1,338 research outputs found
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Implementing the UN Action Programme for Combating the Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.
yesHistorically, UN conferences have been criticised for resulting more in compromises than in
commitments to real change, which is also a charge that has been levelled against the UN
Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (UN Small
Arms Conference). The consensus-based approach adopted throughout the negotiations had
the advantage of binding all participating States to all aspects of the agreed Programme of
Action (PoA), but it also ensured that it would be difficult to achieve a sufficiently rigorous and
comprehensive agreement on all of the measures required to tackle the trafficking,
proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons (SALW). Therefore, in spite of the
efforts of many governments and NGOs, the UN Small Arms Conference did not agree
sufficiently robust agreements in several areas. Nonetheless, it was a valuable and productive
process. The resulting PoA includes a reasonably comprehensive set of key principles and
commitments, which provide a basis for taking forward action at national, regional and global
levels. The PoAwas agreed by all of the participating States, amounting to more than 100,
and each are politically bound to adopt and implement it.
Given that the UN Small Arms Conference was the first of its kind, its achievement in
generating political will and momentum for efforts to control SALW is important. Although
many of the commitments are weaker and less comprehensive than hoped for by many
governments and organisations, it is significant that the PoAcontains at least some important
commitments in all but two of the `coreÂż issue areas raised by States. The two exceptions
relate to transfers to non-State actors and to civilian trade, possession and use of SALW,
restrictions which were strongly opposed by the USA. Equally, human rights related issues
were noteworthy by their absence in the PoA.
Whilst the process of reaching agreement began with a far-reaching draft PoA in December
2000 (A/Conf.192/L.4), most of the comments that were tabled on this text during the second
Preparatory Committee in January 2001 came from countries that sought to weaken its
commitments. The subsequent draft (A/Conf.192/L.4/Rev.1) was therefore weaker, with the
result that progressive States faced an uphill task in seeking to strengthen its provisions.
The next draft PoA emerged at the UN Small Arms Conference itself in the form of a third draft
(A/Conf.192/L.5). Although still limited in a number of key areas Âż such as export criteria and
transparency Âż this document went further than L.4/Rev.1 in a number of respects and included
specific international commitments, including on brokering and tracing lines of supply. This,
however, proved too ambitious an agenda for a small group of States and in the end the document
that was adopted by consensus (A/Conf.192/L.5/Rev.1) represented a lower-level compromise.
Despite the difficulties of agreeing the consensus-based PoA, the process culminating in the
agreement was perhaps as important as the agreement itself. UN Small Arms Conference
represented the first time that all UN Member States had met to discuss the illicit trade in SALW
in all its aspects with a view to agreeing a comprehensive set of measures to address the
problem. Although many of the commitments contained in the PoAare couched in equivocal
language that will allow States to do as much or as little as they like, it is clear that the UN Small
Arms Conference has contributed to a much better understanding, amongst all stakeholders, of
the nature of the illicit trade in SALW and of the particular concerns and priorities of different
countries and sub-regions. It is also clear that although the Programme of Action provides a set
of minimum standards and commitments which all states should adopt, it also encourages
further action from all States willing to adopt more stringent commitments and stronger
programmes. There is a willingness among a number of States to build upon the PoAand take
more concrete and far-reaching measures at national, sub-regional, regional and international
levels, such as specific arrangements for tracing co-operation, or mechanisms to co-ordinate
e fforts to improve stockpile security or weapons destruction. This briefing provides a critical assessment of key provisions in the UN Small Arms
Conference PoA. Section 1 measures the overall outcomes of the conference against those
that the Biting the Bullet (BtB) project proposed as optimal conclusions, and suggests ways to
put the commitments contained in the PoA into practice. Section 2 assesses the
implementation and follow-up commitments contained in the PoA, and identifies ways of
