Religion and foreign policy

Religion has become (again) a recognisable significant factor in many aspects of international politics. Any consideration of its role inevitably raises in the mind of the British reader the current threat of terrorism from ‘Al Qaida and related terrorist groups’ as MI5 puts it (1). For reasons that I will return to later, this ‘international terrorism’ is not labelled as being in any sense related to, or derived from Islam officially in the British language – MI5 describes the threat as being not even from readings of Islam, but rather from ‘Al Qaeda’s ideology’ (2). But all recognise this terrorist threat as being related in some form to religion. The attacks on New York and Washington, Bali, Istanbul, London, Madrid – have all brought into sharp relief the mobilising effect of religion. But religion is not only important in the twenty-first century because of those terrorist acts and threats

The Stag Without a Heart

The Stag Without a Heart explores the potential of the perpetual film loop and the complexities of the narrative drive. It was the outcome of an AHRC-funded Practice-led and Applied Research Project Award (2009–10). Croft collaborated with Booker Prize-nominated writer Deborah Levy to adapt Aesop’s Fable #214, ‘The lion, the fox and the stag’ into a circular monologue. The resulting allegorical tale of corruption, deception and the desire for power is delivered in the style of a classical Hollywood ‘mise-en-scène’, alluding to black and white American crime cinema. By undermining narrative conventions and laws of continuity through employing a seamless loop, Croft subverts the construction of on-screen film space and coalesces discrete forms of language and, as such, the spectator’s expectations. Croft placed significant emphasis on traditional filmmaking production values, incorporating cinematic hallmarks into a visual art context. His rigorous methodological approach can be identified by his use of 35mm film stock, professional actors, pronounced cinematography, a stylised film set, a large crew and an emotive musical score. In so doing, the film distinguishes itself as its own genre of filmic practice, an interdisciplinary enterprise further indicated by its accessibility to viewers in environments ranging from the contemporary art gallery, the museum installation, and the looped video screening within a moving image festival. The film was exhibited and screened in public institutions and galleries including MuHKA, Antwerp (2011), Raum fur Gegenwartskunst, Linz (2011) and Cornerhouse, Manchester (2012). It can be viewed on the The Stag Without a Heart website, which was developed with AHRC funding: http://www.stuartcroft.com/thestagwithoutaheart/index.htm The website includes a critical essay by Steven Eastwood, ‘The repetition of repetition’. Croft also convened an AHRC-funded research seminar (2010) on the project’s central themes, including papers from David Heinemann (Middlesex University), Deborah Levy, Janice McLaren (Photographers’ Gallery) and curator David Thorp

The governance of European security

This article seeks to develop a concept of ‘security governance’ in the context of post-Cold War Europe. The validity of a governance approach lies in its ability to locate some of the distinctive ways in which European security has been coordinated, managed and regulated. Based on an examination of the way governance is utilised in other political fields of political analysis, the article identifies the concept of security governance as involving the coordinated management and regulation of issues by multiple and separate authorities, the interventions of both public and private actors (depending upon the issue), formal and informal arrangements, in turn structured by discourse and norms, and purposefully directed toward particular policy outcomes. Three issues are examined to demonstrate the utility of the concept of security governance for understanding security in post-Cold War Europe: the transformation of NATO, the Europeanisation of security accomplished through EU-led initiatives and, finally, the resultant dynamic relationship between forms of exclusion and inclusion in governance

Fit for purpose? Fitting ontological security studies 'into' the discipline of International Relations : towards a vernacular turn

The performance of International Relations (IR) scholarship – as in all scholarship – acts to close and police the boundaries of the discipline in ways that reflect power–knowledge relations. This has led to the development of two strands of work in ontological security studies in IR, which divide on questions of ontological choice and the nature of the deployment of the concept of dread. Neither strand is intellectually superior to the other and both are internally heterogeneous. That there are two strands, however, is the product of the performance of IR scholarship, and the two strands themselves perform distinct roles. One allows ontological security studies to engage with the ‘mainstream’ in IR; the other allows ‘international’ elements of ontological security to engage with the social sciences more generally. Ironically, both can be read as symptoms of the discipline’s issues with its own ontological (in)security. We reflect on these intellectual dynamics and their implications and prompt a new departure by connecting ontological security studies in IR with the emerging interdisciplinary fields of the ‘vernacular’ and ‘everyday’ via the mutual interest in biographical narratives of the self and the work that they do politically

Introduction

Rappert, B. & Croft, S., 'Introduction', 2007, © Macmillan Publishers Limited, reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive version of this piece may be found in 'Technology and Security' edited by Dr Brian Rappert, which can be purchased from www.palgrave.co

