Collaboration around the International Space Station: science for diplomacy and its implication for US-Russia and China relations

The recent years have seen a post-cold war all time low in United States and Russia diplomatic relations, with the U.S. (and Europe) using stern economic sanctions over Russia’s involvement in Crimea and Syria. While those tensions have resulted in some initial controversial statements and threats about the two countries' collaboration around space exploration, the two major agencies, NASA and Roscosmos, have not only recently agreed to collaborate until 2024 on the International Space Station (ISS), but have also announced plans for a new ISS 2.0 and further collaboration on Mars exploration. How can the two conflicting policies be reconciled, and how does space collaboration participate to the maintenance of strong diplomatic ties? What lessons can be drawn from the U.S.-Russia diplomatic relations around the ISS, especially with regards to US-China relations? It will be argued that the longstanding ISS collaboration between the U.S. and Russia has led to the creation of solid ties between the two agencies and locked their respective scientists in an interdependent, collaborative relationship to the point of becoming an anchor point amid geopolitical tensions. Using historical, Wikileaks documents and recent statements, it will be shown that scientific collaboration participates in creating stable, lasting ties through track II science diplomacy, across borders and political divides. It will therefore be recommended that, to further harness the power of space diplomacy, the U.S. should seek to engage China and Asian countries in its future space endeavors

Open Skies Policies in Astronomy: The Growing Need for Diplomacy on the Final Frontier

Astronomy and diplomacy have always been interwoven, from early international scientific collaboration and the first international NGOs in the twentieth century to twenty-first-century multinational projects and the rise of global astronomy organizations. The growing scale and cost as well as the need for cutting-edge technology have necessitated larger numbers of partners in astronomy collaborations. As a consequence, observing time on telescopes is being divided among various national users. Today, the astronomy community is thus nearing a shift regarding its global, inclusive character, and its own internationalization could have important ramifications for open access to astronomical facilities. This paper explores issues related to international funding of large astronomical facilities and the associated role for diplomacy

Institutional Capacity for Science Diplomacy in Central America

Science, technology, and innovation (STI) is increasingly gaining in importance on the foreign policy agenda of governments worldwide. However, the implementation of science diplomacy strategies requires STI institutional capacity and strong interfaces with policy and diplomacy. This research first maps the STI public institutions of the six member countries of the Central American Integration System (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama) and then draws their capacity to connect internationally in order to highlight their potential for science diplomacy. Variables such as the year of creation and mandates of scientific councils, secretariats, national academies, international cooperation departments and ministries are analyzed. The study reveals several public management challenges stemming from the institutional disparity and complexity of the region, already marked by significant asymmetries of human development between the various countries. Highlighting and understanding such challenges may be helpful for countries in the region in developing meaningful strategies around science diplomacy

Patterns in rational base number systems

Number systems with a rational number $a/b > 1$ as base have gained interest in recent years. In particular, relations to Mahler's 3/2-problem as well as the Josephus problem have been established. In the present paper we show that the patterns of digits in the representations of positive integers in such a number system are uniformly distributed. We study the sum-of-digits function of number systems with rational base $a/b$ and use representations w.r.t. this base to construct normal numbers in base $a$ in the spirit of Champernowne. The main challenge in our proofs comes from the fact that the language of the representations of integers in these number systems is not context-free. The intricacy of this language makes it impossible to prove our results along classical lines. In particular, we use self-affine tiles that are defined in certain subrings of the ad\'ele ring $\mathbb{A}_\mathbb{Q}$ and Fourier analysis in $\mathbb{A}_\mathbb{Q}$. With help of these tools we are able to reformulate our results as estimation problems for character sums

Long-term impact of maternal high-fat diet on offspring cardiac health: role of micro-RNA biogenesis.

Heart failure is a worldwide leading cause of death. Diet and obesity are particularly of high concern in heart disease etiology. Gravely, altered nutrition during developmental windows of vulnerability can have long-term impact on heart health; however, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. In the understanding of the initiation of chronic diseases related to developmental exposure to environmental challenges, deregulations in epigenetic mechanisms including micro-RNAs have been proposed as key events. In this context, we aimed at delineating the role of micro-RNAs in the programming of cardiac alterations induced by early developmental exposure to nutritional imbalance. To reach our aim, we developed a human relevant model of developmental exposure to nutritional imbalance by maternally exposing rat to high-fat diet during gestation and lactation. In this model, offspring exposed to maternal high-fat diet developed cardiac hypertrophy and increased extracellular matrix depot compared to those exposed to chow diet. Microarray approach performed on cardiac tissue allowed the identification of a micro-RNA subset which was down-regulated in high-fat diet-exposed animals and which were predicted to regulate transforming growth factor-beta (TGFβ)-mediated remodeling. As indicated by in vitro approaches and gene expression measurement in the heart of our animals, decrease in DiGeorge critical region 8 (DGCR8) expression, involved in micro-RNA biogenesis, seems to be a critical point in the alterations of the micro-RNA profile and the TGFβ-mediated remodeling induced by maternal exposure to high-fat diet. Finally, increasing DGCR8 activity and/or expression through hemin treatment in vitro revealed its potential in the rescue of the pro-fibrotic phenotype in cardiomyocytes driven by DGCR8 decrease. These findings suggest that cardiac alterations induced by maternal exposure to high-fat diet is related to abnormalities in TGFβ pathway and associated with down-regulated micro-RNA processing. Our study highlighted DGCR8 as a potential therapeutic target for heart diseases related to early exposure to dietary challenge

