Egypt: The Shifting Cornerstone to the East-West Balance of Power in 1956

The seizure and subsequent war over the Suez Canal in 1956 is the major theme of this work. The effects on the international situation and world events are analyzed. The major participants, Great Britain under Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden, France under Premier Guy Mollet, Israel under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and Egypt under President Gamal Nasser, are developed from their personal aspirations and goals surrounding their actions. These actions led to the chain of events which disrupted the bipolar balance of world power. The United States\u27 containment policy was breeched. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles did not adequately represent the position of the United States in this situation, which was stated by President Eisenhower to his Western allies. This lack of precise communication resulted in the disruption of allied solidarity. President Eisenhower had to initiate sanctions against his allies in order to halt the destruction of Western influence in the Middle East, to save the United Nations, and to replace the role played by his allies in the area through the Eisenhower Doctrine. The Soviet Union accomplished an immense historic success. It had successfully achieved a strongly accepted influence in the Middle East which had been denied since the 1700\u27s. The Soviets took advantage of the divisions among Western powers by entering an area where a power vacuum existed. Russia, by centering attention on the United Nations and directing world attention to the Middle East, lessened criticisms against its actions in Hungary. Taking advantage of a divided and weakened West, the Soviet Union ruthlessly crushed the Hungarian revolt. The Soviets, through unrestricted supplies of arms and economic aid to the Middle East, acquired for themselves a more popular image of Soviet communism than that of Western democracy with the Arab nationalists. The United States forced an end to the joint British, French, and Israeli invasion into Egypt. This caused deep resentment in France which led it to break from the United States and develop its own separate role in world politics. It was clearly proven that Great Britain and France had secretly negotiated with Israel regarding Israel\u27s invasion of Egypt and the subsequent combined peace keeping invasion of the Suez Canal. Great Britain\u27s conservative government had to be rebuilt, and its economy was nearly shattered. Arab nationalism became divided between the West and Nasser\u27s neutral Soviet-backed government. The Soviet Union gained unprecedented success, and its influence was readily accepted. The United States was forced to bear a larger role in the area because of the Eisenhower Doctrine. America\u27s democratic ideals were viewed with suspicion, and its containment policy was breeched

Hvordan kan økologisk jordbrug være med til at styrke vækst og udvikling i landdistrikterne?

Øget økologisk jordbrug kan, hvis omlægningen designes rigtigt, bidrage til udviklingen i landdistrikterne. Dette belyses med en række eksempler. En kortlægning af økologisk jordbrugs udbredelse i Danmark viser, at de områder, hvor der i dag er meget økologisk jordbrug, i vid udstrækning er sammenfaldende med de områder, hvor der er et særligt behov for udvikling i landdistrikterne. Det er således et vigtigt at belyse, hvorledes den økologiske jordbrugsproduktion bedst tilrettelægges, så den bidrager til landdistriktsudviklingen i disse områder

Energy efficiency (EE) and cost-effective means to increase EE and to mitigate the climate change of pork and broiler meat production in five European countries

