CREATIVE TASKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDYING FOR PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES

Since the importance of using creative tasks while studying a foreign language in a professional way is an important means of activating the creative activity of future border guards, the basic types of creative tasks have been determined and a sequence of different forms and tasks have been defined, namely: preparatory (propaedeutic), educational (forming) and actually creative. This paper presents one of the most effective methods of educational activity stepping up of the future border guards while studying a foreign language for the professional purposes, which is the creative tasks usage for cadets’ professional skills development. Key words: creative activity, foreign language, innovative approach, effective training, future border guards, educational process

Marine communities : governing oil & gas activities and cruise tourism in the Arctic and the Caribbean

Oceans and seas are among the most ecologically vital and socio-economically important systems on the planet. Despite the acknowledged pristine nature of the marine environment, there is a growing interest in exploring the sea for human use such as offshore wind production, extraction of sand, oil and gas, deep sea mining, gene mining and aquaculture. This is the result of, among other things, the food and energy needs of the growing world population, globalisation processes and technological innovation. This intensified use of the sea has led to new governance initiatives to address the resulting environmental effects and risks for the marine environment. Actors involved in governing maritime activities are not necessarily located in the same geographical place and may not even be in direct contact, but they increasingly interact through global and transnational institutions or networks. Globalisation results in communities characterised by the interplay between territorially defined actors (e.g. national states, port agencies and island communities) and less territorially defined actors (e.g. mobile and transnational industries). The community literature conceptualises communities as small spatial units, homogenous social structures or sets of shared norms. These conceptualisation of communities provide insufficient insights in the type of community involved in environmental governance of maritime activities. This thesis, therefore, presents the marine community concept as a new analytical lens for studying environmental governance of maritime activities. A marine community is a community of socio-economic and policy actors and institutions organised around a certain maritime activity that influences or will be affected by the (marine) ecosystem in which the activity occurs. The aim of this PhD thesis is twofold: first, to understand environmental governance of maritime activities by different marine communities, and second, to understand how different governance modes, shifts, styles and processes affect the role of the user and policy community in the marine community. The central research question is: How can the marine community concept enrich our understanding of environmental governance of maritime activities in distinct maritime settings? 1. How are marine communities organised to govern environmental problems in different sectoral and geographical settings? 2. How do marine communities develop in relation to various institutional settings, and how do different governance modes, shifts, styles and processes affect the role of the user and policy community in the marine community? A case study methodology and cross-case comparative analysis were chosen to study the research question. The selection of cases is based on two distinct marine regions (the Caribbean Netherlands and the European Arctic) and two different maritime activities (cruise tourism and oil & gas activities). The case studies are investigated through the collection of primary data from semi- structured interviews and (participatory) observations, supplemented with secondary data from literature, policy documents, social media, and newspapers. Chapter 2 illustrates how the marine community of liquefied natural gas production in Hammerfest transforms from a local fisheries marine community into an international oil and gas marine community in Northern Norway, driven by a discourse on economic growth. This is implemented through a strong institutional coalition between the Norwegian State and Statoil in which both actors participate in the user and policy community. Although non-governmental organisations, Sámi indigenous people, fisheries and local inhabitants of Hammerfest engage in strategic and oppositional coalitions to strive for environmental and community development related to liquefied natural gas production, the success of these coalitions is constrained by centralised decision-making by the institutional coalition. Chapter 3 illustrates the institutional change in the marine community of oil transhipment at St. Eustatius. Since 2010, St. Eustatius is a special municipality of the Netherlands, and since 2015, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure & Environment, instead of the island government, is responsible for the environmental management of the oil terminal at St. Eustatius. The Dutch Ministry relies on Dutch and European standards for environmental management, which deviate from the standards of small islands. This structural power change, however, is not perceived as legitimate by part of the local population of St. Eustatius. This chapter analyses the reversal of the existing power relationships from strong intertwinement of the user and policy community, stereotypical of small island developing states, to the user and policy community drifting apart. In Chapter 4, the marine community of cruise tourism at Bonaire is situated between the transnational cruise network and the local tourism industry of Bonaire. This case study analyses how two interconnected flows of cruise ships and passengers are governed by this transnational-local interplay. An important conclusion is that the transnational cruise ship flow increasingly determines the local cruise passenger flow at Bonaire. As a result, the marine community, and the user community especially, increasingly connects and adapts to the requirements of the transnational cruise network. Chapter 5 analyses the changes in the marine community of expedition cruise tourism at Svalbard changes because of the establishment of the self-governing Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators. Collective self-governance complements regulation by the Norwegian government through the implementation of an industry code of conduct and providing access to knowledge and information, such as statistical information and a track-and-trace system for cruise ships. At the same time, the demanding information generation and provision of collective self-governance creates distance between the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators and the Governor of Svalbard in the policy community and the expedition crew in the user community. Information generation and provision becomes a challenge for sustainable cruise tourism. Once information provision requires too much time and resources, self-interest is prioritised over collective interest. In Chapter 6 the conclusions of the thesis are drawn, based on the cross-case comparative analysis. First, the comparison of environmental governance illustrates the use of different problem-solving styles in marine regions. The islands of Bonaire and St. Eustatius (in the Caribbean Netherlands) are eager for short- term economic growth. The lack of a strong government results in a curative problem-solving style in relation to urgent environmental problems. In the European Arctic the activities are more recent. Governance, therefore, attempts to prevent problems through stakeholder involvement and informed decision-making. Second, the analysis shows that environmental governance of maritime activities depends upon the mobility of the maritime activity and consequently the level at which regulations are developed and implemented. A difference is observed between governing through transnational regulations predominantly by the user community for cruise tourism and governing through territory-bound regulations predominantly by the policy community for oil and gas. In the second part of the conclusion, marine communities as a governance arrangement is discussed in relation to theories on governance modes and shifts, policy styles and mobilities. In the first place, changes in governance modes illustrate a shift towards more contemporary modes, such as open co-governance and self-governance, with St. Eustatius being the exception because of its political situation. In this thesis the complexity of governance is further structured according to two analytical dimensions: the governance style, ranging from reactive to proactive, and the governance process, which distinguishes governance of the marine community from governance through the marine community. In the analysis it becomes clear that the spatial scale of the maritime activity is crucial as it defines the mobility of the activity and the marine community. Therefore, the thesis concludes that the maritime activity has a larger influence on environmental governance than the marine region. The chapter ends with methodological reflections, future research and policy implications for the new concept of marine community.</p

