Transitions from Terrorism to Modernity: Linking External and Internal change Dimensions

The struggle between Arab nationalism and Islamic radicalism may determine the direction of Middle Eastern politics and society and possibly of world history for decades to come. The war on terror is likely to be more like the Cold War than a hot war, but a successful battle against the war on terrorism will have to involve military means with long-term engagement. The answer may lie in shifting the focus away from attempts to defeat the enemy to a strategy that attempts to neutralize the enemy, which demands nuance and empathy with local conditions

The South African National Defence Forces

The creation of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) since the advent of South Africa\u27s nonracial democracy in 1994 has arguably been one of the most successful episodes in the transformation of the Republic\u27s civil service. However, on the cusp of the new millennium, critical questions about the Defence Force\u27s budgent allocation, its personnel levels, and equipment raise concerns about its future abilities and roles

Hvorfor er Afrika så fattigt?

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South Africa and security building in the Indian Ocean Rim

Through an examination of the nature of the security agenda in Indian Ocean rim (IOR) states and in the light of ongoing diplomatic initiatives in the region, this study provides a number of policy guidelines both for assessing the likely success of the various IOR initiatives and, specifically, for addressing regional security difficulties. The IOR remains a diverse and geographically nebulous region in which there is no common view of security. There is also a danger that the embryonic IOR trade facilitation process may be undermined if security issues are handled within the first-track IOR Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC). Although the second-track diplomatic process may be a less contentious forum for dealing with these issues, the political will and the funding necessary for this to progress are currently lacking. Against a backdrop of the increasing importance of maritime issues in developing countries, naval cooperation could significantly enhance and improve regional confidence, and act also as a confidence-building measure. An IOR Naval Symposium, based on the template provided by the Western Pacific Naval Symposium, could be a most appropriate format for addressing IOR maritime issues

Associations among Wine Grape Microbiome, Metabolome, and Fermentation Behavior Suggest Microbial Contribution to Regional Wine Characteristics.

UnlabelledRegionally distinct wine characteristics (terroir) are an important aspect of wine production and consumer appreciation. Microbial activity is an integral part of wine production, and grape and wine microbiota present regionally defined patterns associated with vineyard and climatic conditions, but the degree to which these microbial patterns associate with the chemical composition of wine is unclear. Through a longitudinal survey of over 200 commercial wine fermentations, we demonstrate that both grape microbiota and wine metabolite profiles distinguish viticultural area designations and individual vineyards within Napa and Sonoma Counties, California. Associations among wine microbiota and fermentation characteristics suggest new links between microbiota, fermentation performance, and wine properties. The bacterial and fungal consortia of wine fermentations, composed from vineyard and winery sources, correlate with the chemical composition of the finished wines and predict metabolite abundances in finished wines using machine learning models. The use of postharvest microbiota as an early predictor of wine chemical composition is unprecedented and potentially poses a new paradigm for quality control of agricultural products. These findings add further evidence that microbial activity is associated with wine terroirImportanceWine production is a multi-billion-dollar global industry for which microbial control and wine chemical composition are crucial aspects of quality. Terroir is an important feature of consumer appreciation and wine culture, but the many factors that contribute to terroir are nebulous. We show that grape and wine microbiota exhibit regional patterns that correlate with wine chemical composition, suggesting that the grape microbiome may influence terroir In addition to enriching our understanding of how growing region and wine properties interact, this may provide further economic incentive for agricultural and enological practices that maintain regional microbial biodiversity

The solution structure of sarafotoxin-c: implications for ligand recognition by endothelin

The solution structure of sarafotoxin-c has been determined using NMR spectroscopy. A total of 112 interproton distance constraints derived from two-dimensional MMR spectra were used to calculate a family of structures using a combination of distance geometry and dynamical simulated annealing calculations. The structures reveal a well defined cu helix extending from Glu(9) to Cys(15) and an N-terminal region (Cys(1)-Asp(8)) that is tightly constrained by disulfide bands to Cys residues in the central helix. In contrast, the C-terminal region (His(16)-Trp(21)) does not adopt a defined conformation in the final family of structures. This is consistent with the paucity of NMR-derived structural constraints obtained for this region and leads to the suggestion that the C-terminal region oscillates rapidly between a number of substantially different conformers. It is proposed that differences between the central helix of the endothelin and sarafotoxin isopeptides might be important in binding of these ligands by the G protein-coupled endothelin receptors

Privacy-Preserving Aggregation of Time-Series Data

The conference paper can be viewed at: http://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/ndss/11/proceedings.shtmlSession 9: PrivacyWe consider how an untrusted data aggregator can learn desired statistics over multiple participants’ data, without compromising each individual’s privacy. We propose a construction that allows a group of participants to periodically upload encrypted values to a data aggregator, such that the aggregator is able to compute the sum of all participants’ values in every time period, but is unable to learn anything else. We achieve strong privacy guarantees using two main techniques. First, we show how to utilize applied cryptographic techniques to allow the aggregator to decrypt the sum from multiple ciphertexts encrypted under different user keys. Second, we describe a distributed data randomization procedure that guarantees the differential privacy of the outcome statistic, even when a subset of participants might be compromised.published_or_final_versio