A Foot in the Door: Access to Asylum in South Africa

Asylum seekers in South Africa experience extreme difficulties lodging their claims at the Department of Home Affairs. This paper utilizes new survey data to measure the extent of the Department’s failures to provide access to the status determination process. The principal finding is that South African officials often go out of their way to prevent asylum seekers from entering the system. This provides support for the argument the Department is beholden to an institutional culture of immigration protectionism. This assessment differs from conventional analyses of poor African performance of status determination which emphasize issues of corruption and institutional capacity.Les demandeurs d’asile en Afrique du Sud rencontrent des difficultés extrêmes pour présenter leurs demandes au Département des aff aires intérieures. Cet article utilise des données d’un nouveau sondage pour mesurer l’étendue des manquements du Département vis-à-vis de son devoir de rendre accessible le processus de détermination du statut. La conclusion principale est que les autorités Sud africaines s’évertuent souvent pour empêcher les demandeurs d’asile d’accéder au système. Cela semble soutenir l’allégation que le Département est prisonnier d’une culture institutionnelle de protectionnisme en matière d’immigration. Cette évaluation se démarque des analyses conventionnelles de la mauvaise performance africaine en matière de détermination du statut qui, elles, soulignent des problèmes de corruption et de manque de capacité institutionnelle

Advanced Microstructural Characterization of Functionally Graded Dental Ceramic Material for Materials-Informed Finishing

Yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal (Y-TZP) has gained popularity as the choice of material for dental prosthetics. Ivoclar Vivadent’s IPS e.max ZirCAD Prime dental ceramic incorporates a unique gradient technology that varies the yttria content over the thickness of the material. The top layer is composed of 5Y-TZP which is desired for its optical properties while the bottom layer is composed of a much stronger 3Y-TZP. In between the two layers, 5Y-TZP and 3Y-TZP are mixed to form a transition layer. Varying the amount of yttria allows for more esthetically pleasing translucency in the visible areas of the restoration without compromising mechanical strength in the body. This study aims to address the gap between microstructural characterization of this dental ceramic and machining parameters that are relevant to the dental professionals performing surface finishing. The material was examined, before and after sintering, via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), from which average grain size, crystallographic orientation, and elemental composition were analyzed. Critical linear feed rates were derived from these measured parameters. The recommendation of using high cutting speeds addresses the variability in linear feed rate of handheld finishing tools as well as the ductile-to-brittle transition of IPS e.max ZirCAD Prime

International relations’ first great debate: context and tradition

According to International Relations (IR) orthodoxy, the story of three Great Debates accounts for the most important theoretical developments in the discipline. Over the last decade, critical historiographers have established that the story of a First Debate, which tells of a struggle between idealism and realism between the 1920s and 1940s, is a misleading caricature of early academic international thought. This article adds to this critical literature by tracing the manner in which the story of a First Debate became a part of disciplinary orthodoxy between the 1950s and 1980s. Our analysis reveals that a myth of a First Debate was produced when more recent scholars detached the concept of a struggle between idealism and realism from both the unique historical milieu in which this dichotomy was conceived, and the rhetorical purposes for which it was employed. We use these findings to make the case for a contextual approach to disciplinary historiography, and to illuminate the historical contingency of contemporary notions of scholarly purpose in IR