Production of pork and broiler meat in the European Union (EU) has increased by 7.8 and 16.1%, respectively, in the period of 2001 – 2011. At that time pork and broiler meat produced, amounted together to over four times the cattle meat. Meat is an important protein source in human diet, but on the other hand, livestock uses globally 30% of ice-free terrestrial land and produces 18% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This exceeds the global emissions of the transport sector. Furthermore, energy ratio (output/input) for meat production is less than 1.0 in general and it is much lower than that of plant production. This paper presents cost-effectiveness of EE measures in pork and broiler meat production and it is based on the results of the Agriculture and Energy Efficiency Project (www.AGREE.aua.gr). The structure of the energy input appeared to be very similar in pork and broiler meat production. Feed was found to be the major indirect energy input. Its contribution to the total energy demand varied from 51% to 82% in pork production and from 55% to 94% in broiler meat production. The percentage of feed was the lowest in the Northern European countries and the highest in the south. This difference was mainly attributable to the demand for heating of animal houses during the winter period. Differences could also be found in the absolute energy input of feed. It indicated that there may be possibilities to improve feeding strategies or feed conversation rate of animals. In pork production, the energy input of feed was 12.5 GJ t-1 (live weight) in average and 8.6 GJ t-1 (live weight) in broiler production. The difference between pork and broiler meat is a consequence of the higher feed conversation rate of broilers in contrast to pigs. The category “Other energy use” was the second highest energy input and it consisted of energy input for ventilation, illumination, feeding, and heating of animal houses. In pork production, the input of this category was 4.7 GJ t-1 (live weight) in average (25% from the total energy input) and 2.4 GJ t-1 (live weight) in broiler meat production (22% from the total energy input). The specific energy input in pork production was the lowest in The Netherlands ( 14.5 GJ t-1) and that of broiler meat production in Germany (9.8 GJ t-1). Case studies analysed in five participating countries demonstrated EE measures capable to reduce costs, to increase EE, and to cut GHG emissions at the same time. Proposed EE measures were related to ventilation, heating, feeding, animal bedding, energy generation from manure, and feed production. As an example, an airtight grain storage met all three goals at the same time. Investment costs were lower than those for a grain dryer, no energy was needed for drying, and no GHG emissions were generated because no gas or oil was needed for drying. All suggested EE measures were not as successful. They might appear negative for costs but positive for EE and GHG reduction, resulting in a trade-off situation. An approach like this helps to rank potential EE measures in terms of their cost-effectiveness and capability to cut GHG emissions

Samspillet mellem landbrugets strukturudvikling og naturbeskyttelse i forskellige EU-lande

Strukturudviklingen har vidt forskellige konsekvenser i forskellige dele af EU. I nogle områder ’afvikles’ traditionelt landbrug og giver mulighed for etablering af ’ny natur’. I andre områder intensiveres den konkurrencedygtige landbrugsproduktion. Samtidig indføres miljøforbedrede produktionssystemer, men der er alligevel behov for særlige planlægningstiltag for at give plads til den sårbare natur i disse områder. I denne præsentation gennemgås en række eksempler på, hvordan strukturudviklingen i landbruget kan spille sammen med naturbeskyttelsen. Eksemplerne er hentet fra en række forskellige EU-lande, som DJF har forskningsprojekter sammen med

Fiber-optic probe for noninvasive real-time determination of tissue optical properties at multiple wavelengths

We present a compact, fast, and versatile fiber-optic probe system for real-time determination of tissue optical properties from spatially resolved continuous-wave diffuse reflectance measurements. The system collects one set of reflectance data from six source-detector distances at four arbitrary wavelengths with a maximum overall sampling rate of 100 Hz. Multivariate calibration techniques based on two-dimensional polynomial fitting are employed to extract and display the absorption and reduced scattering coefficients in real-time mode. The four wavelengths of the current configuration are 660, 785, 805, and 974 nm, respectively. Cross-validation tests on a 6 x 7 calibration matrix of Intralipid-dye phantoms showed that the mean prediction error at, e.g., 785 nm was 2.8% for the absorption coefficient and 1.3% for the reduced scattering coefficient. The errors are relative to the range of the optical properties of the phantoms at 785 nm, which were 0-0.3/cm for the absorption coefficient and 6-16/cm for the reduced scattering coefficient. Finally, we also present and discuss results from preliminary skin tissue measurements. (C) 2001 Optical Society of Americ

Supplementing the PICA: The Effects of Language Sampling on Intervention Strategies

