The EU as an International Actor: Lessons from the China Arms Embargo Debate

Much of the literature on the European Union’s development as an international actor has focused on either the institutionalisation of foreign policymaking or what type of actor the EU can be regarded as. This paper seeks to examine a dimension which has received comparatively less attention: how other actors in the international arena view the EU. Recognition is a prerequisite for the EU to become a credible international actor. Through examining the EU’s debate over lifting its China arms embargo, this paper reflects on the impact of the debate on the views of the EU held by two other significant actors – the USA and the PRC – and the implications for the EU. The literature on the arms embargo debate has tended to treat it as a case study of EU foreign policymaking or as an issue in EU-China relations. Little has been said about the broader implications for the image of the EU in the eyes of others. Through analysis of the debate’s context and subsequent developments in EU-US and EU-China relations, an evaluation is made of whether the debate can be considered as a setback for developing EU ‘actorness’ and what, if any, lessons have been learned by policymakers

Premature mortality in refractory partial epilepsy: does surgical treatment make a difference?

Background: Epilepsy carries an increased risk of premature death. For some people with intractable focal epilepsy, surgery offers hope for a seizure-free life. The authors aimed to see whether epilepsy surgery influenced mortality in people with intractable epilepsy. Methods: The authors audited survival status in two cohorts (those who had surgery and those who had presurgical assessment but did not have surgery). Results: There were 40 known deaths in the non-surgical group (3365 person years of follow-up) and 19 in the surgical group (3905 person-years of follow-up). Non-operated patients were 2.4 times (95% CI 1.4 to 4.2) as likely to die as those who had surgery. They were 4.5 times (95% CI 1.9 to 10.9) as likely to die a probable epilepsy-related death. In the surgical group, those with ongoing seizures 1 year after surgery were 4.0 (95% CI 1.2 to 13.7) times as likely to die as those who were seizure-free or who had only simple partial seizures. Time-dependent Cox analysis showed that the yearly outcome group did not significantly affect mortality (HR 1.3, 95% CI 0.9 to 1.8). Conclusion: Successful epilepsy surgery was associated with a reduced risk of premature mortality, compared with those with refractory focal epilepsy who did not have surgical treatment. To some extent, the reduced mortality is likely to be conferred by inducing freedom from seizures. It is not certain whether better survival is attributable only to surgery, as treatment decisions were not randomised, and there may be inherent differences between the groups.<br/

Indestructibility of Vopenka's Principle

We show that Vopenka's Principle and Vopenka cardinals are indestructible under reverse Easton forcing iterations of increasingly directed-closed partial orders, without the need for any preparatory forcing. As a consequence, we are able to prove the relative consistency of these large cardinal axioms with a variety of statements known to be independent of ZFC, such as the generalised continuum hypothesis, the existence of a definable well-order of the universe, and the existence of morasses at many cardinals.Comment: 15 pages, submitted to Israel Journal of Mathematic

Galactic-Centre Gamma Rays in CMSSM Dark Matter Scenarios

We study the production of gamma rays via LSP annihilations in the core of the Galaxy as a possible experimental signature of the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (CMSSM), in which supersymmetry-breaking parameters are assumed to be universal at the GUT scale, assuming also that the LSP is the lightest neutralino chi. The part of the CMSSM parameter space that is compatible with the measured astrophysical density of cold dark matter is known to include a stau_1 - chi coannihilation strip, a focus-point strip where chi has an enhanced Higgsino component, and a funnel at large tanb where the annihilation rate is enhanced by the poles of nearby heavy MSSM Higgs bosons, A/H. We calculate the total annihilation rates, the fractions of annihilations into different Standard Model final states and the resulting fluxes of gamma rays for CMSSM scenarios along these strips. We observe that typical annihilation rates are much smaller in the coannihilation strip for tanb = 10 than along the focus-point strip or for tanb = 55, and that the annihilation branching ratios differ greatly between the different dark matter strips. Whereas the current Fermi-LAT data are not sensitive to any of the CMSSM scenarios studied, and the calculated gamma-ray fluxes are probably unobservably low along the coannihilation strip for tanb = 10, we find that substantial portions of the focus-point strips and rapid-annihilation funnel regions could be pressured by several more years of Fermi-LAT data, if understanding of the astrophysical background and/or systematic uncertainties can be improved in parallel.Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures, comments and references added, version to appear in JCA

Preparation and Solid-state Structural, Electronic, and Magnetic Properties of the 5-Cyano-1,3-benzene-Bridged Bis(1,2,3,5-dithiadiazolyl) and Bis(1,2,3,5-diselenadiazolyl) [5-CN-1,3-C6H3(CN2E2)2] (E = S, Se)

