Supply-side peacekeeping: theories and new evidence from a panel data analysis

Why do nations with heterogeneous economies, geographic positions and institutions agree to dispatch their troops to remote conflict areas? This paper explores the domestic and international determinants of countries' contribution to peacekeeping operations from 1999 to 2009. Individual nations make their decision about where, when and how to send their military personnel as well as the justifications on which they base their involvement in sovereign states. Moral imperative for peacekeeping may be universally accepted but a country decision to participate is also based on self-interest combined to the geo-strategic dimension and finally constrained by political and technical considerations. Empirical results suggest that at the domestic level technical forces, such as the sustainability of multiple missions and military capabilities, all play a role. At the international level peacekeeping contributions are driven by the security threat that a conflict poses and the number of displaced people

Two Weeks Notice...Aloha

Written and published by John L. Bove, former Dean of Admissions for St. Francis College, Two Weeks Notice...Aloha documents his struggle to come to terms with his loss following the death of his wife. From its preface: “This was originally a journal through which I sought to regain some equilibrium and understanding. The loss of Fran turned my world “topsy turvy.” I was so angry and grief stricken it threatened my health. Stress of any kind, left unchecked, attacks the immune system which inevitably leads to illness. Writing gives you a focal point for your anger and grief. Introspective writing, I have discovered, is a lot like meditation. It allows you to view your thoughts much like an outside observer would do. In my case it helped me evaluate the anger, and give thoughtful consideration to my personal environment. It allowed the grief and anger to be brought into focus, and the unforgiveness to be understood. It is a great self-counseling tool.”https://dune.une.edu/unebooks/1000/thumbnail.jp

Pressure-induced transformations in LiCl–H2O at 77 K

A systematic study of the properties of high-density amorphous ice (HDA) in the presence of increasing amounts of salt is missing, especially because it is challenging to avoid ice crystallization upon cooling the pressurized liquid. In order to be able to study HDA also in the presence of small amounts of salt, we have investigated the transformation behaviour of quenched aqueous LiCl solutions (mole fraction x 1 GPa. The observed densification is consistent with the idea that a freeze concentrated LiCl solution of x = 0.14 (R = 6) segregates, which transforms to the glassy state upon cooling, and that the densification is only due to the Ih → HDA transition. Also the XRD patterns and DSC scans are almost unaffected by the presence of the segregated glassy LiCl solution. Upon heating at ambient pressure HDA experiences the polyamorphic transition to low-density amorphous ice (LDA) at ∼120 K, even at x ∼ 0.10. Based on the latent heat evolved in the transition we suggest that almost all water in the sample transforms to an LDA-like state, even the water in the vicinity of the ions. The glassy LiCl solution acts as a spectator that does not shift the transformation temperature significantly and experiences a glass-to-liquid transition at ∼140 K prior to the crystallization to cubic ice. By contrast, at x > 0.12 the phenomenology completely changes and is now dominated by the salt. Hexagonal ice no longer forms upon quenching the LiCl solution, but instead LDA forms. A broad pressure-induced transformation at >0.6 GPa can be attributed to the densification of LDA, the glassy LiCl solution and/or glassy hydrates.Fil: Ruiz, G. N.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; Argentina. Universidad de Innsbruck; AustriaFil: Bove, L. E.. Universite Pierre et Marie Curie; Francia. Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne; SuizaFil: Corti, Horacio Roberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Química, Física de los Materiales, Medioambiente y Energía; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Loerting, T.. Universidad de Innsbruck; Austri

Observation of a nanophase segregation in LiCl aqueous solutions from Transient Grating Experiments

Transient Grating experiments performed on supercooled LiCl, RH2O solutions with R>6 reveal the existence of a strong, short time, extra signal which superposes to the normal signal observed for the R=6 solution and other glass forming systems. This extra signal shows up below 190 K, its shape and the associated timescale depend only on temperature, while its intensity increases with R. We show that the origin of this signal is a phase separation between clusters with a low solute concentration and the remaining, more concentrated, solution. Our analysis demonstrates that these clusters have a nanometer size and a composition which are rather temperature independent, while increasing R simply increases the number of these clusters.Comment: 19 pages+ 8 figures+ 2 table

Lessons From The Conference: “Highlighting Massage Therapy In Complementary And Integrative Medicine”

A landmark conference, Highlighting Massage Therapy in Complimentary and Integrative Medicine, was held in Seattle, Washington, on May 13th–15th, 2010. The conference was designed to address the status of research related to massage therapy, as well as to have an open discussion regarding attitudes towards research and professional issues. Leaders from diverse manual therapy professions presented interesting and important data. The itinerary and summaries of the meeting can be found at http://www.massagetherapyfoundation.org/researchconference2010.html. In this brief report, rather than summarizing the presentations, we will share a combination of our observations and impressions, as well as suggestions for the direction of massage therapy research