Management of trypanosomiasis and leishmaniasis

<p>Background: The current treatments for human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), Chagas disease and leishmaniasis (collectively referred to as the kinetoplastid diseases) are far from ideal but, for some, there has been significant recent progress. For HAT the only advances in treatment over the past two decades have been the introduction of an eflornithine/nifurtimox co-administration and a shorter regime of the old standard melarsoprol.</p> <p>Sources of data: PubMed.</p> <p>Areas of Agreement: There is a need for new safe, oral drugs for cost-effective treatment of patients and use in control programmes for all the trypanosomatid diseases.</p> <p>Areas of controversy: Cutaneous leishmaniasis is not on the agenda and treatments are lagging behind.</p> <p>Growing points: There are three compounds in development for the treatment of the CNS stage of HAT: fexinidazole, currently due to entry into phase II clinical studies, a benzoxaborole (SCYX-7158) in phase I trials and a diamidine derivative (CPD-0802), in advanced pre-clinical development. For Chagas disease, two anti-fungal triazoles are now in clinical trial. In addition, clinical studies with benznidazole, a drug previously recommended only for acute stage treatment, are close to completion to determine the effectiveness in the treatment of early chronic and indeterminate Chagas disease. For visceral leishmaniasis new formulations, therapeutic switching, in particular AmBisome, and the potential for combinations of established drugs have significantly improved the opportunities for the treatment in the Indian subcontinent, but not in East Africa.</p> <p>Areas timely for developing research: Improved diagnostic tools are needed to support treatment, for test of cure in clinical trials and for monitoring/surveillance of populations in control programmes.</p&gt

Mortality risk and social network position in southern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca): sex differences and the importance of salmon abundance

An individual\u27s ecological environment affects its mortality risk, which in turn has fundamental consequences for life-history evolution and population viability. In many species, social relationships are likely to be an important component of an individual\u27s environment, and therefore mortality risk. Here, we examine the relationship between social position and mortality risk in Southern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) using over three decades of social and demographic data. We find that the social position of male, but not female, killer whales in their social unit predicts their mortality risk. More socially integrated males have a significantly lower risk of mortality than socially peripheral males, particularly in years of low salmon abundance, suggesting that social position mediates access to resources. Male killer whales are larger and require more resources than females, increasing their vulnerability to starvation in years of low salmon abundance. More socially integrated males are likely to have better access to social information and food-sharing opportunities which may enhance their survival in years of low prey abundance. Our results show that observable variation in the social environment is linked to variation in mortality risk. Furthermore, our results highlight the importance of considering sex differences in social effects on survival when developing conservation strategies for long-lived social mammals

Impactor flux and cratering on Ceres and Vesta: Implications for the early Solar System

We study the impactor flux and cratering on Ceres and Vesta caused by the collisional and dynamical evolution of the asteroid Main Belt. We develop a statistical code based on a well-tested model for the simultaneous evolution of the Main Belt and NEA size distributions. This code includes catastrophic collisions and noncollisional removal processes such as the Yarkovsky effect and the orbital resonances. The model assumes that the dynamical depletion of the early Main Belt was very strong, and owing to that, most Main Belt comminution occurred when its dynamical structure was similar to the present one. Our results indicate that the number of D > 1 km Main Belt asteroids striking Ceres and Vesta over the Solar System history are approximately 4 600 and 1 100 respectively. The largest Main Belt asteroids expected to have impacted Ceres and Vesta had diameters of 71.7 km and 21.1 km. The number of D > 0.1 km craters on Ceres is \sim 3.4 \times 10^8 and 6.2 \times 10^7 on Vesta. The number of craters with D > 100 km are 47 on Ceres and 8 on Vesta. Our study indicates that the D = 460 km crater observed on Vesta had to be formed by the impact of a D \sim 66.2 km projectile, which has a probability of occurr \sim 30% over the Solar System history. If significant discrepancies between our results about the cratering on Ceres and Vesta and data obtained from the Dawn Mission were found, they should be linked to a higher degree of collisional evolution during the early Main Belt and/or the existence of the late heavy bombardment. An increase in the collisional activity in the early phase may be provided for an initial configuration of the giant planets consistent with, for example, the Nice model. From this, the Dawn Mission would be able to give us clues about the initial configuration of the early Solar System and its subsequent dynamical evolution.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Efficient Reionization in a Large Hydrodynamic Galaxy Formation Simulation

Accuracy in the topology and statistics of a simulated Epoch of Reionization (EoR) are vital to draw connections between observations and physical processes. While full radiative transfer models produce the most accurate reionization models, they are highly computationally expensive, and are infeasible for the largest cosmological simulations. Instead, large simulations often include EoR models that are pre-computed via the initial density field, or post-processed where feedback effects are ignored. We introduce Astrid-ES, a resimulation of the Astrid epoch of reionisation $20 > z > 5.5$ which includes an on-the-fly excursion-set reionization algorithm. Astrid-ES produces more accurate reionization histories without significantly impacting the computational time. This model directly utilises the star particles produced in the simulation to calculate the EoR history and includes a UV background which heats the gas particles after their reionization. We contrast the reionization topology and statistics in Astrid-ES with the previously employed parametric reionisation model, finding that in Astrid-ES, ionised regions are more correlated with galaxies, and the 21cm power-spectrum shows an increase in large scale power. We calculate the relation between the size of HII regions and the UV luminosity of the brightest galaxy within them. Prior to the overlap phase, we find a power-law fit of $\mathrm{log} (R) = -0.314 M_\mathrm{UV} - 2.550 \mathrm{log}(1+z) + 7.408$ with a standard deviation $\sigma_R < 0.15 \mathrm{dex}$ across all mass bins. We also examine the properties of halos throughout reionization, finding that while the properties of halos in the simulation are correlated with the redshift of reionisation, they are not greatly affected by reionisation itself.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