What Would Zero Look Like? A Treaty for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear disarmament-the comprehensive, universal, and permanent abolition of all nuclear weapons, pursuant to a verifiable, legally binding international agreement-has long been one of the most ambitious, controversial, and urgent items on the agenda for arms control. To date, however, most of the discussion of getting to zero has highlighted the political, military, technical and diplomatic dimensions of this complex problem, and there has been relatively little attention to the legal requirements for drafting such a novel treaty. This Article fills that gap by offering two proposed agreements. The first, a non-legally-bindingfr amework accord, would be designedf or signature relatively soon (e.g., in 2015) to re-commit states to the goal of nuclear elimination and to energize their concerted individual and collective action on a set of prescribed steps in pursuit of it. The second, a legally-binding document, would be concluded at some point in the more distant future, when states had accomplished great reductions in their current nuclear arsenals and were ready, at last, to plunge forward to true abolition. The Article describes the conditions necessary for the further articulation of these two novel agreements, and the text of each instrument carries numerous annotations that identify competing options, describe the negotiating range, and illuminate the drafter\u27s choices. The hope is that something novel can be gained-fresh insights can be suggested, and new questions can be raised (even if answering them remains elusive)-by advancing the dialogue about nuclear disarmament to the concrete stage of treaty drafting

Sexual harassment in sports

The purpose of this talk today is to give you an overview of the current state of research on sexual harassment in sport and to raise questions about the links between harassment, sexual abuse and women's health and safety is sport

Analysis Of Global Trends In Building Ubiquitous Information Technology Market Environment

This study found that each country, in order to propel the Global Ubiquitous Information Technology (IT) Business Market, has initiated strategies that utilize its own strengths in the IT industry. Ubiquitous information technology is recognized as a new strategy to propel the information industry and to enhance country's competitive power in the global information economy. IT companies in leading IT countries including the United States, Japan, and several European countries engage in active investment and research through a cooperative system among the industry, universities, and the government. Transition to a ubiquitous society may be a quiet revolution, but the reaching effects of the transition will be tremendous. Countries and enterprises should sense what consumers and market demand and should respond to it quickly. Only when countries and enterprises catch the latest information and process it for application, they can expect to succeed

Exploring rail futures using scenarios: experience and potential

In 1995 the author of this paper undertook a scenario exercise for British Rail to identify priorities for rail science and technology developments under the new privatised regime. Four marketbased 2010 scenarios were developed for UK rail transport: 1) cost driven; 2) quality driven, 3)technology driven and 4) environmentally driven. These helped to identify areas of strategic R&D that were needed to improve rail’s competitiveness. It is now over a decade since this scenario exercise took place. This paper, updating an earlier review (Potter and Roy, 2000), revisits the 1995 scenarios and compares them to what actual market strategies emerged within the privatised railway industry. It explores whether the four scenarios did succeed in capturing the range of market responses that emerged from rail privatisation and what lessons this contains for the use of scenarios transport research

Use of quercetin in animal feed : effects on the P-gp expression and pharmacokinetics of orally administrated enrofloxacin in chicken

Modulation of P-glycoprotein (P-gp, encoded by Mdr1) by xenobiotics plays central role in pharmacokinetics of various drugs. Quercetin has a potential to modulate P-gp in rodents, however, its effects on P-gp modulation in chicken are still unclear. Herein, study reports role of quercetin in modulation of P-gp expression and subsequent effects on the pharmacokinetics of enrofloxacin in broilers. Results show that P-gp expression was increased in a dose-dependent manner following exposure to quercetin in Caco-2 cells and tissues of chicken. Absorption rate constant and apparent permeability coefficient of rhodamine 123 were decreased, reflecting efflux function of P-gp in chicken intestine increased by quercetin. Quercetin altered pharmacokinetic of enrofloxacin by decreasing area under curve, peak concentration, and time to reach peak concentration and by increasing clearance rate. Molecular docking shows quercetin can form favorable interactions with binding pocket of chicken xenobiotic receptor (CXR). Results provide convincing evidence that quercetin induced P-gp expression in tissues by possible interaction with CXR, and consequently reducing bioavailability of orally administered enrofloxacin through restricting its intestinal absorption and liver/kidney clearance in broilers. The results can be further extended to guide reasonable use of quercetin to avoid drug-feed interaction occurred with co-administered enrofloxacin or other similar antimicrobials.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Institutional innovation: synthesis of programme outcomes

Report of the work of the Projects funded by the JISC Institutional change/innovation Programme 2008-2010. Report produced by the Synthesis and Benefits Realisation Team linked to the Programme

Enforcing International Labor Rights through Corporate Codes of Conduct

This article first reviews initiatives by the international community to address the linkage between trade and international labor rights and fair labor standards through domestic trade statutes, regional trade agreements and other governmental approaches. It then examines several private sector efforts embracing codes of conduct for labor and employment practices in international commerce. Some are proposed by sources external to multinational corporations as codes by which they can pledge to abide. Others are initiated by individual companies themselves. The authors focus their treatment on codes of conduct issued by Levi Strauss &. Co. and Reebok Corporation as examples of the challenges in formulating, auditing and enforcing labor rights and labor standards by private corporations engaged in international trade