Soft Power, NGOs, and the US War on Terror

Bringing together foreign policy literature and INGO (international non-governmental organization) scholarship, this dissertation seeks to explain geographic and temporal variation in the US government\u27s use of hard, soft and smart power in the War on Terror. Making an important theoretical contribution, I revise Nye\u27s concept of soft power, more rigorously conceptualizing it as a consciously-utilized strategy employing methods other than hard power (military or economic sanctions) to influence a target government or population to enhance US interests. Soft power is a strategic means of achieving a foreign policy goal. I conceptualize smart power as including both soft and hard power, whose proportions will vary by context. I argue that the US executive begins its counter-terrorism strategizing with an assessment of the terrorist threat from a particular country. The US executive will use hard power to fight a short-term terrorist threat, soft power to fight a long-term terrorist threat, and smart (i.e., combined) power to fight a combined threat. The political, economic, and NGO regulatory context of a country also influence the kind and degree of soft power the US executive uses in countries posing a long-term or combined threat, ultimately influencing the smart power makeup of US counter-terrorism strategy in such countries. I examine a particular form of US soft power: government funding of NGOs. I explore the theoretical and empirical interest of NGOs, arguing that US soft or smart power utilizing NGOs will be impacted by their goals, capabilities, and the government\u27s relationship with them. Employing qualitative methods, I provide a big-picture overview of US strategy in the War on Terror, as well as country case studies of US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This project presents and tests a relevant, innovative, integrated theory of US foreign policy strategizing, making theoretical and empirical contributions to foreign policy and INGO literatures

We Thought We Were Playing : Children’s Participation in the Syrian Revolution

This article explores the participation of children in the Syrian uprising against Bashar al-Assad. The involvement of children in democratic social movements and regime transitions has not been addressed in the literature, although some works describe the role children can play in making public policy or in the humanitarian domain. I argue that just as the role of women and of university-aged youth was gradually incorporated in the body of research on the social movements and regime transitions, so should the role of children be studied. I then characterize the role of children in the Syrian uprising as a three-stage cycle, whereby children unwittingly sparked the revolution, then were targeted by the regime in response, and finally, have been, along with adults across the country, spurred to further anti-Assad action, rather than silence and submission, as a result of the regime’s brutality. Providing empirical evidence to illustrate how this cycle plays out in Syria, I suggest that additional research is needed to further examine and theorize about the role of children in social movements and regime transitions

Penentuan Kenaikan Jabatan Pegawai dengan Metode Profile Matching (Studi Kasus: Dinas Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Air Provinsi Lampung)

Penilaian tenaga kerja adalah suatu penilaian tertulis yang menguraikan fungsi, tugas-tugas, tanggung jawab, wewenang, kondisi kerja, dan aspek-aspek pekerjaan tertentu lainnya terhadap pekerjaan tenaga kerja.. Pada Dinas Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Air memiliki 80 pegawai, dengan jumlah masing-masing bidang adalah 20 pegawai. Dalam proses kenaikan jabatan pegawai di Dinas Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Air yang berjalan  selama ini kurang efektif dan efesien, dimana  kenaikan jabatan pegawai tidak didasarkan dengan penilaian melainkan rekomendasi atasan.Dalam penelitian ini meembangun suatu sistem penunjang keputusan untuk menentukan kenaikan jabatan pegawai pada Dinas Pengolahan Sumber Daya Air dengan menggunakan metode profile matching dan tool yang digunakan adalah usecase diagram, activity diagram, class diagram dan squence diagram. Penelitian ini memudahkan top manajemen pada Dinas Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Air dalam menentukan kenaikan jabatan pegawai. &nbsp

Predicting the Breach Hydrograph Resulting Due to Hypothetical Failure of Haditha Dam

A hydrologic model is developed to compute the reservoir outflow hydrograph resulting from a hypothetical failure of Haditha dam located across the Euphrates river in Iraq due to enemy attack. In this program, the reservoir routing is analyzed by the level pool method in which storage is a nonlinear function of discharge. The results indicate that the maximum reservoir outflow is (202547 m3/s) which occurred about three and half hours after dam failure, and the reservoir will be depleted after about 65 hours. The results of the hydrologic model are compared with available results reported by Macdonald and Monopolis (1984), and it is found that the hydrologic results situate within the limits of their study

The GCC in Crisis: Explorations of ‘Normlessness’ in Gulf Regionalism

In a field that is so loosely theorised, an investigation into intra-GCC conflict is both apposite and challenging. Empirically, interventions by Gulf states have proliferated across the GCC and MENA since 2011. This Special Issue seeks to fill a void in scholarship by looking at the ongoing crisis through the lens of norms. A hypothesised ‘normlessness’ has taken root: a collapse of (local) guiding principles, some even laid down by member states. Disregard for norms of non-intervention, popular sovereignty, mediation, alliance-making and social solidarity poses risks for (sub)regional stability. Provisionally, one notable weakness lies in prescriptive and proscriptive (regulative) norms pertaining to intra-GCC rules of engagement

Crisis of Democratisation in the Maghreb and North Africa

Democratisation in revolutionary times matters to academia and to our social world. Reflecting on the urgent scholarly need among students of Arab and Middle Eastern politics to address the crisis of democratisation is imperative. A line-up of social scientists comes together to do just that: a focused and in-depth engagement with the problematic of the crisis of democratisation. To this end, the contributors in this Special Issue offer a ‘soft’ theorisation of the crisis of democratisation in the context of the ‘Arab Spring’ and its aftermath. Such an undertaking seeks at once context-focused analysis and sensitivity to the ‘specific’. That is, a set of articles that embraces multivocality of specialism, interpretation, methodology and positionality

Forecasting Monthly Maximum Temperatures in Kerbala Using Seasonal ARIMA Models.

يعتبر التنبؤ بالعوامل الجوية مسالة مهمة في مجال الأرصاد الجوي والبحث العلمي. في هذا البحث، تم اعتماد نموذج الانحدار الذاتي المتكامل والمتوسط المتحرك الفصلي (ARIMA) والذي يستند على نظرية Box- Jenkins. استخدمت البيانات الشهرية لمعدل درجة الحرارة العظمى لمدينة كربلاء للفترة (من يناير 1980 إلى ديسمبر 2016). تم اقتراح عدة نماذج للتنبؤ اعتمادا على دالة الارتباط الذاتي ودالة الارتباط الذاتي الجزئي لبيانات السلسلة الزمنية للسنوات من 1980 الى 2015. تم اختبار النماذج المقترحة باستخدام درجات الحرارة الشهرية العظمى لسنة 2016. من اجل اختبار دقة النماذج والمقارنة بينها استخدمت المعلمات الاحصائية مثل معدل الخطأ المطلق MAE، الجذر التربيعي لمتوسط مربعات الخطأ RMSE، المتوسط المطلق للخطأ النسبي   MAPEومعامل التحديد R2. بينت النتائج ان النموذج (2, 1, 2) × (1, 1, 1)12 كان الاكثر دقة واستخدم للتنبؤ بمعدل درجات الحرارة الشهرية العظمى لمنطقة الدراسة للفترة من 2017 الى 2021.Weather forecasting is an important issue in meteorology and scientific research.In this research, the Seasonal Auto Regressive.Integrated Moving Average.(ARIMA) model which is based on Box-Jenkins method was adopted to build the forecasting model. The max. Monthly temperature data for Kerbala city for the period (Jan.1980 to Dec.2016) was employed. The autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation functions for time series data from years 1980 to 2015 were used to identify the most appropriate orders of the ARIMA models. The validation test of these models were performed using the monthly max. Temperature of the year 2016. To calculate the model's accuracy and compare among them, statistical criteria such as MAE, RMSE, MAPE, and R2 were used. The model (2, 1, 2) × (1, 1, 1)12 gave the most accurate results and used to forecast the monthly max. Temperature for the period (2017 to 2021) for study region