Unparticle effects on cosmic ray photon and e±e^\pm

We study the effects of unparticle physics on the cosmic ray photon and $e^\pm$, including on the pair production (PP) and elastic scattering (ES) of cosmic ray photon off various background radiations, and on the inverse Compton scattering of cosmic ray $e^\pm$ with cosmic radiations. We compute the spin-averaged amplitudes squared of three processes and find that the advent of unparticle will never significantly change the interactions of cosmic ray photon and $e^\pm$ with various background radiations, although the available papers show that ES which occurs in the tree-level through unparticle exchanges will easily surpass PP in the approximate parameter regions.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Optimización de la detección de daños oxidativos en la célula viva y en tiempo real

[EN] Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is an important model to understand the molecular mechanisms of the defense to different types of stress. Production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is one of the fundamental stresses for all cells. The increase of ROS can be produced by external agents (like H2O2 and menadione) or by the cell itself (for example, during cellular respiration). In these situations of stress, yeast cells modify their transcriptional capacity to adapt to environmental conditions and survive. This adaptation occurs via stress-induced activation of transcription factors, which recognize and bind specific regulatory sites in cis and facilitate the access of the transcriptional pre-initiation complex to the promoters. To study how specific transcription factors contribute to the transcriptional response profile, a system is needed to quantify the modulation of gene expression by stress in real time and in living cells. Thus, in the present work a destabilized luciferase system (lucCP+) is used as a tool to detect and quantify oxidative damage produced by various treatments in yeast. Specifically we apply two types of reporters with the gene lucCP+ whose expression is regulated by the two key transcription factors that act in response to oxidative stress: Yap1 and Skn7. Subsequently, the dose dependent responses obtained for the two reporters are compared in a quantitative manner in various conditions of external stress (H2O2; menadione) and the sensitivity is determined for both reporters. On the other hand, the destabilized luciferase system is also used to study the dynamic transcriptional response to salt and osmotic stress of the GRE2 and SOD2 promoters in different culture media. Specifically, the way the fermentative or respiratory metabolism influence in the transcriptional response to diverse saline and oxidative stresses has been investigated. Therefore, growth media with glucose (fully fermentative medium) or galactose (partially respiratory medium) as an energy source were used to quantify the differences in the dynamic dose response to stress with various stress-responsive luciferase reporters. These assays have been supplemented with growth assays in liquid medium, which allows evaluating the sensitivity of yeast cells to salt stress comparing glucose and galactose medium. As a result it was confirmed that galactose growth renders the transcriptional response to salt stress more sensitive (faster saturation of the response at lower salt concentrations), and that yeast growth is more efficiently inhibited by salt stress in galactose medium. Finally, the glycerol production upon salt stress was compared in yeast cells grown in glucose or galactose. Glycerol is one of the most important osmolytes in the osmoadaptation process of yeast cells. It was confirmed that yeast cells grown on galactose medium produce significantly less amounts of glycerol as compared to glucose medium.[ES] La levadura Saccharomyces cerevisiae es un modelo muy importante para comprender los mecanismos moleculares de la defensa a diferentes tipos de estrés. La producción de especies reactivas de oxígeno (ROS) es uno de los estreses fundamentales para todas las células. El aumento de ROS puede producirse por agentes externos (como H2O2, menadiona) o por la propia célula (por ejemplo, durante la respiración). Ante estas situaciones de estrés, las células de levadura modifican su capacidad transcripcional para adaptarse a las condiciones ambientales y sobrevivir. Esta adaptación, se produce gracias al reconocimiento del estrés por parte de los factores de transcripción, encargados de generar una respuesta transcripcional mediante el reconocimiento y la unión específica a sitios reguladores en cis y