The EU and Bosnia and Herzegovina: Democracy promotion within the limits of the "ethnic conflict" paradigm

Seeking to contribute to the emerging debate about the substance of EU democracy promotion policies, this paper takes as its focus Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the EU‟s current democracy promotion efforts are primarily focused on reform of the country‟s constitution. Bosnia‟s current constitution, established by the 1995 Dayton Agreement, provides for consociational power-sharing and extensive territorial decentralisation. While EU officials have stressed the inadequacies of the present constitutional arrangements, over time the reforms demanded have become more limited in scope. As such, I suggest that the outcome of any successful constitutional reform negotiations will be technical fixes to the present constitution, allowing the country to meet the obligations of future EU membership, rather than its wholesale redesign. Rather than promoting liberal democracy as it has elsewhere, then, in Bosnia the EU supports the perpetuation of consociational structures, which EU officials regard as the most realistic option given the country‟s post-conflict political context. Faced with the lack of a constitutional norm within the Union, let alone a consociational one, EU policy-makers have instead chosen to refer to a particular reading of the history of the European integration project itself in order to lend support to their approach in Bosnia, which continues to privilege group over individual rights. I highlight how notions of a „union of diversity‟ or a „union of minorities‟ are used to legitimise an approach to democracy promotion that is predicated on a view of Bosnia as composed of a patchwork of ethnic groups with discrete and discernable interests and identities

An exploratory study of nursing in two child psychiatric in-patient units

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Construction of AC Motor Controllers for NOvA Experiment Upgrades

I have been constructing Alternating Current (AC) motor controllers for manipulation of particle beam detectors. The capability and reliability of these motor controllers are essential to the Laboratory's mission of accurate analysis of the particle beam's position. The device is moved in and out of the beam's path by the motor controller followed by the Neutrinos at the Main Injector Off-Axis {\nu}e Appearance (NOvA) Experiment further down the beam pipe. In total, I built and tested ten ac motor controllers for new beam operations in the NOvA experiment. These units will prove to be durable and provide extremely accurate beam placement for NO{\nu}A Experiment far into the future.Comment: 11 p

A Theory of the Acquisition of Episodic Memory

Case-based reasoning (CBR) has been viewed by many as just a methodology for building systems, but the foundations of CBR are psychological theories. Dynamic Memory (Schank, 1982) was the first attempt to describe a theory for learning in computers and people, based on particular forms of data structures and processes, that nowadays are widely used in a variety of forms in CBR. In addition to being useful for system building, CBR provides a way of discussing a range of issues concerned with cognition. This focus on the practical uses of CBR has deflected attention from the need to develop further the underlying theory. In particular, the issue of knowledge acquisition, in not adequately handled by the existing theory. This paper discusses this theoretical weakness and then proposes an enhanced model of learning which is compatible with the CBR paradigm

The minimum vertex degree for an almost-spanning tight cycle in a 33-uniform hypergraph

We prove that any $3$-uniform hypergraph whose minimum vertex degree is at least $\left(\frac{5}{9} + o(1) \right)\binom{n}{2}$ admits an almost-spanning tight cycle, that is, a tight cycle leaving $o(n)$ vertices uncovered. The bound on the vertex degree is asymptotically best possible. Our proof uses the hypergraph regularity method, and in particular a recent version of the hypergraph regularity lemma proved by Allen, B\"ottcher, Cooley and Mycroft.Comment: 10 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1411.495

Water Use Trends in the United States

Since 1950, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has collected and released data on national water use every five years for each state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In November 2014, the USGS released water-use estimates for 2010. These data are collected from a variety of sources, including from national data sets, state agencies, questionnaires, and local contacts (Maupin et al. 2014). They include estimates of withdrawals of freshwater and saline water from groundwater and surface-water sources and water use by sector. Using these data and historic data from several other sources, this paper reviews national water-use trends, going as far back as 1900 in some cases. For this analysis, we use the term "water use" to refer to the amount of water withdrawn from the ground or diverted from a surface-water source for use. Our analysis finds that we have made considerable progress in managing the nation's water, with total water use less than it was in 1970, despite continued population and economic growth. Indeed, every sector, from agriculture to thermoelectric power generation, shows reductions in water use. National water use, however, remains high, and many freshwater systems are under stress from overuse. Moreover, climate change will exacerbate existing water resource challenges, affecting the supply, demand, and quality of the nation's water resources. In order to address these challenges, we must continue and even expand efforts to improve water-use efficiency in our homes, businesses, industries, and on our nation's farms

Comparison of Robust and Varying Parameter Estimates of a Macroeconometric Model

Four estimators of econometric models are compared for predictive accuracy. Two estimators assume that the parameters of the equations are subject to variation over time. The first of these, the adaptive regression technique (ADR), assumes that the intercept varies overtime, while the other, a varying-parameter regression technique (VPR), assumes that all parameters may be subject to variation. The other two estimators are ordinary least squares (OLS) and a robust estimator that gives less weight to large residuals. The vehicle for these experiments is the econometric model developed by Ray Fair. The main conclusion is that varying parameter techniques appear promising for the estimation of econometric models. They are clearly superior in the present context for short term forecasts. Of the two varying parameter techniques considered, ADR is superior over longer prediction intervals.

Future techniques for tracking of synchronous satellites

A tracking system error analysis computer program is reported to study the feasibility of using range sum and range-rate sum measurements through a synchronous satellite to a user satellite, and range sum and range-rate sum measurements through a synchronous satellite to a ground based transponder for tracking of synchronous satellites. Error analysis transformed noise, bias, ground station location and orbit uncertainties into expected uncertainties in each of the orbits after tracking. Results show that both of the proposed measurement methods are feasible for determining and refining the orbits of future synchronous satellites