Suchergebnisse

Despite vast improvements in the measurement of the cosmological parameters, the nature of dark energy and an accurate value of the Hubble constant (H-0) in the Hubble-Lemaitre law remain unknown. To break the current impasse, it is necessary to develop as many independent techniques as possible, such as the use of Type II supernovae (SNe II). The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the utility of SNe II for deriving accurate extragalactic distances, which will be an asset for the next generation of telescopes where more-distant SNe II will be discovered. More specifically, we present a sample from the Dark Energy Survey Supernova Program (DES-SN) consisting of 15 SNe II with photometric and spectroscopic information spanning a redshift range up to 0.35. Combining our DES SNe with publicly available samples, and using the standard candle method (SCM), we construct the largest available Hubble diagram with SNe II in the Hubble flow (70 SNe II) and find an observed dispersion of 0.27 mag. We demonstrate that adding a colour term to the SN II standardization does not reduce the scatter in the Hubble diagram. Although SNe II are viable as distance indicators, this work points out important issues for improving their utility as independent extragalactic beacons: find new correlations, define a more standard subclass of SNe II, construct new SN II templates, and dedicate more observing time to high-redshift SNe II. Finally, for the first time, we perform simulations to estimate the redshift-dependent distance-modulus bias due to selection effects. ; National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1211916 TABASGO Foundation, Gary and Cynthia Bengier Christopher R. Redlich Fund Sylvia and Jim Katzman Foundation Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science (UC Berkeley) - European Union 839090 Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 European Union (EU) EU/FP7-ERC grant 615929 National Science Foundation (NSF) Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) collaboration includes the astronomical communities of Japan Princeton University Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) University of Tokyo High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) FIRST programme from the Japanese Cabinet Office Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT) Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT) Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Japan Science & Technology Agency (JST) Toray Industries, Inc. Institute for Astronomy (the University of Hawaii) Max Planck Society Foundation CELLEX National Central University of Taiwan Space Telescope Science Institute National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) NNX08AR22G National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1238877 University of Maryland Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE) National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) W.M. Keck Foundation National Research Council of Canada Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) National Research Council Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) Australian Research Council National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET) GN-2005A-Q11 GN-2005B-Q-7 GN-2006A-Q-7 GS-2005A-Q-11 GS-2005BQ-6 GS-2008B-Q-56 United States Department of Energy (DOE) Spanish Government Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Higher Education Funding Council for England National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Ohio State University Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University Ciencia Tecnologia e Inovacao (FINEP) Fundacao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient'tronomy at Texas AM University German Research Foundation (DFG) University of Portsmouth OzDES Membership Consortium National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1138766 AST-1536171 AYA2015-71825 ESP2015-66861 FPA2015-68048 SEV2016-0588 SEV-2016-0597 European Union (EU) European Union - CERCA programme of the Generalitat de Catalunya European Research Council (ERC) European Research Council (ERC) 240672 291329 306478 National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) 465376/2014-2 United States Department of Energy (DOE) United States Department of Energy (DOE) DE-AC02-05CH11231 United States Department of Energy (DOE) DE-AC02-05CH11231

After defining language as system of symbols, words and linguistic expressions, as well as the part of the culture, we pointed out the classification, and essential changes in many languages worldwide. Many contemporary languages can be classified to the spoken languages, languages in specific sciences (political sciences, economy, medicine, etc.), artificial languages(language of symbols, such as Esperanto or any programming language - Basic, Pascal, SQL, SPSS, C, Java, etc.) as well as a meta-language (more precisely in meaning of the statement). In various languages in the world, many changes have been already happened such as: changes in the meaning of the words (democracy, profile), or disappearance of some words, because specific political phenomena, process or services have disappeared (self-management organizations and communities, social ownership, floppy disk, etc.). Also, changes in languages are formation of new words and phrases regarding new political phenomena or processes (globalization, screening, monitoring, extremism), and most of those words are derived from the English language, often without translation to a particular language (computers, internet, communication). And finally, changes regarding linguistic typology, according different criteria - geography (localizm, dialects) occupation or education level. Due to geography criteria, English language can differ from standard American English, English at the universities Oxford and Cambridge, Australian English, and cockney to the Indian English, African-American English, or jacket English. In political sciences, as well in the methodology of political sciences, the language has great importance in determination of political process or phenomena, as well as their meaning and definition. Although there are problems related to the meaning of words and linguistic expressions in social and political sciences, some authors have clear and precise wording, such as Slobodan Jovanovic, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Joseph Nyeand others. Throughout civilization, the language has reflected the distribution of power in the world. It is still considered that English language is lingua franca, the most popular language worldwide. However, it is estimated that the majority of world population will use other languages such as Chinese, Hindi, Spanish and Arabic by 2050. According to estimates linguist, there are approximately 6,000 existing languages but many languages of small communities will rapidly disappear during the 21st century. Also, many countries have taken certain measures to protect their languages, such as establishing the Fund for endangered languages or the Foundation for Endangered Languages. However, in the process of Serbia's EU accession, Serbian language includes many naturalizations (enlargement, comitology, screening, monitoring, etc.), and that can create even bigger problems, and certainly will not contribute to a better understanding and defining the terms in political and other social sciences. Beside, in political science there are many problems relating to the determination of the definition, meaning, and the implementation of several methods in the framework of the methodology of political science - comparative, statistical, and in particular, the data analysis. In the Republic of Serbia, insufficiently efforts have made to preserve the Serbian language and alphabet. Several years ago a law on the official use of Serbian language and alphabet has been adopted, and several associations such as the National Council for Serbian language and alphabet, Serbian association 'Cyrillic' and other advocates for the preservation of Serbian language, the official and public use of the Cyrillic alphabet. Also, in the Republic of Serbia has been adopted the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages where ten languages have been alleged, such as Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak and others. ; U političkim naukama, kao i u metodologiji političkih nauka, jezik ima značajnu ulogu u određivanju političkih procesa i pojava. Tokom istorije, jezik je oslikavao raspodelu moći u svetu. Da li je još uvek lingua franca engleski jezik? I da li će to sutra postati kineski, arapski ili španski jezik? Osim toga, postoje mnoge promene između jezika u svetu, kao i unutar njih.U okviru različitih jezika u svetu dešavaju se mnoge promene, i to u značenju reči, jezičkoj tipologiji, nestajanju nekih reči ili nastajanju novih reči i izraza, i dr. U radu smo nastojali da ukažemo na koji način promene u jezicima utiču na razumevanje, shvatanje pojmova, ali i na proces definisanja u političkim naukama.

