Assessing the international criminal court with the organizational effectiveness approaches

The International Criminal Court (‘the ICC’), located in the Hague, Netherlands, the first permanent court tasked with prosecuting the most severe crimes happening internationally. It is critical to assess the effectiveness of the ICC while in reality, there is no consensus on the criteria that should be employed to that end. There are no standards that its stakeholders and observers can refer or agree to in order to assess the Court’s effectiveness. The purpose of this research is to develop a new approach to this issue. It proposes to use the approaches of Organizational Effectiveness Theory in order to gain a much firmer grasp of the issue. The research analyses the ICC through the prism of international governmental organizations, merely one monograph has attempted to use this theory in assessing the effectiveness of international courts. This research utilizes the four main approaches of Organizational Effectiveness Theory, namely the Goal Approach, the System Recourse Approach, the Strategic Consistency Approach and the Contradiction Approach. However, this is not an empirical study of the ICC, but rather an evaluation the relevance of each approach in assessing the effectiveness of the ICC. According to the current analysis, not all of the main organizational effectiveness theory approaches are sufficiently relevant. It concludes that the contradictions approach is the most relevant since it offers the possibility to overcome the main limitations of the other approaches. The research contends that observers can best assess the ICC by evaluating its ability to maintain the required balance among its contradicting interests that guarantees its survival. The conclusion that the contradictions approach should be employed in assessing the ICC as soon as there is an agreement in relation to the Court’s basic performance indicato

The sustainability of community participation activities in pre-university education

The purpose of this research is to examine the sustainability level of community participation models, which seek to enhance the role of the Board of Trustees (BOT) after the conclusion of donor support. I focus on one of the major community participation models in Egypt as a case study to identify strengths and barriers that exist in this kind of projects in Egypt and to understand its level of sustainability. Applying both qualitative and quantitative methods, this study looks at the continuation of activities after the end of donor support and compares schools that have been part of donor-support to others that did not get any support. The findings indicate that the schools that witnessed donor support continue to have a stronger role for their BOT members compared to other schools. However, the activities that continue after donor withdrawal are much fewer compared to the time of donor support

Deep Convolutional Architecture for Block-Based Classification of Small Pulmonary Nodules

A pulmonary nodule is a small round or oval-shaped growth in the lung. Pulmonary nodules are detected in Computed Tomography (CT) lung scans. Early and accurate detection of such nodules could help in successful diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. In recent years, the demand for CT scans has increased substantially, thus increasing the workload on radiologists who need to spend hours reading through CT-scanned images. Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) systems are designed to assist radiologists in the reading process and thus making the screening more effective. Recently, applying deep learning to medical images has gained attraction due to its high potential. In this paper, inspired by the successful use of deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) in natural image recognition, we propose a detection system based on DCNNs which is able to detect pulmonary nodules in CT images. In addition, this system does not use image segmentation or post-classification false-positive reduction techniques which are commonly used in other detection systems. The system achieved an accuracy of 63.49% on the publicly available Lung Image Database Consortium (LIDC) dataset which contains 1018 thoracic CT scans with pulmonary nodules of different shapes and sizes

Influence of Solute Charge and Hydrophobicity on Partitioning and Diffusion in a Genetically Engineered Silk-Elastin-Like Protein Polymer Hydrogel

The influence of solute hydrophobicity and charge on partitioning and diffusion in physically crosslinked networks of a genetically engineered SELP polymer was investigated. A series of fluorescent dyes were used to assess the impact of solute charge and hydrophobicity on release behavior. The mechanism of solute release from the SELP hydrogel appeared to vary as a function of dye hydrophobicity. The extent of FITC attachment to amine-terminated G4 dendrimers influenced SELP hydrogel partitioning more than dendrimer diffusion properties. Results suggest the possibility of controlling solute release from SELP hydrogels by modifying the hydrophobicity and surface charge of drugs and drug/polymer conjugates as well as the possibility of “designing-in” solute-specific interactions.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78240/1/1235_ftp.pd

Solar cells: Types, Modules, and Applications–A Review

The basic operating principle of photovoltaic (PV) devices is the conversion of solar irradiation into electricity. There are various applications of this principle in many countries such as Egypt, Nigeria and Denmark. Most of the solar PV projects are designed for street lighting, water pumping and water desalination. However, we hope about wide range of using the appropriate components and best technical procedures, standard PV projects with maximum performance output. The present systems now provide 20% to 40% only of the community's heat or lightness on annual basic needs. These include innovative and alternative ways to reduce material uses and module degradation, and opportunities to reuse and recycle PV panels at the end of their lifetime because of the installations of photovoltaic solar modules which are growing extremely very fast.   Keywords: Solar cells; renewable energy; photovoltaic; free energy; solar panel cost; solar battery