el favorecimiento del acceso del complejo de pre-iniciación de la transcripción a los promotores. Para poder estudiar como factores de transcripción específicos contribuyen al perfil de respuesta transcripcional es necesario un sistema que permita cuantificar la modulación de la expresión génica por estrés en tiempo real y en células vivas. Para ello, en el presente trabajo se emplea un sistema de luciferasa desestabilizada (lucCP+) como herramienta para detectar y cuantificar los daños oxidativos producidos por varios tratamientos en levadura. Para ello, se aplican dos tipos de reporteros con el gen lucCP+ cuya expresión está regulada por los dos principales factores de transcripción que actúan en respuesta a estrés oxidativo: Yap1 y Skn7. Posteriormente, se compara de forma cuantitativa las respuestas dependiendo de la dosis de los dos reporteros en varias condiciones de estrés oxidativo externo (H2O2; menadiona), así como también se determinan las sensibilidades de ambos reporteros a los distintos tipos de oxidación intracelular. Por otro lado, también se emplea el sistema luciferasa desestabilizada para estudiar la dinámica transcripcional en respuesta a estrés salino y osmótico de los promotores GRE2 y SOD2 en diferentes medios de cultivo. Es decir, se ha investigado sobre la manera en la que el metabolismo fermentativo y respiratorio influyen en la respuesta a nivel transcripcional a diversos estreses tanto salino como oxidativo. Para ello, se han empleado medios que emplean glucosa como fuente de energía (medio completamente fermentativo) y medios que emplean galactosa como fuente de energía (medio parcialmente respiratorio).Estos ensayos se han complementado con un ensayo de crecimiento en medio líquido, que permite evaluar la sensibilidad de las células de levadura a medio con glucosa y con galactosa. Como resultado de estos ensayos se confirmó que cuando las células crecen en medio con galactosa responden a estrés salino de forma mucho más sensible (la saturación de la respuesta es más rápida a bajas concentraciones de sal), también se pudo deducir que el crecimiento es inhibido de forma más eficiente cuando las células se someten a estrés en medio con galactosa. Por último, se midió la producción de glicerol, osmolito que juega un papel importante en la osmoadaptación, comparándose los resultados de la producción en medio con glucosa con la producción en medio con galactosa. Se confirmó que cuando las células de levadura crecen en medio con galactosa la cantidad de glicerol producida es significativamente menor en comparación con el medio de glucosa.Bets Plasencia, C. (2014). Optimización de la detección de daños oxidativos en la célula viva y en tiempo real. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/46439.Archivo delegad

Quantum Manifestations of Graphene Edge Stress and Edge Instability: A First-Principles Study

We have performed first-principles calculations of graphene edge stresses, which display two interesting quantum manifestations absent from the classical interpretation: the armchair edge stress oscillates with a nanoribbon width, and the zigzag edge stress is noticeably reduced by spin polarization. Such quantum stress effects in turn manifest in mechanical edge twisting and warping instability, showing features not captured by empirical potentials or continuum theory. Edge adsorption of H and Stone-Wales reconstruction are shown to provide alternative mechanisms in relieving the edge compression and hence to stabilize the planar edge structure.Comment: 5figure

Natural climate solutions

Moderator: Renée Rondeau. Panelists: Imtiaz Rangwala, Bruce Rittenhouse, George Schisler, Betsy Neely, and Robin O'Malley.Presented at the 2018 CNHP Partners Meeting held on March 9, 2018 in the Grand Ballroom D, Lory Student Center, Colorado State University Campus, Fort Collins, Colorado.Panelists discuss the benefits for nature and people with natural climate solutions

Nambu-Goldstone Dark Matter and Cosmic Ray Electron and Positron Excess

We propose a model of dark matter identified with a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson in the dynamical supersymmetry breaking sector in a gauge mediation scenario. The dark matter particles annihilate via a below-threshold narrow resonance into a pair of R-axions each of which subsequently decays into a pair of light leptons. The Breit-Wigner enhancement explains the excess electron and positron fluxes reported in the recent cosmic ray experiments PAMELA, ATIC and PPB-BETS without postulating an overdensity in halo, and the limit on anti-proton flux from PAMELA is naturally evaded.Comment: 3 figure