The challenges of negotiating Brexit are daunting. As such, it does not bode well that Britain's post-referendum politics have been so bitter, polarised and volatile. An irony may be Britain's undoing. The country was asked a clear question ('Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?') and gave a clear answer ('Leave'), and yet has no clear idea of what to do next. The process of leaving a union with which British politics, law and society has been intertwined for some 40 years is deeply complex. For one thing, the jilted party, the EU, must agree to the terms of separation, and do so in the two years allotted by Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which Prime Minister Theresa May intends to invoke in the first quarter of 2017. But first, Britain must work out what it wants, and doing so is proving to be a bitter and divisive process. The problem with the EU referendum was that, in distilling so many issues into a single choice, it meant that people with different and sometimes contradictory interests could unite around the opposing poles This is a normal feature of democratic elections: not everyone supports a candidate or party for the same reasons. But in an election, candidates and parties produce policy statements and manifestos. For the referendum on Scottish independence, the Holyrood government published a 670-page White Paper on the shape of an independent Scotland, with the Scottish National Party speaking as the overwhelming favourite to govern that future country. In Britain's EU referendum, there was no such guide to the meaning of a vote to leave. The UK Independence Party (UKIP), though influential in some ways, remained a fringe concern. The campaign organisation given official recognition from the electoral commission, Vote Leave, was not a party, and produced no manifesto for negotiating Brexit save for a brief memo published eight days before the vote. Prior to that, Vote Leave had offered promises about the supposedly beneficial effects of leaving the EU, and the supposedly detrimental effects of remaining. At least one of each category - 'We will be able to save £350 million a week', and 'Turkey is one of five new countries joining the EU' - was false. To make things more complicated, Vote Leave was joined by the noisier and more radical Leave.eu, which had unsuccessfully campaigned for the electoral-commission designation. The net effect was that the Leave campaign as a whole was free to use whatever collection of arguments were tactically useful in winning the vote, whether or not they added up to a coherent position. It did so ruthlessly. When the economic case for leaving the European Union appeared to be unsupportable, the Leave campaign shifted to a focus on controlling immigration. Even here, there was room for incoherence: Leave campaigners, including Michael Gove (then the education secretary) and Boris Johnson (now foreign secretary) called for the introduction of an Australian-style points-based immigration system, even though Australia's per capita net immigration is higher than that of the UK. Regardless, much as Donald Trump's early and relentless focus on immigration served as a rallying point for his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in the United States, this was an issue around which Leave voters could gather. Polling prior to the referendum campaign had shown that hostility to immigration was one of the best predictors of support for leaving the EU; 79% of those in favour of leaving agreed with the proposition that immigration is bad for the British economy, for example, compared with 21% of those in favour of remaining. The Leave campaign combined this energy with what were essentially spoiling tactics on the economic front - confronted with a list of British allies and domestic and global institutions opposed to Brexit, for example, Gove responded that 'people in this country have had enough of experts - and won a narrow, shocking but decisive victory. (Survival / SWP)

The job description for a University lecturer on the Australian Government's Immigration web site (Department of Immigration, 2009) states that a lecturer "Lectures students and conducts tutorials in one or more subjects within a prescribed course of study at a university and conducts research in a particular field of knowledge." Although one might argue about the lack of detail in such a description, in essence academic staff at universities have traditionally had to balance research, teaching, and service to their institution and the community in order to ensure a satisfactory career progression. Academics are commonly judged by their publication record, successful grant applications and results of student experience surveys. Promotion is unlikely to occur without all of these areas being addressed, but prominence is often given to the research. Many universities make decisions about the promotion of academics predominantly along research performance, which does not always sit well with staff (Houston, Meyer & Paewai, 2006). The public on the other hand will judge universities by their image as projected by marketing specialists and university rankings. Research quality is one important factor but by no means the most important. In the Times Good University Guide 2009 (Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008), the top UK universities were ranked. Oxford received top ranking despite Cambridge having higher entry standards, a better research record and a superior graduate destinations rating (Frean, 2008). A two year study of Law students showed marketing tools such as university web sites, prospectuses, open days and attending special lectures were key influences in a student's decision-making (Catley, 2007). Interestingly one study showed a negative relationship between an institution's perceived research strength and its attractiveness to students (Drewes & Michael, 2006), perhaps because of a perception that research and teaching are not linked activities. This may be an impression shared by some academics as indicated in a study by Robertson and Bond (2001) where some academic staff felt there was a schism between these two areas. Other academics in this study felt that they were enthused by carrying out research which then flowed into their teaching. This leads to the question. Why don't academics do more educational research? Many academics devote much of their time to research. Studying, experimenting and theorising are everyday activities for most of us, and the end result of this work is often a grant application or a journal article or book chapter, which hopefully adds to the body of knowledge in our field. We also spend a lot of time preparing and delivering learning material for students, be it lectures, tutorials, practicals or other types of teaching activity. But do we devote sufficient time reflecting on what we have done or communicating techniques we may have used to try and engage our students in their learning? We have highly trained critical thinking skills which should be regularly applied to our teaching. If you are teaching, why not take advantage of the situation and try and organise educational research around your teaching strategies. Many lecturers try new strategies every term or semester, to engage their students and improve their learning, but rarely communicate their methods or findings to their peers. An active researcher should be able to adapt their research skills to the educational environment and try and achieve extra benefit from it. If you are working with large classes or tutorials, and you have devised a strategy to improve the learning process, then why not investigate the literature, carry out some evaluations and submit your findings to a journal? The contributors to this issue of ergo have applied this principle, and they will use the results of their work to enhance both their teaching and research portfolios, as well as helping their students. It's difficult to imagine a more positive outcome.

Актуальность. Химикаты двойного назначения и их потенциальное воздействие являются постоянным объектом наблюдения со стороны многих международных организаций, однако данная информация до сих пор не нашла должного отражения в учебных программах подготовки военных токсикологов. Цель. Подтверждение актуальности расширения спектра знаний по токсикологии химикатов двойного назначения и разработки цикла тематического усовершенствования по этому вопросу. Материалы и методы. Проанализированы материалы Организации по запрещению химического оружия, Австралийской группы, Организации по безопасности и сотрудничеству в Европе по вопросам международного регулирования химического и токсичного оружия. Результаты. Автором обобщены ключевые компоненты системы международного наблюдения за химическими веществами — компонентами химического оружия, дана характеристика химикатов двойного назначения. Представленные списки химикатов подразделяются в зависимости от степени потенциального риска и масштаба коммерческого применения. Подчеркивается, что в учебных программах последипломной подготовки военных врачей преимущественно уделяется внимание изучению оружия массового поражения на основе методологии, разработанной еще во времена Второй мировой войны. Учитывая вышеизложенное, существует необходимость пересмотра учебных программ последипломной подготовки военных врачей с целью создания возможности приобретения слушателями знаний по токсикологии химикатов двойного назначения и современных международных норм их наблюдения и регулирования. Выводы. В современных условиях существует необходимость совершенствования учебных программ последипломной подготовки военных врачей в аспекте изучения токсикологии химикатов двойного назначения и международных норм их контроля. ; Актуальність. Хімікати подвійного призначення та їх потенційний вплив є постійним об'єктом спостереження з боку багатьох міжнародних організацій, однак дана інформація досі не знайшла належного відображення у навчальних програмах підготовки військових токсикологів. Мета. Підтвердження актуальності розширення спектра знань з токсикології хімікатів подвійного призначення та розробки циклу тематичного удосконалення з цього питання. Матеріали та методи. Проаналізовано матеріали Організації із заборони хімічної зброї, Австралійської групи, Організації з безпеки та співробітництва в Європі з питань міжнародного регулювання хімічної та токсичної зброї. Результати. Автором узагальнено ключові компоненти системи міжнародного нагляду за хімічними речовинами, що можуть бути застосовані як компоненти хімічної зброї, надано характеристику хімікатів подвійного призначення. Наведено списки хімікатів, що підрозділяються залежно від ступеня потенційного ризику та масштабу комерційного застосування. Підкреслено, що в навчальних програмах післядипломної підготовки військових лікарів переважно приділяється увага вивченню зброї масового ураження на основі методології, розробленої ще за часів Другої світової війни. З огляду на вищезазначене існує потреба перегляду навчальних програм післядипломної підготовки військових лікарів з метою створення можливості здобуття слухачами знань із токсикології хімікатів подвійного призначення та сучасних міжнародних норм їх спостереження та регуляції. Висновки. В сучасних умовах існує потреба удосконалення навчальних програм післядипломної підготовки військових лікарів в аспекті вивчення токсикології хімікатів подвійного призначення та міжнародних норм їх контролю. ; Background. Recently, international regulators, in particular the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Australian Group, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), are increa­singly focusing on dual-use chemicals, which are widely used in industry in many countries of the world, but under certain conditions, can be used as chemical weapons. Information on dual-use chemicals is open-access, constantly updated, but not adequately reflected in the postgraduate training curricula of military doctors. The purpose of the study is to confirm the rele­vance of expanding the range of knowledge on the toxicology of dual-use chemicals and to develop the thematic improvement cycle for military doctors of various specialties as a component of the gene­ral program of post-graduate training of doctors, conducted by the Department of Military Toxicology, Radiolo­gy and Medical Protection of the Ukrainian Military Medical Academy. Materials and methods. Materials of the bulletins of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Australian Group press releases, materials of the international conferences of the OSCE over the past 10 years on the international regulation of chemical and toxin weapons been analyzed. The components of the global chemical oversight system that can be used as components of chemical weapons been generalized. Results. Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction signed on behalf of Ukraine on January 13, 1993 in Paris, Ukraine, was ratified by Law No. 187-XIV of October 16, 1998.Today, The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons acts as an international legal framework for clarifying the provisions of the Convention. In addition, the organization carries out inspections of military-industrial facilities to ensure compliance with the requirements of the Convention by the participating countries. The Convention not only prescribes the destruction and prohibition of chemical weapons and related objects, but also sets limits on the international trade in toxic chemicals and precursors that can be used for military purposes. According to the Analytical review of the state of technogenic and natural safety in Ukraine for 2016, there are high risks in emergencies in Ukraine related to accidents with emission or hazardous release of hazardous chemicals. Potential risks are related to the operation of 711 facilities, in which more than 285 thousand tons of hazardous chemicals are stored or used in the production activity, including more than 3 thousand tons of chlorine, 183 thousand tons of ammonia and about 99 thousand tons of hazardous chemicals. Among the objects that store or use chemicals in their activities, the most potentially dangerous are: the production of explosives and the disposal of unsuitable ammunition; large-scale production of inorganic substances (mineral fertilizers, chlorine, ammonia, acids); oil and gas refineries; production of organic synthesis products; production using chlorine and ammonia; Warehouses and bases with reserves of pesticides for agriculture; main ammonia and ethylene pipelines. The foregoing makes Ukraine the subject of special attention from the international organizations dealing with issues of chemical safety and control over chemical wea­pons.It should be noted that the post-graduate trainings of military doctors focus on studying of weapons of mass destruction, in particular chemical weapons. The presentation of the educational material is based on the methodology developed during the Second World War. Traditional educational material reveals only certain aspects of chemical weapons of previous decades. At the same time, it would be advisable to reflect on contemporary aspects of chemical safety in the programs of postgraduate training of military toxicologists, in particular potential threats involving dual-use chemicals and international mechanisms for their research and regulation. Conclusions. Observing dual-use chemicals is an important aspect of the international chemical safety and security. Taking into account the scale of chemical production in Ukraine, where dual-use substances are used, and the nature of existing chemical threats, dual-use monitoring is a matter of increasing relevance. In view of the above, there is a need to revise certain sections of the training programs of post-graduate training of military toxicologists in order to acquire theoretical knowledge of dual-use chemicals and international standards for their control.

