The North Korean nuclear crisis: four-plus-two - an idea whose time has come

The confrontation between North Korea and the Bush administration over the DPRK's nuclear programs threatens to plunge Northeast Asia, one of the most strategically volatile regions in the world, into chaos and to ignite a nuclear arms race. This Keynote argues that there is a way to achieve a peaceful resolution to this crisis that would be minimally acceptable to all parties, including both North Korea and the United States. It would be a four-plus-two security consortium, comprised of the four major powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan, Russia and the US) plus the two Korean states, both North and South, that would guarantee the security of the region and assure that the Koreas remained non-nuclear. This is a 'cooperative security' design, the idea being to achieve security by working out mutually beneficial arrangements with or among likely adversaries, rather than to construct alliances against them

Japan, the Indispensable Power in Northeast Asia

With the rise of China in recent decades, it has become all too customary among many observers to write off Japan as a spent force in the region. But as Australian academic Peter Van Ness argues, there are plenty of reasons why Japan not only remains highly relevant, but also can be seen as the pivotal power in Northeast Asia

John P. Van Ness letter to Moses Dawson

Letter from Van Ness (Washington) to Dawson (Cincinnati) regarding personal financial business; attacks on the bank of the metropolis (Van Ness\u27s bank) by the Bank of the United States; regards to Mr. Groesbeck; recent illness.https://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/dawson_correspondence/1197/thumbnail.jp

Globalisation and security in East Asia

The objective of this essay is to analyse the impact of globalisation on security in East Asia during the 1990s. The paper has five parts. It begins with a definition of the key terms: globalisation and security. The next part describes security in the region, focusing on US hegemony and economic interdependence. Part three analyses security threats, old and new, and part four discusses security strategies. The final section, entitled East Asian Security at a Crossroads, assesses the implications for the future, which depend on how the United States understands ‘China threat’ and whether or not Washington decides to deploy ballistic missile defences

John P. Van Ness letter to Moses Dawson

Letter from Van Ness (Washington) to Dawson (Cincinnati) regarding financial arrangements and the United States Bank.https://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/dawson_correspondence/1198/thumbnail.jp

Pressurized 1U CubeSat Propulsion System

Since the advent of CubeSats, the demand to push mission capabilities of the form-factor has steadily increased. Propulsion systems are one of the driving factors pushing CubeSats towards increasingly complex missions. One propulsion device, an electrothermal plasma thruster known as Pocket Rocket strikes a balance between performance and cost efficiency, in line with the spirit of the CubeSat standard. The thruster has previously been integrated and tested within a 1U CubeSat form factor. However, while functional, the design lacked sufficient propellant storage capability for most missions. To increase propellant storage capability, a 1U CubeSat form factor where the structure itself is a pressure vessel is developed. The Pocket Rocket thruster is embedded into the structure, with batteries, power processing unit (PPU), and propellant regulation and delivery system contained within the pressure vessel. Containing electronic components inside the pressure vessel assists with radiation and thermal protection systems. When used as part of a generic 3U CubeSat mission, the pressurized 1U form factor is capable of producing between 5 and 50 m/s of Δv

Curriculum on Resident Education in Care of Older Adults in Acute, Transitional and Extended Care Settings

Most geriatric care is provided in non-hospital settings. Internal Medicine and Family Medicine residents should therefore learn about these different clinical sites and acuity levels of care. To help facilitate this learning, a geriatrics training curriculum for internal medicine residents was developed that focused on cognition, function, goals of care and medication management in both in-hospital and non-hospital settings. Residents rotated through both in-hospital and non-hospital settings as one block rotation. They took a test of geriatric learning before the rotation and then took the same test at the end of the rotation. Residents showed an improvement in several geriatric domains on completion of a combined in-hospital and non-hospital rotation curriculum. We concluded that the development and implementation of a combined rotation curriculum has practical application to resident learning and the potential to improve geriatrics care outside of hospital settings

Does Gender Impact Intensity of Care Provided to Older Medical Intensive Care Unit Patients?

Introduction. Women receive less aggressive critical care than men based on prior studies. No documented studies evaluate whether men and women are treated equally in the medical intensive care unit (MICU). The Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System-28 (TISS-28) has been used to examine gender differences in mixed ICU studies. However, it has not been used to evaluate equivalence of care in older MICU patients. We hypothesize that given nonsignificant, baseline health differences between genders at MICU admission, the level of care provided would be equivalent. Methods. Prospective cohort of 309 patients ≥60 years old in the MICU of an urban university teaching hospital. Explanatory variables were demographic data and baseline measures. Primary outcomes were TISS-28 scores and MICU interventions. We compare TISS-28 scores by gender using a statistical test of equivalence. Results. Women were older and had more chronic respiratory failure at MICU admission. Using equivalence limits of ±15% on gender-based scores of TISS-28, MICU interventions were equivalent. Supplementary analysis showed no statistically significant association between gender and mortality. Conclusions. In contrast with other reports from the cardiac critical care literature, as measured by the TISS-28, gender-based care delivered to older MICU patients in this cohort was equivalent