Reduction of Phosphorus Pollution from Broilers Waste through Supplementation of Wheat Based Broilers Feed with Phytase

The present study was conducted to reduce phosphorus pollution from broilers waste by supplementing phytase enzyme in broilers fee. Two hundred two-week-old broilers (Hubbard) were selected and randomly allocated to three dietary treatment groups, one control group (without phytase) and two trial groups (group A with 300 U/kg phytase and group B with 600 U/kg phytase). Each group was composed of 5 replicates with 10 chicks. Broilers fed the control diet (without phytase) gained weight slower (P 0.05) reduces excreta P and Ca level. Phytase addition did not affect excreta pH. The presence of phytase in feed mixtures significantly (P > 0.05) improves the body weight gain and feed intake of broiler chickens

Short-term assessment of left ventricular function after coronary artery bypass grafting

Background: The effect of coronary artery bypass grafting on postoperative left ventricular function is still the subject of ongoing studies. The degree of recovery and its duration have not been precisely determined, and the published data are discordant. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of surgical revascularization on left ventricular systolic function. Methods: We prospectively studied 50 consecutive patients who underwent elective isolated coronary artery bypass grafting in the period from January 2017 to November 2017. All patients had echocardiography preoperatively, pre-discharge, and at 3 and 6 months postoperatively. Left ventricular end-systolic volume, left ventricular end-diastolic volume, stroke volume, and ejection fraction were measured in all patients. Results: The mean age was 57.22±7.04 years. The mean number of grafts was 2.60±1.02. Improvement in Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) score from (2.72 ± 1.03) preoperatively to [(0.12 ± 0.39), p<0.001] after six months was achieved. Additionally, improvement in the patient New York Heart Association (NYHA) score occurred from (1.70 ± 0.97) preoperatively to [(0.12 ± 0.33), p<0.001] after six months. A significant improvement in left ventricular function occurred  as demonstrated by improvement in mean left ventricular ejection fraction from (54.14±9.80) % to  [(62.40 ± 4.18) %, p<0.001] at six months. The mean total hospital stay was 5.62±1.51 days. The mean total intensive care unit length of stay was 47.16±25.73 hours. Two patients (4%) had re-exploration for bleeding, and postoperative myocardial infarction occurred in three patients (6%).  One patient (2%) had postoperative neurocognitive dysfunction, and 3 patients (6%) had postoperative atrial fibrillation. Two patients (4%) suffered from superficial wound infection. There was no hospital mortality.   Conclusion: Patients undergoing CABG experienced an improvement in left ventricular contractile function at six months postoperatively. Further studies are required to evaluate the changes after 6 months

MONITORING OF PESTICIDE RESIDUES IN SOME ENVIRONMENTAL ELEMENTS AT MENOFIA GOVERNORATE, EGYPT

The pesticide residues in drinking water, irrigation water, sediment and soil sam-ples collected from three villages, i.e. Samadon, Ashmon and El-Ramla, located at Menofia Governorate, Egypt were monitored during the period of Septemper 2002 to February 2003. The obtained results showed that the detected pesticide residues were varied in their types and structures in the investigated villages during period of study. It is clear that residues of organochlorine insecticide and the herbicide, atra-zine, were the most frequently detected in both of drinking and irrigation water sam-ples. According to the detected amounts and numbers of pesticide residues in all the collected samples, the soil samples contained higher pesticide residues (average of 0.07 ppm) sediment (average of 0.05 ppm) irrigation water (average of 0.04 ppm) drinking water (0.01-0.02 ppm). Comparing between the selected sites, Sa-madon was the highest site contained pesticide residues more than Ashmon and El-Ramla

Regioselective lithiation of chiral 3-acylamino-2-alkylquinazolin-4(3H)ones: application in synthesis

Reaction of 3-amino-2-alkylquinazolin-4(3H)-ones with several chiral acid chlorides was found to be dependent on the molar proportions. When a 1:1 molar mixture was heated under reflux, the corresponding 3-(diacylamino)- derivatives were obtained in poor yields. However, when a 2:1 molar mixture was reacted in refluxing toluene, the 3-acylamino- derivatives were obtained in good yields based on the acid chloride. Lithiation of the 3-acylamino-2-alkyl­quinazolin-4(3H)-ones was achieved by the use of lithium diisopropylamide (LDA) in anhydrous THF at -78 °C and the reaction was regioselective at the carbon α to position 2 of the quinazolin-4(3H)-one moiety. The dilithio reagents thus obtained reacted with electrophiles to give the corresponding 2-substituted derivatives in very good yields. The NMR spectra of the products show the expected diastereotopism for all the CH2 groups and provide evidence for long-range asymmetric induction