Transnational transitional justice and reconciliation: the participation of conflict-generated diaspora in addressing the legacy of mass violence

This paper is a preliminary exploration of the role that conflict-generated diaspora communities can play in transitional justice and processes of reconciliation. The aim is to consider what potential there is for tapping into diaspora communities and the possible benefits this could have on diasporas themselves and on peacebuilding processes in the homeland. The goal is also to explore and reflect on ways in which reconciliatory attitudes can be encouraged among diaspora communities, as well as their participation in transnational activities. The paper begins by providing a brief overview of diasporas, followed by a discussion on relationships and attitudes within conflict-generated diaspora communities in the aftermath of violence. The paper then explores the various roles that diasporas can play in transitional justice, such as providing input to strategies and participating in established mechanisms; or mobilizing on their own to push for transitional justice measures. This is followed by a brief look at diaspora involvement in other processes of reconciliation, including dialogue and media initiatives. The paper then discusses how integration policies and outcomes in the hostland can influence the views of diasporas and their involvement with the homeland. The paper concludes with challenges related to diaspora participation and some overall reflections

Aptamers in oncology: a diagnostic perspective

Nucleic acid sequences can produce a wide variety of three-dimensional conformations. Some of these structural forms are able to interact with proteins and small molecules with high affinity and specificity. These sequences, comprising either double or single stranded oligonucleotides, are called 'aptamers' based on the Greek word aptus, which means 'to fit'. Using an efficient selection process, randomised oligonucleotide libraries can be rapidly screened for aptamers with the appropriate binding characteristics. This technology has spawned the development of a new class of oligonucleotide therapeutic products. However, while interest among pharmaceutical companies continues to grow with some candidates already in clinical trials and one in the market, there appears to be some reluctance to fully explore the diagnostic potential of this technology. This article will review aptamer developments in diagnostics, compare them with other oligonucleotide therapeutics and highlight both potentials and pitfalls of technological development in this area

Naturalism and Anti-Naturalism in Nietzsche

Nietzsche has been associated with naturalism due to his arguments that morality, religion, metaphysics, and consciousness are products of natural biological organisms and ultimately natural phenomena. The subject and its mental life are only comprehensible in relation to natural desires, drives, impulses, and instincts. I argue that such typical naturalizing tendencies do not exhaust Nietzsche’s project, since they occur in the context of his critique of “nature” and metaphysical, speculative, and scientific naturalisms. Nietzsche challenges otherworldly projections of this-worldly beings, as his naturalistic interpreters claim, but further the idolization of immanent worldly natural phenomena, including science itself. “Nature” is an idealization of natural organisms and environments in which its construction, projection, and interpretation is forgotten. Nietzsche strategically uses naturalistic scientific strategies of explanation and demystification, while demystifying science, positivism, and naturalism for the sake of life. These do not provide either certainties or foundations for knowledge or life. Naturalism would be anti-natural if it denies of multiplicity and conflict of the forces of life, bracketing the natural and historical conditions of existence, and the interpretive and perspectival character of life and knowledge. The nexus of nature and history in Nietzsche is better clarified through his portrayal of the feeling of life and its intensification, attenuation, and transformation in relation to the forces andconditions of life, which encompass processes of socialization and interpretive and artistic individuation in the context of a life

From the buzzing in Turing’s head to machine intelligence contests

This paper presents an analysis of three major contests for machine intelligence. We conclude that a new era for Turing’s test requires a fillip in the guise of a committed sponsor, not unlike DARPA, funders of the successful 2007 Urban Challenge

