Kuwaiti foreign policy in light of the Iraqi invasion,with particular reference to Kuwait’s policy towards Iraq, 1990-2010

The study stems from the gap it fills in the description and analysis of Kuwait’s foreign policy behaviour towards Iraq during the period from 1990s and the impact of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on changing the concepts of Kuwait foreign policy on the regional, Arabian and international levelsThe study sheds light on the impact of the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990 on Kuwaiti foreign policy, with particular reference to changes in behaviour towards Iraq, from 1990-2010, and the impact of this invasion on changes to the concepts of Kuwaiti foreign policy at regional, Arab and international levels. Thus, the study investigates the ‘impact’ of this invasion on Kuwaiti foreign behavior towards Iraq during the period from 1990 to 2010, the principles and determinants of Kuwaiti foreign policy towards Iraq in this period, and the ‘outstanding issues’ between Iraq and Kuwait and the Kuwaiti vision for Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime from 2003 until 2010. It finds that the trauma of the invasion drastically affected both Arab politics overall and Kuwait’s own policy: for the first time the notion of alliance became a cornerstone of Kuwait’s overall foreign policy – even if its geographical location and exposure to possible threats from Iraq meant that, after Saddam’s fall in 2003, there was a gradual evolution towards trying to help a stabilisation in that country occur. The combination of geographical location and ideational factors in the shape of sectarian cleavages crossing domestic and regional theatres, meant a continued sharp focus not only on military security with external help, but also on the pre-emption of spill-over effects from the sectarianised Iraqi political landscape to Kuwait’s own latent ethno-sectarian divisions. Even so, there were certain red lines that remained uncrossed, in the shape of the so-called outstanding issues that remained to be resolved between Iraq and Kuwait.Kuwaiti governmen

The Present Status of Public Libraries in the State of Kuwait: Librarians’ Perspectives

This study aims to explore librarians’ perspectives regarding the present status of public libraries and their activities to serve the community in Kuwait. To achieve the objectives of the study, a descriptive analytical method was used. A random sample of 262 librarians was chosen to answer 42 questions in a questionnaire that was divided into six dimensions: the role and reality of public libraries (9 questions), the availability of information services (6 questions), the use of IT (6 questions), the library environment (7 questions), the administration and financial level (6 questions), and awareness of whole library activities (8 questions). The data were analyzed using SPSS Statistics to calculate correlations. The study found that public libraries must support users and offer advanced materials to meet a wide range of print and digital needs. Attention must be given to these materials, and the libraries’ valuable contribution to society should be acknowledged. The value of this study lies in the exploration and understanding of librarians’ perspectives, which are indispensable for improving the services and resources provided by public libraries. Keywords: public library, librarians, librarians’ perspectives, library status, Kuwait DOI: 10.7176/IKM/12-3-04 Publication date:May 31st 202

TSO/DSO Coordination for RES Integration: A Systematic Literature Review

The increasing penetration of large-scale Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) has raised several challenges for power grid operation. Power management solutions supporting the integration of RESs, such as those based on energy storage technologies, are generally costly. Alternatively, promoting a more proactive role of the Distribution System Operator (DSO) to successfully manage RESs’ uncertainty, and take advantage of their flexible resources for the provision of ancillary services, can avoid installing expensive devices in the network and reduce costs. In this line, improved coordination between Transmission System Operators (TSOs) and DSOs is highly desirable. In this paper, the feasibility of solving different aspects of the integration of RESs through an improved TSO/DSO coordination is evaluated. In particular, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is conducted to study the most relevant TSO/DSO coordination approaches, exclusively focused on integrating distributed RESs, currently available in the literature. Their main operational, managerial, economic, and computational challenges, advantages, and disadvantages are discussed in detail to identify the most promising research trends and the most concerning research gaps to pave the way for future research toward developing a solid TSO/DSO coordination mechanism for integrating RESs efficiently. The main results of the SLR show a clear trend in implementing decentralized TSO/DSO coordination models since they provide efficient facilitation of RESs’ services, while reducing computational burden and communication complexity and, consequently, reducing operative costs. In addition, while different aspects of the TSO/DSO coordination implementation, such as reactive power and voltage regulation, operational cost minimization, operational planning, and congestion management, have been thoroughly addressed in the literature, further research is needed regarding data exchange mechanisms and RESs’ uncertainty modeling and prediction. In this line, the development of standardized communication solutions, based on the Common Grid Model Exchange Standard (CGMES) of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), has shown promising interoperability results, whereas the use of learning-based approaches to predict RESs’ uncertain behavior and distribution networks’ responses, using only historical data, which relieves the need for access to commercially sensitive and proprietary network data, has also shown itself to be a promising research direction