Jordan and Disability Rights: A Pioneering Leader in the Arab World

This article investigates Jordan’s rationale for assuming a leadership role on the disability rights issue in the Arab World. Tens of millions of people, including over ten percent of Arab families, are impacted and impoverished because of disability. To address this substantial challenge, the Jordan Royal family has leveraged Jordan’s tradition of openness and generosity coupled with one of the best educational systems in the Arab World to promote disability issues. As a result, Jordan is recognized by the international community as leading the Arab World in promoting disability rights. Jordan’s international and regional leadership on disability rights was recognized in 2005 when Jordan received the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award

A Review of Pain Assessment in Pigs

There is a moral obligation to minimize pain in pigs used for human benefit. In livestock production pigs experience pain caused by management procedures, e.g. castration, and tail docking, injuries from fighting or poor housing conditions, management diseases like mastitis or Streptococcal meningitis, and at parturition. Pigs used in biomedical research undergo procedures which are regarded as painful in humans, but do not receive similar levels of analgesia, and pet pigs also experience potentially painful conditions. In all contexts, accurate pain assessment is a prerequisite in: a) the estimation of the welfare consequences of noxious interventions; and b) the development of more effective pain mitigation strategies. This narrative review identifies the sources of pain in pigs, discusses the various assessment measures currently available, and proposes directions for future investigation

Visible and near-infrared multispectral analysis of geochemically measured rock fragments at the Opportunity landing site in Meridiani Planum

We have used visible and near‐infrared Panoramic Camera (Pancam) spectral data acquired by the Opportunity rover to analyze 15 rock fragments at the Meridiani Planum landing site. These spectral results were then compared to geochemistry measurements made by the in situ instruments Mössbauer (MB) and Alpha Particle X‐ray Spectrometer (APXS) to determine the feasibility of mineralogic characterization from Pancam data. Our results suggest that dust and alteration rinds coat many rock fragments, which limits our ability to adequately measure the mineralogy of some rocks from Pancam spectra relative to the different field of view and penetration depths of MB and APXS. Viewing and lighting geometry, along with sampling size, also complicate the spectral characterization of the rocks. Rock fragments with the same geochemistry of sulfate‐rich outcrops have similar spectra, although the sulfate‐rich composition cannot be ascertained based upon Pancam spectra alone. FeNi meteorites have spectral characteristics, particularly ferric oxide coatings, that generally differentiate them from other rocks at the landing site. Stony meteorites and impact fragments with unknown compositions have a diverse range of spectral properties and are not well constrained nor diagnostic in Pancam data. Bounce Rock, with its unique basalt composition, is easily differentiated in the Pancam data from all other rock types at Meridiani Planum. Our Pancam analyses of small pebbles adjacent to these 15 rock fragments suggests that other rock types may exist at the landing site but have not yet been geochemically measured

Native T1 mapping: inter-study, inter-observer and inter-center reproducibility in hemodialysis patients

Background Native T1 mapping is a cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) technique that associates with markers of fibrosis and strain in hemodialysis patients. The reproducibility of T1 mapping in hemodialysis patients, prone to changes in fluid status, is unknown. Accurate quantification of myocardial fibrosis in this population has prognostic potential. Methods Using 3 Tesla CMR, we report the results of 1) the inter-study, inter-observer and intra-observer reproducibility of native T1 mapping in 10 hemodialysis patients; 2) inter-study reproducibility of left ventricular (LV) structure and function in 10 hemodialysis patients; 3) the agreement of native T1 map and native T1 phantom analyses between two centres in 20 hemodialysis patients; 4) the effect of changes in markers of fluid status on native T1 values in 10 hemodialysis patients. Results Inter-study, inter-observer and intra-observer variability of native T1 mapping were excellent with co-efficients of variation (CoV) of 0.7, 0.3 and 0.4% respectively. Inter-study CoV for LV structure and function were: LV mass = 1%; ejection fraction = 1.1%; LV end-diastolic volume = 5.2%; LV end-systolic volume = 5.6%. Inter-centre variability of analysis techniques were excellent with CoV for basal and mid-native T1 slices between 0.8–1.2%. Phantom analyses showed comparable native T1 times between centres, despite different scanners and acquisition sequences (centre 1: 1192.7 ± 7.5 ms, centre 2: 1205.5 ± 5 ms). For the 10 patients who underwent inter-study testing, change in body weight (Δweight) between scans correlated with change in LV end-diastolic volume (ΔLVEDV) (r = 0.682;P = 0.03) representing altered fluid status between scans. There were no correlations between change in native T1 between scans (ΔT1) and ΔLVEDV or Δweight (P > 0.6). Linear regression confirmed ΔT1 was unaffected by ΔLVEDV or Δweight (P > 0.59). Conclusions Myocardial native T1 is reproducible in HD patients and unaffected by changes in fluid status at the levels we observed. Native T1 mapping is a potential imaging biomarker for myocardial fibrosis in patients with end-stage renal disease

