Can People Survive on Carrots and Sticks? Enhancing Quality of Life Through Financial Tools of Foreign Policy Following Sen’s Capabilities Approach

The passing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly marked the beginning of global collaboration on the issue of human dignity and freedom. Over the years, countries have been scrutinized over their ability to ensure all the rights listed in the UDHR; some have been very successful, some have been able to protect a few, and some have utterly failed. A free global society makes for a more productive and equal one; human rights allow people to have safer housing, food, and education, which in turn allows them to pursue better opportunities and live free of tyranny. Where human dignity is protected and upheld, there are reduced civil unrest and extreme violence, as well as less spread of diseases caused by poor health and hygiene. Understanding the patterns that lead to abuses of human rights allows scholars to produce theoretical work that can be provided to global entities and policy makers who have the ability to pursue the interests of the oppressed, such as the United Nations. The study of human rights often faces the issue of non-compliance. “Most governments swear to pursue, promote, and protect human rights. They make legally binding promises, which they break when convenient” (Hafner-Burton 2013). It used to be conventionally believed that economic development would lead to democratization and, in turn, a better protection of human rights (Streeten 1994). However, as history has shown through countries like China and Russia, this theory is faulty. As authoritarian regimes perpetuate and grow more powerful, it has become clear that economic wealth cannot be used as a measure of freedom. The question then becomes: if wealth does not necessarily lead to democracy, and the belief is that democracy is fundamental to global stability and peace, why do economists keep focusing on the financial development of Least Developed Countries (LDCs)? This paper will break the question into several components. First of all, is wealth the way by which economic development should be measured? But most importantly, is development mainly an economic issue? Amartya Sen, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1998, believes that development is not a matter of economic stability, but one of capability and opportunities. His view will be discussed in the first part of this paper. The second part will dispute the idea that democracy and human rights are an unbreakable duo by presenting the rhetoric of “interdependence and mutual reinforcement.” Furthermore, it will discuss the importance of databases such as Freedom House and Polity to track countries progresses in these two fields and how they relate to Sen’s Capabilities Approach. The third part will break down two financial tools of foreign policy, aid and sanctions, to analyze their impact on development and human rights protection; additionally, it will introduce Preferential Trade Agreements as the ideal tool to ensure protection of freedom. The fourth part will unite the concepts analyzed in the previous parts in a country-specific analysis of China, Russia, Venezuela, and Tunisia. The fifth and final part of this paper will offer a review and a conclusion

Daylighting for Green Schools: A Resource for Indoor Quality and Energy Efficiency in Educational Environments

Daylight is a fundamental resource to achieve indoor quality and energy efficiency in educational buildings and therefore to improve their sustainability. The study presented in this paper is aimed at defining and testing a method to assess daylighting in classrooms based on performance indicators drawn from literature, standards and green building rating protocols (LEED), and intended as a tool to assess lighting sustainability and drive the retrofit of existing schools into comfortable and energy efficient buildings. The assessment approach is based on both in field analysis and dynamic climate-based simulations. In the paper the results obtained from the application of the method to a case study are presented

Daylighting Design for Energy Saving in a Building Global Energy Simulation Context

A study on the impact that different daylighting solutions have on the global energy demand of a space is presented. The methodology relies on dynamic simulations carried out with Daysim and EnergyPlus used in synergy to perform a parametric study to assess the indoor daylighting conditions and the energy performance of rooms with different architectural features: room depth, window size, external obstruction angle and glazing visible transmittance. Furthermore, different lighting and shading control strategies were tested. The results of the study demonstrated that optimizing daylight can lead to a reduction of up to 30% in the global energy demand for a building

Impact of daylighting on total energy use in offices of varying architectural features in Italy: Results from a parametric study

The growing attention towards the optimization of the overall performance of a building, in terms of both indoor environmental quality and energy consumption, has brought about the need to carry out analyses, which consider the interactions of all affecting parameters. In particular, thermal and daylighting analysis should be carried out in synergy to ensure the best performance in both domains. Within this framework, the paper presents a study on daylighting and energy behavior of rooms with different architectural features. The study has been conceived to account for a broad range of possible configurations of office buildings in the climate site of Turin (Northern Italy), and has been performed through numerical simulations carried out with Daysim and EnergyPlus. The results outline the daylighting performance (in terms of spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA)) and the energy demand for lighting, heating and cooling and demonstrate that optimizing daylighting can lead to a reduction of the total energy demand of an office

Effect of preceding crop on the agronomic and economic performance of durum wheat in the transition from conventional to reduced tillage

Preceding crop greatly affects the agronomic and economic performance of durum wheat, but its interaction with tillage intensity was scarcely investigated at the early transition from conventional to reduced tillage. This work was aimed at studying how preceding crop determines the performance of durum wheat during the early transition from conventional to reduced tillage. To this end, the effect of four preceding crops (sunflower, durum wheat, alfalfa and maize) in interaction with two tillage systems without inversion (RT1 – chisel ploughing, disking twice, and harrowing and RT2 – disking twice and harrowing) and a conventional tillage (CT – mouldboard ploughing, disking twice, and harrowing) was studied on durum wheat in two years of cultivation. The effect of preceding crop on grain yield and yield components of durum wheat was different depending on tillage intensity, and this effect varied depending on the year of cultivation. Grain yield increased by 1.1–4.2 t ha−1 with the increase of the intensity of tillage in both years and all preceding crops, with the only exception of wheat crop following sunflower in 2009–2010 and following maize in 2010–2011. RT2 decreased wheat grain yield when compared with RT1 only with alfalfa as preceding crop. Differences in grain yield among tillage systems and crops preceding wheat in both years were mainly due to variations of mean kernel weight and number of spikes per unit area. The profitability of durum wheat varied according to the year of cultivation, the preceding crop and the tillage system. Overall, in both years profitability was lowest and negative following wheat under reduced tillage system, while it was highest and positive following alfalfa under CT. Reduced growth of durum wheat with reduced tillage systems was mainly consequence of weeds and volunteers plants development and nitrogen availability in soil resulting from nutrient immobilization. It can be concluded that potential yield penalties in durum wheat in the transition from conventional to reduced tillage can be alleviated by an appropriate selection of preceding crops