promoting the implementation of Sections III and IV, as well as options for making the most of
the Biennial Meetings of States and the Review Conference in 2006. Section 3 examines
funding and resourcing possibilities for the PoA including identifying needs, mobilising
resources and matching needs with resources. The final section of the briefing focuses on the
way forward, and in particular on how implementation of the PoA could build on existing
regional initiatives and develop common international approaches to controlling SALW
proliferation, availability and misuse. It also examines how action to prevent and combat the
illicit trade in SALW in all its aspects can be taken forward at sub-regional and regional levels
in conjunction with all major stakeholders, including civil society, in the period leading up to
the first Review Conference
A polynomial-time algorithm for optimizing over N-fold 4-block decomposable integer programs
In this paper we generalize N-fold integer programs and two-stage integer
programs with N scenarios to N-fold 4-block decomposable integer programs. We
show that for fixed blocks but variable N, these integer programs are
polynomial-time solvable for any linear objective. Moreover, we present a
polynomial-time computable optimality certificate for the case of fixed blocks,
variable N and any convex separable objective function. We conclude with two
sample applications, stochastic integer programs with second-order dominance
constraints and stochastic integer multi-commodity flows, which (for fixed
blocks) can be solved in polynomial time in the number of scenarios and
commodities and in the binary encoding length of the input data. In the proof
of our main theorem we combine several non-trivial constructions from the
theory of Graver bases. We are confident that our approach paves the way for
further extensions
Recommended from our members
Fusion as a source of synthetic fuels
In the near-term, coal derived synthetic fuels will be used; but in the long-term, resource depletion and environmental effects will mandate synthetic fuels from inexhaustible sources - fission, fusion, and solar. Of the three sources, fusion appears uniquely suited for the efficient production of hydrogen-based fuels, due to its ability to directly generate very high process temperatures (up to approx. 2000/sup 0/C) for water splitting reactions. Fusion-based water splitting reactions include high temperature electrolysis (HTE) of steam, thermochemical cycles, hybrid electrochemical/thermochemical, and direct thermal decomposition. HTE appears to be the simplest and most efficient process with efficiencies of 50 to 70% (fusion to hydrogen chemical energy), depending on process conditions
Recommended from our members
Nonsteady heat conduction code with radiation boundary conditions
A heat-transfer model for studying the temperature build-up in graphite blankets for fusion reactors is presented. In essence, the computer code developed is for two-dimensional, nonsteady heat conduction in heterogeneous, anisotropic solids with nonuniform internal heating. Thermal radiation as well as bremsstrahlung radiation boundary conditions are included. Numerical calculations are performed for two design options by varying the wall loading, bremsstrahlung, surface layer thickness and thermal conductivity, blanket dimensions, time step and grid size. (auth
Perceptions of Electoral Fairness and Voter Turnout
Previous research has established a link between turnout and the extent to which voters are faced with a âmeaningfulâ partisan choice in elections; this study extends the logic of this argument to perceptions of the âmeaningfulnessâ of electoral conduct. It hypothesizes that perceptions of electoral integrity are positively related to turnout. The empirical analysis to test this hypothesis is based on aggregate-level data from 31 countries, combined with survey results from Module 1 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems survey project, which includes new and established democracies. Multilevel modeling is employed to control for a variety of individual- and election-level variables that have been found in previous research to influence turnout. The results of the analysis show that perceptions of electoral integrity are indeed positively associated with propensity to vote. </jats:p
Finite element simulation of three-dimensional free-surface flow problems
An adaptive finite element algorithm is described for the stable solution of three-dimensional free-surface-flow problems based primarily on the use of node movement. The algorithm also includes a discrete remeshing procedure which enhances its accuracy and robustness. The spatial discretisation allows an isoparametric piecewise-quadratic approximation of the domain geometry for accurate resolution of the curved free surface.
