A conflict analysis on the maritime border dispute between Lebanon and Israel

The sea is an essential component of national sovereignty and security, trade, energy production, mineral extraction, travel and is the source of today's blue economy. However, coastal countries can only fully benefit of it, if their maritime boundaries are solved with their neighbours. Currently, half of the world's maritime boundary disputes remain unresolved. The three most common methods of resolving, managing or transforming boundary disputes are negotiation, mediation and arbitration. Nevertheless, these procedures are difficult when two countries are in a state of war and do not have diplomatic relations. This is the case of Lebanon and Israel. Lebanon agreed to sit down at the negotiating table with Israel in October 2020 to finally demarcate the maritime border in the eastern Mediterranean, which was achieved through ten years of shuttle diplomacy by the USA. The indirect negotiations took place shortly after Israel had normalised its relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. This study analysed a decade of maritime border conflict between Lebanon and Israel from December 2010 to May 2021 and examined whether these rare negotiations could lead to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The case study was analysed using three different conflict analysis tools (conflict assessment, relational conflict mapping, stakeholder analysis) and discussed by using the theoretical concept of diplomacy and conflict resolution. The results show that Lebanon would like to maintain the status quo of the current situation, but a maritime border agreement would allow for lucrative gas deals and bring the country out of its current economic crisis. However, this would not necessarily guarantee peace between the two countries and is unlikely to have a positive impact on the prospects for diplomatic normalisation between the two countries.O mar é uma componente essencial da soberania e segurança nacional, comércio, produção de energia, extracção de minerais, viagens e é a fonte da economia azul hoje em dia. No entanto, os países costeiros só podem beneficiar plenamente se as suas fronteiras marítimas forem resolvidas com os seus vizinhos. Actualmente, metade das disputas de fronteiras marítimas do mundo continuam por resolver. Os três métodos mais comuns de resolução, gestão ou transformação de disputas de fronteiras são a negociação, a mediação e a arbitragem. Por outro lado, estes procedimentos são difíceis quando dois países se encontram em estado de guerra e não têm relações diplomáticas. Este é o caso do Líbano e de Israel. Em outubro de 2020, uma pequena esperança surgiu após o Líbano ter concordado em sentar-se à mesa das negociações com Israel para finalmente delimitar a fronteira marítima no Mediterrâneo oriental, o que foi conseguido através de dez anos de diplomacia com a ajuda dos EUA. As negociações indirectas tiveram lugar pouco depois de Israel ter normalizado as suas relações com os Emirados Árabes Unidos e o Bahrein. Este estudo analisou uma década de conflito fronteiriço marítimo entre o Líbano e Israel de dezembro de 2020 até Maio de 2021 e analisou se estas raras negociações poderiam conduzir ao estabelecimento de relações diplomáticas entre os dois países. O estudo de caso foi analisado utilizando três instrumentos diferentes de análise de conflitos (avaliação de conflitos, mapeamento de conflitos relacionais, análise das partes interessadas) e discutido utilizando o conceito teórico de diplomacia e resolução de conflitos. Os resultados mostram que o Líbano gostaria de manter o status quo, mas um acordo de fronteira marítima permitiria negócios lucrativos de gás e tiraria o país da sua actual crise económica. Contudo, isto não garantiria necessariamente a paz entre os dois países e é pouco provável que tenha um impacto positivo nas perspectivas de normalização diplomática entre os dois países

Signal peptide modification and signal peptide peptidase effect on cyclodextrin glucanotransferase excretion and cell lysis

Extracellular excretion of recombinant protein is beneficial as it can greatly reduce the cost of downstream processing and improve the product quality. However, the efforts in achieving high excretion level often leads to occurrence of cell lysis and low protein yield due to limited capacity of the transport machinery. The objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of amino acids and their locations in h-region signal peptide on cyclodextrin lucanotransferase (CGTase) excretion, and analyze the function of signal peptide peptidase (SPPase) in improving the membrane integrity of Escherichia coli (E. coli). Modification of the hydrophobic region of the N1R3 signal peptide (wild type) using site-saturation mutagenesis has improved the excretion of CGTase. The results indicated that the excretion of CGTase is highly dependent on properties of signal peptide which are hydrophobicity, secondary conformation and, the type and position of amino acids at the boundary and core segment of the h-region. Mutant signal peptides designated as M9F, V10L and A15Y enhanced the excretion of CGTase to three-fold and has demonstrated two-fold higher secretion rate than the wild type. However, high secretion rate caused nine-fold increase in cell lysis as compared to the wild type. In dual-plasmid system for co-overexpression, gene expression of CGTase fused to A15Y signal peptide and SPPase, were regulated by T7lac and PBAD promoters, respectively, at induction temperature of 25ºC. It was shown that co-overexpression of SPPase and CGTase has reduced the occurrence of cell lysis that was reflected by ß-galactosidase activity from 128.6 U/ml to 0.12 U/ml, which equivalent to 99% decrease when compared to the E. coli that expressed CGTase alone. Further improvement of CGTase excretion was obtained by co-overexpression of CGTase and SPPase with addition of glycine which has successfully maintained the low ß- galactosidase level at 0.63 U/ml and increased 4.5 fold of CGTase excretion from 14.6 U/ml to 66.1 U/ml, as compared to the co-overexpression without glycine supplementation. The present results indicated that higher CGTase excretion with low cell lysis can be obtained by alteration of amino acids in the h-region signal peptide along with glycine supplementation and SPPase overexpression. This is the first report that highlights the combination of three approaches; site-saturation mutagenesis of signal peptide, SPPase overexpression and glycine supplementation in overcoming the problems of low secretion level of CGTase and high occurrences of cell lysis

