Crafting security council mandates

Conclusion: Having described the alchemy through which mandates are forged and having analysed problematic aspects of mandates, how can one conclude the study and appraise the process? One obvious difficulty is that of selectivity. By focusing on the interventions shaped by mandates, those situations that fall outside the realm of the possible in international politics also fall outside the appraisal process. So appraising mandates tells us nothing about the fate of Chechnya or self-determination for Kurdish people or the future of Tibet. Focusing on the interventions themselves poses further problems of appraisal. Is an intervention successful because fighting stopped or ceasefires were maintained? This is often the media interpretation of events and thus a key component in shaping public perceptions. But the fundamental question of the health of the polity that is the subject of the intervention remains unanswered if we look simply at the cessation of hostilities. Measuring state building is a difficult medium to long-term venture. Perhaps the best political measurement is the satisfaction with the UN intervention by the parties principal including not only the leaders and factions within the polity but also the key actors in the international community such as the permanent members, the troop and civilian staff contributors and the neighbouring countries. It is perhaps on this basis that the 1995 Agenda for Peace claimed that in most cases the interventions have been conspicuously successful with Namibia, Angola, El Salvador, Cambodia and Mozambique drawing particular praise. Many commentators would agree with this general comment. The success of an intervention tells us that the clear and practical mandate was well suited to the result being sought. But the success of the intervention is also due to the five other factors said to be critical: the cooperation of the parties in implementing that mandate; the continuing support of the Security Council; the readiness of Member States to contribute the military, police and civilian personnel, including specialists, required; effective United Nations command at Headquarters and in the field; and adequate financial and logistic support. So the mandate is only one part of the formula. Within the process of judging the intervention as a whole, mandates need to be appraised on their clarity and practicality. A workable mandate will comprise mainly of action tasks that are simply described for the benefit of both the implementers and the subjects. Many of these tasks will be measurable in terms of performance, cost and timeliness. A workable mandate will avoid vague compromise words that paper over essential differences and thus leave the dilemma unresolved and in the hands of the implementers. A workable mandate will have direction and closure. The end point may not always be predictable but the direction should be clear and a point should be ascertainable where the emergency intervention ends and the regular processes of development assistance take over. A workable mandate will have a defined division of labour. This may be based on subject matter, on geographical area or on organisational competence. One of the avoidable problems referred to in Agenda for Peace concern difficulties with coordination arising from the various specific mandates decreed for the agencies by discrete intergovernmental bodies. The UN has the responsibility to coordinate its various inputs into a coherent effort. It is open from the foregoing analysis to conclude that the UN process of developing mandates for democratisation and state-building purposes have improved with practice. Mistakes have clearly been made but they have contributed to the learning and drafting process. It would be unrealistic to demand that the vagaries of international politics be somehow eliminated from the process of decision-making and formulation of mandates. The power of the permanent members can be seen as a way of channelling realpolitik into the decision-making process. For that reason alone, it would be futile to demand consistency. Interventions that have a direct impact on one of the permanent members will not be treated in the same way as the more remote situations. To what extent should democratisation be a priority in the mandate? The problem with asking this question is that democratisation competes with the reestablishment of security and the provision of humanitarian aid as the three major thrusts of mandates. There can hardly be a process of democratisation without a generally secure environment and humanitarian aid in an emergency situation is clearly a priority for the subject peoples. The better way of posing the question is to ask whether sufficient priority is being given to the democratisation process. That is a valid question because without a democratisation process it is unlikely that the polity can ultimately achieve a form of governance that will encourage reconciliation and favour long-term recovery socially and economically. The reply, inevitably, is yes and no. Yes, democratisation has found a place in the UNs rhetoric and in its mandates. As one practitioner noted ruefully, even delegates from non-democratic countries happily accept the inclusion in mandates of provisions for free and fair elections and support for civil society. Mandates have become more sophisticated and the UNs response is improving with experience. There have been significant achievements in half a dozen difficult situations and a willingness to build on these processes in the future. But there is also a negative response. The problem is one of maintaining focus. Democratisation is not achieved by putting out fires, nor is it established by a single transition election; it is a long-term process requiring the patience to endure setbacks and to accept the slow pace of reform. Each new crisis faced by the UN naturally detracts attention from the smoky ruins of the last fire. The funds required for the long haul are often inadequate and the benefits gained initially are put at risk. A mandate can therefore only begin a process of democratisation. It can put some of the basic foundations in place and set a certain direction. Thereafter the process of democratic transition and consolidation is in the hands of many actors and political forces. No more should be asked of the UN interventions in the field

