Sustainable refugee migration:a rethink towards a positive capability approach

A major challenge facing many countries around the world is how to sustainably address the issues of increased numbers of refugee migrants. The refugee migrant “issue” is often heavily political as a high density of migrants in local areas impacts communities (e.g., disrupting local employment, service and culture). Different migrants come with different “baggage” and needs which can be a significant draw on the hosting communities’ resources. This paper argues that sustainable long-term solutions to refugee migrants will require a rethink to the existing dominant models of containment and charity. The paper draws upon insights from a study of a large refugee camp in Jordan over a three-and-a-half-year period, and historical cases of refugee migration. The paper presents a sustainable model that develops long-term capability for the various stakeholder groups

Increasing participation in the information society by people with disabilities and their families in lower-income countries using mainstream technologies

Assistive technology (AT) has been actively researched, developed and implemented throughout higher-income countries, but is relatively absent from lower-income countries. In lower-income countries, there is very little AT for reading, writing, communicating and for participation in the information society. In order for persons with disabilities in lower-income countries to participate fully in society, mainstream information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as mobile phones should be used as AT. This paper explores the potential for using mainstream ICTs as AT in lower-income countries, keeping in mind current ICT trends, characteristics of the post-PC era and ICT-based AT in higher-income countries. The paper concludes with a case study where mobile phones and SMS were used by people with disabilities and their caregivers to access information in a resourced-limited community in Bogota, Colombia. Mobile phones, a readily available mainstream ICT in this community, were a useful tool for addressing the information exclusion of people with disabilities and caregivers

Optical Transmittance of a Rice Leaf via Ray Tracing

Optical reflectance from a plant leaf increases in response to stress and disease. Previous studies at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock found that, while the reflectance from a rice leaf increased with increased salinity, reflectance changes could not be used to differentiate one stress or disease from another. The objective of this study is to characterize the angular distribution of optical transmittance for a healthy rice leaf using a ray tracing technique and assuming a three-media optical model. The ultimate goal is to relate this distribution to specific plant pathologies. Three rays are traced through the cross section of a healthy rice leaf by applying laws of geometric optics and considering air, cell wall, and chloroplast as media. The angular distribution of transmittance is calculated for each ray trace. Lei is defined as the length of irradiated upper epidermal surface leading to a continuous transmittance Tbi(0) at the bottom surface. The total transmittance is defined as the sum over i of Tbi(theta). Delta thetai is defined as the angle over which Tbi(theta) extends and (thetaj - thetai) is defined as the angular difference between the bisector of Delta thetai and the bisector of Delta thetaj. The probability density functions pdf(Delta theta) and pdf(thetaj -thetai) are defined and shown to have diagnostic potential

Balancing Act - the Tightrope of Corporate Governance Reform

Over the last five years, corporate governance has proved an insistent issue in the boardrooms of Australia. In March 2003, the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) Corporate Governance Council launched its Principles of Good Corporate Governance and Best Practice Recommendations (the guidelines). The following year amendments to the Corporations Act 2001 came into force, designed to improve corporate accountability and auditing practices. In annual reports for 2004-2005, Australian corporations were asked to disclose more information about their corporate governance practices than ever before. This prompted a review of existing governance structures and procedures against those recommended or required by the new regulation

The JEM-EUSO mission: An introduction

The Extreme Universe Space Observatory on board the Japanese Experiment Module of the International Space Station, JEM-EUSO, is being designed to search from space ultra-high energy cosmic rays. These are charged particles with energies from a few 1019 eV to beyond 1020 eV, at the very end of the known cosmic ray energy spectrum. JEM-EUSO will also search for extreme energy neutrinos, photons, and exotic particles, providing a unique opportunity to explore largely unknown phenomena in our Universe. The mission, principally based on a wide field of view (60 degrees) near-UV telescope with a diameter of ∼ 2.5 m, will monitor the earth's atmosphere at night, pioneering the observation from space of the ultraviolet tracks (290-430 nm) associated with giant extensive air showers produced by ultra-high energy primaries propagating in the earth's atmosphere. Observing from an orbital altitude of ∼ 400 km, the mission is expected to reach an instantaneous geometrical aperture of Ageo ≥ 2 × 105 km2 sr with an estimated duty cycle of ∼ 20 %. Such a geometrical aperture allows unprecedented exposures, significantly larger than can be obtained with ground-based experiments. In this paper we briefly review the history of space-based search for ultra-high energy cosmic rays. We then introduce the special issue of Experimental Astronomy devoted to the various aspects of such a challenging enterprise. We also summarise the activities of the on-going JEM-EUSO program

Optically-pumped dilute nitride spin-VCSEL

We report the first room temperature optical spin-injection of a dilute nitride 1300 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) under continuous-wave optical pumping. We also present a novel experimental protocol for the investigation of optical spin-injection with a fiber setup. The experimental results indicate that the VCSEL polarization can be controlled by the pump polarization, and the measured behavior is in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions using the spin flip model. The ability to control the polarization of a long-wavelength VCSEL at room temperature emitting at the wavelength of 1.3 μm opens up a new exciting research avenue for novel uses in disparate fields of technology ranging from spintronics to optical telecommunication networks. © 2012 Optical Society of America

Lessons from crossing symmetry at large N

20 pages, v2: Assumptions stated more clearly, version published in JHEPWe consider the four-point correlator of the stress tensor multiplet in N=4 SYM. We construct all solutions consistent with crossing symmetry in the limit of large central charge c ~ N^2 and large g^2 N. While we find an infinite tower of solutions, we argue most of them are suppressed by an extra scale \Delta_{gap} and are consistent with the upper bounds for the scaling dimension of unprotected operators observed in the numerical superconformal bootstrap at large central charge. These solutions organize as a double expansion in 1/c and 1/\Delta_{gap}. Our solutions are valid to leading order in 1/c and to all orders in 1/\Delta_{gap} and reproduce, in particular, instanton corrections previously found. Furthermore, we find a connection between such upper bounds and positivity constraints arising from causality in flat space. Finally, we show that certain relations derived from causality constraints for scattering in AdS follow from crossing symmetry.Peer reviewe

Regional Influences on Chinese Medicine Education: Comparing Australia and Hong Kong

© 2016 Caragh Brosnan et al. High quality education programs are essential for preparing the next generation of Chinese medicine (CM) practitioners. Currently, training in CM occurs within differing health and education policy contexts. There has been little analysis of the factors influencing the form and status of CM education in different regions. Such a task is important for understanding how CM is evolving internationally and predicting future workforce characteristics. This paper compares the status of CM education in Australia and Hong Kong across a range of dimensions: historical and current positions in the national higher education system, regulatory context and relationship to the health system, and public and professional legitimacy. The analysis highlights the different ways in which CM education is developing in these settings, with Hong Kong providing somewhat greater access to clinical training opportunities for CM students. However, common trends and challenges shape CM education in both regions, including marginalisation from mainstream health professions, a small but established presence in universities, and an emphasis on biomedical research. Three factors stand out as significant for the evolution of CM education in Australia and Hong Kong and may have international implications: continuing biomedical dominance, increased competition between universities, and strengthened links with mainland China