Conflict resolution in the Middle East : the Israeli-Palestinian declaration of principles on interim self-government arrangements - a history

This work evaluates the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (DoP), the document signed between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), in Washington D.C. on 13 September 1993, as a case study of the bilateral management of an asymmetrical national-subnational conflict within the context of an international conflict resolution framework. The DoP represents progress in the international endeavour to realise a settlement of the wider Arab-lsraeli conflict, as signalled by the Madrid conference of 31 October 1991. The DoP ushered in a new era in Israeli-Palestinian relations. It is part of a process which, in essence, is the cornerstone of a formal mutual recognition pact which represents a reciprocal acknowledgement of legitimacy, a crucial first step towards finding a broad and permanent settlement. The DoP was only possible due to the abandonment of long-held mutually antagonistic and intransigent positions. Like all political documents, it represents a compromise. This study examines the complex nature and dynamics of the attempts at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and reviews the DoP to investigate how it transpired, what it means, how it will be implemented, how far it can be used as a blueprint for future peacemaking, and offers an analysis of the findings in conclusion. This study also addresses the wider international ramifications and relationships which will be a prerequisite for the evaluation and analysis of the corresponding policies and responses by the major powers and actors from the international community within the framework of the 1991 Madrid Middle East Peace Conference. Chapter one examines the definition and contextualisation of the conflict resolution case study. Chapter two focuses on the establishment, purpose and development of the DoP, incorporating a thorough examination of the development of the secret Oslo backchannel, concluding with an analysis of the Oslo negotiations within the official Madrid framework as an example of conflict resolution. Chapter three provides an analysis of the DoP as an example of conflict resolution and critiques the meaning and purpose of the document. Chapter four provides an analysis of the implementation process of the initial years of the life of the DoP, incorporating the actual implementation of the DoP to 31st August 1997, including: the Agreement on the Gaza Strip and Jericho Area of May 1994; the World Bank aid programme; influential bilateral agreements by the two with third parties; the Agreement on Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities of August 1994; the Protocol on Further Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities of August 1995; the Israeli- Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of September 1995; and the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron of January 1997. The final chapter concludes by evaluating the attempt by the two communities to shape a common future with an analysis in determining the effectiveness of the DoP both as an instrument for, and as an example of, conflict resolution

ECG measurement parameters of athletes are reliable when made with a smartphone based ECG device

Pre-participation cardiac screening including electrocardiogram (ECG) is a subject of controversy among sports medicine practitioners. Opponents of pre-participation ECG screen site concerns regarding the cost and accuracy of the testing. Recently, a single lead ECG accessory has become available for use with smartphones. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the between and within rater validity and reliability of the Kardia device in recording the ECG parameters rate, rhythm, and PR, QRS, and QT intervals. The ECG parameter made with the smartphone were also compared to same measures made using a 12 lead electrocardiograph. This investigation used a repeated measures cross-sectional design. The investigation was conducted in 2 separate phases using separate participant samples. Phase 1 (N=10) was used to determine the within rater reliability with the Kardia device. Phase 2 (N=12) was used to determine the reliability between the Kardia device and the 12 lead electrocardiograph. The between rater and between device reliability for the rate, QT interval and QRS duration parameters ranged good to very good (ICC = 0.667 – 0.981). The current investigation showed that the reliability of the ECG parameters measured using the smartphone technology ranged from good to very good. This paper serves as support for a technological advancement that will help advance the debate on the utility of ECG testing as part of the athletic pre-participation physical

Lasmiditan for the acute treatment of migraine: Subgroup analyses by prior response to triptans.