Estimation of testosterone in and isolation of progesterone from human urine

A method for the estimation of urinary testosterone is described. This depends on acid hydrolysis, a modified form of the Girard separation and chromatography on an alumina column and on paper. The final method of detection is by gas -liquid chromatography.The reliability critlria of the method have been investigated. The recovery of added testosterone was approximately 80%. The method is reasonably precise, the coefficients of variation being 6.4% and 8.0% for male and female urine respectively. The chromatographic, chemical and physical behaviour of the compound estimated in the final fraction is similar to that of authentic testosterone. Accordingly, the method which is also practicable, appears to be specific.When testosterone assays were performed in normal men and in normally menstruating women, considerable variations were found from one subject to another. However, levels in males were consistently higher than those in females, there being no overlap between the two groups.Serial assays of urinary testosterone in normal male subjects showed the presence of peaks of excretion at fairly regular intervals. In two cases studied sekual intercourse had no effect on the occurrence of such peaks but caused an overall rise in testosterone output.Testosterone excretion values in normal young men aged from 16 to 20 were generally higher than those of the elder group of subjects aged from 21 to 63 years.Serial assays of urinary testosterone in normally menstruating women have shown an elevation of levels during the luteal phase probably associated with the presence of a functioning corpus luteum. A second rise was also noted at the time of ovulation, and a slight increase was observed during the follicular phase in two of the cycles studied.The assay method for urinary testosterone is now being applied to conditions such as acne vulgaris, sex chromosome abnormalities, athersclerosis in males and hirsutism in females.Progesterone has been isolated from the urine of a woman in late pregnancy. A modification of the Girard reaction was used by which it was :possible to separate the 'conjugated ketone' fraction both from non-ketonic fraction and from the bulk of the saturated ketones. The final separation was made using gas-liquid chromatography with a stream splitter.Work is proceeding on the use of the modified Girard separation technique to estimate plasma steroids with a Δ⁴-3-ketone structure. By this method the majority of the biologically active neutral steroid can be estimated simultaneously in one sample

Improved performance of MCUSUM control chart with autocorrelation

In recent years, the importance of quality has become increasingly apparent, and quality control in manufacturing has moved from detecting nonconforming products through inspection to detecting quality abnormalities in the process using statistical process control [1]. where it is used effectively, SPC plays an important role in reducing variation in manufactured items and in increasing the competitiveness of the manufacturer by improving product quality while at the same time decreasing production costs. Charts like the Shewhart X and R charts have found wide use in industry because of their ease of use for technicians and others with minimal training in statistics, since the calculations and plotting can be done by hand. An MCUSUM control chart was constructed with autocorrelated data at different levels of autocorrelation and found to be ineffective in detecting shifts as it occurs. In this article, we have proposed new techniques that can improve the performance of the MCUSUM with autocorrelation using run rule schemes. The techniques was evaluated using ARL measures of performance with 10000 iterations to simulate. The results showed that the performance of MCUSUM with autocorrelation has improved significantly with the new technique which was compared to the existing conventional MCUSUM control chart

The effect of autocorrelation on the performance of MEWMA control chart with controlled correlation