Ergodicity breaking in strong and network-forming glassy system

The temperature dependence of the non-ergodicity factor of vitreous GeO$_2$, $f_{q}(T)$, as deduced from elastic and quasi-elastic neutron scattering experiments, is analyzed. The data are collected in a wide range of temperatures from the glassy phase, up to the glass transition temperature, and well above into the undercooled liquid state. Notwithstanding the investigated system is classified as prototype of strong glass, it is found that the temperature- and the $q$-behavior of $f_{q}(T)$ follow some of the predictions of Mode Coupling Theory. The experimental data support the hypothesis of the existence of an ergodic to non-ergodic transition occurring also in network forming glassy systems

A Critical Evaluation Of The Trigger Point Phenomenon

The theory of myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) caused by trigger points (TrPs) seeks to explain the phenomena of muscle pain and tenderness in the absence of evidence for local nociception. Although it lacks external validity, many practitioners have uncritically accepted the diagnosis of MPS and its system of treatment. Furthermore, rheumatologists have implicated TrPs in the pathogenesis of chronic widespread pain (fibromyalgia syndrome). We have critically examined the evidence for the existence of myofascial TrPs as putative pathological entities and for the “vicious cycles that are said to maintain them. We find that both are inventions that have no scientific basis, whether from experimental approaches that interrogate the suspect tissue or empirical approaches that assess the outcome of treatments predicated on presumed pathology. Therefore the theory of MPS caused by TrPs has been refuted. This is not to deny the existence of the clinical phenomena themselves, for which scientifically sound and logically plausible explanations based on known neurophysiological phenomena can be advanced

Utility-Sharing Games: How to Improve the Efficiency with Limited Subsidies (short paper)

We consider the problem of improving the efficiency of utility-sharing games, by resorting to a limited amount of subsidies. Utility-sharing games model scenarios in which strategic and self-interested players interact with each other by selecting resources. Each resource produces a utility that depends on the number of players selecting it, and each of these players receives an equal share of this utility. As the players' selfish behavior may lead to pure Nash equilibria whose total utility is sub-optimal, previous work has resorted to subsidies, incentivizing the use of some resources, to contrast this phenomenon. In this work, we focus on the case in which the budget used to provide subsidies is bounded. We consider a class of mechanisms, called α-subsidy mechanisms, that allocate the budget in such a way that each player's payoff is re-scaled up to a factor α ≥ 1. We design a specific sub-class of α-subsidy mechanisms, that can be implemented efficiently and distributedly by each resource, and evaluate their efficiency by providing upper bounds on their price of anarchy. These bounds are parametrized by both α and the underlying utility functions and are shown to be best-possible for α-subsidy mechanisms. Finally, we apply our results to the particular case of monomial utility functions of degree P ∈ (0, 1), and derive bounds on the price of anarchy that are parametrized by P and α

Current Status of Staged Reconstruction for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome

Once considered a uniformly fatal condition, the outlook for newborns with hypoplastic left heart syndrome has been dramatically altered with staged reconstructive procedures. Refinements in operative technique and perioperative management have been largely responsible for this improved outlook. At the University of Michigan, 253 patients underwent the Norwood operation for classic hypoplastic left heart syndrome between January 1990 and November 1997. Hospital survival was 76%. Among patients considered at standard risk, survival was significantly higher (86%) than that for those patients with important risk factors (42%, p = 0.0001). Adverse survival was most strongly associated with significant associated noncardiac congenital conditions ( p = 0.008) and severe preoperative obstruction to pulmonary venous return ( p = 0.03). Survival following second-stage reconstruction with a hemi-Fontan or bidirectional Glenn procedure was 97%. The Fontan procedure has been completed in 94 of these patients with a hospital survival rate of 88%. Survival after the Fontan procedure improved significantly when the second stage of the reconstruction was completed with a hemi-Fontan procedure compared to a bidirectional Glenn (98% vs 81%, p = 0.05). Among the patients considered at standard risk, actuarial survival was 70% at 5 years. The largest decrease in survival occurred in the first month of life and late deaths affected primarily those patients in the high-risk group. Neurodevelopmental outcome studies demonstrated normal verbal and performance scores in the majority of patients. Staged reconstruction has significantly improved the intermediate-term outlook for patients with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Factors addressing improvements in early first-stage survival would be expected to add significantly to an overall improved late outcome.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42378/1/246-19-4-308_19n4p308.pd