Kissinger and the Business of Government: The Invasion of Cyprus, 15 July-20 August 1974

An extrapolation, analysis and evaluation of papers released by the British government, when juxtaposed with some of Henry Kissinger’s writings, and those of his apologists, betray considerable inconsistencies between fact and presentation of fact, underpinned by Kissinger’s procrastination and evasion tactics at the time of Turkey’s invasion and occupation of over one-third of Cyprus

Dutch foreign policy, 1948-1954: From neutrality to commitment.

This thesis aims to explain why and how the Netherlands came to form part of the post-war Western security system and to support he rearmament of West Germany. It looks critically at how major post-war developments in Europe affected Dutch foreign policy, traditionally one of abstentionism, and considers the extent of Dutch influence in post-war Western cooperation. The Dutch attitude towards the process of German rearmament and to the Netherlands' own security needs is described and analysed. The considerable problems the Dutch had with Britain and the Unites States over Indonesia and the German question, and with Britain and the "European question", are set out and analysed, as are important aspects of Dutch-German relations, particularly the "annexation question" and trade. Important landmarks, and how the Dutch approached them, are dealt with. These are the Marshall Plan, the Brussels Treaty Organisation, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Council of Europe, the Schuman Plan and the Plieven Plan. The different attitudes of two Foreign Ministers, Dirk Stikker and Willem Beyen, towards the question of European integration, are analysed. The thesis concludes that Beyen laid less stress on the Atlantic partnership than did Stikker, and considerably more on European integration. Its final conclusion is that the Netherlands, although it decided to be a part of an alliance, still retained sufficient independence to influence events

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Genetic mechanisms of critical illness in COVID-19.

Host-mediated lung inflammation is present1, and drives mortality2, in the critical illness caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Host genetic variants associated with critical illness may identify mechanistic targets for therapeutic development3. Here we report the results of the GenOMICC (Genetics Of Mortality In Critical Care) genome-wide association study in 2,244 critically ill patients with COVID-19 from 208 UK intensive care units. We have identified and replicated the following new genome-wide significant associations: on chromosome 12q24.13 (rs10735079, P = 1.65 × 10-8) in a gene cluster that encodes antiviral restriction enzyme activators (OAS1, OAS2 and OAS3); on chromosome 19p13.2 (rs74956615, P = 2.3 × 10-8) near the gene that encodes tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2); on chromosome 19p13.3 (rs2109069, P = 3.98 ×  10-12) within the gene that encodes dipeptidyl peptidase 9 (DPP9); and on chromosome 21q22.1 (rs2236757, P = 4.99 × 10-8) in the interferon receptor gene IFNAR2. We identified potential targets for repurposing of licensed medications: using Mendelian randomization, we found evidence that low expression of IFNAR2, or high expression of TYK2, are associated with life-threatening disease; and transcriptome-wide association in lung tissue revealed that high expression of the monocyte-macrophage chemotactic receptor CCR2 is associated with severe COVID-19. Our results identify robust genetic signals relating to key host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage in COVID-19. Both mechanisms may be amenable to targeted treatment with existing drugs. However, large-scale randomized clinical trials will be essential before any change to clinical practice

The Khecarīvidyā of Ādinātha : a critical edition and annotated translation

This thesis contains a critical edition and annotated translation of the Khecarīvidyā of Ādinātha, an early haṭhayogic text which describes the physical practice of khecarīmudrā. 31 witnesses have been collated to establish the critical edition. The notes to the translation adduce parallels in other works and draw on Ballāla's Bṛhatkhecarīprakāśa commentary and ethnographic data to explain the text. The first introductory chapter examines the relationships between the different sources used to establish the critical edition. An analysis of the development of the text concludes that its compiler(s) took a chapter describing the vidyā (mantra) of the deity Khecarī from a larger text to form the framework for the verses describing the physical practice. At this stage the text preserved the Kaula orientation of the original work and included verses in praise of madirā, alcohol. By the time that the text achieved its greatest fame as an authority on the haṭhayogic practice of khecarīmudrā most of its Kaula features had been expunged so as not to offend orthodox practitioners of haṭhayoga and a short fourth chapter on magical herbs had been added. The second introductory chapter concerns the physical practice. It starts by examining textual evidence in the Pali canon and Sanskrit works for practices similar to the haṭhayogic khecarīmudrā before the time of composition of the Khecarīvidyā and then discusses the non-physical khecarīmudrās described in tantric works. There follows a discussion of how these different features combined in the khecarīmudrā of the Khecarīvidyā. Then a survey of descriptions of khecarīmudrā in other haṭhayogic works shows how the haṭhayogic corpus encompasses various differnt approaches to yogic practice. After an examination of the practice of khecarīmudrā in India today the chapter concludes by showing the haṭhayogic khecarīmudrā has generally been the preserve of unorthodox ascetics. In the third introductory chapter are described the 27 manuscripts used to establish the critical edition, the citations and borrowings of the text in other works, and the ethnographic sources. The appendices include a full collation of all the witnesses of the Khecarīvidyā, critical editions of chapters from the Matsyendrasaṃhitā and Haṭharatnāvalī helpful in understanding the Khecarīvidyā, and a list of all the works cited in the Bṛhatkhecarīprakāśa.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo