The foreign politics of diasporas plays an important role in shaping U.S. foreign policy.

Traditional analysis of U.S. foreign policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Middle East in general, is either confined to the limits of local actors in the Middle East, or, when it takes into account domestic actors in the U.S., focuses almost exclusively on the Israeli lobby. Cynthia Salloum argues that foreign policy analysis needs to take more account of the variety of non-state actors and the non-official political scene – among policy stakeholders and within general public opinion – and its future effects on foreign policy making

Europe: A Strategy for a Regional and Middle Power

As the European Union deals with yet another crisis— the COVID-19 pandemic—it must adopt a grand strategy based on unity, policy, and proportionality: cohesion over inaction, policy over process, and regional imperatives over global ambitions. An analysis of past strategy documents and a study of current international trends stress the need for a Union capable of shaping its own environment rather than reacting to it. The pandemic should accelerate Europe’s journey toward power maturity and responsibility

Fundamentos e aplicações da metodologia de ensaios não destrutivos com células bacterianas

Os Ensaios Não Destrutivos (END) são determinantes para a fiabilidade de materiais cuja integridade é de extrema importância. A técnica de Ensaios Não Destrutivos com células bacterianas (CB) tem demonstrado viabilidade para deteção de defeitos superficiais, com espessuras e profundidades inferiores a 5 μm em vários materiais de engenharia. O conhecimento adquirido sobre esta técnica já é significativo mas alguns aspetos necessitam de mais desenvolvimentos, como a interação bactéria-defeito e a viabilidade da técnica para condições de superfície diferentes das já ensaiadas. O objetivo deste trabalho é alargar a técnica a uma maior gama de materiais de engenharia com condições de superfície diferentes, assim como, desenvolver o conhecimento sobre a interação bactéria-defeito. A bactéria Rhodococcus erythropolis foi usada na inspeção de vários materiais como Alumínio Liga 1100, Estanho, Ouro, Prata, INCONEL 9095, Aço revestido com Nickel, Cobre revestido com Ouro, Alumínio revestido com Cobre, Polímero com nano tubos de carbono, entre outros, e com condições de superfície diferentes como superfícies anodizadas e revestidas. Foram também caracterizados os campos magnéticos de dois equipamentos desenvolvidos para esta técnica de Ensaios Não Destrutivos. Os resultados experimentais mostraram que a utilização de campos magnéticos contribui positivamente para a deteção de defeitos e que provetes com revestimentos superficiais diferentes revelam resultados diferentes apesar de terem o mesmo material base

Disparities in knowledge and use of tobacco treatment among smokers in California following healthcare reform.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) promised to narrow smoking disparities by expanding access to healthcare and mandating comprehensive coverage for tobacco treatment starting in 2014. We examined whether two years after ACA implementation disparities in receiving clinician advice to quit and smokers' knowledge and use of treatment resources remained. We conducted telephone interviews in 2016 with a stratified random sample of self-reported smokers newly enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California's (KPNC) integrated healthcare delivery system in 2014 (N = 491; 50% female; 53% non-white; 6% Spanish language). We used Poisson regression with robust standard errors to test whether sociodemographics, insurance type, comorbidities, smoking status in 2016 (former, light/nondaily [<5 cigarettes per day], daily), and preferred language (English or Spanish) were associated with receiving clinician advice to quit and knowledge and use of tobacco treatment. We included an interaction between smoking status and language to test whether the relation between smoking status and key outcomes varied with preferred language. Overall, 80% of respondents received clinician advice to quit, 84% knew that KPNC offers cessation counseling, 54% knew that cessation pharmacotherapy is free, 54% used pharmacotherapy, and 6% used counseling. In multivariate models, Spanish-speaking light/nondaily smokers had significantly lower rates of all outcomes, while there was no association with other demographic and clinical characteristics. Following ACA implementation, most smokers newly enrolled in KPNC received clinician advice to quit and over half used pharmacotherapy, yet counseling utilization was low. Spanish-language outreach efforts and treatment services are recommended, particularly for adults who are light/nondaily smokers