Losing Control. Freedom of the Press in Asia

'A free press is not a luxury. A free press is at the absolute core of equitable development' according to World Bank President James Wolfensohn. A free press is also the key to transparency and good governance and is an indispensable feature of a democracy. So how does Asia rate? In Losing Control, leading journalists analyse the state of play in all the countries of North Asia and Southeast Asia. From the herd journalism of Japan to the Stalinist system of North Korea, Losing Control provides an inside look at journalism and freedom of the press in each country. One conclusion - a combination of new technology and greater democracy is breaking the shackles that once constrained the press in Asia. 'Brings together Asia's best and brightest observers of the press.' Hamish McDonald, Foreign Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald ' A rare insiders' view exposing the real dynamics behind social and political change in Asia.' Evan Williams, Foreign Correspondent, ABC TV 'A timely and necessary contribution to the debate over the quality of freedom in Asia.' Geoffrey Barker, The Australian Financial Revie

Losing Control. Freedom of the Press in Asia

'A free press is not a luxury. A free press is at the absolute core of equitable development' according to World Bank President James Wolfensohn. A free press is also the key to transparency and good governance and is an indispensable feature of a democracy. So how does Asia rate? In Losing Control, leading journalists analyse the state of play in all the countries of North Asia and Southeast Asia. From the herd journalism of Japan to the Stalinist system of North Korea, Losing Control provides an inside look at journalism and freedom of the press in each country. One conclusion - a combination of new technology and greater democracy is breaking the shackles that once constrained the press in Asia. 'Brings together Asia's best and brightest observers of the press.' Hamish McDonald, Foreign Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald ' A rare insiders' view exposing the real dynamics behind social and political change in Asia.' Evan Williams, Foreign Correspondent, ABC TV 'A timely and necessary contribution to the debate over the quality of freedom in Asia.' Geoffrey Barker, The Australian Financial Revie

Democratic conditionality in development assistance

[Introduction]: President Bush’s address to the United Nations Conference on Financing for Development with its startling announcement of a 50% increase in United States Official Development Assistance (ODA) has put the issue of aid conditionality at the forefront of the development debate. To understand and evaluate the impact of the announcement, it is worthwhile examining the concept of ODA and the role of conditionality in that concept. The paper will then consider to what extent, and to what effect, has democratic governance become one of the conditions for the granting of ODA

Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Agents in the Therapy for Experimental Pneumococcal Meningitis

An increased inflammatory mass in the subarachnoid space during bacterial meningitis may correlate with a poor outcome of disease. Using a rabbit model of pneumococcal meningitis, we sought to reduce this inflammatory process. The ability of the pneumococcal cell wall to cause death and to generate leukocytosis and abnormal chemistry in cerebrospinal fluid was prevented when animals were treated with inhibitors of the cyclooxygenase pathway of arachidonate metabolism. Bacterial lysis by ampicillin led to release of cell wall that caused a significant, transient increase in meningeal inflammation. This inflammatory burst was also prevented by administering cyclooxygenase inhib-itors concurrently with the antibioti

Context-Aware Sensing and Implicit Ground Truth Collection: Building a Foundation for Event Triggered Surveys on Autonomous Shuttles: Artikel

The LINC project aims to study interactions between passengers and autonomous vehicles in natural settings at the campus of Technical University of Denmark. To leverage the potential of IoT components in smartphone-based surveying, a system to identify specific spatial, temporal and occupancy contexts relevant for passengers’ experience was proposed as a central data collection strategy in the LINC project. Based on predefined contextual triggers specific questionnaires can be distributed to affected passengers. This work focuses on the data-based discrimination between two fundamental contexts for LINC passengers: be-in and be-out (BIBO) of the vehicle. We present empirical evidence that Bluetooth-low-energy beacons (BLE) have the potential for BIBO independent classification. We compare BLE with other smartphone onboard sensors, such as the global positioning system (GPS) and the accelerometer through: (i) random-forest (RF); (ii) multi-layer perceptron (MLP); and (iii) smartphone native off-the-shelve classifiers. We also perform a sensitivity analysis regarding the impact that faulty BIBO ground-truth has on the performance of the supervised classifiers (i) and (ii). Results show that BLE and GPS could allow reciprocal validation for BIBO passengers’ status. This potential might lift passengers from providing any further validation. We describe the smartphone-sensing platform deployed to gather the dataset used in this work, which involves passengers and autonomous vehicles in a realistic setting

