United Nations technical assistance in Libya with special reference to the Food and Agriculture Organization

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityThe formation of the United Nations and the Specialized Agencies was an action motivated primarily by a sincere desire on the part of the world to minimize all situations leading to war. These can stem from any number of factors, but it is reasonable to assume that economic and social conditions rank among the most important. Thus, we find in the United Nations an instrument to improve the economic and social conditions of the world. This thesis explains and defines the efforts of the Technical Assistance Programme and Specialized Agencies by analysing their programmes in Libya and by drawing from these analyses conclusions concerning the efficacy of Technical Assistance as a method of alleviating socio-economic underdevelopment. The focus is on the Food and Agriculture Organization for two reasons: a detailed dissertation of the technical assistance projects by all the Specialized Agencies, even in a single country, would be repetitive, extending the thesis beyond the limits necessary to its purpose; as Libya is primarily an agricultural country, all projects initiated there are fundamentally to increase agricultural productivity. The plans formulated during World War II to establish an international agency concerned with feeding the world were based on the ideas of agriculturists, nutritionists and statesmen of the nineteen-twenties and thirties, though their theories did not materialize into efficient organizational implementation because of greater univeral submergence in political matters and a general lack of international conscience. The war forcefully brought the realization that economic, population and food problems must be ameliorated through international action; the result was the establishment in 1944 of the Food and Agriculture Organization, whose fundamental aim is to raise world productivity primarily as a co-ordinator and initiator in those fields where national attempts proved insufficient. To achieve integrated programmes with other Specialized Agencies, agreements have been signed providing for close cooperation and regular consultation in matters of common concern. The Expanded Technical Assistance Programme of the United Nations, the co-ordinator which integrates and directs those efforts involving more than one specialized agency, was established in 1949 and has been the major directive force in the implementation of multilateral technical assistance. The best method of evaluating UNTAA is by comprehensively studying an area whose socio-economic conditions necessitate assistance programmes in all fields. Libya, historically under constant colonial domination, was guaranteed independence by 1952 through a General Assembly resolution passed in 1949. The Assembly also appointed a Commissioner for the two intervening years to aid the country in its monumental task. An underdeveloped country with a marginal agricultural economy, Libya was basically handicapped by inadequate rainfall and infertile soil. The indigenous population was untrained in the proper utilization and irrigation of land and the conservation of water, and was further hampered by the lack of material resources and technical knowledge. Because of the complete lack of factual and statistical area information, the first step on the part of UNTAA was a survey of local conditions and their compilation in two major documents. The first points out that the key to development lay in basic and technical education and the use of pilot projects; the second enumerates the particular problems inherent to Libya and proposes an extensive set of short and long-term programmes. Because of the latent skills of the people was the only major resource, the first task consisted of raising the country-s productivity by teaching the people to do better what they were already doing. Because of the limited available budget, it seemed most profitable to develop those fields of agriculture and animal husbandry already significant in foreign and domestic trade, rather than initiate new areas of expansion. Therefore, projects were proposed to establish an administrative and financial framework designed to direct and implement plans for the increase and improvement of products and marketing. The highest priority was given to projects dealing with experimental, educational and demonstrational work such as seed research and multiplication, breeding experiments, credit extension and small tool development, thus providing incentive toward increased agricultural productivity. Exportation of sheep-products and citrus fruits was greatly increased through improved curing, tanning, processing and packing. ILO established a Centre for training young Libyans in clerical work and industrial and mechanical skills, thereby broadening and stabilizing the supply of competent public servants, and UNESCO initiated two teacher training centres and numerous rural adult education projects in cooperation with FAO. WHO and UNESCO set up maternal and child health centres and disease prevention programmes. The assistance furnished under United States bilateral aid is mainly concerned with projects requiring large amounts of capital. On the whole, however, there are continuous attempts made to integrate the two programmes so as to gain the highest possible level of cooperation and efficacy. Valuable conclusions can be drawn from an analysis of Technical Assistance in Libya. It has been shown that the choice of Libya as a working example was a happy one, for this is a country that enjoys a unique relationship to the United Nations; it will always be considered a special responsibility or the Organization. Because the country was virtually without economic assets and required development in every field, an analysis of the Technical Assistance Programme employed there indicates the complexity of the methods and techniques directed toward providing a flexible, realistic blue-print on which to plan stable, continuous economic development. In spite of numerous difficulties faced by the drafters the final plans were well-established, malleable and particularly suited to Libya's specific conditions. The most serious obstacle was insufficient funds, a problem which was largely alleviated through bilateral aid. It is not to be assumed that bilateral aid is preferable to multilateral assistance. United States financial support provided for a specified number of years in return for certain military privileges is a two-edged sword. On the one hand Libya is assured financial security for at least as long as military installations are necessary; on the other she is dependent upon the bounty of another country, a psychological consideration that a newly independent nation may find difficult to accept. United Nations Technical Assistance by its very neutrality negates any such psychological stigma. In practice the two systems have shown to complement each other well, the one supplying that which the other cannot give. It may be superfluous at this point to question the desirability of technical assistance for the purpose of improving the conditions of underdeveloped countries, as, apart from humanitarian considerations, our interests require a world wherein the seeds of unrest and dissatisfaction are deracinated to prevent them from bursting into conflict. The responsibility for this lies with the Member Nations of the United Nations, those in whose hands rests the power to give aid toward improving the economic and social conditions of underdeveloped countries, thereby minimizing the causes of future dissention

