The Iran nuclear deal: driven by international factors for the US, and domestic ones for Iran.

In July, Iran and the P5+1 reached an historic deal over Iran’s nuclear program. Steven Hurst takes a close look at the factors which explain why Iran and the other key negotiator – the US – were able to come to a deal. He writes that sanctions alone do not explain Iran’s change in policy, and that the US compromise was driven by President Obama’s acceptance of the limits of US foreign policy

Existing narratives of the effects of partisan polarization in Congress on foreign policy issues are too simplistic

Contemporary politics in America have become riven by the high level of partisan polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties. But has this polarization had an impact on foreign policy? In new research that analysis votes in the U.S. House of Representatives over the past 40 years, Steven Hurst and Andrew Wroe find that while the House was polarized on foreign policy issues after the 1970s, this largely disappeared by the early 2000s, only to reappear more recently. With this in mind, they argue that more sophisticated models are needed to capture the effects of partisan polarization on foreign policy

Individuals with low back pain: how do they view physical activity?

Background. Recent guidelines for those with acute low back pain have advocated early resumption of normal activity and increased physical activity. Little is known about the relationship between low back pain and physical activity, and on the impact of that relationship on the promotion of increased levels of physical activity within a general practice population. Objectives. We aimed to explore associations between factors that influence changes in physical activity and the way individuals perceive and behave with their low back pain, and the impact of those perceptions and behaviour on physical activity. Methods. Twenty-seven informants were chosen using a purposive sample from a larger group of individuals who, because of their low back trouble, had been referred by their GPs to a community-based, single-blind, randomized controlled trial (RCT) at the University of York, which is evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a progressive exercise programme. Fifty-four interviews were conducted with this subgroup of the RCT; four informants were interviewed once, 19 twice and four of them three times. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using manual and computer-aided approaches. Results. Physical activity was perceived as (i) activities of daily living, (ii) activities causing breathlessness that they went out of the way to do and (iii) more competitive-type activity. The avoidance of physical activity and fear of pain returning were the two main factors directly associated with informants' backs and changes in physical activity. These two factors hindered increases in physical activity, even though the majority of informants believed strongly that being physically active helped ease their low back pain. Conclusions. When advocating that individuals with acute low back pain return to or increase physical activity, it is important that clinicians identify avoidance of physical activity and/or fear of pain at the earliest stage in order to tailor advice and reassurance appropriately. If avoidance of activity and fear of pain is identified and clinicians want to encourage patients to take up and sustain increased physical activity, they should explore issues of fear of pain, and avoidance of and confidence to do physical activities, in addition to other factors influencing physical activity

“Knowledge is a Lamp to Lighten His Path”: Investigating Melville’s Marginalia to Schopenhauer

Herman Melville’s self-education, extensive library, and voracious close reading, including his inscription of markings and annotations within these books, has been documented and known for decades. However, scholarly treatment of this marginalia varies in its extensiveness. Scholarship specific to Melville’s final months of dedicated reading and markings in his seven volumes of German Pessimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is both sporadic and underdeveloped. Encoding in Extensible Markup Language (XML) of marginalia to these volumes has allowed for the parsing of marginalia data through data visualization in the form of frequency tables, graphs, and word clouds. Analysis of parsed and visualized data alongside crafted prose presents new opportunities for understanding larger marking patterns across volumes as well as close inspection of recurrent themes across marginalia and prose. This approach shines new light on philosophical overlap and contrasts present in the prose Melville composed concurrently to his reading, yet left unfinished upon his death: Billy Budd, a Sailor

The U.S.-China trade war and policy resilience

One can attribute the Trump administration's pursuit of a trade war against the People's Republic of China (PRC) to a range of variables, including its re-election hopes, commitment to protectionism as an economic weapon, fears about Beijing's pursuit of artificial intelligence, and broader strategic concerns about the global balance of power. This article argues that another explanation for President Donald J. Trump's ability to change trade policy towards China was the structural weaknesses of the trade policy regime that emerged at the end of the 1990s when Congress adopted Permanent Normal Trade Relations as a designation for free trade in July 1998 and the prc joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001. Those weaknesses owed much to the ways in which the United States initially framed the new trade regime with the prc and the limited, only partially conclusive, character of the debate that took place at the time. Despite the growth and embedding of supply chains between China and the United States, these inbuilt weaknesses contributed to the progressive erosion of the trade policy regime during the years that followed. Within this context, few constituencies were ready to lobby for the prc after January 2017 and the Trump administration faced little opposition to its change of trade policy