International Space Law: General Challenges and Prospects for Russia and the USA

INTRODUCTION The entry into force more than 50 years ago, on October 10, 1967, of the Treaty on the Principles of Activities of States for the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies (hereinafter referred to as the Outer Space Treaty), marked the emergence of a new branch of international law - international space law ( hereinafter - MCP). This article discusses the contribution to the creation and development of the MCP of the Soviet Union, and subsequently of the Russian Federation, and the United States of America, their leading international lawyers and diplomats who found ways of contractual interaction even during the Cold War, noted the main legal steps towards conclusion Space treaty. The main attention in the article is paid to the content of this Agreement in conjunction with other sources of MCP, taking into account approaches to the interpretation of the provisions of the Treaty and modern legal challenges in connection with the development of space activities, in the context of a number of economic, political, technological factors, as well as the significance of the Treaty for the progressive development of INC MATERIALS AND METHODS. The theoretical basis of the study was the work of leading international lawyers specializing in the field of MCP, as well as materials from various colloquiums, conferences and symposia on the MCP; analytical base - the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, other applicable international treaties, relevant UNGA resolutions, the 2001 Cape Town Convention and the 2012 Space Protocol, documents of the UN, UN Space Committee (including its subcommittees), ITU, UNIDROIT ; national legislation governing space activities; documents and materials of UNISPACE III. The main research methods are: the historical method, formal logic methods, including analysis, synthesis, analogy and modeling, as well as systemic, comparative legal and interpretation methods. RESEARCH RESULTS. In the context of the applicable principles and norms of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, this article presents the results of an analysis of other sources of the INC, as well as a number of unresolved legal issues, such as 1) the international legal regime of the natural resources of the Moon and other celestial bodies; 2) the use of outer space exclusively for peaceful purposes; 3) the legal status of space tourists; 4) the legal regulation of commercial space activities complicated by the “foreign element” within the framework of international private law and, specifically, international space private law (“MKCHP”); 5) the significance of the Cape Town Convention of 2001 and the Space Protocol of 2012 in the context of international legal regulation of space activities, as well as, subject to the entry into force of the Space Protocol, its role as the first special international legal source of the ICCP; 6) the international registration system for guarantees in the field of space assets as the third international registration system in the field of space activities; 7) interpretation of Art. VIII of the Outer Space Treaty for the purpose of determining the applicable law in respect of property rights to space objects in outer space; 8) “space object” and “space tool” as legal concepts; 9) issues of international responsibility and the expansion of the concept of “launching state”, including the proposal to supplement the fifth category; 10) issues of registration, jurisdiction and control; 11) international space station and applicable legal environment; 12) ways to achieve “compliance” with international legal consequences for states as a result of changes in private law relations to the real participation of “involved” states in certain types of space activities. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. As a result of the analysis of the issues noted above, the following conclusions were formulated: 1) in the interests of the Russian Federation, the United States of America and other space powers, consider that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty is the basis for the further progressive development of the ITUC and inter alia for the orderly development of commercial space activities; 2) some urgent issues of the INC could be investigated and resolved through an authentic interpretation of the provisions of the Outer Space Treaty (for example, by adopting relevant protocols to it or by developing a single comprehensive convention on international space law); 3) in the search for solutions to the identified legal issues of space activities, it is necessary to take into account both the separation according to the subject of regulation, and the ratio and interaction between the applicable sources of international law and its branches, as well as applicable national law, i.e. it is necessary to rely on a comprehensive, inclusive, holistic approach involving scientific diplomacy. and the relationship and interaction between the applicable sources of international law and its branches, as well as the applicable national law, i.e. it is necessary to rely on a comprehensive, inclusive, holistic approach involving scientific diplomacy. and the relationship and interaction between the applicable sources of international law and its branches, as well as the applicable national law, i.e. it is necessary to rely on a comprehensive, inclusive, holistic approach involving scientific diplomacy

The Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS): The Environments of High-z SDSS Quasi-Stellar-Objects

This paper presents a study of the environments of SDSS Quasi-Stellar-Objects (QSOs) in the Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS). We concentrate on the high-redshift QSOs as these have not been studied in large numbers with data of this depth before. We use the IRAC 3.6-4.5{\mu}m colour of objects and ancillary r-band data to filter out as much foreground contamination as possible. This technique allows us to find a significant (> 4-{\sigma}) over-density of galaxies around QSOs in a redshift bin centred on z ~ 2.0 and a (> 2-{\sigma}) over-density of galaxies around QSOs in a redshift bin centred on z ~ 3.3. We compare our findings to the predictions of a semi-analytic galaxy formation model, based on the {\Lambda}CDM millennium simulation, and find for both redshift bins that the model predictions match well the source-density we have measured from the SERVS data.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, Accepted by Ap