Introduction : the worlds of environmental justice / Ryan Holifield, Jayajit Chakraborty, and Gordon Walker -- Historicizing the personal and the political : evolving racial formations and the environmental justice movement / Laura Pulido -- 3social movements for environmental justice through the lens of social movement theory / Diane M. Sicotte and Robert J. Brulle -- Environmental justice movements and political opportunity structures / David N. Pellow -- Environmental justice and rational choice theory / William M. Bowen -- The political economy of environmental justice / Daniel Faber -- Feminism and environmental justice / Greta Gaard -- Opening black boxes : environmental justice and injustice through the lens of science and technology studies / Gwen Ottinger -- Procedural environmental justice / Derek Bell and Jayne Carrick -- The recognition paradigm of environmental injustice / Kyle Whyte -- A capabilities approach to environmental injustice / Rosie Day -- Vulnerability, equality, and environmental justice : the potential and limits of law / Sheila Foster -- Environmental human rights / Kerri Woods -- Sustainability discourses and justice : towards social-ecological justice / Ulrika Gunnarsson-Östling and Åsa Svenfelt -- Spatial representation and estimation of environmental risk : a review of analytic approaches / Jayajit Chakraborty -- Assessing population at risk : areal interpolation and dasymetric mapping / Juliana Maantay and Andrew Maroko -- Application of spatial statistical techniques / Jeremy Mennis and Megan Heckert -- Historical approaches to environmental justice / Christopher G. Boone and Geoffrey L. Buckley -- The ethics of embodied engagement : ethnographies of environmental justice / Kathleen M. de Onís and Phaedra C. Pezzullo -- Storytelling environmental justice : cultural studies approaches / Donna Houston and Pavithra Vasudevan -- Facilitating transdisciplinary conversations in environmental justice studies / Jonathan K. London, Julie Sze, and Mary L. Cadenasso -- Cumulative risk assessment : an analytic tool to inform policy choices about environmental justice / Ken Sexton and Stephen H. Linder -- A review of community-engaged research approaches used to achieve environmental justice and eliminate disparities / Jacoby Wilson, Aaron Aber, Lindsey Wright, and Vivek Ravichandran -- Participatory GIS and community-based citizen science for environmental justice action / Muki Haklay and Louise Francis -- Streams of toxic and hazardous waste disparities, politics, and policy / Troy D. Abel and Mark Stephan -- Air pollution and respiratory health : does better evidence lead to policy paralysis? / Michael Buzzelli -- Water justice : key concepts, debates and research agendas / Leila M. Harris, Scott McKenzie, Lucy Rodina, Sameer H. Shah, Nicole J. Wilson -- Environmental justice and flood hazards : a conceptual framework applied to emerging findings and future research needs / Timothy W. Collins and Sara E. Grineski -- Climate change and environmental justice / Philip Coventry and Chukwumerije Okereke -- Environmental justice and large-scale mining / Leire Urkidi and Mariana Walter -- Justice in energy system transitions : a synthesis and agenda / Karen Bickerstaff -- Transportation and environmental justice : history and emerging practice / Alex Karner, Aaron Golub, Karel Martens, Glenn Robinson -- Food justice : an environmental justice approach to food and agriculture / Alison Hope Alkon -- Environmental crime and justice : a green criminological examination / Michael J. Lynch and Kimberly L. Barrett -- Urban parks, gardens and greenspace / Jason Byrne -- Urban planning, community (re)development, and environmental gentrification : emerging challenges for green and equitable neighbourhoods / Isabelle Anguelovski, Anna Livia Brand, Eric Chu, and Kian Goh -- Just conservation : the evolving relationship between society and protected areas / Maureen G. Reed and Colleen George -- Free-market economics, multinational corporations and environmental justice in a globalized world / Ruchi Anand -- Global environmental justice / Leah Temper -- Environmental justice for a changing arctic and its original peoples / Alana Shaw -- Environmental injustice in resource-rich Aboriginal Australia / Donna Green, Marianne Sullivan and Karrina Nolan -- Environmental justice across borders : lessons from the US-Mexico borderlands / Sara E. Grineski and Timothy W. Collins -- The dawn of environmental justice? : the record of left and socialist governance in Central and South America / Karen Bell -- Urban environmental (in)justice in Latin America : the case of Chile / Alexis Vásquez, Michael Lukas, Marcela Salgado and José Mayorga -- Environmental justice in Nigeria : divergent tales, paradoxes and future prospects / Rhuks T. Ako and Damilola S. Olawuyi -- Sub-imperial ecosystem management in Africa : continental implications of South African environmental injustices / Patrick Bond -- Environmental justice and attachment to place : Australian cases / David Schlosberg, Lauren Rickards, and Jason Byrne -- Environmental justice in South and Southeast Asia : inequalities and struggles in rural and urban contexts / Pratyusha Basu -- Environmental justice in a transitional and transboundary context in East Asia / Mei-Fang Fan and Kuei-Tien Chou -- Environmental justice in Western Europe / Heike Köckler, Séverine Deguen, Andrea Ranzi, Anders Melin, and Gordon Walker -- Environmental justice in Central and Eastern Europe : mobilization, stagnation, and detraction / Tamara Steger, Richard Filcak, and Krista Harper

We report on multi-band observations of the transient source Swift J0840.7-3516, which was detected in outburst in 2020 February by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The outburst episode lasted just ∼5 days, during which the X-ray luminosity quickly decreased from LX ≈ 3 × 1037 d102 erg s-1 at peak down to LX ≈ 5 × 1033 d102 erg s-1 in quiescence (0.3-10 keV; d10 is the distance to the source in units of 10 kpc). Such x display--inline-block" style="background: var(--highlight-yellow); color: inherit;">a marked and rapid decrease in the flux was also registered at UV and optical wavelengths. In outburst, the source showed considerable aperiodic variability in the X-rays on timescales as short as x display--inline-block" style="background: var(--highlight-yellow); color: inherit;">a few seconds. The spectrum of the source in the energy range 0.3-20 keV was well described by x display--inline-block" style="background: var(--highlight-yellow); color: inherit;">a thermal, blackbody-like, component plus x display--inline-block" style="background: var(--highlight-yellow); color: inherit;">a non-thermal, power law-like, component and it softened considerably as the source returned to quiescence. The spectrum of the optical counterpart in quiescence showed broad emission features mainly associated with ionised carbon and oxygen, superposed on x display--inline-block" style="background: var(--highlight-yellow); color: inherit;">a blue continuum. No evidence for bright continuum radio emission was found in quiescence. We discuss possible scenarios for the nature of this source and show that the observed phenomenology points to x display--inline-block" style="background: var(--highlight-yellow); color: inherit;">a transient ultra-compact X-ray binary system. © ESO 2021. ; This research is based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), installed at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in the island of La Palma, under Director's Discretionary Time (code GTC2020-142). The data were obtained with OSIRIS, built by a Consortium led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in collaboration with the Instituto de Astronomía of the Universidad Autónoma de México. OSIRIS was funded by GRANTECAN and the National Plan of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Spanish Government. We are indebted to Antonio Cabrera and the GTC staff for their efforts in performing the GTC observations. The NuSTAR mission is a project led by the California Institute of Technology, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and funded by NASA. The NICER mission operates on the International Space Station and is funded by NASA. The Australia Telescope Compact Array is part of the Australia Telescope National Facility which is funded by the Australian Government for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. We acknowledge the Gomeroi people as the traditional owners of the ATCA observatory site. This research made use of: the NuSTAR Data Analysis Software (NuSTARDAS) jointly developed by the ASI Science Data Center (ASDC) and the California Institute of Technology; software provided by the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), which is a service of the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA/GSFC and the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; IRAF, distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation; APLpy (Robitaille & Bressert 2012), an open-source plotting package for Python hosted at https://aplpy.github.io/; and Astropy (Astropy Collaboration 2013, 2018), a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy. We also made use of the following software: CASA (McMullin et al. 2007), HEASOFT v. 6.28, HENDRICS v. 5.1 (Bachetti 2018), XSPEC v. 12.11.1 (Arnaud 1996). FCZ and AB are supported by Juan de la Cierva fellowships. FCZ, AB and NR are supported by the ERC Consolidator Grant 'MAGNESIA' (nr. 817661) and acknowledge funding from grants SGR2017-1383 and PGC2018-095512-BI00. AdUP acknowledges funding from a Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RyC-2012-09975). TDR acknowledges financial contribution from the agreement ASI-INAF n.2017-14-H.0. We thank support from the COST Action 'PHAROS' (CA 16124). ; With funding from the Spanish government through the 'Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence' accreditation (SEV-2017-0709). ; Peer reviewed