The technique is illustrated through an implementation for surface-tension-dominated viscous flows modelled in terms of the Stokes equations with suitable boundary conditions on the deforming free surface. Two three-dimensional test problems are used to demonstrate the performance of the method: a liquid bridge problem and the formation of a fluid droplet
An oncogenic role for sphingosine kinase 2
While both human sphingosine kinases (SK1 and SK2) catalyze the generation of the pleiotropic signaling lipid sphingosine 1-phosphate, these enzymes appear to be functionally distinct. SK1 has well described roles in promoting cell survival, proliferation and neoplastic transformation. The roles of SK2, and its contribution to cancer, however, are much less clear. Some studies have suggested an antiproliferative/ pro-apoptotic function for SK2, while others indicate it has a prosurvival role and its inhibition can have anti-cancer effects. Our analysis of gene expression data revealed that SK2 is upregulated in many human cancers, but only to a small extent (up to 2.5-fold over normal tissue). Based on these findings, we examined the effect of different levels of cellular SK2 and showed that high-level overexpression reduced cell proliferation and survival, and increased cellular ceramide levels. In contrast, however, low-level SK2 overexpression promoted cell survival and proliferation, and induced neoplastic transformation in vivo. These findings coincided with decreased nuclear localization and increased plasma membrane localization of SK2, as well as increases in extracellular S1P formation. Hence, we have shown for the first time that SK2 can have a direct role in promoting oncogenesis, supporting the use of SK2-specific inhibitors as anti-cancer agents.Heidi A. Neubauer, Duyen H. Pham, Julia R. Zebol, Paul A.B. Moretti, Amanda L. Peterson, Tamara M. Leclercq, Huasheng Chan, Jason A. Powell, Melissa R. Pitman, Michael S. Samuel, Claudine S. Bonder, Darren J. Creek, Briony L. Gliddon and Stuart M. Pitso
Solution of the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov equations in the Cartesian deformed harmonic-oscillator basis. (VII) HFODD (v2.49t): a new version of the program
We describe the new version (v2.49t) of the code HFODD which solves the
nuclear Skyrme Hartree-Fock (HF) or Skyrme Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov (HFB)
problem by using the Cartesian deformed harmonic-oscillator basis. In the new
version, we have implemented the following physics features: (i) the isospin
mixing and projection, (ii) the finite temperature formalism for the HFB and
HF+BCS methods, (iii) the Lipkin translational energy correction method, (iv)
the calculation of the shell correction. A number of specific numerical methods
have also been implemented in order to deal with large-scale multi-constraint
calculations and hardware limitations: (i) the two-basis method for the HFB
method, (ii) the Augmented Lagrangian Method (ALM) for multi-constraint
calculations, (iii) the linear constraint method based on the approximation of
the RPA matrix for multi-constraint calculations, (iv) an interface with the
axial and parity-conserving Skyrme-HFB code HFBTHO, (v) the mixing of the HF or
HFB matrix elements instead of the HF fields. Special care has been paid to
using the code on massively parallel leadership class computers. For this
purpose, the following features are now available with this version: (i) the
Message Passing Interface (MPI) framework, (ii) scalable input data routines,
(iii) multi-threading via OpenMP pragmas, (iv) parallel diagonalization of the
HFB matrix in the simplex breaking case using the ScaLAPACK library. Finally,
several little significant errors of the previous published version were
corrected.Comment: Accepted for publication to Computer Physics Communications. Program
files re-submitted to Comp. Phys. Comm. Program Library after correction of
several minor bug
Single-field inflation constraints from CMB and SDSS data
We present constraints on canonical single-field inflation derived from WMAP
five year, ACBAR, QUAD, BICEP data combined with the halo power spectrum from
SDSS LRG7. Models with a non-scale-invariant spectrum and a red tilt n_s < 1
are now preferred over the Harrison-Zel'dovich model (n_s = 1, tensor-to-scalar
ratio r = 0) at high significance. Assuming no running of the spectral indices,
we derive constraints on the parameters (n_s, r) and compare our results with
the predictions of simple inflationary models. The marginalised credible
intervals read n_s = 0.962^{+0.028}_{-0.026} and r < 0.17 (at 95% confidence
level). Interestingly, the 68% c.l. contours favour mainly models with a convex
potential in the observable region, but the quadratic potential model remains
inside the 95% c.l. contours. We demonstrate that these results are robust to
changes in the datasets considered and in the theoretical assumptions made. We
then consider a non-vanishing running of the spectral indices by employing
different methods, non-parametric but approximate, or parametric but exact.
With our combination of CMB and LSS data, running models are preferred over
power-law models only by a Delta chi^2 ~ 5.8, allowing inflationary stages
producing a sizable negative running -0.063^{+0.061}_{-0.049} and larger
tensor-scalar ratio r < 0.33 at the 95% c.l. This requires large values of the
third derivative of the inflaton potential within the observable range. We
derive bounds on this derivative under the assumption that the inflaton
potential can be approximated as a third order polynomial within the observable
range.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures. v2: additional references, some typos corrected,
passed to JCAP style. v3: minor changes, matches published versio
The Effect of Chemical Information on the Spatial Distribution of Fruit Flies: II Parameterization, Calibration, and Sensitivity
In a companion paper (Lof et al., in Bull. Math. Biol., 2008), we describe a spatio-temporal model for insect behavior. This model includes chemical information for finding resources and conspecifics. As a model species, we used Drosophila melanogaster, because its behavior is documented comparatively well
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