Middle East water conflicts and directions for conflict resolution:

In looking toward 2020, one of the most severe problems to be faced is an impending shortage of adequate supplies of fresh water essential for drinking and for growing crops. The Middle East, where a few waterways serve large areas of land belonging to a number of nations, is the place where strife over water is most likely to erupt. This paper examines the past how water in the Middle East came to be divided as it is today and looks at possible solutions for alleviating a water crisis and the resulting political tensions.Water resources development Middle East., Water-supply Middle East Management.,

Conflict and Cooperation Over Transboundary Waters

human development, water, sanitation

Where the Reasons Come From

We have a problem understanding our normative reasons. If there\u27s a reason to do x, we can explain why that reason counts in favor of doing it with the fact that x-ing would be good in some way. But it\u27s also explainable by non-evaluative properties that make x-ing good. Suppose the traffic gives us a reason to leave early for the airport. The deeper reason might be the non-evaluative fact that the traffic would cause us to miss our flight, or it might be the value of making the flight. Although both reasons are perfectly good at the everyday level, it would be wrong to say they both contribute to the fundamental normative story of why traffic favors leaving early. Because both are ways of calling attention to the same idea, that making the flight is our goal, they shouldn\u27t be independent. One of these considerations is a reason only because the other is. If we considered each as its own self-contained reason we\u27d be double-counting. So which is the more fundamental one? I argue that values--goodness and badness of various kinds--give our best, most ultimate reasons

Numerical solution of a non-linear conservation law applicable to the interior dynamics of partially molten planets

The energy balance of a partially molten rocky planet can be expressed as a non-linear diffusion equation using mixing length theory to quantify heat transport by both convection and mixing of the melt and solid phases. In this formulation the effective or eddy diffusivity depends on the entropy gradient, $\partial S/\partial r$, as well as entropy. First we present a simplified model with semi-analytical solutions, highlighting the large dynamic range of $\partial S/\partial r$, around 12 orders of magnitude, for physically-relevant parameters. It also elucidates the thermal structure of a magma ocean during the earliest stage of crystal formation. This motivates the development of a simple, stable numerical scheme able to capture the large dynamic range of $\partial S/\partial r$ and provide a flexible and robust method for time-integrating the energy equation. We then consider a full model including energy fluxes associated with convection, mixing, gravitational separation, and conduction that all depend on the thermophysical properties of the melt and solid phases. This model is discretised and evolved by applying the finite volume method (FVM), allowing for extended precision calculations and using $\partial S/\partial r$ as the solution variable. The FVM is well-suited to this problem since it is naturally energy conserving, flexible, and intuitive to incorporate arbitrary non-linear fluxes that rely on lookup data. Special attention is given to the numerically challenging scenario in which crystals first form in the centre of a magma ocean. Our computational framework is immediately applicable to modelling high melt fraction phenomena in Earth and planetary science research. Furthermore, it provides a template for solving similar non-linear diffusion equations arising in other disciplines, particularly for non-linear functional forms of the diffusion coefficient

Determining Whether Spectrophotometer CIE L*a*b* Color Analysis is an Effective Alternative to Munsell Soil Color Charts for the Study of Burnt Bones: Insights From Analysis of Bab edh-Dhra EB II-III Burnt Bones

This research examined a collection of burnt bones from Bab edh-Dhra, an Early Bronze Age site on the Dead Sea Plain of Jordan.The goal of the research was to determine if the bones were accidentally or intentional burnt, and intentionally burnt might indicate cremation as part of the mortuary practices at Bab edh-Dhra. The bones were examined using two systems of color measurement, Munsell Soil Color charts and CIE L*a*b* spectrophotometer. Whether CIE L*a*b* was an effective alternative to Munsell color charts was also evaluated during the research. It was concluded that the bones likely did not represent intentional cremation. It was also demonstrated that CIE L*a*b* spectrophotometer is an effective alternative to Munsell color charts in analyzing burnt bones

Bandera: (Re)Building Ukrainian National History

This paper attempts to give an overview of the life of Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera and his historical influence in the current political battles in Ukraine over national identity. This paper looks at the different methods that both Ukrainian and Russian media sources have used to paint Ukrainian nationalism in the wake of the Maidan Revolution in 2014 as either a positive force for reinforcing Ukrainian national identity and moving the country closer to the West, or a negative one that connects the current government and far-right political parties to the Ukrainian nationalists of Stepan Bandera who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II

In-situ analysis of optically thick nanoparticle clouds

Nanoparticles grown in reactive plasmas and nanodusty plasmas gain high interest from basic science and technology. One of the great challenges of nanodusty plasmas is the in-situ diagnostic of the nanoparticle size and refractive index. The analysis of scattered light by means of the Mie solution of the Maxwell equations was proposed and used as an in-situ size diagnostic during the past two decades. Today, imaging ellipsometry techniques and the investigation of dense, i. e. optically thick nanoparticle clouds demand for analysis methods to take multiple scattering into account. We present the first 3D Monte-Carlo polarized radiative transfer simulations of the scattered light in a dense nanodusty plasma. This technique extends the existing diagnostic methods for the in-situ analysis of the properties of nanoparticles to systems where multiple scattering can not be neglected.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Systemic: A Testbed For Characterizing the Detection of Extrasolar Planets. I. The Systemic Console Package

We present the systemic Console, a new all-in-one, general-purpose software package for the analysis and combined multiparameter fitting of Doppler radial velocity (RV) and transit timing observations. We give an overview of the computational algorithms implemented in the Console, and describe the tools offered for streamlining the characterization of planetary systems. We illustrate the capabilities of the package by analyzing an updated radial velocity data set for the HD128311 planetary system. HD128311 harbors a pair of planets that appear to be participating in a 2:1 mean motion resonance. We show that the dynamical configuration cannot be fully determined from the current data. We find that if a planetary system like HD128311 is found to undergo transits, then self-consistent Newtonian fits to combined radial velocity data and a small number of timing measurements of transit midpoints can provide an immediate and vastly improved characterization of the planet's dynamical state.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication on PASP. Additional material at http://www.ucolick.org/~smeschia/systemic.ph