This research paper is a considered response to the criticisms leveled at the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), which question RAMSI's motives or political agenda for intervening in the Solomon Islands (SI), the comprehensive and intrusive nature of its assistance (and the implications for state sovereignty), and its failure to meet the expectations of the SI Government (SIG) and people four years since its engagement. RAMSI is a long term commitment for Australia given the scope of the assistance program, therefore it is imperative to ensure RAMSI's effectiveness as a statebuilding mission. Without generalising, RAMSI also provides a unique example of a peacekeeping intervention that is preventative rather than reactive, offering assistance to the SIG to preempt state collapse or 'failure' . If RAMSI is ultimately judged a success, the precedent that it has set may be followed in subsequent peacekeeping missions. Such intervention is comprehensive, intrusive, and expensive, but may provide the longer term stability for the SI that previous assistance missions could not. RAMI is therefore an important case study to understand the changing nature of peacekeeping. 'Political legitimacy' is a useful analytical concept particularly due to the lack of comparable interventions through which to evaluate RAMSI's relative success or failure. There is no policy model yet developed to effect the type of 'root and branch reform' that RAMSI seeks to achieve. Evaluating political legitimacy allows for an examination of the 'grey areas' that RAMS! is entering, such as how to respect the sovereignty of a state while rebuilding it from the foundations up, and how to set the boundaries of assistance realistically to ensure that expectations of what RAMSI can deliver are met. The political agenda motivating RAMSI's creation is complex, and rightly questioned given the pace of the policy back flip. A number of reasons motivated RAMSI's intervention, the foremost being the security risk posed by failed states in Australia's immediate neighbourhood, and the opportunity cost of non-intervention to prevent SI collapse. However, Australia's political agenda in the Pacific region (and motivation for creating RAMSI) cannot be dismissed as 'illegitimate' simply because national interest (self interest) was a key factor. Posing altruism against legitimacy creates a false dichotomy as selfish motives do not necessarily undermine the legitimacy of the outcome achieved. Legitimacy must be assessed by results and the way in which these results are achieved. RAMSI's respect for sovereignty is difficult to gauge. RAMSI's intervention was legally authorised by the SIG, the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), and the UN according to international law and respect for state sovereign consent. However the preemptive nature of RAMSI's intervention has made respecting SIG sovereignty more difficult as RAMSI is working through and on behalf of the SIG but does not exist as a separate legal entity to the SIG. RAMSI's accountability is therefore unclear and has caused tension. Politically respecting sovereignty has proven even more difficult in light of the SIG' distrust and suspicion of RAMSI's activity and the lack of effective partnership developed between SIG and RAMSI. RAMSI's involvement in the SI is at the invitation of the SIG, however the depth of RAMSI's involvement in governance reform of the SIG, particularly its use of in-line personnel and its anti-corruption focus, has considerably tested the SiG-RAMSI relationship. There is political will from both sides to build a more effective partnership that emphasizes accountability and consultation, which should reduce the tensions that have characterized the relationship thus far. Managing expectations has also proven challenging, with the SI looking to RAMSI as a panacea particularly in light of it substantial achievements made to date, and Australia's lack of humility and political fervour to sell the RAMSI success story further elevating expectations of what RAMSI can achieve and how fast. Ensuring that RAMSI meets the expectations placed on it requires both pragmatism in understanding the limits on the assistance that a peacekeeping mission can provide, and humility in sharing 'ownership' of RAMSI with the SIG and SI people, the PIF and Pacific region more broadly, and where appropriate, development partners such as the UN. Avoiding overselling RAMSI's success is likely to be difficult however.

Judicial independence and accountability are central legal and political values. Chapter III of the Australian Constitution entrenches the minimum standard for judicial independence. The High Court is the guardian against that standard being encroached. A mechanism for judicial accountability in the federal jurisdiction must be consistent with Chapter III. In recognition that the High Court will strictly enforce the primacy of Chapter III, the Parliamentary Judicial Misbehaviour or Incapacity Commission Bill is "a conservative constitutional approach to ensure validity".2 Section 72 of the Constitution provides a notional standard for the removal of federal judges; "proved misbehaviour or incapacity". However, the section does not clarify the appropriate procedure which the Parliament can adopt as they contemplate removal. T11e PJMIC would facilitate the credibility and transparency of parliamentary deliberations under s72 by providing an investigative service. Since the PJMIC does not adjudicate, or even directly receive, complaints, its scope of operation will be unlikely to infringe the exclusive vesting in s72. The PJMIC Bill is paralleled by a proposed amendment to the Senate and House of Representative Standing Orders. This amendment would impose important safeguards against the use of parliamentary privilege on hi vial or reckless grounds. 3 The misuse of parliamentary privilege in this regard would have serious consequences for public confidence in a Justice. Significant difficultly is presented by the situation of judicial misbehaviour or incapacity which, although constitutive of undesirable conduct, would not satisfy the threshold for removal. Where judicial misbehaviour or incapacity has directly impacted the outcome of a case, the appeals process may provide an immediate remedy. However, it should not remain the obligation of a party to detect and enforce proper judicial conduct. Where less serious judicial misconduct or incapacity has occurred, it is apt to question what the practical protection ensured by the concept of judicial independence is. If judges do not have margin to make some errors of judgement without a looming accountability mechanism, substantive make some errors of judgement without a looming accountability mechanism, substantive judicial independence is defeated. Under the current federal arrangement the treatment of complaints is effectively selfregulated by the judiciary. That is, complaints are resolved by an informal and collegial approach. This arrangement has recently been criticised as unacceptably secretive and lacking in transparency. 4 Given the growing public imperative for the transparent treatment of complaints, it is undesirable that judicial accountability in the federal jurisdiction remain an informal, differentiated and ad hoc procedure. In Australia, the use of judicial commissions has been controversial and inconsistent. The Judicial Commission of New South Wales, made constitutionally viable by the Kable doctrine, is increasingly presented as an ideal judicial commission. Although Victoria and Western Australia are currently contemplating the replication of the JCNSW, it is unlikely that a reform would be consistent with Chapter III in the federal context. The PJMIC is not structured to address less serious complaints, and neither it feasible to independence is defeated. Under the current federal arrangement the treatment of complaints is effectively selfregulated by the judiciary. That is, complaints are resolved by an informal and collegial approach. This arrangement has recently been criticised as unacceptably secretive and lacking in transparency.4 Given the growing public imperative for the transparent treatment of complaints, it is undesirable that judicial accountability in the federal jurisdiction remain an informal, differentiated and ad hoc procedure. In Australia, the use of judicial commissions has been controversial and inconsistent. The Judicial Commission of New South Wales, made constitutionally viable by the Kable doctrine, is increasingly presented as an ideal judicial commission. Although Victoria and Western Australia are currently contemplating the replication of the JCNSW, it is unlikely that a reform would be consistent with Chapter III in the federal context. The PJMIC is not structured to address less serious complaints, and neither it feasible to replicate the JCNSW. Accordingly, this paper recommends a replication of s21 B(IA)(b) of the Family Law Act 1975 in each federal court statute. It also adopts the recommendation of the Access to Justice Advisory Committee (1994) ('AJAC') proposal for the introduction of court charters. If each federal court would codify their expectations for performance standards in a charter, this would allow for judges, court staff, parliamentarians considering a s72 motion, and the general public to have the same expectations and information. A charter could also outline a comprehensive process for the treatment of complaints within each court; it could express precisely the responsibilities of the chief justices in complaint handling; and could implement the Constitutional Committee (2009) recommendation that the federal courts should publish quarterly complaint handling summaries.