Sperm competition risk drives plasticity in seminal fluid composition

Background Ejaculates contain a diverse mixture of sperm and seminal fluid proteins, the combination of which is crucial to male reproductive success under competitive conditions. Males should therefore tailor the production of different ejaculate components according to their social environment, with particular sensitivity to cues of sperm competition risk (i.e. how likely it is that females will mate promiscuously). Here we test this hypothesis using an established vertebrate model system, the house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus), combining experimental data with a quantitative proteomics analysis of seminal fluid composition. Our study tests for the first time how both sperm and seminal fluid components of the ejaculate are tailored to the social environment. Results Our quantitative proteomics analysis reveals that the relative production of different proteins found in seminal fluid – i.e. seminal fluid proteome composition – differs significantly according to cues of sperm competition risk. Using a conservative analytical approach to identify differential expression of individual seminal fluid components, at least seven of 31 secreted seminal fluid proteins examined showed consistent differences in relative abundance under high versus low sperm competition conditions. Notably three important proteins with potential roles in sperm competition – SVS 6, SVS 5 and CEACAM 10 – were more abundant in the high competition treatment groups. Total investment in both sperm and seminal fluid production also increased with cues of heightened sperm competition risk in the social environment. By contrast, relative investment in different ejaculate components was unaffected by cues of mating opportunities. Conclusions Our study reveals significant plasticity in different ejaculate components, with the production of both sperm and non-sperm fractions of the ejaculate strongly influenced by the social environment. Sperm competition risk is thus shown to be a key factor in male ejaculate production decisions, including driving plasticity in seminal fluid composition

Mission Engineering and the CubeSat System Reference Model - Status #2

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Space System Working Group (SSWG) has created the CubeSat System Reference Model™ (CSRM™) intended for use by system architects and engineers as a starting point to develop the physical architecture of the Space and Ground segments of the CubeSat mission of interest to them. The CSRM is based on Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE) principles, is System Modeling Language™ (SysML™) v1.7 compliant, and hosted in a graphical modeling tool. The CSRM has been submitted to the Object Management Group (OMG) and is in the finalization process to become an OMG Specification. With the development of the CSRM nearing completion, the INCOSE SSWG is now researching how features of the CSRM can be used at a higher level to support Mission Engineering (ME). ME, a concept where the mission itself is looked at as a system, is being explored as a means to maintain balance between the spacecraft system, operations (including ground systems), and the mission (the integration of needed capabilities). An earlier paper provided an initial assessment of where the CSRM supports ME activities and where there are areas that require further research. That paper proposed a way forward that included a set of activities needed to completely define what additions would be required to extend the CSRM to fully support ME. One of those activities was to analyze the CSRM for additional artifacts which could be added to the containment tree for key elements of ME activities that do not map to the CSRM. This paper provides the results of performing that activity for two ME activities: the Mission Architecting Activity and the Mission-oriented Systems-of-Systems (SoS) Implementation Activity

The Goblet Cell Is the Cellular Source of the Anti-Microbial Angiogenin 4 in the Large Intestine Post Trichuris muris Infection

Mouse angiogenin 4 (Ang4) has previously been described as a Paneth cell-derived antimicrobial peptide important in epithelial host defence in the small intestine. However, a source for Ang4 in the large intestine, which is devoid of Paneth cells, has not been defined.Analysis was performed on Ang4 expression in colonic tissue by qPCR and immunohistochemistry following infection with the large intestine dwelling helminth parasite Trichuris muris. This demonstrated an increase in expression of the peptide following infection of resistant BALB/c mice. Further, histological analysis of colonic tissue revealed the cellular source of this Ang4 to be goblet cells. To elucidate the mechanism of Ang4 expression immunohistochemistry and qPCR for Ang4 was performed on colonic tissue from T. muris infected mouse mutants. Experiments comparing C3H/HeN and C3H/HeJ mice, which have a natural inactivating mutation of TLR4, revealed that Ang4 expression is TLR4 independent. Subsequent experiments with IL-13 and IL-4 receptor alpha deficient mice demonstrated that goblet cell expression of Ang4 is controlled either directly or indirectly by IL-13.The cellular source of mouse Ang4 in the colon following T. muris infection is the goblet cell and expression is under the control of IL-13