BACKGROUND: Lasmiditan demonstrated superiority to placebo in the acute treatment of migraine in adults with moderate/severe migraine disability in two similarly designed Phase 3 trials, SAMURAI and SPARTAN. Post-hoc integrated analyses evaluated the efficacy of lasmiditan in patients who reported a good or insufficient response to triptans and in those who were triptan naïve. METHODS: Subgroups of patients reporting an overall response of good or poor/none to the most recent use of a triptan at baseline (defined as good or insufficient responders, respectively) and a triptan-naïve subpopulation were derived from combined study participants randomized to receive lasmiditan 50 mg (SPARTAN only), 100 mg or 200 mg, or placebo, as the first dose. Outcomes including headache pain-freedom, most bothersome symptom-freedom, and headache pain relief 2 hours post-first dose of lasmiditan were compared with placebo. Treatment-by-subgroup analyses additionally investigated whether therapeutic benefit varied according to prior triptan response (good or insufficient). RESULTS: Regardless of triptan response, lasmiditan showed higher efficacy than placebo (most comparisons were statistically significant). Treatment-by-subgroup analyses found that the benefit over placebo of lasmiditan did not vary significantly between patients with a good response and those with an insufficient response to triptans. Lasmiditan also showed higher efficacy than placebo in triptan-naïve patients. CONCLUSIONS: Lasmiditan demonstrated comparable efficacy in patients who reported a good or insufficient response to prior triptan use. Lasmiditan also showed efficacy in those who were triptan naïve. Lasmiditan may be a useful therapeutic option for patients with migraine. TRIAL REGISTRATION: SAMURAI (NCT02439320); SPARTAN (NCT02605174)

Smell-related quality of life changes after total laryngectomy : a multi-centre study

Purpose: A total laryngectomy creates an alternate airway for gas exchange that bypasses the upper aerodigestive tract. The subsequent reduction in nasal airflow, and therefore, reduction in deposition of particles to the olfactory neuroepithelium leads to hyposmia or anosmia. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of life impairment conferred by anosmia following laryngectomy and identify any specific patient-related risk factors that are associated with poorer outcomes. Methods: Consecutive patients with a total laryngectomy presenting for review at three tertiary head and neck services (in Australia, the United Kingdom and India) over a 12-month period were recruited. Patient demographic and clinical data were collected, and each subject completed the validated assessment of self-reported olfactory functioning and olfaction-related quality of life questionnaire (ASOF). Dichotomous comparisons were performed using the student's unpaired t-test for continuous variables (SRP), a chi-squared test for categorical variables, and a Kendall's tau-b for ordinal variables (SOC) to assess for a correlation with poorer questionnaire scores. Results: A total of 66 laryngectomees (13.4% female; age 65.7 ± 8.6 years) were included in the study. The mean SRP score of the cohort was found to be 15.6 ± 7.4, while the mean ORQ score was noted to be 16.4 ± 8.1. No other specific risk factors associated with poorer quality of life were identified. Conclusion: A significant quality of life detriment from hyposmia is conferred following laryngectomy. Further research to assess treatment options and the patient population that would best benefit from these interventions is required

Interdisciplinary content, contestations of knowledge and informational transparency in engineering curriculum

This article is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Teaching in Higher Education, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13562517.2013.836089With the introduction of key information sets (KIS) for all university programmes in the UK from 2012, the character, content and delivery of university degrees may be increasingly used by potential students to differentiate between degree programmes. Therefore, developments in curricula and the relationship to the profession are of growing importance. In this paper, we explore the role of programme content in prospective students’ decision-making and describe the prevalence of interdisciplinary content in civil engineering curricula. Following this, we detail student perceptions of interdisciplinary content. It is found that universities currently operate a varied approach to transparency regarding curriculum; students pay little attention to programme content before embarking on their chosen degree; and engineering students view interdisciplinary content in the curriculum with ambivalence, usually ascribing its necessity in the preparation for post-university employmen

ECG measurement parameters of athletes are reliable when made with a smartphone based ECG device

Pre-participation cardiac screening including electrocardiogram (ECG) is a subject of controversy among sports medicine practitioners. Opponents of pre-participation ECG screen site concerns regarding the cost and accuracy of the testing. Recently, a single lead ECG accessory has become available for use with smartphones. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the between and within rater validity and reliability of the Kardia device in recording the ECG parameters rate, rhythm, and PR, QRS, and QT intervals. The ECG parameter made with the smartphone were also compared to same measures made using a 12 lead electrocardiograph. This investigation used a repeated measures cross-sectional design. The investigation was conducted in 2 separate phases using separate participant samples. Phase 1 (N=10) was used to determine the within rater reliability with the Kardia device. Phase 2 (N=12) was used to determine the reliability between the Kardia device and the 12 lead electrocardiograph. The between rater and between device reliability for the rate, QT interval and QRS duration parameters ranged good to very good (ICC = 0.667 – 0.981). The current investigation showed that the reliability of the ECG parameters measured using the smartphone technology ranged from good to very good. This paper serves as support for a technological advancement that will help advance the debate on the utility of ECG testing as part of the athletic pre-participation physical

Assessing Public Engagement with Science in a University Primate Research Centre in a National Zoo

Recent years have seen increasing encouragement by research institutions and funding bodies for scientists to actively engage with the public, who ultimately finance their work. Animal behaviour as a discipline possesses several features, including its inherent accessibility and appeal to the public, that may help it occupy a particularly successful niche within these developments. It has also established a repertoire of quantitative behavioural methodologies that can be used to document the public's responses to engagement initiatives. This kind of assessment is becoming increasingly important considering the enormous effort now being put into public engagement projects, whose effects are more often assumed than demonstrated. Here we report our first attempts to quantify relevant aspects of the behaviour of a sample of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who pass through the ‘Living Links to Human Evolution Research Centre’ in Edinburgh Zoo. This University research centre actively encourages the public to view ongoing primate research and associated science engagement activities. Focal follows of visitors and scan sampling showed substantial ‘dwell times’ in the Centre by common zoo standards and the addition of new engagement elements in a second year was accompanied by significantly increased overall dwell times, tripling for the most committed two thirds of visitors. Larger groups of visitors were found to spend more time in the Centre than smaller ones. Viewing live, active science was the most effective activity, shown to be enhanced by novel presentations of carefully constructed explanatory materials. The findings emphasise the importance and potential of zoos as public engagement centres for the biological sciences

Getting a Head Start: Diet, Sub-Adult Growth, and Associative Learning in a Seed-Eating Passerine

Developmental stress, and individual variation in response to it, can have important fitness consequences. Here we investigated the consequences of variable dietary protein on the duration of growth and associative learning abilities of zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, which are obligate graminivores. The high-protein conditions that zebra finches would experience in nature when half-ripe seed is available were mimicked by the use of egg protein to supplement mature seed, which is low in protein content. Growth rates and relative body proportions of males reared either on a low-protein diet (mature seed only) or a high-protein diet (seed plus egg) were determined from body size traits (mass, head width, and tarsus) measured at three developmental stages. Birds reared on the high-protein diet were larger in all size traits at all ages, but growth rates of size traits showed no treatment effects. Relative head size of birds reared on the two diets differed from age day 95 onward, with high-diet birds having larger heads in proportion to both tarsus length and body mass. High-diet birds mastered an associative learning task in fewer bouts than those reared on the low-protein diet. In both diet treatments, amount of sub-adult head growth varied directly, and sub-adult mass change varied inversely, with performance on the learning task. Results indicate that small differences in head growth during the sub-adult period can be associated with substantial differences in adult cognitive performance. Contrary to a previous report, we found no evidence for growth compensation among birds on the low-protein diet. These results have implications for the study of vertebrate cognition, developmental stress, and growth compensation

Variation in Reproductive Success Across Captive Populations: Methodological Differences, Potential Biases and Opportunities

Our understanding of fundamental organismal biology has been disproportionately influenced by studies of a relatively small number of model\u27 species extensively studied in captivity. Laboratory populations of model species are commonly subject to a number of forms of past and current selection that may affect experimental outcomes. Here, we examine these processes and their outcomes in one of the most widely used vertebrate species in the laboratory - the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). This important model species is used for research across a broad range of fields, partly due to the ease with which it can be bred in captivity. However despite this perceived amenability, we demonstrate extensive variation in the success with which different laboratories and studies bred their subjects, and overall only 64% of all females that were given the opportunity, bred successfully in the laboratory. We identify and review several environmental, husbandry, life-history and behavioural factors that potentially contribute to this variation. The variation in reproductive success across individuals could lead to biases in experimental outcomes and drive some of the heterogeneity in research outcomes across studies. The zebra finch remains an excellent captive animal system and our aim is to sharpen the insight that future studies of this species can provide, both to our understanding of this species and also with respect to the reproduction of captive animals more widely. We hope to improve systematic reporting methods and that further investigation of the issues we raise will lead both to advances in our fundamental understanding of avian reproduction as well as to improvements in future welfare and experimental efficiency