Introduction: Internal conflict has become the predominant threat to the security and stability of many of the small island nations of the Southwest Pacific and particularly in the countries of Melanesia. Since the late 1980s, conflicts of varying causes and degrees of intensity have occurred in Papua New Guinea (Bougainville secession attempt), Fiji (coups and attempted coups), Vanuatu (police rebellion) and Solomon Islands (ethnic conflict and coup). These events have seriously debilitated the already fragile national economies and polities of all countries, so much so in the Solomon Islands that that country is now being described by many analysts as a failing, if not failed, state. While most of these countries have so far been able (not without difficulty) to maintain a measure of state integrity, the situation in Solomon Islands has become so precarious that Australia and New Zealand (with the support of most Pacific Island governments and anticipating a request from the Solomons parliament) are preparing to intervene in an attempt to restore the rule of law and rebuild administrative institutions. The form of that intervention is not yet clear - it is thought likely to include up to 2,000 armed military and police with a large team of civilian technical personnel nor has a mandate been determined. In this context a host of questions arises as to how best to resolve, contain, manage and/or transform these internal conflicts in the interest of the security, stability and well-being of the peoples of the countries concerned and of the region as a whole. What are the ways out - or ways through - such conflicts? What are the appropriate domestic strategies, policies and mechanisms for resolving conflict and producing stability? Are they sufficient to the task? What roles can (and should) regional states play in helping states manage, settle or ameliorate internal conflict? Is external intervention the answer? What is the likely impact of such intervention? Is there a regional security architecture that might be useful in these circumstances? Is there a role for NGOs? Is conflict prevention possible? And if so, how? Do the answers not lie in a holistic approach to improving the processes of economic development and governance? And if so what agencies and policies are most likely to bring this about? How has the region responded to date? These questions deserve serious consideration and doubtless many will have been explored in presentations and discussions at this conference. The purpose of this paper is to consider one form of conflict management undertaken recently in the region; that is, the peace monitoring interventions by Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific Island Countries (PICs) in Bougainville and Solomon Islands. How useful have these exercises been in assisting peace processes and in conflict management/peace construction, and what lessons can be drawn from them for any future such operations - including perhaps for the more vigorous co-operative intervention currently in prospect? From 1997 to 2003, the Truce Monitoring Group (TMG) and later the Peace Monitoring Group (PMG), consisting of unarmed Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Islands military and civilian personnel, provided support to and helped facilitate the peace process in Bougainville. These external groups, numbering from 250 to 300 personnel at various points in time, were agreed to by the parties to the Burnham and Lincoln peace conferences held in 1997 and 1998. In Solomon Islands, following the conclusion of the Townsville Peace Agreement (TPA) in October 2000 to mid-2002, an International Peace Monitoring Team (IPMT) comprising 50 unarmed police and civilian personnel from Australia, New Zealand and other PICs, was established to work in support of the indigenous Peace Monitoring Council (PMC) that had also been set up by the parties to the TPA to advance the cause of peace. While the specific mandates and responsibilities of the PMG and IPMT differed and the resources available to the two operations also differed substantially the expectation of the signatories to the peace agreements was that by providing a neutral, physical presence, by undertaking community confidence-building activities, and by facilitating contact between stakeholders in the respective peace processes, these interventions would help consolidate peace and reduce the prospect of renewed fighting. Note that these were not coercive interventions or humanitarian interventions in which armed forces under, for example, United Nations or regional agency command are inserted into a civil conflict to stop fighting and bloodshed and to make or keep the peace. They were unarmed and neutral monitoring operations consisting of military, police and civilian personnel inserted after peace agreements had been reached between combatants and authorities. These were a type of intervention designed to assist in conflict management and amelioration as part of the larger peace process rather than as the prime mover of the process.(At times, however, the PMG saw it as its responsibility to help maintain, or re-start, the momentum of the process when it flagged). Note also that in attempting to learn and apply lessons from one countrys conflict to anothers, methodological difficulties arise. Conflicts and resolutions are often context specific and the factors in play in one conflict/post-conflict situation do not always translate well to others. But while there are obvious limits to comparisons, it is nonetheless possible to generate at least some rules of thumb, particularly since there has been (a) such a large number of monitoring interventions of various kinds and (b) that the learning of lessons especially from UN operations has become something of an industry. ; AusAID

Includes bibliographical references. ; Sponsored by the ASAIHL ; published_or_final_version ; Keynote address Wang, Gungwu Wang, Gungwu 2 ; Country reports ; A Health hazards of environmental pollution ; B Monitoring and instrumentation of environmental pollution ; C Legal controls of environmental pollution ; D Treatment and prevention of environmental pollution ; Australian approaches to finger printing sources of environmental lead with isotopes Gulson, B.L. Gulson, B.L. 13 ; The contribution of health care departments in tertiary institutions in Hong Kong to combating the hazards of pollution King, A.R. King, A.R. 19 ; The role of institutions of higher learning in combating health hazards of environmental pollution Rampal, K.G. Rampal, K.G. Ismail, N. Ismail, N. 26 ; Education programmes for training of agrichemical users in New Zealand Penman, D.R. 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Burnett, J. Chan, D.W.T. Chan, D.W.T. 87 ; The effects of pesticides use on the health of on farmers in East Java, Indonesia Mukono, J. Mukono, J. 94 ; Noise and human activities in Hong Kong: a review Tan, T.C. Tan, T.C. Wong, L.T.L. Wong, L.T.L. 98 ; Analysis of organophosphorus insecticides in vegetables Tanner, P.A. Tanner, P.A. Leung, K.H. Leung, K.H. 105 ; Health risk and environmental pollution: the hidden factors Peters, J. Peters, J. Lui, J. Lui, J. Wong, C.M. Wong, C.M. Hedley, A.J. Hedley, A.J. Lam, T.H. Lam, T.H. Ong, S.G. Ong, S.G. Tam, A.Y.C. Tam, A.Y.C. 109 ; Risk assessment and management in the prevention of adverse effects on human health and the environment Spickett, J.T. Spickett, J.T. 117 ; Indoor and outdoor pollution in shops and offices in Hong Kong and health effects Bacon-Shone, J. Bacon-Shone, J. Liao, S. Liao, S. 122 ; Climatological assessment of potential heat stress in Hong Kong Kyle, W.J. Kyle, W.J. 126 ; Asbestos dust: a silent enemy Lam, K.Y. 