Great expectations: The EU's social role as a great power manager

Through the case of EU foreign and security policy we reconsider the concept of great power. According to common wisdom, the EU cannot be a great power, whatever the pronouncements of its top officials may be. We argue that ‘great power’ has been miscast in IR theory as a status rather than as a social role, and, consequently, that the EU can indeed be viewed as playing the great power role. Such a conceptual shift moves analytical attention away from questions of what the EU is ‘big’, ‘small’, ‘great’, and so on to what it is expected to do in international politics. We focus on the expectation that great powers engage in the management of the international system, assessing the EU as a great power manager in two senses: First, in the classical sense of ‘great power management’ of Hedley Bull which centers on great powers’ creation of regional spheres of influence and the maintenance of the general balance of power and second, in light of recent corrections to Bull’s approach by Alexander Astrov and others, who suggest great power management has changed toward a logic of governmentality, i.e. ‘conducting the conduct’ of lesser states

Privacy-certification standards for extended-reality devices and services

In this position paper, we discuss the need for, and potential requirements for privacy certification standards for extended-reality devices and related services. We begin by presenting motivations, before discussing related efforts. We then review the issue of certification as a research problem and identify key requirements. Finally, we out-line key recommendations for how these might feed into a grander roadmap for privacy and security research

Partial utilization efficiencies of protein and methionine by barramundi (Lates calcarifer) in response to dietary methionine source and form

An experiment was conducted with barramundi (Lates calcarifer) juveniles (initial weight 10.3 g ± 0.3 g) to examine the partial efficiency of utilization of methionine (Met) from intact protein (fishmeal or lupin protein concentrate) and a crystalline DL‐Met source. Fish were fed at one of three ration levels: Low (0.4 g/fish/day), Moderate (0.8 g/fish/day) and High (1.6 g/fish/day). Those fed the fishmeal‐based diet (Diet FML) at the highest ration level grew to an average weight of 37.3 ± 0.46 g, whereas those fed the Lupin Protein Concentrate (LPC)‐based diet fortified with all EAA (Diet LPCM) at the highest ration level grew to 25.4 ± 2.27 g. The weight of the fish fed the LPC diet with no additional Met (Diet LPC) even at the highest ration level declined over the course of the experiment resulting in a final weight of 9.2 ± 0.88 g, clearly demonstrating the impact of dietary Met deficiency. The partial efficiency of protein utilization was also significantly reduced when Met was limiting (a coefficient of 0.06, compared to 0.39 in the Met‐supplemented LPC diet). The results suggested that the partial efficiencies (coefficients) of both Met and protein utilization in diets where crystalline Met is the primary source of Met (Diet LPCM: 0.26 and 0.39 respectively) were significantly poorer than from an intact protein source (Diet FML: 0.89 and 0.67 respectively) when Met is provided in excess

Postprandial plasma free amino acid profile and hepatic gene expression in juvenile barramundi (Lates calcarifer) is more responsive to feed consumption than to dietary methionine inclusion

The effects of dietary methionine (Met) supply on the postprandial pattern of plasma free amino acids and the differential expression of several genes associated with a number of sulfur amino acid and protein turnover pathways in the liver of juvenile barramundi (Lates calcarifer) was investigated. At the conclusion of a 49-day growth trial assessing the requirement for dietary Met, three treatments were selected (with deficient (DEF; 8.6 g kg−1), adequate (ADQ; 14.9 g kg−1) and excessive (EXC; 21.4 g kg−1)) levels of dietary Met, based on their respective growth responses. A peak occurred in plasma free Met at 2 h post-feeding in fish fed the DEF and ADQ diets and at 4 h post-feeding in fish in the EXC treatment. Liver samples collected at these timepoints, as well as those taken as a pre-feeding control, were analyzed for expression of genes involved in Met turnover (CGL, MAT-1, MAT-2a) and taurine biosynthetic pathways (CSAD, ADO, CDO), target of rapamycin inhibition (Redd-1), the somatotropic axis (GHR-II, IGFI, IGF-II) and protein turnover pathways (MUL-1, ZFAND-5). Markers of sulfur amino acid turnover were more significantly affected by time after feeding than by dietary Met level, suggesting production of these enzymes may be primarily regulated by the consumption of feed or protein, rather than by the dietary composition. Further, metabolised Met appeared likely to have been directed through S-Adenosylmethionine (SAM) dependent pathways, rather than converted to Cys, which may have contributed to the observed growth response. Both genes influencing the conversion of Met to SAM appear to be active at this lifestage in barramundi. Previously described markers of proteolytic pathways appear to be conserved in this species and we have confirmed that ZFAND-5 is a reliable biomarker of this process in barramundi. A number of important genes were investigated for the first time in this species and shown to be nutritionally regulated

