Academic and Research Network of Slovenia

The e-IRG Workshop, organised in the framework of the Slovenian EU Presidency, took place on 1.-2. December 2021. The Workshop was implemented as three virtual sessions addressing main topics of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the Union concerning the resilience of Europe, its future and way of life, and the stability in the European neighbourhood. The three main topics addressed were i) <strong><em>Need for resilient and reconfigurable e-Infrastructures</em></strong>, ii) <strong><em>Gender balance in e-Infrastructures, Careers in e-Infrastructures</em> </strong>and iii) <strong><em>Western Balkans and EU collaboration. </em></strong><em>The workshop</em> had a specific focus on e-Infrastructures as they play an even more important role addressing the grand challenges of today's society<strong><em>.</em></strong>

At its most basic level physics starts with space-time topology and geometry. On the other hand topology’s and geometry’s simplest and most basic elements are random Cantor sets. It follows then that nonlinear dynamics i.e. deterministic chaos and fractal geometry is the best mathematical theory to apply to the problems of high energy particle physics and cosmology. In the present work we give a short survey of some recent achievements of applying nonlinear dynamics to notoriously difficult subjects such as quantum entanglement as well as the origin and true nature of dark energy, negative absolute temperature and the fractal meaning of the constancy of the speed of light.

The real benefits of integrating different economic areas and regions into one common economic, monetary, and sometimes also fiscal area are among the most important issues to be resolved because the win-win situation for all participants should prevail unless the Member States or local authorities lose their interest in further participation. In this study, we compare the speed and the real benefits of economic integration between the three groups of Member States that emerged following the last big EU enlargement. The first group is composed of the so-called old EU Member States. The second group represents the countries that achieved full membership in 2004 (the so-called new Member States), and in the third group, there are the countries that are now in the negotiation process for EU membership. We then draw from the experience of these new Member States to derive implications for a possible new round of EU enlargement. The conclusion of this paper is therefore supposed to be some kind of direction for the new candidate countries. The results offer an answer to the question of what degree of convergence the new EU10 Member States reached within certain macroeconomic fundamentals during the period of their accession negotiations.&#x0D; &#x0D; Keywords: • economic convergence • EU integration • transition economies • integration • EU accession • economic trends

The late 1970s and early 1980s represent a period of important innovation in the development of contemporary Chinese poetry. As this was highly personal and experimental, it soon became characterized as being “misty” or “obscure”. A new generation of young poets questioned the Chinese cultural tradition and expressed the need for its re-evaluation. They tried to re-examine the meaning of literature, and while doing so, they based the foundation for their poetry on the tradition and the spirit of personal freedom and democracy of the May 4th Movement (1919), having been at the same time strongly influenced by the Western modernist poetry, in which they found alternative fresh ideas.

The present article reports on the findings of a study that explored the effect of explicit language learning strategy instruction on the development of English as a foreign language within a higher education setting in mixed language ability groups. The research results indicate that explicit language learning strategy instruction that aimed at enhancing language progress in groups of students that were heterogeneous in terms of initial language ability did not have any statistically significant effect on the development of language knowledge. These results indicate that under certain circumstances (limited course time and heterogeneous language competence levels within groups in particular) the organization of strategy training in the form of a separate module or implicit training in the use of language learning strategies seem to be more appropriate.

Reconciliation, described as coming to terms with the past, is considered an important component of normalization and development in post-conflict societies. The international community and some political elites promote it as a desired approach to (re)establishing trust and cooperation, ideally leading to clean slate situation, which might be possible only if all sides are fully committed to the process and unconditionally accept its outcomes. Reality, however, is often different. Exploring concepts, practices and experiences in the Balkans and South Africa the contribution studies successes, problems and failures of reconciliation. It attempts to rethink and re-conceptualize reconciliation and develop alternative approaches.

Sarcoidosis is a systemic inflammatory disease characterised by appearance of granulomas. Precise etiology has not been elucidated. Osteopontin (Opn) is a Th1 cytokine whose levels have been found increased in granulomas and serum samples from patients with sarcoidosis. We investigated whether genetic variation in Osteopontin gene (OPN) gene contributes to susceptibility to sarcoidosis. Haplotype-block structure in the OPN gene region was investigated using data from HapMap project. Three representative SNPs have been selected from each block of SNPs in linkage disequilibrium (rs11730582-C/T, rs11728697-C/T and rs4754-C/T). Genotyping was performed using TaqMan SNP Genotyping Assays on a sample of 165 patients and 284 controls. Statistical analyses of association were performed using Chi-Square test and algorithms implemented in the haplo.stats and PHASE packages. Genotyping analysis revealed a significant difference in genotype frequencies at rs4754 polymorphism in groups of patients and controls under recessive genetic model (p=0.036, OR=1.99, 95%CI=1.04-3.82), CC homozygotes being significantly over-represented in the patients group. However these results failed to reach significance after correction for multiple testing (p=0.25). The frequencies of predicted haplotypes differed between patient and control groups, frequency of TTT haplotype was found to be significantly decreased in the group of patients with sarcoidosis (p=0.014, OR=0.40, 95%CI=0.20-0.79). Our results suggest that variation in the OPN gene might be significantly associated with sarcoidosis and that the TTT haplotype in OPN may act as a protective factor in sarcoidosis.

The high dimensionality of global gene expression profiles, where number of variables (genes) is very large compared to the number of observations (samples), presents challenges that affect generalizability and applicability of microarray analysis. Latent variable modeling offers a promising approach to deal with high-dimensional microarray data. The latent variable model is based on a few latent variables that capture most of the gene expression information. Here, we describe how to accomplish a reduction in dimension by a latent variable methodology, which can greatly reduce the number of features used to characterize microarray data. We propose a general latent variable framework for prediction of predefined classes of samples using gene expression profiles from microarray experiments. The framework consists of (i) selection of smaller number of genes that are most differentially expressed between samples, (ii) dimension reduction using hierarchical clustering, where each cluster partition is identified as latent variable, (iii) discretization of gene expression matrix, (iv) fitting the Rasch item response model for genes in each cluster partition to estimate the expression of latent variable, and (v) construction of prediction model with latent variables as covariates to study the relationship between latent variables and phenotype. Two different microarray data sets are used to illustrate a general framework of the approach. We show that the predictive performance of our method is comparable to the current best approach based on an all-gene space. The method is general and can be applied to the other high-dimensional data problems.

As innovation is a cornerstone for achieving the most dynamic knowledge-driven economy, we are facing a growing 'innovation' gap between EU and USA/Japan. One of the crucial parts of the Lisbon strategy is a Copenhagen process connected to Vocational Education and Training (VET). The article analyses the challenge posed to the students' innovation. It shows the roots of the problem and the reasons for low performance. Based on the research, the article shows the influential key success factors, where the role of the teacher remains essential. It also indicates the importance of the systemic approach and the important role of the economy and supporting environment. The results are useful for policy makers, school principals and teachers alike.

The new version of the CGE model of the Slovenian economy based on the 1998 SAM was used for simulations of the consequences of further foreign trade liberalisation after 1998 as the outcome of implementation of Free Trade Agreements and the European Agreement, adaptation of the Customs Tariff to the EU Common External Tariff for manufacturing products, adoption of the EU Common External Tariff after the accession of Slovenia to the EU, and estimated transfers between the two budgets. Results obtained show a positive net outcome of Slovenian accession to the EU in the long run. On the other hand, rational behaviour by the government will certainly moderate possible short-run negative effects and improve favourable long-run effects.