Evaluation of regulatory T cells in obese asthmatic children

Background: Asthma is an airway inflammatory disorder with functional and structural changes. Regulatory T (T reg) cells are important in controlling immune responses. The study was aimed to investigate the frequency of Treg cells in obese asthmatic children, in comparison to non-obese asthmatics and healthy matched controls .Methods: In addition to anthropometric and body mass index (BMI) assessment, peripheral blood samples from healthy control subjects (n = 30) and asthmatic obese (n=30) and asthmatic non-obese children (n=30) were examined for serum IgE, eosinophils counts, and flowcytometric measurement of CD4+CD25+CD127 low/neg- T cells. Pulmonary function testing was performed for asthmatic children . Results: Obese asthmatics showed significantly higher levels of serum IgE and CD4+CD25+CD127 low/neg- T cells as compared to healthy controls (p<0.001, 0.001, respectively) while comparable numbers of T reg cells were found among obese and non-obese asthmatic children. Asthmatics receiving inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) showed higher percentages of CD4+CD25+CD127 low/neg- T cells than the non-receivers (median 11.8% vs 8.8%, p <0.001). No significant correlations were found between Treg and age, eosinophil percentage, total serum IgE, pulmonary functions, or BMI and its Z score . Conclusion: Our study demonstrates an increased frequency of Treg cells in asthmatic children compared to controls with possible association with the use of ICS but not with obesity. Small sample size and lack of obese non-asthmatic group are the main points of limitation in our study

Management and outcomes of pregnant ICU patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia in Qatar: A retrospective cohort study

Introduction: Pregnant women are considered a high-risk group for COVID-19 due to their increased vulnerability to viral infections. The impact of COVID-19 on pregnant women is not well understood, and there is a need for data on managing severe COVID-19 in pregnant patients. This retrospective descriptive cohort study described the characteristics, hospital stay, interventions, and outcomes of pregnant patients admitted to the intensive care units (ICUs) with severe COVID-19 pneumonia in Qatar. Methods: Data were collected from medical records and chart reviews of pregnant women admitted to Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) with COVID-19 pneumonia from March 01, 2020, to July 31, 2021. The inclusion criteria encompassed pregnant women with a positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) antigen test or radiological changes at admission, requiring respiratory support, and hospitalized for more than 24 hours. Results: A total of 43 pregnant women were included in this study. Most patients were admitted during the first wave of the pandemic, with a median gestational age of 212 days [interquartile range 178–242 days] at presentation. The most common respiratory support methods were high-flow nasal cannula, non-invasive positive pressure ventilation, and invasive positive pressure ventilation. Convalescent plasma therapy was administered to 58% of patients, and tocilizumab was used in 28%. Renal replacement therapy was required by 4.6% of patients and 7% required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Conclusion: This study provides valuable insights into the impact of COVID-19 on pregnant patient

Expanded Somatic Mutation Spectrum of MED12 Gene in Uterine Leiomyomas of Saudi Arabian Women

MED12, a subunit of mediator complex genes is known to harbor genetic mutations, (mostly in exon 2), causal to the genesis of uterine leiomyomas among Caucasian, African American, and Asian women. However, the precise relationship between genetic mutations vs. protein or disease phenotype is not well-explained. Therefore, we sought to replicate the MED12 mutation frequency in leiomyomas of Saudi Arabian women, who represents ethnically and culturally distinct population. We performed molecular screening of MED12 gene (in 308 chromosomes belonging to 154 uterine biopsies), analyzed the genotype-disease phenotype correlations and determined the biophysical characteristics of mutated protein through diverse computational approaches. We discovered that >44% (34/77) leiomyomas of Arab women carry a spectrum of MED12 mutations (30 missense, 1 splice site, and 3 indels). In addition to known codon 44, we observed novel somatic mutations in codons 36, 38, and 55. Most genetically mutated tumors (27/30; 90%) demonstrated only one type of genetic change, highlighting that even single allele change in MED12 can have profound impact in transforming the normal uterine myometrium to leiomyomas. An interesting inverse correlation between tumor size and LH is observed when tumor is positive to MED12 mutation (p < 0.05). Our computational investigations suggest that amino acid substitution mutations in exon-2 region of MED12 might contribute to potential alterations in phenotype as well as the stability of MED12 protein. Our study, being the first one from Arab world, confirms the previous findings that somatic MED12 mutations are critical to development and progression of uterine leiomyomas irrespective of the ethnic background. We recommend that mutation screening, particularly codon 44 of MED12 can assist in molecular diagnostics of uterine leiomyomas in majority of the patients