Human Rights and the War on Terror: Europe

Both individually and collectively, European countries have vast experience with international and domestic terrorism. Because the point of terrorist attacks is primarily within a particular country (United Kingdom, Turkey and Spain), terrorism has come to be viewed by these states as a domestic problem. At the same time European countries have recognized the value of inter-governmental cooperation, which has been codified in various bilateral and multilateral agreements and conventions dating back to the 1950’s

The Ultranet: an eGovernment Project Management Failure?

The Education Ministry in the Australian State of Victoria undertook a major project: building the Ultranet, between 2005 and its release in August 2010. The possibilities offered by the Ultranet were considerable, but up take by schools was not. The Ultranet is not yet dead, but it is certainly not in a good state of health. An analysis of communications shows that user needs were not assessed adequately, and that the poor handling of the system-wide launch was sufficient to disenchant even those who had expressed initial support. This eGovernment project is studied as an example of project failure, particularly in regard to its human aspects. The existence of small pockets of dedicated users points to the possibility of resurrection of those parts of the business case where the users continue to value the feature. Suggestions are made for a possible means of project recovery that would address the problems in this case, and a framework is proposed for anticipating other e-Government project failure points

Major eGovernment Projects in Health, Education and Transport in Victoria

This paper suggests that an understanding of eGovernment systems can be gained by examining them from the viewpoint of project management principles. The method adopted was to conduct a thematic analysis of documents describing six systems in the Australian state of Victoria. These projects were in Health, Education and Transport. Three were seen to be successful while three were not. The framework for the analysis was generated from a comparison of the general literature of project failure and the principles of two commonly used project management standards: PMBoK and PRINCE2. The comparison of successful and failed eGovernment projects within the same governmental departments enables conclusions to be drawn about the importance of stakeholder involvement and other project management principles

Site-selective, catalytic, and diastereoselective sp3 C–H hydroxylation and alkoxylation of vicinally functionalized lactams

The C–H bond functionalization of sp3 carbon centres presents a significant challenge due to the inert nature of hydrocarbons as well as the need to selectively functionalize one of the numerous aliphatic C–H bonds embodied in organic molecules. Here, we describe catalytic, diastereoselective, and site-selective sp3 C–H hydroxylation/alkoxylation protocols featuring dihydroisoquinolones, γ-, and δ-lactams, which bear vicinal stereocenters. The hydroxylation strategy utilizes oxygen, a waste-free oxidant and affords attractive fragments for potential drug discovery. Fe-catalyzed dehydrative coupling of the resulting tertiary alcohols with simple primary alcohols has led to the construction of highly versatile unsymmetrical dialkyl ethers

Narrative, Logic, Contradiction: Xi Jinping's Story of China's Past, Present and Future

China's current leader Xi Jinping is telling, and selling, a story to China and the world. Xi's grand narrative, the 'China Story', recounts a modernising China's journey to national rejuvenation. Naturally, this 'Chinese Dream' can only be realised under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with its unique development model of 'socialism with Chinese characteristics'. The backdrop to this positive story is a bleaker reality: a downturn in China's economy, tighter political controls over modern Chinese life, ongoing protests in Hong Kong and deteriorating relations with the United States. In 2020, China has looked to turn crisis into opportunity, using the global COVID-19 pandemic to promote a political narrative about the superiority of its CCP-led governance system. However, the underlying argument of China's COVID-19 narrative is not new; it is simply another echo of Xi's existing China Story. This suggests that a broader study of Xi's grand narrative is warranted. Analysing his overarching message will inform an understanding of how the contemporary CCP uses narrative and its governance performance to support the legitimacy of its rule. This study examines the narrative, argument and potential flaws in Xi's China Story. Drawing from literatures on Chinese language and politics, discourse analysis and political narratives, it critically analyses a selection of Xi's official speeches along with three texts published in response. This analysis informs an argument that by weaving the CCP, socialism with Chinese characteristics and national rejuvenation into a narrative of China's past, present and future, Xi turns his China Story into a 'mythologic'. Xi's mythologic, a narrative framework of reality, seeks to justify perpetual CCP rule by presenting the CCP-led system of socialism with Chinese characteristics as the only pathway to rejuvenation. However, analysing critical readings of Xi's discourse reveals contradictions in not only the China Story but also China's broader 'discourse-political system'. These contradictions prevent the China Story from generating a sustainable justification for CCP rule. Nonetheless, Xi's mythologic provides valuable support for CCP legitimacy. But its reliance on a perception of continuous progress to legitimise CCP rule means it must continually realign narrative and reality to demonstrate such progress, explain new developments and accommodate new interpretations

