Дипломатический агент и его неприкосновенность

This article considers some of the incidents occurred in the world with diplomatic agents, in particular attacks on them. From the above events, the author offers solutions that can significantly influence the reduction of the number committed attacks on diplomatic agents, and thus violations of the principle of privacy, through the improvement of legislation in the field of international legal regulation of diplomatic agents.Статья посвящена рассмотрению некоторых из произошедших в мире инцидентов с дипломатическими агентами, в частности покушений на них. На основе изложенных событий автор предлагает решения, которые могут существенно повлиять на сокращение количества совершаемых покушений на дипломатических агентов и соответственно нарушений принципа личной неприкосновенности, посредством совершенствования законодательства в области международно-правового регулирования защиты дипломатических агентов

Правовое положение дипломатического курьера

This article examines the legal status of the diplomatic courier carrying out dispatch, delivery and receipt of the pouch, ensuring its integrity in the relationship between the diplomatic mission and the sending State. The author analyzes the legal framework governing the status of the diplomatic courier. Based on the analysis of existing international legal norms, emphasis is placed on those circumstances that is legally settled, regarding the status of the diplomatic courier, but the unsettled which is the basis for the conflict.В статье рассматривается правовое положение дипломатического курьера, осуществляющего отправку, доставку и получение дипломатической почты, обеспечивая ее неприкосновенность во взаимоотношениях между дипломатическим представительством и аккредитующим государством. Автор анализирует правовую основу, регулирующую статус дипломатического курьера. На основе анализа действующих международно-правовых норм делается акцент на те, обстоятельства, которые в правовом отношении не урегулированы, касательно статуса дипломатического курьера, но неурегулированность которых является основой для возникновения конфликта

Neural dynamics at successive stages of the ventral visual stream are consistent with hierarchical error signals

Ventral visual stream neural responses are dynamic, even for static image presentations. However, dynamical neural models of visual cortex are lacking as most progress has been made modeling static, time-averaged responses. Here, we studied population neural dynamics during face detection across three cortical processing stages. Remarkably, ~30 milliseconds after the initially evoked response, we found that neurons in intermediate level areas decreased their responses to typical configurations of their preferred face parts relative to their response for atypical configurations even while neurons in higher areas achieved and maintained a preference for typical configurations. These hierarchical neural dynamics were inconsistent with standard feedforward circuits. Rather, recurrent models computing prediction errors between stages captured the observed temporal signatures. This model of neural dynamics, which simply augments the standard feedforward model of online vision, suggests that neural responses to static images may encode top-down prediction errors in addition to bottom-up feature estimates.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01-EY014970)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant K99-EY022671)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant F32-EY019609)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant F32-EY022845)United States. Office of Naval Research (MURI-114407)McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MI

On a numerical construction of doubly stochastic matrices with prescribed eigenvalues

We study the inverse eigenvalue problem for finding doubly stochastic matrices with specified eigenvalues. By making use of a combination of Dykstra's algorithm and an alternating projection process onto a non-convex set, we derive hybrid algorithms for finding doubly stochastic matrices and symmetric doubly stochastic matrices with prescribed eigenvalues. Furthermore, we prove that the proposed algorithms converge and linear convergence is also proved. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of our method.Comment: 16 page

Holistic Assessment of Community Palliative Care Needs Among Palestinian Cancer Patients

Background: Palliative care focuses on improving the quality of life of terminally ill patients and their families. Objectives: This cross-sectional study aims to assess the level of community palliative care among terminally ill Palestinian cancer patients and the needs of their families in the West-Bank and Gaza strip. Methodology: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among cancer patients. Patients were recruited through five hospitals that provide cancer care in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Al-Hussein Hospital, Beit Jala; Augusta Victoria Hospital, Jerusalem; Istishari Arab Hospital, Ramallah; European Hospital and Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rantisi Hospital; Gaza). Data were collected using an interview-based questionnaire. The questionnaire focused on assessment of physical, psychosocial, emotional, and spiritual components of palliative care. In addition, the questionnaire assessed caregiver’s needs. Results: A total of 238 patients were interviewed. The mean age of the participants was 53.8±15 years. The most common types of cancer among patients were breast cancer (51 [21.4%]) and colorectal cancer (33 [13.9%]). Fifty percent of the patients had their children as their primary caregivers. Overall, the majority of the patients had good psychosocial, spiritual, and emotional scores. On the other hand, >80% had moderate to poor physical functioning scores. Psychosocial and emotional scores decreased significantly as the disease progressed. More than 33% of the patients reported that their caregivers were in need of financial, legal, and work-related support. In addition, other commonly reported unmet needs included support in understanding what to expect in the future and dealing with the feelings and worries of the patient. Conclusions: Cancer patients suffer mostly from their physical symptoms in addition to financial problems. On the other hand, assessment of the emotional, spiritual and psychological functioning of Palestinian patients indicates that the strength of religious beliefs and the support of the family and the friends in the Palestinian community had a great impact on the patients and help reduced the gap in palliative care services

