Pneumothorax or Skin Fold? Mind the Gap

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The Blockade Imposed on Qatar from the Perspective of International Treaties and Resulting Responsibilities

 لا شك أن صدور القرار المفاجئ لمجموعة الدول الأربع، السعودية والإمارات والبحرين ومصر، بمقاطعة دولة قطر وفرض نوعٍ من الحصار البري والبحري والجوي والدبلوماسي عليها، أثار قضايا عدّة تتعلّق بالعلاقات الدَّوليَّة وعلاقات الجوار والأعراف والتقاليد، وترتب عليه انتهاك الكثير من حقوق دولة قطر، الاقتصَاديَّة والاِجتمَاعيَّة والأمنية والسياسية وغيرها، أقرتها المواثيق الدولية والإقليمية. أوضحت الدراسة أن حالة دولة قطر تُعد حصارًا وليس مقاطعة طبقًا لدلالات الحصار في اللغة والفقه الدولي، وأن دول الحصار افتقرت إلى المرجعيات الدولية خاصة فيما تضمنه الفصل السابع من ميثاق منظمة الأمم المتحدة الذي أعطى مجلس الأمن وحده دون غيره سلطة إصدار أي قرار من هذا النوع بموجب المادة 41؛ يأمر فيه باتخاذ التدابير المناسبة ضدّ الدولة أو الدول المعتدية أو المهدّدة للسلم والأمن الدوليين، وبـوقف الصلات الاقتصَاديَّة والمواصلات الحديدية والبحرية والجوية والبريدية والبرقية واللاسلكية وغيرها من وسائل المواصلات وقفًا جزئيًّا أو كليًّا، وبقطع العلاقات الدبلوماسية. من ثم فإن حصار الدول الأربع لدولة قطر ينتهك ويخالف تمامًا قواعد القانون الدولي وكافة المواثيق الدولية وخاصة مواثيق الشرعة الدولية لحقوق الإنسان والمواثيق الدولية المعنية بمكافحة الإرهاب، كذلك المواثيق الإقليمية ومنها ميثاقا جامعة الدول العربية ومجلس التعاون لدول الخليج العربية الذي يضم في عضويته أربع دول خليجية منها ثلاث دول تقوم بالحصار؛ هي السعودية والإمارات والبحرين، والرابعة هي دولة قطر التي يقع عليها الحصار. على هذا الأساس توافرت شروط المسؤولية الدولية تجاه دول الحصار نتيجة ما أحدثه سلوكها غير المشروع من وقوع أضرار كبيرة على دولة قطر، وهو الأمر الذي يجيز للأخيرة تحريك المسؤولية الدولية تجاه دول الحصار، والحصول على التعويض المناسب لما وقع على الدولة ومؤسساتها ومواطنيها والمقيمين عليها من أضرار جسام.No doubt that the surprising and sudden decision taken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Egypt to boycott and impose a land, sea, air and diplomatic blockade on Qatar raises many issues relating to international relations, neighborhood relationships, and customs and traditions. The blockade imposed on Qatar resulted in many violations of the country’s economic, social, security and political rights, which are guaranteed by the international and regional treaties. This study demonstrates that the case of Qatar is a real blockade and not a boycott according to the definition of the term “blockade” from the linguistic and international jurisprudence perspectives. It shows that the blockading countries are lacking international references, mainly the Article 7 of the Charter of the United Nations that provides the Security Council solely the authority of taking such a decision according to the Article 41, ordering to take the necessary measures against the aggressing state(s) or those threatening the international peace and security. The Council may order the suspension of economic, rail transportation, maritime, air, postal, communication and telecommunication relations, partially or totally, or the suspension of diplomatic relations with such countries. Therefore, the blockade imposed on Qatar by the four countries is a clear violation of the international law and treaties, especially those relating to human rights and combatting terrorism. It also violates the regional treaties such as the Charter of the League of Arab States and the GCC, which includes three states imposing the blockade, namely KSA, UAE and Bahrain, and the fourth state, Qatar, which is the victim of the blockade. In this regard, the international responsibility of the blockading states is obvious because of the damaging effects of their act on the State of Qatar, which provides Qatar the right to set up a case of international responsibility against these countries and claim compensation due to the huge damage caused by the blockade on its institutions, citizens, and residents

Effect of Fiber Reinforcement on CBR Behavior of Lime Blended Expansive Soils: Reliability Approach

Use of synthetic fibers as reinforcement to stabilize expansive soils is gaining momentum. As a contribution towards this growing field of research two different types of synthetic fibers, Fiber Mesh® and Fiber Cast®, were evaluated as a stabilization alternative for expansive soils in the presence of lime. California Bearing Ratio (CBR) is chosen as a performance indicator as it is a good pointer towards pavement effectiveness. Variables such as length and amount of the fibers as well as curing period were studied. Both deterministic and probabilistic (or reliability) analysis is presented in this paper. While the deterministic analysis helps in understanding the measured experimental data, the probabilistic approach accounts for the stochastic nature of the experimental data and provides a better rationale for the design methods. The deterministic approach showed that the improvement in CBR increased with higher fiber contents and longer lengths and the effect was prominent when lime was used as a stabilizer. There were some exceptions to this behavior, which were noted in the paper. The probabilistic analysis showed that the amount and lengths of fibers were important factors in CBR strength. It was also determined that the variation in the target CBR value had considerable effect on optimizing the length and amount of the fibers

