.org/single/UKVsBNtD) remains open for insertion of additional expertise and the resulting interactive map can be used as a display and search tool for establishing new collaborations.

Does reviewing experience reduce disagreement in proposals evaluation? Insights from Marie Skłodowska-Curie and COST Actions

We have limited understanding of why reviewers tend to strongly disagree when scoring the same research proposal. Thus far, research that explored disagreement has focused on the characteristics of the proposal or the applicants, while ignoring the characteristics of the reviewers themselves. This article aims to address this gap by exploring which reviewer characteristics most affect disagreement among reviewers. We present hypotheses regarding the effect of a reviewer’s level of experience in evaluating research proposals for a specific granting scheme, that is, scheme reviewing experience. We test our hypotheses by studying two of the most important research funding programmes in the European Union from 2014 to 2018, namely, 52,488 proposals evaluated under three funding schemes of the Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), and 1,939 proposals evaluated under the European Cooperation in Science and Technology Actions. We find that reviewing experience on previous calls of a specific scheme significantly reduces disagreement, while experience of evaluating proposals in other schemes—namely, general reviewing experience, does not have any effect. Moreover, in MSCA—Individual Fellowships, we observe an inverted U relationship between the number of proposals a reviewer evaluates in a given call and disagreement, with a remarkable decrease in disagreement above 13 evaluated proposals. Our results indicate that reviewing experience in a specific scheme improves reliability, curbing unwarranted disagreement by fine-tuning reviewers’ evaluation.

Progress on transatlantic trade relations will be slow

Significance It represents a strong message to Europeans that a return to transatlantic trade pre-2016 is not on the horizon, and instead US trade policy will be driven by the need to protect domestic manufacturers and workers from the negative impacts of globalization and address China-related concerns. Impacts A solution to the Airbus-Boeing state subsidy dispute is likely before the end of the year. The doubling to 50% of EU retaliatory tariffs on US imports, scheduled for June 1, is unlikely to shift Biden’s policy on protectionism. European cooperation with Washington on China may strengthen European leverage in other areas of the transatlantic relationship.

European Regional Cooperation in the Rectification of Destructiveness and Criminalisation of Crisis Migration

The article examines political-legal, institutional forms of regional pan-European cooperation to prevent destructiveness and criminalisation of unregulated and international humanitarian migration, refugees. These migration types are crisis, due to unfavourable sociocultural, infrastructure, financial-economic, ethno-social, environmental, political-legal, religious and other factors, harming traditional living environments. The testing of pan-European instruments on crisis migration is analysed on Germany’s example, one of the key recipient countries of the European Union. Promising forms of ordering unregulated and international humanitarian migration, refugees have corresponded with the state migration policy of the Russian Federation.