International Law and Power: A Theoretical Perspective on Statehood and Self-Determination

The purpose of the present thesis is to investigate the foundations for statehood and self-determination—two seminal points of international law—through the concept of discourse and its notion of power. The starting point is that language and representations of reality are not merely ‘objective’ depictions, but in fact shaped by the practices that convey the representations. This constitutes the theoretical framework, inspired by Michel Foucault, with a focus on the intricate connections between power and knowledge. To this an investigation of statehood and self-determination is applied, and the result is that the narrative of international law can be seen as influenced by discourse, with structural bias giving primacy to statehood and thus posing obstacles for a development towards greater diversity

Playing it Safe? The Costs and Adverse Effects of Counterterrorism.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate international counterterrorism efforts to estimate their costs and potential adverse effects over time. An underlying presumption of the study is that flawed counterterrorism measures to some extent are counterproductive, and building on this idea a comparison is made between the distinguishing features of the 'War on Terror' and an alternative model in the form of The UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. It is the argument of this paper that although it is difficult to speculate on future results, the Global Strategy constitutes a more promising approach for counterterrorism. The ?War on Terror? contains measures that violate human rights and damage legitimacy, and as such risk a backlash and an increase in terrorist recruitments, while the Global Strategy focuses on building bottom-up and addressing the root causes of terrorism in a wider, more thoroughly planned and sustainable long-term perspective

Structural and Functional Progression in the Early Manifest Glaucoma Trial.

PurposeTo elucidate the temporal relationship between detection of glaucomatous optic disc progression, as assessed by fundus photography, and visual field progression.DesignProspective, randomized, longitudinal trial.ParticipantsThree hundred six study eyes with manifest glaucoma with field loss and 192 fellow eyes without any field defect at the start of the trial, from a total of 249 subjects included in the Early Manifest Glaucoma Trial (EMGT), were assessed.MethodsEvaluation of visual field progression and optic disc progression during an 8-year follow-up period. Three graders independently assessed optic disc progression in optic disc photographs. Visual field progression was assessed using glaucoma change probability maps and the EMGT progression criterion.Main Outcome MeasuresTime to detection of visual field progression and optic disc progression.ResultsAmong study eyes with manifest glaucoma, progression was detected in the visual field first in 163 eyes (52%) and in the optic disc first in 39 eyes (12%); in 1 eye (0%), it was found simultaneously with both methods. Among fellow eyes with normal fields, progression was detected in the visual field first in 28 eyes (15%) and in the optic disc first in 34 eyes (18%); in 1 eye (1%), it occurred simultaneously.ConclusionsIn eyes with manifest glaucoma, progression in the visual field was detected first more than 4 times as often as progression in the optic disc. Among fellow eyes without visual field loss at baseline, progression was detected first as frequently in the optic disc as in the visual field

Case report: Bilateral damage to the immature optic radiation and secondary massive loss of retinal ganglion cells causing tunnel vision

We describe the case of a 30-year-old woman, who needed a formal report on her visual impairment to seek support from society. She was born preterm, and during her neonatal period, she suffered from bilateral intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) grade 3, a condition that can cause cerebral visual impairment (CVI) due to damage to the retro-geniculate visual pathways. Individuals with such brain damage of this severity are often restricted by cerebral palsy (CP) and intellectual disability, and thus have a limited ability to cooperate in the assessment of visual function. However, our patient was capable of providing reliable test results, and she manifested only a small island of central vision in each eye, with additional reduced visual acuities. She cooperated well in examinations involving MRI of the brain, optical coherence tomography (OCT) of retinal ganglion cells, and multi-focal visual evoked potentials, with each test providing information about potential limitations in the structural prerequisites for visual function. What distinguishes our case is the severity of the damage to the optic radiations and the massive secondary loss of most of her retinal ganglion cells (GCs). However, there is some measurable visual function, which may be due to developmental neuroplasticity during early development, when surviving GCs prioritize the central visual field. Despite her visual difficulties, she is a keen portrait painter. Our patient may be representative of, and a spokesperson for, other individuals with extensive brain damage of the same etiology, who are unable to perform perimetric tests and therefore run the risk of not being recognized as severely visually impaired, and consequently, not being given the best conditions for habilitation. OCT may serve as a helpful diagnostic tool.Aim: This study aims to describe visual behavior and practical applications of visual function in relation to structural prerequisites for visual function