Objective modelling of reinforced concrete structures

The finite element (FE) method is a powerful technique that can provide numerical solutions to the response of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. However, results obtained from FE models are often not objective in the sense that the numerical solutions of FE models depend on aspects such as the selection of mesh size, load step size etc. FE model objectivity aims at the development of FE models for which the predicted results converge with refinement. To date, many research studies have been carried out on the objectivity of FE solutions for RC structures. However, considerable uncertainty still exists because of the many parameters which are involved in the analysis. The parameters affecting FE analysis of RC structures may be divided into two groups: material parameters and procedural parameters. The main parameters related to the material behaviour are tension softening and interaction between steel reinforcement and concrete. On the other hand, the procedural parameters which affect directly the results of the analysis are the load step, mesh size, iterative scheme, and number of cracks allowed per load step, numerical integration rule, and the use of static vs. dynamic analysis. In an effort to investigate these parameters, the current research is primarily aimed towards developing finite element formulations and solution procedures that facilitate the objective modelling of RC structures. The present study focuses on a subset of the above parameters that appear to be most relevant to objective modelling. Two new formulations have been developed in this work which allows the objective modelling of RC beam-column members, including geometric and material nonlinearity as well as bond slip. Particular emphasis is placed on predicting crack localisation in the concrete and stress concentrations in the steel reinforcement across such cracks, as this is particularly relevant to the modelling of RC structures under extreme loading. Several verification and validation studies are presented in the thesis to illustrate the key features of the proposed formulations and their applicability to the objective modelling of RC framed structures

The spino-bulbar-cerebellar pathway: organization and neurochemical properties of spinal cells that project to the lateral reticular nucleus in the rat

In addition to classical spinocerebellar pathways, the cerebellum receives information from the spinal cord indirectly via spino-bulbar-cerebellar systems. One of the structures in this pathway is the lateral reticular nucleus (LRt). We performed series of experiments to investigate the organization and neurotransmitter content of spinoreticular tract (SRT) neurons in the lumbar spinal cord that project to the LRt. Three rats received injections of the b subunit of Cholera toxin (CTb) or Fluorogold (FG) within the left and right LRt. The majority of SRT cells (56–61%) were found within the contralateral medial intermediate gray matter where small numbers (7–10%) of double-labeled cells were also present on both sides of the cord. Six rats received unilateral spinal injections of CTb to label spinal projections to the LRt. Injections of FG were made also into the anterior lobe of the cerebellum to label LRt pre-cerebellar neurons. Terminals were found mainly ipsilateral to spinal injection sites within the central and ventrolateral regions of the LRt. Immunocytochemical analysis of SRT terminals revealed that the majority (75%) were contained vesicular glutamate transporter 2 but a minority (20%) contained the vesicular GABA transporter. The inhibitory subpopulation was found to be GABAergic, glycinergic, or contained both transmitters. Inhibitory and excitatory terminals were present within overlapping regions of the nucleus. Most CTb terminals contacting LRt pre-cerebellar neurons were excitatory (80%) whereas a minority were inhibitory and most cells (88%) received contacts from both inhibitory and excitatory terminals. This study shows that SRT axons in the LRt have the capacity to exert direct excitatory and inhibitory actions on LRt pre-cerebellar neurons. Thus spinal cord input has the capacity to facilitate or depress the activity of individual LRt cells which in turn adjust activity in the cerebellum to produce coordinated motor behaviors

Subaltern Bodies in Fluid Space of a Female Body: A Feminist Existential Study of Adrienne Rich’s Poems ‘Diving in the Wreck’& ‘Planetarium’

This research explores the subaltern bodies occupying a fluid space in a female body in Adrian Rich’s poems ‘Diving in the Wreck’ and ‘Planetarium’. Rich opines that the space of ‘female’ body is a natural home to both ‘she’ and ‘he’ simultaneously and is capable to excel in all walks of life, without being dependent on men for recognition. A search for relocation of female space in the patriarchal myth and the affirmation of the presence of both male and female sex within a single female body, as a source of power and strength is sought after in this study. The objective is to debunk the role of patriarchal myth in the construction and commodification of ‘female’ body. Moreover, our impetus for writing this research paper is to address the gap in the present scholarship regarding the recognition of the contribution made by people with diverse tendencies either homosexual, LGBTQ community and by ‘lesbian continuum’ in the postmodern era. Recognizing their talents and achievements can win them over to an equal status of efficient and responsible citizens of society. The study will incorporate the theoretical framework of Simon de Beauvoir’s feminist existentialism. It will facilitate future researchers in excavating the potentials and abilities of women, who have been downsized by hierarchal order of society