La universidad en el 2040

Ciento cincuenta expertos y representantes de la educación superior, la empresa y los gobiernos esbozaron en las distintas ediciones del libro The Futures of Universities Thoughtbook cuáles pueden ser las funciones de la universidad en el horizonte de 2040. En este artículo se analizan cinco roles u objetivos estratégicos de la universidad, necesarios para repensar su papel a medio y largo plazo, y seguir poniendo el conocimiento científico, la tecnología innovadora y el capital humano al servicio de la sociedad

Exploring the socioethical dilemmas in the use of a global health archive

A global health archive consisting of podoconiosis tissue slides and blocks (which was collected and imported into the UK before the introduction of the Human Tissue Act), was donated to Brighton & Sussex Medical School in 2014. There is little guidance on the socioethical and legal issues surrounding the retrospective use of archived or ‘abandoned’ tissue samples, which poses a number of questions relating to the ethical standing of the archive. There is a great deal of interpretation in the guidelines that are currently in existence, however modern ethical principles cannot be applied as it is not feasible to either reconsent or retrospectively seek approval. Our research team believed that it was unethical to leave the archive in storage, as this option favours neither researcher nor subjects. Permission was obtained from the Human Tissue Authority and a local ethics board for the tissues to be utilised in on-going research on podoconiosis aetiology. There is a delicate balance between the benefits gained by society relating to the development and progress of scientific research and the risks to the donor regarding the reuse of their tissues. Clearer guidelines should be made available to ensure that researchers are able to re-use tissue archives in contemporary research

Classification of main meal patterns - a latent class approach

Relatively little examination of the meals that are prepared in households has been conducted, despite their well-defined properties and widespread community interest in their preparation. The purpose of the present study was to identify the patterns of main meal preparation among Australian adult household meal preparers aged 44 years and younger and 45 years and over, and the relationships between these patterns and likely socio-demographic and psychological predictors. An online cross-sectional survey was conducted by Meat and Livestock Australia among a representative sample of people aged 18–65 years in Australia in 2011. A total of 1076 usable questionnaires were obtained, which included categorical information about the main meal dishes that participants had prepared during the previous 6 months along with demographic information, the presence or absence of children at home, confidence in seasonal food knowledge and personal values. Latent class analysis was applied and four types of usage patterns of thirty-three popular dishes were identified for both age groups, namely, high variety, moderate variety, high protein but low beef and low variety. The meal patterns were associated differentially with the covariates between the age groups. For example, younger women were more likely to prepare a high or moderate variety of meals than younger men, while younger people who had higher levels of education were more likely to prepare high-protein but low-beef meals. Moreover, young respondents with higher BMI were less likely to prepare meals with high protein but low beef content. Among the older age group, married people were more likely to prepare a high or moderate variety of meals than people without partners. Older people who held strong universalist values were more likely to prepare a wide variety of meals with high protein but low beef content. For both age groups, people who had children living at home and those with better seasonal food knowledge were more likely to prepare a high variety of dishes. The identification of classes of meal users would enable health communication to be tailored to improve meal patterns. Moreover, the concept of meals may be useful for health promotion, because people may find it easier to change their consumption of meals rather than individual foods

The use of non-invasive measures to predict thermal strain: How accurate are universal models?

Over the past few decades there has been an upsurge in the development of monitoring devices that estimate levels of thermal strain non-invasively. However, developing a non-invasive monitoring device that estimates body core temperature (Tc) with a certain level of accuracy that is satisfactory over multiple heat stress scenarios and a wide range of body core temperatures has been shown to be a difficult task [1]. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of using a combination of simple non-invasive measures to estimate rectal temperature (Tre) (used as a reference for Tc) over multiple types of heat stress scenarios within a varied population

Rescinding Community Mitigation Strategies in an Influenza Pandemic

Thresholds for these strategies reduced the number of days strategies were needed without increasing illness rates