An intra-cerebral drug delivery system for freely moving animals

Abstract Microinfusions of drugs directly into the central nervous system of awake animals represent a widely used means of unravelling brain functions related to behaviour. However, current approaches generally use tethered liquid infusion systems and a syringe pump to deliver drugs into the brain, which often interfere with behaviour. We address this shortfall with a miniaturised electronically-controlled drug delivery system (20×17.5×5 mm 3 ) designed to be skull-mounted in rats. The device features a micropump connected to two 8-mm-long silicon microprobes with a cross section of 250×250 μm 2 and integrated fluid microchannels. Using an external electronic control unit, the device allows infusion of 16 metered doses (0.25 μL each, 8 per silicon shaft). Each dosage requires 3.375 Ws of electrical power making the device additionally compatible with state-of-the-art wireless headstages. A dosage precision of 0.25±0.01 μL was determined in vitro before in vivo tests were carried out in awake rats. No passive leakage from the loaded devices into the brain could be detected using methylene blue dye. Finally, the device was used to investigate the effects of the NMDA-receptor antagonist 3-((R)-2-Carboxypiperazin-4-yl)-propyl-1-phosphonic acid, (R)-CPP, administered directly into the prefrontal cortex of rats during performance on a task to assess visual attention and impulsivity. In agreement with previous findings using conventional tethered infusion systems, acute (R)-CPP administration produced a marked increase in impulsivity

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-III

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) is designed to measure the scale of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of matter over a larger volume than the combined efforts of all previous spectroscopic surveys of large scale structure. BOSS uses 1.5 million luminous galaxies as faint as i=19.9 over 10,000 square degrees to measure BAO to redshifts z<0.7. Observations of neutral hydrogen in the Lyman alpha forest in more than 150,000 quasar spectra (g<22) will constrain BAO over the redshift range 2.15<z<3.5. Early results from BOSS include the first detection of the large-scale three-dimensional clustering of the Lyman alpha forest and a strong detection from the Data Release 9 data set of the BAO in the clustering of massive galaxies at an effective redshift z = 0.57. We project that BOSS will yield measurements of the angular diameter distance D_A to an accuracy of 1.0% at redshifts z=0.3 and z=0.57 and measurements of H(z) to 1.8% and 1.7% at the same redshifts. Forecasts for Lyman alpha forest constraints predict a measurement of an overall dilation factor that scales the highly degenerate D_A(z) and H^{-1}(z) parameters to an accuracy of 1.9% at z~2.5 when the survey is complete. Here, we provide an overview of the selection of spectroscopic targets, planning of observations, and analysis of data and data quality of BOSS.Comment: 49 pages, 16 figures, accepted by A

The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) presents the first spectroscopic data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This ninth data release (DR9) of the SDSS project includes 535,995 new galaxy spectra (median z=0.52), 102,100 new quasar spectra (median z=2.32), and 90,897 new stellar spectra, along with the data presented in previous data releases. These spectra were obtained with the new BOSS spectrograph and were taken between 2009 December and 2011 July. In addition, the stellar parameters pipeline, which determines radial velocities, surface temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities of stars, has been updated and refined with improvements in temperature estimates for stars with T_eff<5000 K and in metallicity estimates for stars with [Fe/H]>-0.5. DR9 includes new stellar parameters for all stars presented in DR8, including stars from SDSS-I and II, as well as those observed as part of the SDSS-III Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration-2 (SEGUE-2). The astrometry error introduced in the DR8 imaging catalogs has been corrected in the DR9 data products. The next data release for SDSS-III will be in Summer 2013, which will present the first data from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) along with another year of data from BOSS, followed by the final SDSS-III data release in December 2014.Comment: 9 figures; 2 tables. Submitted to ApJS. DR9 is available at http://www.sdss3.org/dr

Measuring root system traits of wheat in 2D images to parameterize 3D root architecture models

Background and aimsThe main difficulty in the use of 3D root architecture models is correct parameterization. We evaluated distributions of the root traits inter-branch distance, branching angle and axial root trajectories from contrasting experimental systems to improve model parameterization.MethodsWe analyzed 2D root images of different wheat varieties (Triticum aestivum) from three different sources using automatic root tracking. Model input parameters and common parameter patterns were identified from extracted root system coordinates. Simulation studies were used to (1) link observed axial root trajectories with model input parameters (2) evaluate errors due to the 2D (versus 3D) nature of image sources and (3) investigate the effect of model parameter distributions on root foraging performance.ResultsDistributions of inter-branch distances were approximated with lognormal functions. Branching angles showed mean values <90°. Gravitropism and tortuosity parameters were quantified in relation to downwards reorientation and segment angles of root axes. Root system projection in 2D increased the variance of branching angles. Root foraging performance was very sensitive to parameter distribution and variance.Conclusions2D image analysis can systematically and efficiently analyze root system architectures and parameterize 3D root architecture models. Effects of root system projection (2D from 3D) and deflection (at rhizotron face) on size and distribution of particular parameters are potentially significant