The preparation and solid-state characterization of the bifunctional radicals [4,4’-(5-cyanobenzene)-1,3-bis(1,2,3,5-dithiadiazolyl)] and [4,4’-(5-cyanobenzene)-1,3-bis( 1,2,3,5-diselenadiazolyl)] [5-CN-1,3-C6H3(CN2E2)2] (E = S, Se) are described. The crystals of the two title compounds are isomorphous and belong to the monoclinic space group P21/c, with (for E = S) a = 7.00(2), b = 30.050(6), c = 10.713(8) Å, β = 104.80(10)°, V = 2179(6) Å3, Z = 8 and (for E = Se) a = 7.124(4), b = 30.50(2), c = 10.874(2) Å, β = 105.46(3)°, V = 2277(2) Å3, Z = 8. The crystal structures consist of stacks of diradicals running parallel to x; radical dimerization up and down the stack generates a zigzag arrangement, as seen in the related 1,3-phenylene structures. Along the stacking axis the mean intradimer E-E contacts are 3.12 (E = S) and 3.23 Å (E = Se), while the mean interdimer E- - -E distances are 3.89 (E = S) and 3.91 Å (E = Se). Magnetic and conductivity data are presented and discussed in light of extended Hückel band structure calculations

Gamma-ray Constraints on Effective Interactions of the Dark Matter

Using an effective interaction approach to describe the interactions between the dark matter particle and the light degrees of freedom of the standard model, we calculate the gamma-ray flux due to the annihilation of the dark matter into quarks, followed by fragmentation into neutral pions which subsequently decay into photons. By comparison to the mid-latitude data released from the Fermi-LAT experiment, we obtain useful constraints on the size of the effective interactions and they are found to be comparable to those deduced from collider, gamma-ray line and anti-matter search experiments. However, the two operators induced by scalar and vector exchange among fermionic dark matter and light quarks that contribute to spin-independent cross sections are constrained more stringently by the recent XENON100 data.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures; title fixed and a couple of references adde

A new deep SCUBA survey of gravitationally lensing clusters

We have conducted a new deep SCUBA survey, which has targetted 12 lensing galaxy clusters and one blank field. In this survey we have detected several sub-mJy sources after correcting for the gravitational lensing by the intervening clusters. We here present the preliminary results and point out two highlights.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, "Multiwavelength Cosmology" Mykonos, June 2003, conference proceeding

Voluntary running exercise protects against sepsis-induced early inflammatory and pro-coagulant responses in aged mice

Background: Despite many animal studies and clinical trials, mortality in sepsis remains high. This may be due to the fact that most experimental studies of sepsis employ young animals, whereas the majority of septic patients are elderly (60 - 70 years). The objective of the present study was to examine the sepsis-induced inflammatory and pro-coagulant responses in aged mice. Since running exercise protects against a variety of diseases, we also examined the effect of voluntary running on septic responses in aged mice. Methods: Male C57BL/6 mice were housed in our institute from 2-3 to 22 months (an age mimicking that of the elderly). Mice were prevented from becoming obese by food restriction (given 70-90% of ad libitum consumption amount). Between 20 and 22 months, a subgroup of mice ran voluntarily on wheels, alternating 1-3 days of running with 1-2 days of rest. At 22 months, mice were intraperitoneally injected with sterile saline (control) or 3.75 g/kg fecal slurry (septic). At 7 h post injection, we examined (1) neutrophil influx in the lung and liver by measuring myeloperoxidase and/or neutrophil elastase in the tissue homogenates by spectrophotometry, (2) interleukin 6 (IL6) and KC in the lung lavage by ELISA, (3) pulmonary surfactant function by measuring percentage of large aggregates, (4) capillary plugging (pro-coagulant response) in skeletal muscle by intravital microscopy, (5) endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) protein in skeletal muscle (eNOS-derived NO is putative inhibitor of capillary plugging) by immunoblotting, and (6) systemic blood platelet counts by hemocytometry. Results: Sepsis caused high levels of pulmonary myeloperoxidase, elastase, IL6, KC, liver myeloperoxidase, and capillary plugging. Sepsis also caused low levels of surfactant function and platelet counts. Running exercise increased eNOS protein and attenuated the septic responses. Conclusions: Voluntary running protects against exacerbated sepsis-induced inflammatory and pro-coagulant responses in aged mice. Protection against pro-coagulant responses may involve eNOS upregulation. The present discovery in aged mice calls for clinical investigation into potential beneficial effects of exercise on septic outcomes in the elderly

Black grain mycetoma (maduromycosis) in horses

Black grain mycetoma occurred in two horses, one a cross-bred pony and the other a Thoroughbred racehorse. Lesions were limited to wart-like growths in one case and a deep-seated girth gall in the other. In both cases the granules in the affected tissues were similar in pigmentation and structure to those produced by Curvularia geniculata in dogs. Since all the specimens were received in formalin, the causative fungus could not be isolated. These are the first cases of maduromycosis in animals to be recorded in South Africa.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 300dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format