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Legal status of the diplomatic courier

This article examines the legal status of the diplomatic courier carrying out dispatch, delivery and receipt of the pouch, ensuring its integrity in the relationship between the diplomatic mission and the sending State. The author analyzes the legal framework governing the status of the diplomatic courier. Based on the analysis of existing international legal norms, emphasis is placed on those circumstances that is legally settled, regarding the status of the diplomatic courier, but the unsettled which is the basis for the conflict

A diplomatic agent and his inviolability

This article considers some of the incidents occurred in the world with diplomatic agents, in particular attacks on them. From the above events, the author offers solutions that can significantly influence the reduction of the number committed attacks on diplomatic agents, and thus violations of the principle of privacy, through the improvement of legislation in the field of international legal regulation of diplomatic agents

GIS ANALYSIS OF INVASIVE PROSOPIS JULIFLORA DYNAMICS IN TWO SELECTED SITES FROM THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

ABSTRACT High resolution digital aerial photographs were used to rate the change and to evaluate the woody Prosopis juliflora dynamics in northern Unite Arab Emirates, Filayah (untreated) and Khut (treated). A time series of three different dates: 1986, 1996, and 2005 were chosen. On-screen digitizing of plant communities was conducted using interpretative elements such as shape, tone texture and shadow; production of final maps was achieved with acceptable accuracy. We built a geo-database containing layers representing different dates for both sites. We performed statistical analysis to rate changes of the following four spatial attributes: percent cover, patch density, patch size, and mean patch shape index. Finally, we conducted a GIS Overlay analysis to visualize plant dynamics and to explore possible spatial associations. Results confirm that Prosopis juliflora is a very active and dynamic invader which has the potential to threaten the local environment; as its percent cover as well as its patch density increased noticeably during the study period (1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005). We concluded that Prosopis juliflora seems to go through phases of expansion. First, an accelerated expansion earlier in the establishment period, then the distribution reaches a plateau. This plateau may be an optimum density of Prosopis juliflora in that region. The time period for such optimum is suggested to be 10 years from invasion

Neurophysiological Organization of the Middle Face Patch in Macaque Inferior Temporal Cortex

While early cortical visual areas contain fine scale spatial organization of neuronal properties, such as orientation preference, the spatial organization of higher-level visual areas is less well understood. The fMRI demonstration of face-preferring regions in human ventral cortex and monkey inferior temporal cortex (“face patches”) raises the question of how neural selectivity for faces is organized. Here, we targeted hundreds of spatially registered neural recordings to the largest fMRI-identified face-preferring region in monkeys, the middle face patch (MFP), and show that the MFP contains a graded enrichment of face-preferring neurons. At its center, as much as 93% of the sites we sampled responded twice as strongly to faces than to nonface objects. We estimate the maximum neurophysiological size of the MFP to be ∼6 mm in diameter, consistent with its previously reported size under fMRI. Importantly, face selectivity in the MFP varied strongly even between neighboring sites. Additionally, extremely face-selective sites were ∼40 times more likely to be present inside the MFP than outside. These results provide the first direct quantification of the size and neural composition of the MFP by showing that the cortical tissue localized to the fMRI defined region consists of a very high fraction of face-preferring sites near its center, and a monotonic decrease in that fraction along any radial spatial axis. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The underlying organization of neurons that give rise to the large spatial regions of activity observed with fMRI is not well understood. Neurophysiological studies that have targeted the fMRI identified face patches in monkeys have provided evidence for both large-scale clustering and a heterogeneous spatial organization. Here we used a novel x-ray imaging system to spatially map the responses of hundreds of sites in and around the middle face patch. We observed that face-selective signal localized to the middle face patch was characterized by a gradual spatial enrichment. Furthermore, strongly face-selective sites were ∼40 times more likely to be found inside the patch than outside of the patch.National Eye Institute (R01 EY014970)National Eye Institute (F32-EY019609)National Eye Institute (K99-EY022671