The Long-Term Effects of Child Abuse and Neglect on Communication and Conflict Management Within the Military Marriage

This study utilized a qualitative, phenomenological approach to examine the lived experiences of five active-duty military-affiliated couples within which at least one partner reported a history of moderate to severe childhood maltreatment. The goal was to identify thematic constructs that revealed themselves over the course of five interviews conducted with both individuals as well as with the couple in tandem that identify long-term effects of childhood maltreatment on relational functioning with a specific focus on communication and conflict management within the relationship. Interview data combined with the completion of an attachment questionnaire identified three primary themes and one subtheme including avoidance and dissociation with a subtheme of yelling initiating emotional shut-down, toxic self-reliance, and relational insecurity. Points of intrigue were also analyzed as they emerged during the interview process, resulting in the identification of three themes and seven subthemes relating to the impact and nature of military-related stressors participants reported facing. Data gleaned from this research sought to bridge a significant gap in current literature and serve as a foundation for future research involving this population. Its findings will also better inform the development and delivery of clinical interventions for use with military couples

The Double Quasar HE1104-1805: a case study for time delay determination with poorly sampled lightcurves

We present a new determination of the time delay of the gravitational lens system HE1104-1805 ('Double Hamburger') based on a previously unpublished dataset. We argue that the previously published value of dt_(A-B)=0.73 years was affected by a bias of the employed method. We determine a new value of dt_(A-B)=0.85+/-0.05 years (2 sigma confidence level), using six different techniques based on non interpolation methods in the time domain. The result demonstrates that even in the case of poorly sampled lightcurves, useful information can be obtained with regard to the time delay. The error estimates were calculated through Monte Carlo simulations. With two already existing models for the lens and using its recently determined redshift, we infer a range of values of the Hubble parameter: Ho=48+/-4 km/s Mpc^-1 (2 sigma) for a singular isothermal ellipsoid (SIE) and Ho=62+/-4 km/s Mpc^-1 (2 sigma) for a constant mass-to-light ratio plus shear model (M/L+gamma). The possibly much larger errors due to systematic uncertainties in modeling the lens potential are not included in this error estimate.Comment: 11 pages, 15 figures, accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysic

Characterizing neuromorphologic alterations with additive shape functionals

The complexity of a neuronal cell shape is known to be related to its function. Specifically, among other indicators, a decreased complexity in the dendritic trees of cortical pyramidal neurons has been associated with mental retardation. In this paper we develop a procedure to address the characterization of morphological changes induced in cultured neurons by over-expressing a gene involved in mental retardation. Measures associated with the multiscale connectivity, an additive image functional, are found to give a reasonable separation criterion between two categories of cells. One category consists of a control group and two transfected groups of neurons, and the other, a class of cat ganglionary cells. The reported framework also identified a trend towards lower complexity in one of the transfected groups. Such results establish the suggested measures as an effective descriptors of cell shape

Hotspot Zuidplaspolder: Climate adaptation in the Zuidplaspolder

Building at the lowest point in the Netherlands, in the Zuidplaspolder, is viewed as a challenge and not something that is impossible. The Xplorelab approach in the Hotspot Zuidplaspolder project is a combination of research, implementation of ideas into inspiring examples and evaluation

