Responding to Afghanistan's Opium economy challenge : lessons and policy implications from a development perspective

Opium, Afghanistan's leading economic activity, lies at the heart of the challenges the country faces in state building, governance, security, and development. With their narrow law enforcement focus and limited recognition of development, security, and political implications, current global counter-narcotics polices impose a heavy burden on Afghanistan. This paper first provides a summary overview of Afghanistan's opium economy and the factors determining rural households'decisions on cultivating opium poppy. It then discusses the dynamic evolution of the Afghan drug industry in recent years, in particular its consolidation around fewer, powerful, politically-connected actors and the associated compromising of parts of some government agencies by drug industry interests. The paper reviews the experience with different counter-narcotics interventions, analyzes some proposals not yet tried in Afghanistan, and draws lessons and policy implications. Unfortunately there are no"silver bullets"-easy, quick, or one-dimensional solutions, and a longer-term horizon along with sustained commitment and resources will be required in order to phase out the opium economy over time. The paper concludes by putting forward some broad principles and approaches of a"smart strategy"against drugs in Afghanistan.Rural Poverty Reduction,Alcohol and Substance Abuse,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Economic Theory&Research,Pharmaceuticals Industry

Public Finance, Security, and Development: A Framework and an Application to Afghanistan

Security is increasingly viewed as a key condition for economic growth and development. The authors argue that the work and impact of all development partners would be enhanced if the multiple linkages between public finance, security, and development were explicitly taken into account. At the extreme, in some cases better public finance management could have more impact on security than would more troops. The paper first outlines three core linkages between security and development--through the investment climate, human and social capital, and institutions. The authors then propose three complementary tools to analyze the security sector from the point of view of public finance management, service delivery, and governance. This conceptual framework is applied to the case of Afghanistan. The paper closes by drawing some conclusions about possible entry points for dialogue in this difficult area.access to education; access to employment; access to information; access to resources; accountability; accounting; adverse consequences; adverse effects; affordability; Aid Effectiveness;

The organ compositions of Johannes Brahms and their influence on his orchestral technique

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

The Effects of Repeated Recycle on Paper Strength

As society stresses the need to recycle to reduce the amount of waste sent to our municipality landfills every year, the effect of secondary fiber on the papers that we produce becomes greater and greater. One of the largest effects that these fibers have is to change the strength properties in the sheets which contain them. Most studies have shown a decrease in the tensile strength of paper as fibers pass repeatedly through a series of recycle. The reason of this tendency is believed to be a loss of bonding potential between fibers as they become shorter and stiffer through a process known as irreversible hornification. Four grades were chosen to observe the effects upon sheet strength when passed through a series of five recycles. The grades covered a range of softwood to hardwood ratios, of filler content, and of degree of refining in the initial sheet. In all cases, tensile strength was shown to increase over the first three to four recycles before beginning to decrease with further recycle. Tests indicate that the leaching of filler from these relatively highly filled sheets was the main reason for these unusual, but not unprecedented results. As the filler is removed from the sheet, more bonding sites between fibers become available. This allows for higher strength within the sheet until this effect becomes increasingly offset by the hornification of the fibers, at which point strength begins to deteriorate. The hypothesis of filler loss is strengthened by general decreases in brightness and opacity through successive stages of recycle. As these fillers are used expressly to enhance these sheet properties in these grades, it is apparent that they are being removed during the sheet formation process. Tear strength was shown to decrease through the course of this investigation, a result which is consistent with a rise in tensile strength. Fiber length analysis and ash testing of sample testing of sample sheets would further aid in evaluation as to the extent to which fiber shortening and the loss of filler affect the strength properties of sheets made from repeatedly recycled fibers

The Effect of a prostaglandin F₂alpha analogue, fenprostalene, and oxytocin on both in vivo and isolated uterine motility in the cow