Control charts are made to identify assignable causes of difference that could exist in production processes. When traditional control charts are utilized you have the implied presumption that this observations are independently and identically distributed as time passes. It is usually believed the probability distribution which represents the actual observations includes a known functional form and it is constant as time passes. Nevertheless, in reality, observations produced through continuous in addition to discrete generation procedures in many cases are serially correlated. Auto correlation not just breaks the actual independence assumption of conventional control charts, but also can impact the efficiency associated with control charts negatively. In this article, we are going to investigate the result associated with autocorrelation around the performance of MEWMA control chart, in which autocorrelated data were utilized to create the MEWMA chart with induced autocorrelation from various levels of correlations (small, moderate as well as large) and different sample sizes. Simulations had been done to create the data set used to construct the MEWMA control chart and the outcomes implies that all of the control charts constructed had their points outside the designed control limits, that confirmed the effect of autocorrelation to the performance of the MEWMA control chart

Does Number of Ports Affect Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Laparoscopic Pyloromyotomy? Retrospective Chart-Review Study

Background. Although open Ramstedt's pyloromyotomy is the gold standard for the surgical management of infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis, laparoscopic pyloromyotomy has been found highly successful. Various factors, however, can affect the outcomes of surgical interventions in these patients. We observed a relationship between the number of ports used and outcome in patients undergoing laparoscopic pyloromyotomies. Methods. We retrospectively assessed the medical records of selected group of patients who underwent laparoscopic pyloromyotomy in our institution. Factors analyzed included operation time, length of hospital stay, postoperative complications, and time to postoperative full feeding. Results. We observed failure of myotomy in both two patients who underwent laparoscopic pyloromyotomy using only two working ports compared to successful myotomies in the remaining patients. Conclusion. Laparoscopy provides good results in terms of intraoperative exposure and cosmesis. However, standardized surgical technique with two working ports is advisable, and this can trigger further research to be ascertained

ADMINISTRATIVE CORRUPTION AND GOOD GOVERNANCE IN IRAQ: FINDING AND ANALYSIS

The good governance in Iraq can only be achieved when the corruption in the public sector is eliminated. This can be achieved only when there is an equality at work among the public servants in order for them to achieve job satisfaction in terms of their salaries and job description. It was found that job satisfaction is the main factor that contributes to the reduction of corruption. This article discusses the relationship between good governance and the administrative corruption. It outlines the findings and results that have been done among public servants. This study was made possible by all the public servants who have contributed to the findings by filling up the questionnaires which reflected real opinions and thoughts on corruption and the effort towards good governance in Iraq. The survey participants also left valuable feedbacks with regard to the questions. The feedbacks were very useful as more insights gained on the applications of good governance in Iraq and the quest for seeking real and conceptual reasons corruption takes place in Iraq

ADMINISTRATIVE CORRUPTION AND GOOD GOVERNANCE IN IRAQ: FINDING AND ANALYSIS

The good governance in Iraq can only be achieved when the corruption in the public sector is eliminated. This can be achieved only when there is an equality at work among the public servants in order for them to achieve job satisfaction in terms of their salaries and job description. It was found that job satisfaction is the main factor that contributes to the reduction of corruption. This article discusses the relationship between good governance and the administrative corruption. It outlines the findings and results that have been done among public servants. This study was made possible by all the public servants who have contributed to the findings by filling up the questionnaires which reflected real opinions and thoughts on corruption and the effort towards good governance in Iraq. The survey participants also left valuable feedbacks with regard to the questions. The feedbacks were very useful as more insights gained on the applications of good governance in Iraq and the quest for seeking real and conceptual reasons corruption takes place in Iraq

Pengembangan E-Modul Berbasis Flip Book Berdasarkan Model Plomp Materi Segi Empat

This research aims to develop a flip book-based e-module for mathematics learning media on rectangular material. This is a research and development aiming to produce a product using the Plomp development model. The subjects of this research are the students in grade VII of SMP Negeri 2 Kwandang. The finding shows that the validity assessment by the material expert and media validators for the e-module obtains an average score of 4,25 and 4,43 respectively. In addition, the assessment of teachers and students on flip book-based e-module on rectangular material obtains positive responses with an average percentage from teachers of 85,39% and from students of 79,85%. The average percentage of positive responses from teachers and student assessment in the very good category, so the e-module can be concluded that the flip book-based e-module for mathematics on rectangular material meets the validity and practicality criteria so that it is suitable for use in learning

Direct numerical method for solving a class of fourth-order partial differential equation

In this paper, we classified a class of fourth-order partial differential equations (PDEs) to be fourth-order PDE of type I, II, III and IV. The PDE of type IV is solved by using an efficient numerical method. The PDE is first transformed to a system of fourth-order ordinary differential equations (ODEs) using the method of lines, then the resulting system of fourth-order ODEs is solved using direct Runge-Kutta method (RKFD). The RKFD method is constructed purposely for solving special fourth-order ODEs. Numerical results demonstrated that the RKFD method is in good agreement with the exact solutions