Accountable to beneficiaries? : the modern development enterprise & its contractors at war : lessons on accountability from Afghanistan to inform the contracting reform agenda

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, June 2011."June 2011." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-92).This thesis will review the most relevant existing and proposed accountability mechanisms for private development and security contractors coming out of the human rights, public administration and anti-corruption fields. These three fields were selected because first, they directly shape the policy discourse around contractor accountability. Second, they each have a different emphasis or bias in their policy recommendations. Human rights advocates, for instance, are largely concerned about applying legal frameworks to and extending jurisdiction over private military and security contractors. Since private development companies by and large rely on PMSCs in lieu of adequate military security, this perspective is important to ensure development contractor accountability. Human rights discourse thus, primarily emphasizes legal accountability mechanisms. The anti-corruption field focuses on political accountability mechanisms for private contractors through initiatives to increase transparency and facilitate better governance. Lastly, public administration discourse encompasses a series of bureaucratic procedures and regulations that institutionalize accountability mechanisms through reporting, database creation, and standard operating protocols. In the human rights, anti-corruption and public administration fields, there is a cross cutting emphasis on professional accountability, whereby individual experts or firms are both internally accountable to a code of conduct and externally accountable to their peers and industry partners. But none of the existing American accountability mechanisms includes accountability to beneficiaries. Accountability is embedded within a series of relationships, whereby one party has the right to demand information, voice their opinions in a public forum and have enough leverage to impose sanctions or give rewards to another party. All present reform efforts however, continue to reinforce upwards, monetary accountability to donors, while marginalizing the ability of beneficiaries to hold private contractors accountable. The question this thesis will try to answer is: As American development projects are increasingly contracted out to private actors in conflict contexts, how should we reframe the concept and practice of "accountability" towards beneficiaries?by Huma Gupta.M.C.P

A hybrid modified group method of data handling with the wavelet decomposition for oil palm price forecasting

This thesis presents an exploratory study on hybrid modelling of palm oil price forecasting using modified group method of data handling (GMDH) network with the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) approach. Despite the fact that Malaysia is one of the largest producer and exporter of palm oil, the research on modelling of palm oil price forecasting is still in progress. This study comprises by exploring the appropriate models for forecasting the monthly palm oil price such as conventional GMDH, modified GMDH and hybrid wavelet modified GMDH models. To assess the effectiveness of these models, monthly crude palm oil (CPO) price of Malaysia from January 1983 until November 2019 and Pakistan from September 2001 until June 2019 were used as sample study. The study shows that modified GMDH model, which integrates four transfer functions such as radial basis, sigmoid, tangent and polynomial simultaneously into GMDH, has given the best fit for modelling of palm oil price forecasting as compared to conventional GMDH model. However, the individual model is not best every time to achieve the better results. In improving the model, this study explores a hybrid wavelet modified GMDH model. The architecture of the proposed hybrid model includes DWT, which is selected as a preprocessed clean and pure data enabling the modified GMDH network to present itself as a well-established alternative application to predict the future of CPO. The proposed hybrid model has been applied to different CPO data sets and verified using simulation of different splits of model input data series. Comparative studies among various models were carried out. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the proposed hybrid model for the monthly CPO price of Malaysia is less than 4 % and coefficient of correlation (R) is 0.99, which show an excellent fit as compared to the individual and other benchmark models. Similarly, the MAPE of hybrid model for Pakistan imports monthly CPO is less than 14 % and R is 0.94, which show good fit as compared to the individual and other benchmark models. The results have demonstrated that the proposed hybrid model is a better alternative model for crude palm oil price forecastin