Cyber security threats and challenges in collaborative mixed-reality

Collaborative Mixed-Reality (CMR) applications are gaining interest in a wide range of areas including games, social interaction, design and health-care. To date, the vast majority of published work has focused on display technology advancements, software, collaboration architectures and applications. However, the potential security concerns that affect collaborative platforms have received limited research attention. In this position paper, we investigate the challenges posed by cyber-security threats to CMR systems. We focus on how typical network architectures facilitating CMR and how their vulnerabilities can be exploited by attackers, and discuss the degree of potential social, monetary impacts, psychological and other harms that may result from such exploits. The main purpose of this paper is to provoke a discussion on CMR security concerns. We highlight insights from a cyber-security threat modelling perspective and also propose potential directions for research and development toward better mitigation strategies. We present a simple, systematic approach to understanding a CMR attack surface through an abstraction-based reasoning framework to identify potential attack vectors. Using this framework, security analysts, engineers, designers and users alike (stakeholders) can identify potential Indicators of Exposures (IoE) and Indicators of Compromise (IoC). Our framework allows stakeholders to reduce their CMR attack surface as well understand how Intrusion Detection System (IDS) approaches can be adopted for CMR systems. To demonstrate the validity to our framework, we illustrate several CMR attack surfaces through a set of use-cases. Finally, we also present a discussion on future directions this line of research should take

Dynamics of Magnetic Flux Elements in the Solar Photosphere

The interaction of magnetic fields and convection is investigated in the context of the coronal heating problem. We study the motions of photospheric magnetic elements using filtergrams obtained at the Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope at La Palma. We use potential-field modeling to extrapolate the magnetic and velocity fields to larger height. We find that the velocity in the chromosphere can be locally enhanced at the separatrix surfaces between neighboring flux tubes. The predicted velocities are several km/s, significantly larger than those of the photospheric flux tubes, which may have important implications for coronal heating. sComment: submitted to ApJ, 21 pages, 10 figure

Feed Containing Novacq Improves Resilience of Black Tiger Shrimp, Penaeus Monodon, to Gill-associated Virus-induced Mortality

The ability of Novacq to improve resilience of black tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon, to infection and mortality induced by gill-associated virus (GAV) was investigated. Over a 26-d period, shrimp were fed pellets with or without 10% Novacq. Following this, four replicate tanks, each containing 10 shrimp that had been fed either diet, were maintained as-is, injected with saline or injected with GAV inoculum (i.e., 40 shrimp for each of the six groups). For shrimp (n=20) in two of each group of four tanks, survival was monitored daily over 14d and a pleopod was sampled from each shrimp on Days 0 and 14. For the other two tanks, a pleopod was sampled from each shrimp on Days 0, 3, 7, 10, and 14 to track changes in GAV loads over time. Survival was significantly higher (P<0.05) from Day 7 onward among the group fed Novacq. GAV infection loads appeared to vary more between individuals in the Novacq diet cohort, but overall were not reduced significantly at any time points post-challenge compared to shrimp tested from the Control diet cohort.&nbsp

Acute porphyria presenting with hyperamylasemia

An elevation of serum amylase and lipase has not been reported previously to occur with porphyria. In this report, we describe a patient who presented with the clinical and laboratory picture of pancreatitis: elevated amylase, lipase, amylase-creatinine clearance ratio, and with abdominal pain. Only after extensive evaluation, was the patient found to have porphyria. On two separate occasions, with hematin therapy, her serum amylase decreased, as did her clinical symptoms of porphyria and her urinary quantitative porphyrins. This suggests an association between elevation of the serum amylase and lipase with acute porphyria. Moreover, this association can lead to delay in establishing the diagnosis of acute porphyria.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44413/1/10620_2005_Article_BF01318211.pd

Tree-Based Methods for Discovery of Association between Flow Cytometry Data and Clinical Endpoints

We demonstrate the application and comparative interpretations of three tree-based algorithms for the analysis of data arising from flow cytometry: classification and regression trees (CARTs), random forests (RFs), and logic regression (LR). Specifically, we consider the question of what best predicts CD4 T-cell recovery in HIV-1 infected persons starting antiretroviral therapy with CD4 count between 200 and 350 cell/μL. A comparison to a more standard contingency table analysis is provided. While contingency table analysis and RFs provide information on the importance of each potential predictor variable, CART and LR offer additional insight into the combinations of variables that together are predictive of the outcome. In all cases considered, baseline CD3-DR-CD56+CD16+ emerges as an important predictor variable, while the tree-based approaches identify additional variables as potentially informative. Application of tree-based methods to our data suggests that a combination of baseline immune activation states, with emphasis on CD8 T-cell activation, may be a better predictor than any single T-cell/innate cell subset analyzed. Taken together, we show that tree-based methods can be successfully applied to flow cytometry data to better inform and discover associations that may not emerge in the context of a univariate analysis

Ireland's Rejection of the Lisbon Treaty and the EU's Impasse.

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