TB

Transcriptome profiling of mice testes following low dose irradiation

BACKGROUND: Radiotherapy is used routinely to treat testicular cancer. Testicular cells vary in radio-sensitivity and the aim of this study was to investigate cellular and molecular changes caused by low dose irradiation of mice testis and to identify transcripts from different cell types in the adult testis. METHODS: Transcriptome profiling was performed on total RNA from testes sampled at various time points (n = 17) after 1 Gy of irradiation. Transcripts displaying large overall expression changes during the time series, but small expression changes between neighbouring time points were selected for further analysis. These transcripts were separated into clusters and their cellular origin was determined. Immunohistochemistry and in silico quantification was further used to study cellular changes post-irradiation (pi). RESULTS: We identified a subset of transcripts (n = 988) where changes in expression pi can be explained by changes in cellularity. We separated the transcripts into five unique clusters that we associated with spermatogonia, spermatocytes, early spermatids, late spermatids and somatic cells, respectively. Transcripts in the somatic cell cluster showed large changes in expression pi, mainly caused by changes in cellularity. Further investigations revealed that the low dose irradiation seemed to cause Leydig cell hyperplasia, which contributed to the detected expression changes in the somatic cell cluster. CONCLUSIONS: The five clusters represent gene expression in distinct cell types of the adult testis. We observed large expression changes in the somatic cell profile, which mainly could be attributed to changes in cellularity, but hyperplasia of Leydig cells may also play a role. We speculate that the possible hyperplasia may be caused by lower testosterone production and inadequate inhibin signalling due to missing germ cells

Calanus finmarchicus basin scale life history traits and role in community carbon turnover during spring

The copepod Calanus finmarchicus was investigated in four Subpolar Basins, Labrador, Irminger, Iceland, and Norwegian Seas, during spring, covering the time of ascent, grazing, and initiation of reproduction in the area. Lipid content, spawning activity, and stage composition and vital rates, such as egg and faecal pellet production were measured and linked to environmental parameters. Specific egg- and faecal pellet production rates varied with diatom biomass and were negatively correlated with temperature. Comparison of the various biological indicators revealed different life history traits C. finmarchicus has adopted in the different basins. In Labrador Sea, the females have invested in large eggs compared to the remaining basins. Labrador and Irminger Sea C. finmarchicus invest in size that we propose to be adaptation to cope with warmer overwintering habitats resulting in larger potential lipid storage capacity, while the Iceland and Norwegian Sea females can invest their remaining lipid storage in spring to fuel lipid-driven egg production. Grazing pressure on the phytoplankton community was estimated and compared between copepod and two dominating groups of protozooplankton; ciliates and heterotrophic dinoflagellates. Despite approximately the same biomass in the upper 100 m, the grazing impact of the protozoan grazers was an order of magnitude higher than the C. finmarchicus dominated mesozooplankton. This illustrates the importance to also include the smallest grazers when studying the spring bloom in high latitude marine ecosystems if the fate of the primary production should be fully understood.publishedVersio

Effect of the sodium reduction and smoking system on quality and safety of smoked salmon (Salmo salar)

Excessive sodium (Na) intake has been associated with high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, sodium reduction is a public health challenge worldwide. The aim of this study was to develop smoked salmon with a reduced Na content. Sodium chloride (NaCl) was replaced by potassium chloride (KCl) at 25% and 50% (molar replacement) and studied in combination with two smoking procedures (natural wood and liquid smoke) as well as two smoking temperatures (18-19ºC or 56ºC). Smoked salmon samples were characterized by physicochemical, sensory and microbiological analyses. No major differences were observed regarding physicochemical properties in the studied treatments. Smoked samples with 50% of NaCl replaced by KCl were slightly more bitter than those with 25% whereas samples with 25% of replacement did not show differences to those with non-reduced Na content (5 g of added NaCl per 100 g of salmon). Molar Na:K ratio decreased from 4,3 in controls to 1,4 and 0,6 in samples with a NaCl reduction level of 25% and 50 % respectively. Microbiological assessment indicates that 2-week shelf-life would be appropriate and safe in terms of accomplishment of the EU regulation, taking into account foreseeable storage temperatures (up to 8 ºC). Thus, it is possible to achieve a reduction of 25-50% of NaCl in smoked salmon by replacing NaCl by KCl and considerer this product as a “source” of K.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio