Shaped by Changing Space: Exploring Gender and the Discourse of Empowerment in Sikles, Nepal

Development work as it relates to women in Nepal is an ongoing topic of debate and discussion that may never have a concrete end. In the late 1970’s Indian women took a stand in defending their livelihood against commercial logging operations with authorities. This event was known as the Chipko movement and is often cited within the history of women and development as it caused people to “engage the question of gender and gendered livelihoods in the Himalayas” (Gurarani and Berry, 2015). It was women who served as the backbone of this movement in organizing nonviolent demonstrations against commercial deforestation. This movement also illuminated the unique burden women faced in the context of environmental degradation. Since then, many academic works and development projects have sought to analyze, “a politics of gendered exclusion that has resulted from the overlay of development discourses on state-led resource management endeavors” (Gurarani et al., 2015). In Nepal, specifically, projects devoted to women’s empowerment are prevalent and have emerged with their own set of discourse. There remains debate as to whether or not this often participatory approach is effective in achieving its intended goals

Voltaire A La Quete Du Roi Ideal

Voltaire\u27s ideal king has been presented under three guises--the enlightened despot, the absolute king and the constitutional monarch. A conflict between the philosopher who judges kings objectively and the courtier who seeks royal patronage and intimacy, and the continuing dialogue that Voltaire establishes with himself to evaluate again and again the political solutions of the past and his own time are responsible for these contradicting views.;Our detailed study of Voltaire\u27s historical, literary, and political writings and his life reveals his varying enthusiasms and viewpoint. Due to Voltaire\u27s long career our study ends in 1753 when a disillusioned courtier leaves Frederick the Great and court life forever. Our study is divided into two parts: 1713-1741, a time of apprenticeship, literary success and disillusion with Frederick who soon becomes the Machiavellian king, and 1742-1753, a period of active life at court first at Versailles, then Potsdam.;By constant re-evaluation Voltaire reaches certain conclusions: the tyrant is discarded because of his arbitrary rule and abuse of legitimate power; absolutism is repeatedly contrasted to shared power. However, freedom and equality before the law soon become more important.;Frederick seems closest to Voltaire\u27s ideal, but is vindictive rather than enlightened. Peter the Great and Louis XIV are models, but the czar is barbaric, and the Sun King, unenlightened. Kings who appear benevolent in Voltaire\u27s theatre follow their passions with disastrous results. Only in Zadig does Voltaire find his ideal.;By 1753 Voltaire knows that absolutism does not always guarantee fundamental rights. Shared power leads to chaos and a repulic succeeds only in small states. The philosopher has triumphed over the courtier; the dialogue, however, remains open

A computational framework to empower probabilistic protein design

Motivation: The task of engineering a protein to perform a target biological function is known as protein design. A commonly used paradigm casts this functional design problem as a structural one, assuming a fixed backbone. In probabilistic protein design, positional amino acid probabilities are used to create a random library of sequences to be simultaneously screened for biological activity. Clearly, certain choices of probability distributions will be more successful in yielding functional sequences. However, since the number of sequences is exponential in protein length, computational optimization of the distribution is difficult

Belief-Propagation for Weighted b-Matchings on Arbitrary Graphs and its Relation to Linear Programs with Integer Solutions

We consider the general problem of finding the minimum weight \bm-matching on arbitrary graphs. We prove that, whenever the linear programming (LP) relaxation of the problem has no fractional solutions, then the belief propagation (BP) algorithm converges to the correct solution. We also show that when the LP relaxation has a fractional solution then the BP algorithm can be used to solve the LP relaxation. Our proof is based on the notion of graph covers and extends the analysis of (Bayati-Shah-Sharma 2005 and Huang-Jebara 2007}. These results are notable in the following regards: (1) It is one of a very small number of proofs showing correctness of BP without any constraint on the graph structure. (2) Variants of the proof work for both synchronous and asynchronous BP; it is the first proof of convergence and correctness of an asynchronous BP algorithm for a combinatorial optimization problem.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to SIAM journal on Discrete Mathematics on March 19, 2009; accepted for publication (in revised form) August 30, 2010; published electronically July 1, 201

Lophine (2,4,5-triphenyl-1H-imidazole)

The title compound, C21H16N2, has been known since 1877. Although the crystal structure of 36 derivatives of lophine are known, the structure of parent compound has remained unknown until now. The three phenyl rings bonded to the imidazole core are not coplanar with the latter, with dihedral angles of 21.4 (3), 24.7 (3), and 39.0 (3)°, respectively, between the phenyl ring planes in the 2-, 4- and 5-positions of the imidazole ring. The mol­ecules are packed in layers running perpendicular to the b axis. Although there are acceptor and donor atoms for hydrogen bonds, no such inter­actions are detected in the crystal in contrast to other lophine derivatives

Mortars and screeds containing polymeric aggregates recycled from industrial waste and tyres

Given the growing market demand for products containing recycled components dictated by European and national policies, the presented research aimed to replace part of the natural aggregates in construction mortars and screeds with recycled polymeric aggregates (RA): industrial technopolymers and ground tyre rubber (GTR). The strategy involved the substitution of aggregates, both in market products and in the design of standard mortars, first verifying the CE certification and then the achievable mechanical performance. The whole process has been discussed in the context of a circular approach, extended to the analysis of the aggregate production phase, highlighting factors that influence environmental and economic impacts