275 research outputs found
Educate, Empower, Employ
Since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Lebanon is estimated to have taken in more than two million Syrian refugees. Due to policy and security obstacles, many of these refugees are considered by the Lebanese government to be living in Lebanon illegally, which restricts, among other aspects, their ability to continue employment or education. Based on field research conducted in-country through interviews, surveys, and focus groups, the authors have identified areas where innovative and inclusive higher education opportunities can be provided for Syrian refugees in Lebanon to allow them to move forward with their lives in self-sufficiency and dignity.
The research aimed to answer the following questions: Where are the intersections of the interests and expectations of Syrian refugees in Lebanon with higher education and employment opportunities? How do individual characteristics such as gender, age, time in exile, and class affect refugees’ perceptions of their higher education needs and ambitions? What are the current barriers to accessing higher education, and what is the necessary support needed to overcome the barriers? Where are the opportunities for universities to fill the gaps in programming or resources
Pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonians, indefinite inner product spaces and their symmetries
We extend the definition of generalized parity , charge-conjugation
and time-reversal operators to nondiagonalizable pseudo-Hermitian
Hamiltonians, and we use these generalized operators to describe the full set
of symmetries of a pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonian according to a fourfold
classification. In particular we show that and are the generators of
the antiunitary symmetries; moreover, a necessary and sufficient condition is
provided for a pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonian to admit a -reflecting
symmetry which generates the -pseudounitary and the -pseudoantiunitary
symmetries. Finally, a physical example is considered and some hints on the
-unitary evolution of a physical system are also given.Comment: 20 page
Cyclone-induced surface ozone and HDO depletion in the Arctic
Ground-based, satellite, and reanalysis datasets were used to identify two similar cyclone-induced surface ozone depletion events at Eureka, Canada (80.1° N, 86.4° W), in March 2007 and April 2011. These two events were coincident with observations of hydrogen deuterium oxide (HDO) depletion, indicating that condensation and sublimation occurred during the transport of the ozone-depleted air masses. Ice clouds (vapour and crystals) and aerosols were detected by lidar and radar when the ozone- and HDO-depleted air masses arrived over Eureka. For the 2007 event, an ice cloud layer was coincident with an aloft ozone depletion layer at 870 m altitude on 2–3 March, indicating this ice cloud layer contained bromine-enriched blowing-snow particles. Over the following 3 days, a shallow surface ozone depletion event (ODE) was observed at Eureka after the precipitation of bromine-enriched particles onto the local snowpack. A chemistry–climate model (UKCA) and a chemical transport model (pTOMCAT) were used to simulate the surface ozone depletion events. Incorporating the latest surface snow salinity data obtained for the Weddell Sea into the models resulted in improved agreement between the modelled and measured BrO concentrations above Eureka. MERRA-2 global reanalysis data and the FLEXPART particle dispersion model were used to study the link between the ozone and HDO depletion. In general, the modelled ozone and BrO showed good agreement with the ground-based observations; however, the modelled BrO and ozone in the near-surface layer are quite sensitive to the snow salinity. HDO depletion observed during these two blowing-snow ODEs was found to be weaker than pure Rayleigh fractionation. This work provides evidence of a blowing-snow sublimation process, which is a key step in producing bromine-enriched sea-salt aerosol
Bitangential interpolation in generalized Schur classes
Bitangential interpolation problems in the class of matrix valued functions
in the generalized Schur class are considered in both the open unit disc and
the open right half plane, including problems in which the solutions is not
assumed to be holomorphic at the interpolation points. Linear fractional
representations of the set of solutions to these problems are presented for
invertible and singular Hermitian Pick matrices. These representations make use
of a description of the ranges of linear fractional transformations with
suitably chosen domains that was developed in a previous paper.Comment: Second version, corrected typos, changed subsection 5.6, 47 page
Scattering theory for Klein-Gordon equations with non-positive energy
We study the scattering theory for charged Klein-Gordon equations:
\{{array}{l} (\p_{t}- \i v(x))^{2}\phi(t,x) \epsilon^{2}(x,
D_{x})\phi(t,x)=0,[2mm] \phi(0, x)= f_{0}, [2mm] \i^{-1} \p_{t}\phi(0, x)=
f_{1}, {array}. where: \epsilon^{2}(x, D_{x})= \sum_{1\leq j, k\leq
n}(\p_{x_{j}} \i b_{j}(x))A^{jk}(x)(\p_{x_{k}} \i b_{k}(x))+ m^{2}(x),
describing a Klein-Gordon field minimally coupled to an external
electromagnetic field described by the electric potential and magnetic
potential . The flow of the Klein-Gordon equation preserves the
energy: h[f, f]:= \int_{\rr^{n}}\bar{f}_{1}(x) f_{1}(x)+
\bar{f}_{0}(x)\epsilon^{2}(x, D_{x})f_{0}(x) - \bar{f}_{0}(x) v^{2}(x) f_{0}(x)
\d x. We consider the situation when the energy is not positive. In this
case the flow cannot be written as a unitary group on a Hilbert space, and the
Klein-Gordon equation may have complex eigenfrequencies. Using the theory of
definitizable operators on Krein spaces and time-dependent methods, we prove
the existence and completeness of wave operators, both in the short- and
long-range cases. The range of the wave operators are characterized in terms of
the spectral theory of the generator, as in the usual Hilbert space case
Robustness of circadian clocks to daylight fluctuations: hints from the picoeucaryote Ostreococcus tauri
The development of systemic approaches in biology has put emphasis on
identifying genetic modules whose behavior can be modeled accurately so as to
gain insight into their structure and function. However most gene circuits in a
cell are under control of external signals and thus quantitative agreement
between experimental data and a mathematical model is difficult. Circadian
biology has been one notable exception: quantitative models of the internal
clock that orchestrates biological processes over the 24-hour diurnal cycle
have been constructed for a few organisms, from cyanobacteria to plants and
mammals. In most cases, a complex architecture with interlocked feedback loops
has been evidenced. Here we present first modeling results for the circadian
clock of the green unicellular alga Ostreococcus tauri. Two plant-like clock
genes have been shown to play a central role in Ostreococcus clock. We find
that their expression time profiles can be accurately reproduced by a minimal
model of a two-gene transcriptional feedback loop. Remarkably, best adjustment
of data recorded under light/dark alternation is obtained when assuming that
the oscillator is not coupled to the diurnal cycle. This suggests that coupling
to light is confined to specific time intervals and has no dynamical effect
when the oscillator is entrained by the diurnal cycle. This intringuing
property may reflect a strategy to minimize the impact of fluctuations in
daylight intensity on the core circadian oscillator, a type of perturbation
that has been rarely considered when assessing the robustness of circadian
clocks
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