Simulation-Based Frequentist Inference with Tractable and Intractable Likelihoods

High-fidelity simulators that connect theoretical models with observations are indispensable tools in many sciences. When coupled with machine learning, a simulator makes it possible to infer the parameters of a theoretical model directly from real and simulated observations without explicit use of the likelihood function. This is of particular interest when the latter is intractable. We introduce a simple modification of the recently proposed likelihood-free frequentist inference (LF2I) approach that has some computational advantages. The utility of our algorithm is illustrated by applying it to three pedagogically interesting examples: the first is from cosmology, the second from high-energy physics and astronomy, both with tractable likelihoods, while the third, with an intractable likelihood, is from epidemiology

Econometric model of the impact of government investment spending on selected variables in the public health services sector in Iraq for the period 2012-2021

The research aims to show the impact of government health investment spending on some indicators of the effectiveness of the health sector during the period 2012-2021, and the problem of the study was summarized in the low investment spending in the health sector and its inability to promote this vital sector, but the goal was to highlight the importance and role of government investment spending in the health sector, and accordingly, the basic hypothesis was based on the weak impact of the aforementioned spending in the health sector, and for the purpose of taking note of the subject of the research , the most important concepts were addressed The theory of government health investment spending and the importance and components of government investment health spending in Iraq, as for the applied side, the ARDL model model has been adopted and through which the hypothesis was proven and it was found that the impact of government health investment spending was weak due to the lack of investment allocations for the health sector, and finally the research has adopted a number of recommendations, the most important of which is to deliberately The government to increase government health investment, raise the level of health spending, promote the development of the health industry, and promote sustainable economic growth in Iraq

IRON STATUS OF FIRST YEAR MEDICAL STUDENTS AT GEZIRA UNIVERSITY

Objectives:      To determine the iron status of first-year medical students at Gezira University and identify influence of ethnic group and gender on the iron status.  Materials and Methods:  Cross-sectional community based study. The sample consisted of 160 students aged 16-20 years with a mean (+ SD) age 18.56 + 0.94 of both sexes (70 = males, 90 = females). Blood samples were collected from each student and questionnaire was completed. Haemoglobin (Hb), packed cell volume (PCV), serum iron and total iron binding capacity were determined by cyanomethaemoglobin method, microhaematocrit centrifuge and colourmetric methods respectively. Mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC) and transferrin saturation were calculated.  Results: The mean (+ SD) concentration of Hb, serum iron and transferrin saturation of all male students was 14.86 + 1.29 g/dL, 102.46 + 30.5 ^g/dL and 39.72 + 11.23% respectively. The mean (+ SD) concentrations of Hb, serum-iron and transferrin saturation of all female students was 12.57 + 0.92 g/dL, 57.51 + 11.8 ^g/dL and 21.12 + 5.4% respectively.  Haemoglobin level, serum-iron and transferrin saturation were within normal levels according to WHO criteria. There were significant differences between mean values of biochemical parameters and sex of students and father income P < 0.05. There was no significant association between iron status parameters and family size and ethnic groups. There was positive correlation between subject iron status and diet (meat, liver, fruits and hilba).  Conclusion:    Iron status of first-year medical students at Gezira University is within normal reference values. This is in line with the health status of the students.&nbsp

Effect of Soil Textural Classes on the Biological Nitrogen Fixation by Bradyrhizobium Measured by 15N Dilution Analysis

The current study was conductedas a pot experiment to determine the effect of soil texture on biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) of six most efficient local isolates, specified, of Bradyrhizobium. Cowpea (Vignaunguiculata L.), as a legume host crop, was used as a host crop and 15N dilution analysis was used for accurate determination of the amount of N biologically fixed under experimental parameters specified. Soils used are clay loam, sandy clay loam and sandy loam. Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF), in different soil textural classes, was as in the following order: medium texture soil > heavy texture soil > light textured soil. Statistical analysis showed that there is a significant variation in BNF % among six Iraqi isolates in the three soil textural classes. There is a significant variation in the number of the nodules of the six Isolates in one soil texture. However, nodules number does not agree with the BNF% in the same soil for any isolates. Statistical analysis of the data showed that there were significant differences in plant dry weight among the soil textural classes all over local isolates used in this study. Data also showed that there were significant differences in dry weight under different isolates

An Upper Bound on the Higgs Boson Mass from a Positivity Condition on the Mass Matrix

We impose the condition that the eigenvalues of the mass matrix in the shifted Lagrangian density be positive at \phi=\phi_{0}, the vacuum expectation value of the scalar field. Using the one-loop effective potential of the standard model, this condition leads to an upper bound on the Higgs boson mass m_{H}: m_{H}<230GeV, for a top quark mass of 175GeV.Comment: LaTex, 5 page