The legal construction of the child in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

While the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has been extensively analysed since its inception and the category 'child' has been critiqued for even longer, it seems the critiques made about the category 'child' continue to have limited purchase regarding the CRC's construction of the category 'child'. This project was inspired by the seemingly dominant perception that there exists something fundamental to the category 'child', a view held even by those who dismiss the same perspective regarding the category 'woman' for example. Put another way, the legs upon which the CRC's category 'child' stands have been dismantled for all other human categories (capacity as a precursor for rights; the existence of 'essential' and 'natural' characteristics shared by all persons who make up an identity category). This thesis aims to understand how these 'legs' nonetheless continue to prop up the category 'child'. This thesis critiques the CRC's articulation of the category 'child', the taken for granted/self-evident assumption that children are fundamentally different from adults, and that this 'difference' justifies their differential and submissive positioning in relation to adults under the banner of children's rights. It seeks to examine the vision of the 'child' articulated in the CRC by employing a postmodern deconstructionist analysis, which draws heavily on Michel Foucault and Judith Butler. This thesis argues that the CRC's vision of the child as 'developing' and thus in need of 'care' enables the regulation and effective control of childhood. As such, the CRC does not describe or provide for the 'true' childhood. Rather, the CRC prescribes vulnerability and dependency as the markers of childhood

Coupled cluster theory on modern heterogeneous supercomputers

This study examines the computational challenges in elucidating intricate chemical systems, particularly through ab-initio methodologies. This work highlights the Divide-Expand-Consolidate (DEC) approach for coupled cluster (CC) theory—a linear-scaling, massively parallel framework—as a viable solution. Detailed scrutiny of the DEC framework reveals its extensive applicability for large chemical systems, yet it also acknowledges inherent limitations. To mitigate these constraints, the cluster perturbation theory is presented as an effective remedy. Attention is then directed towards the CPS (D-3) model, explicitly derived from a CC singles parent and a doubles auxiliary excitation space, for computing excitation energies. The reviewed new algorithms for the CPS (D-3) method efficiently capitalize on multiple nodes and graphical processing units, expediting heavy tensor contractions. As a result, CPS (D-3) emerges as a scalable, rapid, and precise solution for computing molecular properties in large molecular systems, marking it an efficient contender to conventional CC models

Physical and psychological consequences of serious road traffic injuries, deliverable 7.2 of the H2020 project SafetyCube

SafetyCube aims to develop an innovative road safety Decision Support System (DSS) that will enable policy-makers and stakeholders to select the most appropriate strategies, measures and cost-effective approaches to reduce casualties of all road user types and all severities. Work Package 7 of SafetyCube is dedicated to serious road traffic injuries, their health impacts and their costs. This Deliverable discusses health impacts of (serious) road traffic injuries

First large-scale quantification study of DNA preservation in insects from natural history collections using genome-wide sequencing

Insect declines are a global issue with significant ecological and economic ramifications. Yet, we have a poor understanding of the genomic impact these losses can have. Genome-wide data from historical specimens have the potential to provide baselines of population genetic measures to study population change, with natural history collections representing large repositories of such specimens. However, an initial challenge in conducting historical DNA data analyses is to understand how molecular preservation varies between specimens. Here, we highlight how Next-Generation Sequencing methods developed for studying archaeological samples can be applied to determine DNA preservation from only a single leg taken from entomological museum specimens, some of which are more than a century old. An analysis of genome-wide data from a set of 113 red-tailed bumblebee Bombus lapidarius specimens, from five British museum collections, was used to quantify DNA preservation over time. Additionally, to improve our analysis and further enable future research, we generated a novel assembly of the red-tailed bumblebee genome. Our approach shows that museum entomological specimens are comprised of short DNA fragments with mean lengths below 100 base pairs (BP), suggesting a rapid and large-scale post-mortem reduction in DNA fragment size. After this initial decline, however, we find a relatively consistent rate of DNA decay in our dataset, and estimate a mean reduction in fragment length of 1.9 bp per decade. The proportion of quality filtered reads mapping to our assembled reference genome was around 50%, and decreased by 1.1% per decade. We demonstrate that historical insects have significant potential to act as sources of DNA to create valuable genetic baselines. The relatively consistent rate of DNA degradation, both across collections and through time, mean that population-level analyses—for example for conservation or evolutionary studies—are entirely feasible, as long as the degraded nature of DNA is accounted for