With the discovery of the uterokinetic properties of prostaglandin F2α much interest in the possible application of this substance in the expulsion of retained fetal membranes has arisen. Although the bovine uterus has been found to become refractory to PGF2α, the development of a high-activity, long half-life PGF2α analogue, fenprostalene, has renewed interest in the prostaglandin\u27s usefulness in the expulsion of retained fetal membranes. Uterine motility was measured on two consecutive days in eight early-postpartum and six open cycling cows; and in open isolated bovine uterine horns by the intrauterine balloon technique. Fenprostalene and/or oxytocin was administered and uterine contractility was measured by a physiograph. Results indicate that the early-postpartum cow myometrium was not responsive to fenprostalene when administered intramuscularly or intravenously. However, the open cycling cow exhibited a slight (non significant, P\u3e0.05) increase in average area under the tracing (1414.7±135.3 vs. 1555.5±95.9 mm^) and contraction amplitude (20.3±2.4 vs. 22.3±1.4 mm Kg) following intramuscular fenprostalene injection. Oxytocin injection by both routes caused a significantly (P\u3c0.05) marked stimulation of uterine contractility in both postpartum, and open cow groups. In the isolated horn experiments oxytocin and fenprostalene were statistically equal (P\u3e0.05) in the response observed following addition to the bath. Although the uterus was refractory to repeated dosages of the same drug, alternated treatments of fenprostalene and oxytocin on the same uterine horn increased (P\u3c0.05) mean measures of motility for each treatment. This result is supportive of the proposed two receptor system. However, after halved dosages of each drug were instilled together into the bath solution, no additiveness or synergism was observed from the mixture affect on uterine contractility. Results obtained in this study do not support the use of prostaglandins in cases where evacuation of uterine contents is desired

Current proposals for changes in reserve requirements of commercial banks in the United States

The well-being of a nation is dependent in large part upon the state of its money. Bank reserve positions have a great deal to do with the state of our money. An impressive volume of study and evidence has been brought forth in just the past few years to indicate that United States laws which establish the rules under which financial institutions operate need revising. Other, more readily understood topics, however, however claimed the attention of the public and its representatives in Congress. Little has been done to remedy serious shortcomings in banking laws. This paper examines briefly these studies as they relate to commercial bank reserve requirements with the thought that they deserve more attention. This paper is not concerned with the 100 per cent reserve plan, the ceiling reserve, the asset reserve, or other reserve proposals of past years. It deals with current plans

Relational Programming in miniKanren: Techniques, Applications, and Implementations

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Computer Sciences, 2009The promise of logic programming is that programs can be written relationally, without distinguishing between input and output arguments. Relational programs are remarkably flexible—for example, a relational type-inferencer also performs type checking and type inhabitation, while a relational theorem prover generates theorems as well as proofs and can even be used as a simple proof assistant. Unfortunately, writing relational programs is difficult, and requires many interesting and unusual tools and techniques. For example, a relational interpreter for a subset of Scheme might use nominal unification to support variable binding and scope, Constraint Logic Programming over Finite Domains (CLP(FD)) to implement relational arithmetic, and tabling to improve termination behavior. In this dissertation I present miniKanren, a family of languages specifically designed for relational programming, and which supports a variety of relational idioms and techniques. I show how miniKanren can be used to write interesting relational programs, including an extremely flexible lean tableau theorem prover and a novel constraint-free binary arithmetic system with strong termination guarantees. I also present interesting and practical techniques used to implement miniKanren, including a nominal unifier that uses triangular rather than idempotent substitutions and a novel “walk”-based algorithm for variable lookup in triangular substitutions. The result of this research is a family of languages that supports a variety of relational idioms and techniques, making it feasible and useful to write interesting programs as relations

A simulation survey of galaxy interactions

Many carefully selected samples of interacting galaxies have been observed extensively in attempts to clarify whether interaction produces activity in galaxies. Because the sample members represent a wide range of encounter parameters and times, one can then study whether there are correlations between observable encounter features and, for example, Seyfert activity. On the other hand, in theoretical studies, simulations typically deal with either time-consuming detailed modelling of single galaxy pairs or tracing a few model encounters over time. The authors extend the observational survey approach by combining it with a simulation survey. The authors are conducting a survey of model encounters, covering the most important encounter parameters over a wide range. Some parameters, such as companion structure and initial velocity, are demonstratably less important and can be ignored in a first pass. The parameter range must be richly enough sampled so that the authors can evaluate the uniqueness of the observable morphology and velocity structure of the resulting simulated pairs to diagnose unobservable companion orbit parameters. They are using a self-gravitating polar n-body code run on the Cray X-MP at the Alabama Supercomputer Network. For each simulation, the authors have stellar and gas distributions predicted over, typically, a billion years, along with information on gas motions within the disk and any material captured by the companion or lost to the system. Features of disturbed spiral galaxies are sensitive enough to time and encounter parameters so that a match of the simulation survey results to observations can be applied as starting points to infer unobservable orbital or system parameters in actual sample members. This should enable them to examine whether interesting observed properties (Seyfert activity, nuclear star-formation rate) are functions of unobservable dynamical properties which characterize each encounter. Any correlations (or lack of some expected ones) will provide strong clues as to how or whether these phenomena are related to interactions. Aside from its use with such observed samples, this survey should greatly speed determination of initial orbital parameters for more detailed subsequent simulations of individual systems