GRAVMONUMENTET I HÄLLSTAD: ETT VISUELLT SKÅDESPEL FRÅN 1100-TALET

The aim of this master thesis is to study the reliefs of a Romanesque tombstone from 1130 AD, with the intention to form a plausible understanding of their meaning. During the course of the investigation, my main focus will be on collecting materials of an iconographical and historiographical nature, as they appear in previous studies. I will also use performative analysis when examining the tombstone. Consequently this thesis can be seen as a survey of history and place; early Christian iconology as well as the experience of the viewer. As a result, the 900-year-old tombstone will not only be seen as a memorial in this text, but also as a performance of one man’s faith and as representing the core message of the early Christian church. The tombstone is a rarity in Swedish art history and well worth a closer examination. It consists of five different image reliefs on three sandstones, displaying humans (for example swordsmen and monks), dragons, crosses, animals and ornate vines

Katten i Bilderboken - Hur gestaltas katten i bilderboken och vad säger det oss?

The purpose of this essay is to look at how the depiction of cats is performed in childrens’ picture books. I will analyze eight pictures from four different books, two from each. The books are from two different decades: from the 1960s and from the 2000s. My ambition is to see if there are any artistic or cultural differences when comparing the two decades’ depictions of cats to each other. And also, to look at what the cat is conveying to us, what cultural myths they are indicating? Because a cat is never just a cat but brings us a meaning when put in any context. I will try to read the illustrations and, with the help of reception theory and cultural theory, understand what is communicated to the receivers: the child and the parent

Die Magengeschwürkrankheit : Pathologie und Therapie vom Standpunkt des Internisten

Na portada: "Mit 41 Abbildungen auf 7 Tafeln

Progression in Glaucoma

The treatment of glaucoma is focused on reducing the intraocular pressure to a level at which progression is impeded. A diagnosis of glaucoma is not considered certain until progression is confirmed, and thus detecting progression is a central aspect in both the diagnosing and the monitoring of glaucoma patients. Progression can be identified either through examination of either functional changes in the visual field or structural changes in the retinal nerve fibre layer in the optic disc or in the retina. Optic disc photography, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) that uses laser light, are two methods that are widely used to detect structural changes.The objectives of the present research were three-fold: (1) to assess how often a correct diagnosis was made during the few initial clinical visits, when no knowledge of progression was available; (2) to compare visual field examination and optic disc photography as methods to detect progression in glaucoma patients; (3) to evaluate the capacity of OCT to detect the rate of change in the retinal nerve fibre layer. For the first and second objectives, we studied glaucoma patients that had been included in the Early Manifest Glaucoma Trial, in which up to 20 years of regular prospective examinations were performed. To achieve the third objective, two different cohorts of healthy individuals and glaucoma patients were re-examined at a 10-year follow-up visit.Automated visual field examinations with strict criteria for defining glaucoma resulted in a correct diagnosis in 97% of patients after only two initial visits. Comparing visual fields and optic disc photographs among the glaucoma patients, the visual field examinations detected progression approximately four times as often. However, in eyes without glaucoma, progression was detected equally often by the two methods. The OCT method could not demonstrate a statistically significant difference in rate of change between healthy individuals and glaucoma patients. The automated OCT progression analysis, which is designed to assist the clinician in detecting glaucoma progression, gave excessively high rates of false positives.Guidelines recommend examinations of both functional and structural measures throughout the lifelong follow-up of glaucoma, a goal that is seldom achieved in reality. Inasmuch as health care resources are limited, the results presented in this thesis can aid in selecting the optimal method to monitor this large group of patients with different stages of glaucoma