THE TRAFFICKING OF CHILDREN: A COUNTER-NARRATIVE TO THE CRC\u27s CONSTRUCTION OF \u27CARE\u27

The Convention on the Rights of the Child imagines the child to be in a particularpositionalmatrix: the famiy or some similar form of \u27care\u27 This article employs a textual analysis of the CRC to examine this matrix of care; in other words this article examines how the parent, the state, and the child are positioned in relation to each other in the CRC. It argues that the positional matrix portraed in the CRCis hierarchical, where the adult positioned over the child. As such, the child is only given autonomy and protection rzghts that buttress this hierarchy. In many instances, the family andparentsperform as the CRC imagines the should. However, as trafficking of children illustrates, not all children have a responsible adult who has their best interests as a concern and keeps in mind their evolvng capacities. The traficking of children by parents illustrate that was in which priileging the family, and thus the position the parent holds over the child, can make certain children more vulnerable. In this way, care, as defined as the adultpositioned over the child or \u27dependencj\u27 (on a parent) and, as such vulnerability become markers of childhood. Unlike other human rizghts discourses that seek to redress hierarchies; the CRC reinforces and even sustains the inequalities between adults and children. Unlike any other human rizghts discourse that offers protections from the state, the CRC also offers children protection from themselves, as if children suffer subjugation, inequality, disenfranchisement, and mistreatment from themselves. Unlke the definition of the famiy in the CRC \u27 Preamble, from which all members of the human family have equal and inalienable rights, the child fnds him or hersel in this version of famiy ith inequalify and rghts that are alienable because this person has been defined in the CRC as a \u27child\u27

Understanding three-body interactions in hexagonal close packed solid He-4

The ground state properties of hexagonal close packed (hcp) solid 4He [He-4] are dominated by large atomic zero point motions which make the primary contribution to the solid’s low-temperature Debye-Waller (DW) factors. Preliminary investigations have also suggested that three-body interactions can play an important role in this system, particularly at higher densities. However, due to their computational cost, these interactions are not generally incorporated into theoretical models of solid 4He [He-4]. In order to accurately treat both zero point motion and three-body interactions, we have developed a perturbative treatment in which the three-body energy is added as a correction to the two-body energy obtained from variational quantum Monte Carlo (VMC) and variational path integral Monte Carlo (VPI) simulations. The accuracy of this approach is verified via comparison to simulations in which a three-body potential energy function is fully incorporated into the potential energy calculations throughout the simulations. These methods are used to calculate the ground state energy and DW factors of hcp 4He [He-4] over a range of molar volumes from 2.5 cm3/mol [cubic centimeters/mol] to 21.3 cm3/mol [cubic centimeters/mol] at T = 0 K. DWfactors from two-body simulations are found to be in good agreement with existing two-body models; however, neither two- nor three-body simulations can account for the 20% anisotropy in the DW factors recently reported by Blackburn, et al. Pressure-volume equations of state (EOSs) are derived from the energies obtained from all simulations. Incorporating three-body interactions brings the calculated pressures into much closer agreement with experimental values, and EOSs derived from both the perturbative and full-incorporation treatments of three-body interactions are nearly indistinguishable. This indicates that over this molar volume range, the computationally efficient perturbative method is sufficient to account for three-body interactions. Finally, the nonzero elastic constants are calculated via the bulk modulus, K, and the three pure shear constants C0 [C_0], C66 [C_66], and C44 [C_44] which are obtained from simulations of distorted hcp 4He [He-4] lattices. The results show that while three-body interactions affect the pure shear constants at higher densities, their influence on K is non-negligible even at low densities

Coupled cluster theory on modern heterogeneous supercomputers.

This study examines the computational challenges in elucidating intricate chemical systems, particularly through ab-initio methodologies. This work highlights the Divide-Expand-Consolidate (DEC) approach for coupled cluster (CC) theory-a linear-scaling, massively parallel framework-as a viable solution. Detailed scrutiny of the DEC framework reveals its extensive applicability for large chemical systems, yet it also acknowledges inherent limitations. To mitigate these constraints, the cluster perturbation theory is presented as an effective remedy. Attention is then directed towards the CPS (D-3) model, explicitly derived from a CC singles parent and a doubles auxiliary excitation space, for computing excitation energies. The reviewed new algorithms for the CPS (D-3) method efficiently capitalize on multiple nodes and graphical processing units, expediting heavy tensor contractions. As a result, CPS (D-3) emerges as a scalable, rapid, and precise solution for computing molecular properties in large molecular systems, marking it an efficient contender to conventional CC models

Black History Celebration Recital

Jazz and Gospel concert performed at the UNT College of Music Voertman Hall

Real-Time PCR Detection of Elsinoë spp. on Citrus

Elsinoë species are the causal agents of scab and spot diseases on many economically important plant species. Diagnosis based on symptomology is often problematic, and traditional methods are not appropriate as Elsinoë spp. are notoriously difficult to isolate and slow growing. Three Elsinoë species that infect Citrus are regulated as quarantine organisms within the European Union. Reliable and fast detection of Elsinoë species on citrus fruit is essential for effective phytosanitary control. In this study, a multiplex real-time PCR was designed for rapid and sensitive detection of Elsinoë species, and validation was focused on citrus fruit. The test was specific to the Elsinoë genus when tested against a range of nontarget pathogens and had the ability to detect all three regulated Elsinoë species on Citrus. The test also proved highly sensitive, with a limit of detection of 12 fg of DNA per reaction. This new test can be used as a tool in the diagnostic process for the rapid and sensitive detection of Elsinoë pathogens on symptomatic plant material. [Graphic: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license