Relations between Russia and European Union: Developments and Complexities

Objectives This paper focuses on the bilateral relationship between the EU with Russia discontinuing regular bilateral summits suspending the dialogue on visa issues and talks on a new bilateral agreement to replace the PCA The policy of combining gradual sanctions with attempts to find diplomatic solutions to the conflict in eastern Ukraine was being followed by the EU The efforts of the E3 3 group of countries with Russian participation that concluded a nuclear agreement with Iran in July 2015 raised hopes for greater cooperation on the global stage Discussions It concentrates on elements that must be considered to understand and predict their actions in between the relations of two players the image each of them has of themselves Understanding these elements in Russia and EU case the EU s image of itself and of Russia and Russia s image of itself and the EU is an essential pre-condition to pre-empt possible problems in the relationship and devise effective strategies on how to solve them Conclusion It concludes that the systemic incompatibility will remain which will be the key problem between Russia bent on sovereignty and hard power and the EU integration machine and with its imperialist bureaucratic culture which is structurally incapable of accommodating a Russia disinclined to submit itself to Western normative hegemony Their relationship will remain stagnant and crisis-prone unless the EU s approach to Russia changes along with the Russian policy itself The policy on both will be reactive rather than proactive and will lack cohesion and consistenc

Towards a reliable seamless mobility support in heterogeneous IP networks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Next Generation networks (3G and beyond) are evolving towards all IP based systems with the aim to provide global coverage. For Mobility in IP based networks, Mobile IPv6 is considered as a standard by both industry and research community, but this mobility protocol has some reliability issues. There are a number of elements that can interrupt the communication between Mobile Node (MN) and Corresponding Node (CN), however the scope of this research is limited to the following issues only: • Reliability of Mobility Protocol • Home Agent Management • Handovers • Path failures between MN and CN First entity that can disrupt Mobile IPv6 based communication is the Mobility Anchor point itself, i.e. Home Agent. Reliability of Home Agent is addressed first because if this mobility agent is not reliable there would be no reliability of mobile communication. Next scenario where mobile communication can get disrupted is created by MN itself and it is due to its mobility. When a MN moves around, at some point it will be out of range of its active base station and at the same time it may enter the coverage area of another base station. In such a situation, the MN should perform a handover, which is a very slow process. This handover delay is reduced by introducing a “make before break” style handover in IP network. Another situation in which the Mobile IPv6 based communication can fail is when there is a path failure between MN and CN. This situation can be addressed by utilizing multiple interfaces of MN at the same time. One such protocol which can utilize multiple interfaces is SHIM6 but it was not designed to work on mobile node. It was designed for core networks but after some modification in the protocol , it can be deployed on mobile nodes. In this thesis, these issues related to reliability of IPv6 based mobile communication have been addressed

Seeking Optimum System Settings for Physical Activity Recognition on Smartwatches

Physical activity recognition (PAR) using wearable devices can provide valued information regarding an individual's degree of functional ability and lifestyle. In this regards, smartphone-based physical activity recognition is a well-studied area. Research on smartwatch-based PAR, on the other hand, is still in its infancy. Through a large-scale exploratory study, this work aims to investigate the smartwatch-based PAR domain. A detailed analysis of various feature banks and classification methods are carried out to find the optimum system settings for the best performance of any smartwatch-based PAR system for both personal and impersonal models. To further validate our hypothesis for both personal (The classifier is built using the data only from one specific user) and impersonal (The classifier is built using the data from every user except the one under study) models, we tested single subject validation process for smartwatch-based activity recognition.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, Accepted in CVC'1

A Study to Assess the Visual Status and Ocular Morbidities followed by Treatment at a Trust Hospital of People Aged 40 Years and above Residing in a Locality of Bhopal City: A Camp-Based Approach

Introduction: Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful – Helen Killer. Even though of great importance, ophthalmic problems are very prevalent and widely ignored amongst people of all strata.Objective: To assess the visual status of people aged 40 years and above; to identify and treat ophthalmic morbidities; refer patients to trust hospital; and evaluate their treatment seeking behavior.Methodology: This study was conducted as a camp-based approach in an NGO office for patients residing in that locality of Bhopal. Doctors were invited from a trust hospital for conducting the ophthalmological examination. Participants underwent an eye examination comprising visual acuity, color vision test usingIshihara plates, and external and internal ocular eye health examinations. A structured questionnaire was also administered to the participants to collect sociodemographic data. The patients were prescribed medications and those requiring further investigations or surgeries were referred and sent to the trusthospital by the arranged transport.Results: The camp was attended by 194 people residing in the colony. The prevalence of any form of ophthalmic problem was seen in 91 people (46.9%). 53 patients amongst these were referred to a trust hospital and sent, of which 12 people did not seek treatment, 26 were operated for cataract, 1 for pterygium and 2 for chalazion. Twelve patients were prescribed treatment for various other conditions. Poor healthseeking behavior was seen as none of the patients identified had sought any care before. Also, they were unaware of their visual status. The main barrier to seek care was unavailability of ophthalmology units in the accessible hospitals.Conclusion: creating awareness about the importance of ocular health is needed. Facilities of ophthalmologicaltreatment should be made available even in smaller units of healthcar

DIVIDEND POLICY ATTRIBUTES AND ITS IMPACT ON FIRM PROFITABILITY

The objective of the study was to analyze the impact of dividend policy on firm profitability. Dividend paying firms from three industrial sectors namely cement, automobile and sugar were selected for the period 2010-2020. Out of the total 74 dividend paying firms in these three industrial sectors only 33 were selected for which data was available for the entire study period. Fixed effects model is used to measure the impact of dividend policy from firm profitability. Findings of the study revealed that both attributes of dividend policy namely DPR and DY has a significant positive impact on all three proxies of firm profitability (ROA, ROE, EPS) except for DPR impact on EPS in Model III where the impact is also positive but insignificant