The time delay of the quadruple quasar RX J0911.4+0551

We present optical lightcurves of the gravitationally lensed components A (=A1+A2+A3) and B of the quadruple quasar RX J0911.4+0551 (z = 2.80). The observations were primarily obtained at the Nordic Optical Telescope between 1997 March and 2001 April and consist of 74 I-band data points for each component. The data allow the measurement of a time delay of 146 +- 8 days (2 sigma) between A and B, with B as the leading component. This value is significantly shorter than that predicted from simple models and indicates a very large external shear. Mass models including the main lens galaxy and the surrounding massive cluster of galaxies at z = 0.77, responsible for the external shear, yield H_0 = 71 +- 4 (random, 2 sigma) +- 8 (systematic) km/s/Mpc. The systematic model uncertainty is governed by the surface-mass density (convergence) at the location of the multiple images.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, ApJL, in press (June 20, 2002

A Determination of H_0 with the CLASS Gravitational Lens B1608+656: III. A Significant Improvement in the Precision of the Time Delay Measurements

The gravitational lens CLASS B1608+656 is the only four-image lens system for which all three independent time delays have been measured. This makes the system an excellent candidate for a high-quality determination of H_0 at cosmological distances. However, the original measurements of the time delays had large (12-20%) uncertainties, due to the low level of variability of the background source during the monitoring campaign. In this paper, we present results from two additional VLA monitoring campaigns. In contrast to the ~5% variations seen during the first season of monitoring, the source flux density changed by 25-30% in each of the subsequent two seasons. We analyzed the combined data set from all three seasons of monitoring to improve significantly the precision of the time delay measurements; the delays are consistent with those found in the original measurements, but the uncertainties have decreased by factors of two to three. We combined the delays with revised isothermal mass models to derive a measurement of H_0. Depending on the positions of the galaxy centroids, which vary by up to 0.1 arcsec in HST images obtained with different filters, we obtain H_0 = 61-65 km/s/Mpc, for (Omega_M,Omega_L) = (0.3,0.7). The value of H_0 decreases by 6% if (Omega_M,Omega_L) = (1.0,0.0). The formal uncertainties on H_0 due to the time delay measurements are +/- 1 (+/- 2) km/s/Mpc for the 1-sigma (2-sigma) confidence limits. Thus, the systematic uncertainties due to the lens model, which are on the order of +/- 15 km/s/Mpc, now dominate the error budget for this system. In order to improve the measurement of H_0 with this lens, new models that incorporate the constraints provided by stellar dynamics and the optical/infrared Einstein ring seen in HST images must be developed.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 32 pages, 8 figures (3 in color

Discovering Gravitational Lenses Through Measurements Of Their Time Delays

We consider the possibility that future wide-field time-domain optical imaging surveys may be able to discover gravitationally lensed quasar pairs through serendipitous measurements of their time delays. We discuss the merits such a discovery technique would have relative to conventional lens searches. Using simulated quasar lightcurves, we demonstrate that in a survey which observes objects several times each lunar cycle over the course of five years, it is possible to improve the efficiency of a gravitational lens search by 2-3 orders of magnitude through the use of time delay selection. In the most advantageous scenario considered, we are able to improve efficiency by a factor of 1000 with no loss of completeness. In the least advantageous scenario, we are able to improve efficiency by a factor of 110 while reducing completeness by a factor of 9. We show that window function effects associated with the length of the observing season are more important than the total number of datapoints in determining the effectiveness of this method. We also qualitatively discuss several complications which might be relevant to a real time delay search.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to Ap

Estimation of time delays from unresolved photometry

Long-time monitoring of gravitational lens systems is often done using telescopes and recording equipment with a modest resolution. Still, it would be interesting to get as much information as possible from the measured lightcurves. From high resolution images we know that the recorded quasar images are often blends and that the corresponding time series are not pure shifted replicas of the source variability. In this paper we will develop an algorithm to unscramble this kind of blended data. The proposed method is based on a simple idea. We use one of the photometric curves, which is supposedly a simple shifted replica of the source curve, to build different artificial combined curves. Then we compare these artificial curves with the blended curves. Proper solutions for a full set of time delays are then obtained by varying free input parameters and estimating statistical distances between the artificial and blended curves. We performed a check of feasibility and applicability of the new algorithm. For numerically generated data sets the time delay systems were recovered for a wide range of setups. Application of the new algorithm to the classical double quasar QSO 0957+561 A,B lightcurves shows a clear splitting of one of the images. This is an unexpected result and extremely interesting, especially in the context of the recent controversy about the exact time delay value for the system. The proposed method allows to analyse properly the data from low resolution observations which have long time coverages. There is a number of gravitational lens monitoring programmes, which can make use of the new algorithm