Increase Sustainability in Buildings Through Public Procurements: The PROLITE project for Lighting Retrofit in Schools

The Public Procurement has always been a demand-side policy measure with great opportunities in terms of spurring innovation at the scale of products and/or services. A support for a sustainable development in the field of energy and buildings may came from different types of Public Procurement: Green Public Procurement (GPP), Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) and Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI). Within this framework, the paper presents a case study where PPI has been used to promote the development of innovative solutions for upgrading school buildings in terms of increased energy efficiency and sustainability

Theta and alpha oscillations as signatures of internal and external attention to delayed intentions: A magnetoencephalography (MEG) study

Abstract Background Remembering to execute delayed intentions (i.e., prospective memory, PM) entails the allocation of internal and external attention. These processes are crucial for rehearsing PM intentions in memory and for monitoring the presence of the PM cue in the environment, respectively. Aim The study took advantage of the excellent spatial and temporal resolution of magnetoencephalography (MEG) to delineate the neural mechanisms of such memory and monitoring processes underlying PM. Method The spatio-temporal dynamic of theta and alpha oscillations were explored in 21 participants in 2 p.m. tasks and compared respect to a baseline condition (i.e., a lexical decision task with no PM instruction). The PM tasks varied for the load of internally-directed attention (Retrospective-load task) vs externally-directed attention (Monitoring-load task). Results Increase in theta activity was observed in the Retrospective-load task, and was particularly expressed in the regions of the Default Mode Network, such as in medial temporal regions, precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. By contrast, alpha decrease was the most relevant feature of the Monitoring-load task, and it was expressed over bilateral occipital, occipito-parietal and fronto-temporal regions, as well as over left dorsal fronto-parietal regions. Conclusions Theta and alpha oscillations are strictly associated with the direction of attention during the PM tasks. In particular, the theta increase is linked to internal attention necessary for maintaining the intention active in working memory, whereas the alpha decrease supports the external attention for detecting the PM cue in the environment

Evidence of Presynaptic Localization and Function of the c-Jun N-Terminal Kinase

The c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) is part of a stress signalling pathway strongly activated by NMDA-stimulation and involved in synaptic plasticity. Many studies have been focused on the post-synaptic mechanism of JNK action, and less is known about JNK presynaptic localization and its physiological role at this site. Here we examined whether JNK is present at the presynaptic site and its activity after presynaptic NMDA receptors stimulation. By using N-SIM Structured Super Resolution Microscopy as well as biochemical approaches, we demonstrated that presynaptic fractions contained significant amount of JNK protein and its activated form. By means of modelling design, we found that JNK, via the JBD domain, acts as a physiological effector on T-SNARE proteins; then using biochemical approaches we demonstrated the interaction between Syntaxin-1-JNK, Syntaxin-2-JNK, and Snap25-JNK. In addition, taking advance of the specific JNK inhibitor peptide, D-JNKI1, we defined JNK action on the SNARE complex formation. Finally, electrophysiological recordings confirmed the role of JNK in the presynaptic modulation of vesicle release. These data suggest that JNK-dependent phosphorylation of T-SNARE proteins may have an important functional role in synaptic plasticity

Microgravity Promotes Differentiation and Meiotic Entry of Postnatal Mouse Male Germ Cells

A critical step of spermatogenesis is the entry of mitotic spermatogonia into meiosis. Progresses on these topics are hampered by the lack of an in vitro culture system allowing mouse spermatogonia differentiation and entry into meiosis. Previous studies have shown that mouse pachytene spermatocytes cultured in simulated microgravity (SM) undergo a spontaneous meiotic progression. Here we report that mouse mitotic spermatogonia cultured under SM with a rotary cell culture system (RCCS) enter into meiosis in the absence of any added exogenous factor or contact with somatic cells. We found that isolated Kit-positive spermatogonia under the RCCS condition enter into the prophase of the first meiotic division (leptotene stage), as monitored by chromosomal organization of the synaptonemal complex 3 protein (Scp3) and up-regulation of several pro-meiotic genes. SM was found to activate the phosphatidyl inositol 3 kinase (PI3K) pathway and to induce in Kit-positive spermatogonia the last round of DNA replication, typical of the preleptotene stage. A PI3K inhibitor abolished Scp3 induction and meiotic entry stimulated by RCCS conditions. A positive effect of SM on germ cell differentiation was also observed in undifferentiated (Kit-negative) spermatogonia, in which RCCS conditions stimulate the expression of Kit and Stra8. In conclusion, SM is an artificial environmental condition which promotes postnatal male germ cell differentiation and might provide a tool to study the molecular mechanisms underlying the switch from mitosis to meiosis in mammals