Comparison of advanced gravitational-wave detectors

We compare two advanced designs for gravitational-wave antennas in terms of their ability to detect two possible gravitational wave sources. Spherical, resonant mass antennas and interferometers incorporating resonant sideband extraction (RSE) were modeled using experimentally measurable parameters. The signal-to-noise ratio of each detector for a binary neutron star system and a rapidly rotating stellar core were calculated. For a range of plausible parameters we found that the advanced LIGO interferometer incorporating RSE gave higher signal-to-noise ratios than a spherical detector resonant at the same frequency for both sources. Spheres were found to be sensitive to these sources at distances beyond our galaxy. Interferometers were sensitive to these sources at far enough distances that several events per year would be expected

Pragmatism over principle: US intervention and burden shifting in Somalia, 1992–1993

The conventional wisdom about the 1992 US intervention in Somalia is that it was a quintessentially humanitarian mission pushed by President George H. W. Bush. This article challenges that interpretation, drawing on newly declassified documents. The Somalia intervention, I argue, was largely a pragmatic response to concerns held by the US military. In late 1992, as the small UN mission in Somalia was collapsing, senior American generals worried about being drawn into the resulting vacuum. Hence they reluctantly recommended a robust US intervention, in the expectation that this would allow the UN to assemble a larger peacekeeping force that would take over within months. The intervention ultimately failed, but the military learned useful lessons from this experience on how to achieve smoother UN handoffs in the future and thus effectively shift longer-term stabilisation burdens to the international community.Open access publication was made possible by an EC Career Integration Grant

Integrated Economic and Climate Modeling

This survey examines the history and current practice in integrated assessment models (IAMs) of the economics of climate change. It begins with a review of the emerging problem of climate change. The next section provides a brief sketch of the rise of IAMs in the 1970s and beyond. The subsequent section is an extended exposition of one IAM, the DICE/RICE family of models. The purpose of this description is to provide readers an example of how such a model is developed and what the major components are. The final section discusses major important open questions that continue to occupy IAM modelers. These involve issues such as the discount rate, uncertainty, the social cost of carbon, the potential for catastrophic climate change, algorithms, and fat-tailed distributions. These issues are ones that pose both deep intellectual challenges as well as important policy implications for climate change and climate-change policy

Struggles at the summits:Discourse coalitions, field boundaries, and the shifting role of business in sustainable development

This research explores the field dynamics that facilitated the emergence of a dominant understanding of business’ role in sustainable development (SD). Based on a study of the U.N. Earth Summits, we examine how actors meet every decade to battle for definitional control of what SD means for business, and what business means for SD. Through a discourse analysis of texts from business, policy, and civil society actors during each Summit, we illustrate how an ensuing discursive struggle shifts the role of business in SD from being largely undefined in 1992, to being considered an SD partner in 2002, and finally to becoming a driver of SD by 2012. We contend that these shifts occurred largely due to two field dynamics: (a) rearranging of field boundaries and (2) forming of a discourse coalition. Accordingly, our study highlights how disparate actors coalesce around a shared-meaning system and collectively shape the role of business role in SD. However, we argue that despite the allure of a unified meaning-making process between once antagonistic actors, business–SD relations are underpinned by politicized interaction where certain actors come to dominate, and, in doing so, marginalize others