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Stokes, M.J. 171 ; A geographical approach to evaluating the human impact upon water quality Peart, M.R. Peart, M.R. 178 ; Modular auto-enrichment subsystem for use in environmental high pressure liquid chromatography analysis Chen, S.C. Chen, S.C. Chang, J.Y. Chang, J.Y. Wang, R.K. Wang, R.K. 183 ; Exposure to environmental pollutants in the work environment: a case study of a traffic toll booth in Malaysia Yaziz, M.I. Yaziz, M.I. 187 ; A proposed air quality index in Hong Kong Ng, C.N. Ng, C.N. Tanner, P.A. Tanner, P.A. 191 ; Background level of trace elements in soils of mainland China Chen, J.S. Chen, J.S. Tao, S. Tao, S. Deng, B.S. Deng, B.S. Wang, X.J. Wang, X.J. 196 ; Indoor monitoring of nitrogen oxides Cheung, M.T. Cheung, M.T. 200 ; Development of a piezoelectric crystal sorption detector for continuous monitoring of organic vapours at the workplace Fung, Y.S. Fung, Y.S. 205 ; Effects of some standard fixatives on fish gill morphology Shepherd, M. Shepherd, M. Ivanstoff, W. Ivanstoff, W. 210 ; Simulation of urban traffic noise on the environment Pamanikabud, P. Pamanikabud, P. 215 ; Investigation into the haze episodes in the Kelang Valley, Malaysia Samah, A.A. Samah, A.A. 221 ; Photoacoustic determination of organic pollutant gases in Hong Kong air Shi, B. Shi, B. Siu, G.G. Siu, G.G. Chiu, D.D.S. Chiu, D.D.S. 228 ; Application of the proton induced X-ray emission (PIXE) technique for the study of respirable suspended particulated (RSP) in Hong Kong Cai, Z.X. Cai, Z.X. Sze, P.Y.K. Sze, P.Y.K. Stokes, M.J. Stokes, M.J. Young, E.C.M. Young, E.C.M. 234 ; Follow-up stream sediment geochemical reconnaissance surveys in the vicinity of Tai Mo Shan, New Territories, Hong Kong Yim, W.W.S. Yim, W.W.S. Ng, C.Y. Ng, C.Y. Thornton, I. Thornton, I. 240 ; Introduction 249 ; Environmental pollution, higher education, and the rule of law Axline, M. Axline, M. 251 ; Legal controls of environmental pollution in Asia: how effective are they? Allen, J. Allen, J. 256 ; Hong Kong's water pollution controls: are we serious? Baillie, B.G. Baillie, B.G. 265 ; Environmental law in Hong Kong - a legal practitioner's point of view Skrine, R. Skrine, R. 277 ; Has the use of unleaded petrol provided a lead-free environment in Hong Kong? Au, C.T. Au, C.T. Chou, K.M. Chou, K.M. Wong, K.Y. Wong, K.Y. 282 ; The influence of the health act on present environmental problems Prabawa Utama, S.H. Prabawa Utama, S.H. 288 ; Environmental impact assessment and the role of legislation in environmental control - the case of Malaysia Idris, A.B. Idris, A.B. Fuad, A. Fuad, A. 294 ; Social responsbility awareness assessment of selected university respondents in combating environmental pollution Barcelona, A.C. Barcelona, A.C. 301 ; Alternatives to legal controls on environmental pollution Kaine, G. Kaine, G. Reeve, I. Reeve, I. Musgrave, W. Musgrave, W. 306 ; Introduction 315 ; Towards low-waste technology Diaper, J. Diaper, J. 317 ; Changing environmental values and institution building: the role of ASAIHL Hills, P. Hills, P. 325 ; Prevention and treatment of environmental pollution Mena, M.M. Mena, M.M. 332 ; The nature and control of motor vehicle emissions - methanol as an alternative fuel Cheung, C.S. Cheung, C.S. Lui, Y.B. Lui, Y.B. Leung, T.P. Leung, T.P. 335 ; Treatment and disposal of heavy metal wastes using cementitious solidification Peralta, G.L. Peralta, G.L. Ballesteros, F.C. Ballesteros, F.C. Cepeda, M.L. Cepeda, M.L. 340 ; A membrane anaerobic system for wastewater treatment Fakrul-Razi, A. Fakrul-Razi, A. 346 ; Prevention and treatment of air pollution in Hong Kong Lam, J.C. Lam, J.C. 351 ; Environmental education - a strategy for the treatment and prevention of environmental pollution Manalo, J.A. Manalo, J.A. Sergovia, V. Sergovia, V. Hocson, T.R. Hocson, T.R. 357 ; Bacterial reduction during sewage treatment - the Hong Kong experience Hodgkiss, I.J. Hodgkiss, I.J. Chiu, S.H.C. 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The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) aims to accelerate biomedical advances by enabling the responsible sharing of clinical and genomic data through both harmonized data aggregation and federated approaches. The decreasing cost of genomic sequencing (along with other genome-wide molecular assays) and increasing evidence of its clinical utility will soon drive the generation of sequence data from tens of millions of humans, with increasing levels of diversity. In this perspective, we present the GA4GH strategies for addressing the major challenges of this data revolution. We describe the GA4GH organization, which is fueled by the development efforts of eight Work Streams and informed by the needs of 24 Driver Projects and other key stakeholders. We present the GA4GH suite of secure, interoperable technical standards and policy frameworks and review the current status of standards, their relevance to key domains of research and clinical care, and future plans of GA4GH. Broad international participation in building, adopting, and deploying GA4GH standards and frameworks will catalyze an unprecedented effort in data sharing that will be critical to advancing genomic medicine and ensuring that all populations can access its benefits. ; B.P.C. acknowledges funding from Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital; T.H. Nyrönen acknowledges funding from Academy of Finland grant #31996; A.M.-J., K.N., T.F.B., O.M.H., and Z.S. acknowledge funding from Australian Medical Research Future Fund; M.S. acknowledges funding from Biobank Japan; D. Bujold and S.J.M.J. acknowledge funding from Canada Foundation for Innovation; L.J.D. acknowledges funding from Canada Foundation for Innovation Cyber Infrastructure grant #34860; D. Bujold and G.B. acknowledge funding from CANARIE; L.J.D. acknowledges funding from CANARIE Research Data Management contract #RDM-090 (CHORD) and #RDM2-053 (ClinDIG); K.K.-L. acknowledges funding from CanSHARE; T.L.T. acknowledges funding from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; T. Burdett acknowledges funding from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative grant #2017-171671; D. Bujold, G.B., and L.D.S. acknowledge funding from CIHR; L.J.D. acknowledges funding from CIHR grant #404896; M.J.S.B. acknowledges funding from CIHR grant #SBD-163124; M. Courtot and M. Linden acknowledge funding from CINECA project EU Horizon 2020 grant #825775; D. Bujold and G.B. acknowledge funding from Compute Canada; F.M.-G. acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – NFDI 1/1 "GHGA – German Human Genome-Phenome Archive; R.M.H.-S. acknowledges funding from Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy; S.B. and A.J.B. acknowledge funding from EJP-RD EU Horizon 2020 grant #825575; A. Niewielska, A.K., D.S., G.I.S., J.A.T., J.R., M.A.K., M. Baudis, M. Linden, S.B., S.S., T.H. Nyrönen, and T.M.K. acknowledge funding from ELIXIR; A. Niewielska acknowledges funding from EOSC-Life EU Horizon 2020 grant #824087; J.-P.H. acknowledges funding from ETH Domain Strategic Focal Area "Personalized Health and Related Technologies (PHRT)" grant #2017-201; F.M.-G. acknowledges funding from EUCANCan EU Horizon 2020 grant #825835; B.M.K., D. Bujold, G.B., L.D.S., M.J.S.B., N.S., S.E.W., and Y.J. acknowledge funding from Genome Canada; B.M.K., M.J.S.B., S.E.W., and Y.J. acknowledge funding from Genome Quebec; F.M.-G. acknowledges funding from German Human Genome-Phenome Archive; C. Voisin acknowledges funding from Google; A.J.B. acknowledges funding from Health Data Research UK Substantive Site Award; D.H. acknowledges funding from Howard Hughes Medical Institute; S.B. acknowledges funding from Instituto de Salud Carlos III; S.-S.K. and K.T. acknowledge funding from Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED); S. Ogishima acknowledges funding from Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) grant #20kk0205014h0005; C.Y. and K. Kosaki acknowledge funding from Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) grant #JP18kk0205012; GEM Japan acknowledges funding from Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) grants #19kk0205014h0004, #20kk0205014h0005, #20kk0205013h0005, #20kk0205012h0005, #20km0405401h0003, and #19km0405001h0104; J.R. acknowledges funding from La Caixa Foundation under project #LCF/PR/GN13/50260009; R.R.F. acknowledges funding from Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine; Y.J. and S.E.W. acknowledge funding from Ministère de l'Économie et de l'Innovation du Québec for the Can-SHARE Connect Project; S.E.W. and S.O.M.D. acknowledge funding from Ministère de l'Économie et de l'Innovation du Québec for the Can-SHARE grant #141210; M.A.H., M.C.M.-T., J.O.J., H.E.P., and P.N.R. acknowledge funding from Monarch Initiative grant #R24OD011883 and Phenomics First NHGRI grant #1RM1HG010860; A.L.M. and E.B. acknowledge funding from MRC grant #MC_PC_19024; P.T. acknowledges funding from National University of Singapore and Agency for Science, Technology and Research; J.M.C. acknowledges funding from NHGRI; A.H.W. acknowledges funding from NHGRI awards K99HG010157, R00HG010157, and R35HG011949; A.M.-J., K.N., D.P.H., O.M.H., T.F.B., and Z.S. acknowledge funding from NHMRC grants #GNT1113531 and #GNT2000001; D.L.C. acknowledges funding from NHMRC Ideas grant #1188098; A.B.S. acknowledges funding from NHMRC Investigator Fellowship grant #APP177524; J.M.C. and L.D.S. acknowledge funding from NIH; A.A.P. acknowledges funding from NIH Anvil; A.V.S. acknowledges funding from NIH contract #HHSN268201800002I (TOPMed Informatics Research Center); S.U. acknowledges funding from NIH ENCODE grant #UM1HG009443; M.C.M.-T. and M.A.H. acknowledge funding from NIH grant #1U13CA221044; R.J.C. acknowledges funding from NIH grants #1U24HG010262 and #1U2COD023196; M.G. acknowledges funding from NIH grant #R00HG007940; J.B.A., S.L., P.G., E.B., H.L.R., and L.S. acknowledge funding from NIH grant #U24HG011025; K.P.E. acknowledges funding from NIH grant #U2C-RM-160010; J.A.E. acknowledges funding from NIH NCATS grant #U24TR002306; M.M. acknowledges funding from NIH NCI contract #HHSN261201400008c and ID/IQ Agreement #17X146 under contract #HHSN2612015000031 and #75N91019D00024; R.M.C.-D. acknowledges funding from NIH NCI grant #R01CA237118; M. Cline acknowledges funding from NIH NCI grant #U01CA242954; K.P.E. acknowledges funding from NIH NCI ITCR grant #1U24CA231877-01; O.L.G. acknowledges funding from NIH NCI ITCR grant #U24CA237719; R.L.G. acknowledges funding from NIH NCI task order #17X147F10 under contract #HHSN261200800001E; A.F.R. acknowledges funding from NIH NHGRI grant #RM1HG010461; N.M. and L.J.Z. acknowledge funding from NIH NHGRI grant #U24HG006941; R.R.F., T.H. Nelson, L.J.B., and H.L.R. acknowledge funding from NIH NHGRI grant #U41HG006834; B.J.W. acknowledges funding from NIH NHGRI grant #UM1HG009443A; M. Cline acknowledges funding from NIH NHLBI BioData Catalyst Fellowship grant #5118777; M.M. acknowledges funding from NIH NHLBI BioData Catalyst Program grant #1OT3HL142478-01; N.C.S. acknowledges funding from NIH NIGMS grant #R35-GM128636; M.C.M.-T., M.A.H., P.N.R., and R.R.F. acknowledge funding from NIH NLM contract #75N97019P00280; E.B. and A.L.M. acknowledge funding from NIHR; R.G. acknowledges funding from Project Ris3CAT VEIS; S.B. acknowledges funding from RD-Connect, Seventh Framework Program grant #305444; J.K. acknowledges funding from Robertson Foundation; S.B. and A.J.B. acknowledge funding from Solve-RD, EU Horizon 2020 grant #779257; T.S. and S. Oesterle acknowledge funding from Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) and Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN), supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI; S.J.M.J. acknowledges funding from Terry Fox Research Institute; A.E.H., M.P.B., M. Cupak, M.F., and J.F. acknowledge funding from the Digital Technology Supercluster; D.F.V. acknowledges funding from the Australian Medical Research Future Fund, as part of the Genomics Health Futures Mission grant #76749; M. Baudis acknowledges funding from the BioMedIT Network project of Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) and Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN); B.M.K. acknowledges funding from the Canada Research Chair in Law and Medicine and CIHR grant #SBD-163124; D.S., G.I.S., M.A.K., S.B., S.S., and T.H. Nyrönen acknowledge funding from the EU Horizon 2020 Beyond 1 Million Genomes (B1MG) Project grant #951724; P.F., A.D.Y., F.C., H.S., I.U.L., D. Gupta, M. Courtot, S.E.H., T. Burdett, T.M.K., and S.F. acknowledge funding from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Y.J. and S.E.W. acknowledge funding from the Government of Canada; P.G. acknowledges funding from the Government of Canada through Genome Canada and the Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI-206); J.Z. acknowledges funding from the Government of Ontario; C.K.Y. acknowledges funding from the Government of Ontario, Canada Foundation for Innovation; C. Viner and M.M.H. acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (grant #RGPIN-2015-03948 to M.M.H. and Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship to C.V.); K.K.-L. acknowledges funding from the Program for Integrated Database of Clinical and Genomic Information; J.K. acknowledges funding from the Robertson Foundation; D.F.V. acknowledges funding from the Victorian State Government through the Operational Infrastructure Support (OIS) Program; A.M.L., R.N., and H.V.F. acknowledge funding from Wellcome (collaborative award); F.C., H.S., P.F., and S.E.H. acknowledge funding from Wellcome Trust grant #108749/Z/15/Z; A.D.Y., H.S., I.U.L., M. Courtot, H.E.P., P.F., and T.M.K. acknowledge funding from Wellcome Trust grant #201535/Z/16/Z; A.M., J.K.B., R.J.M., R.M.D., and T.M.K. acknowledge funding from Wellcome Trust grant #206194; E.B., P.F., P.G., and S.F. acknowledge funding from Wellcome Trust grant #220544/Z/20/Z; A. Hamosh acknowledges funding from NIH NHGRI grant U41HG006627 and U54HG006542; J.S.H. acknowledges funding from National Taiwan University #91F701-45C and #109T098-02; the work of K.W.R. was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Library of Medicine, NIH. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission. H.V.F. acknowledges funding from Wellcome Grant 200990/A/16/Z 'Designing, developing and delivering integrated foundations for genomic medicine'. ; Peer reviewed

Background Improving survival and extending the longevity of life for all populations requires timely, robust evidence on local mortality levels and trends. The Global Burden of Disease 2015 Study (GBD 2015) provides a comprehensive assessment of all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 249 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1980 to 2015. These results informed an in-depth investigation of observed and expected mortality patterns based on sociodemographic measures. Methods We estimated all-cause mortality by age, sex, geography, and year using an improved analytical approach originally developed for GBD 2013 and GBD 2010. Improvements included refinements to the estimation of child and adult mortality and corresponding uncertainty, parameter selection for under-5 mortality synthesis by spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression, and sibling history data processing. We also expanded the database of vital registration, survey, and census data to 14 294 geography–year datapoints. For GBD 2015, eight causes, including Ebola virus disease, were added to the previous GBD cause list for mortality. We used six modelling approaches to assess cause-specific mortality, with the Cause of Death Ensemble Model (CODEm) generating estimates for most causes. We used a series of novel analyses to systematically quantify the drivers of trends in mortality across geographies. First, we assessed observed and expected levels and trends of cause-specific mortality as they relate to the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary indicator derived from measures of income per capita, educational attainment, and fertility. Second, we examined factors affecting total mortality patterns through a series of counterfactual scenarios, testing the magnitude by which population growth, population age structures, and epidemiological changes contributed to shifts in mortality. Finally, we attributed changes in life expectancy to changes in cause of death. We documented each step of the GBD 2015 estimation processes, as well as data sources, in accordance with Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting (GATHER). Findings Globally, life expectancy from birth increased from 61·7 years (95% uncertainty interval 61·4–61·9) in 1980 to 71·8 years (71·5–72·2) in 2015. Several countries in sub-Saharan Africa had very large gains in life expectancy from 2005 to 2015, rebounding from an era of exceedingly high loss of life due to HIV/AIDS. At the same time, many geographies saw life expectancy stagnate or decline, particularly for men and in countries with rising mortality from war or interpersonal violence. From 2005 to 2015, male life expectancy in Syria dropped by 11·3 years (3·7–17·4), to 62·6 years (56·5–70·2). Total deaths increased by 4·1% (2·6–5·6) from 2005 to 2015, rising to 55·8 million (54·9 million to 56·6 million) in 2015, but age-standardised death rates fell by 17·0% (15·8–18·1) during this time, underscoring changes in population growth and shifts in global age structures. The result was similar for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), with total deaths from these causes increasing by 14·1% (12·6–16·0) to 39·8 million (39·2 million to 40·5 million) in 2015, whereas age-standardised rates decreased by 13·1% (11·9–14·3). Globally, this mortality pattern emerged for several NCDs, including several types of cancer, ischaemic heart disease, cirrhosis, and Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. By contrast, both total deaths and age-standardised death rates due to communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional conditions significantly declined from 2005 to 2015, gains largely attributable to decreases in mortality rates due to HIV/AIDS (42·1%, 39·1–44·6), malaria (43·1%, 34·7–51·8), neonatal preterm birth complications (29·8%, 24·8–34·9), and maternal disorders (29·1%, 19·3–37·1). Progress was slower for several causes, such as lower respiratory infections and nutritional deficiencies, whereas deaths increased for others, including dengue and drug use disorders. Age-standardised death rates due to injuries significantly declined from 2005 to 2015, yet interpersonal violence and war claimed increasingly more lives in some regions, particularly in the Middle East. In 2015, rotaviral enteritis (rotavirus) was the leading cause of under-5 deaths due to diarrhoea (146 000 deaths, 118 000–183 000) and pneumococcal pneumonia was the leading cause of under-5 deaths due to lower respiratory infections (393 000 deaths, 228 000–532 000), although pathogen-specific mortality varied by region. Globally, the effects of population growth, ageing, and changes in age-standardised death rates substantially differed by cause. Our analyses on the expected associations between cause-specific mortality and SDI show the regular shifts in cause of death composition and population age structure with rising SDI. Country patterns of premature mortality (measured as years of life lost [YLLs]) and how they differ from the level expected on the basis of SDI alone revealed distinct but highly heterogeneous patterns by region and country or territory. Ischaemic heart disease, stroke, and diabetes were among the leading causes of YLLs in most regions, but in many cases, intraregional results sharply diverged for ratios of observed and expected YLLs based on SDI. Communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases caused the most YLLs throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with observed YLLs far exceeding expected YLLs for countries in which malaria or HIV/AIDS remained the leading causes of early death. Interpretation At the global scale, age-specific mortality has steadily improved over the past 35 years; this pattern of general progress continued in the past decade. Progress has been faster in most countries than expected on the basis of development measured by the SDI. Against this background of progress, some countries have seen falls in life expectancy, and age-standardised death rates for some causes are increasing. Despite progress in reducing age-standardised death rates, population growth and ageing mean that the number of deaths from most non-communicable causes are increasing in most countries, putting increased demands on health systems. Funding Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. ; We thank the countless individuals who have contributed to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 in various capacities. The data reported here have been supplied by the United States Renal Data System (USRDS). Data for this research was provided by MEASURE Evaluation, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Collection of these data was made possible by USAID under the terms of cooperative agreement GPO-A-00-08-000_D3-00. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of USAID, the US Government, or MEASURE Evaluation. Parts of this material are based on data and information provided by the Canadian institute for Health Information. However, the analyses, conclusions, opinions and statements expressed herein are those of the author and not those of the Canadian Institute for Health information. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics granted the researchers access to relevant data in accordance with licence number SLN2014-3-170, after subjecting data to processing aiming to preserve the confidentiality of individual data in accordance with the General Statistics Law–2000. The researchers are solely responsible for the conclusions and inferences drawn upon available data. The following individuals acknowledge various forms of institutional support. Simon I Hay is funded by a Senior Research Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust (#095066), and grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1119467, OPP1093011, OPP1106023 and OPP1132415). Panniyammakal Jeemon is supported by a Clinical and Public Health Intermediate Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance (2015–20). Luciano A Sposato is partly supported by the Edward and Alma Saraydar Neurosciences Fund, London Health Sciences Foundation, London, ON, Canada. George A Mensah notes that the views expressed in this Article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, or the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Boris Bikbov acknowledges that work related to this paper has been done on the behalf of the GBD Genitourinary Disease Expert Group supported by the International Society of Nephrology (ISN). Ana Maria Nogales Vasconcelos acknowledges that her team in Brazil received funding from Ministry of Health (process number 25000192049/2014-14). Rodrigo Sarmiento-Suarez receives institutional support from Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas y Ambientales, UDCA, Bogotá, Colombia. Ulrich O Mueller and Andrea Werdecker gratefully acknowledge funding by the German National Cohort BMBF (grant number OIER 1301/22). Peter James was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (Award K99CA201542). Brett M Kissela would like to acknowledge NIH/NINDS R-01 30678. Louisa Degenhardt is supported by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Principal Research fellowship. Daisy M X Abreu received institutional support from the Brazilian Ministry of Health (Proc number 25000192049/2014-14). Jennifer H MacLachlan receives funding support from the Australian Government Department of Health and Royal Melbourne Hospital Research Funding Program. Miriam Levi acknowledges institutional support received from CeRIMP, Regional Centre for Occupational Diseases and Injuries, Tuscany Region, Florence, Italy. Tea Lallukka reports funding from The Academy of Finland (grant 287488). No individuals acknowledged received additional compensation for their efforts. ; Peer-reviewed ; Publisher Version

The Agbiotech Bulletin Volume 4 Issue 11 November 1996 Published by AG-WEST BIOTECH INC. Code Number: NL96022 Sizes of Files: Text: 52.6K Graphics: No associated graphics files Ag-West to Focus on Commercialization "Commercialization is the key challenge facing the agbiotech industry in Saskatchewan," according to Dr. William Riley, President of Ag-West Biotech. In his address to the company's 6th Annual General Meeting, Riley stated that Saskatoon's agbiotech research sector has reached critical mass for self- sustaining growth. "There are now enough companies and public institutions gathered here to foster the exchange of ideas and resources that will stabilize our industry and provide the base for its further growth." Current Issues in Intellectual Property Rights: A Public Sector Perspective (This is the second in a series of articles on key Intellectual Property Rights issues.) The key function of intellectual property (IP) rights is to encourage investment in the development of new technologies and ensure their dissemination. This is most applicable to private enterprise, but is becoming increasingly significant in the public sector as proprietary technologies are used as a means to generate research funding. News Alliances Key to NRC Vision: Carty Business, academic, and government and community alliances are the key to driving economic development through innovation into the next century, according to Dr. Arthur Carty, President of Canada's National Research Council. Carty was speaking on "NRC's Vision to 2001" at an agbiotech networking luncheon presented by the Regional Economic Development Authority in Saskatoon. Saskatchewan Researchers Participate in Microcosm Validation Project Soil microbiologist Jim Germida reports that the University of Saskatchewan is cooperating in a series of small-scale experimental field tests of a genetically engineered microorganism, Pseudomonas aureofaciens. The purpose of the tests is to examine the ability of a simple laboratory procedure to accurately predict the survival of a microorganism in the field. Essay Contest Proves Popular The Agbiotech Essay Contest sponsored by Ag-West Biotech has proved popular with Grade 12 Saskatchewan students. More than 100 students entered an essay on the topic of "Biotechnology, Agriculture, and Our Future." Philom Bios Takes Over Marketing Role Philom Bios Inc. of Saskatoon has assumed all responsibility for the marketing of Provide, N-prove, and Tandem, its biological products line. The marketing of these products was previously handled by DowElanco Canada Inc. Flax Council Funds Research Canadian flax growers could reap the benefits from results of a three-year project looking at simple changes in management practices to improve production. The Flax Council of Canada is providing the primary funds for a Matching Investment Initiative project at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Brandon Research Centre that could lead to increases in flax yield through improvements in fertilizer management and weed control. Ginseng Cloning Opens Door to Crop Improvement New Developments in Animal Biotech Scientists at the Dairy and Swine Research Centre at Lennoxville, Quebec are using a new process called microsatellite technology to mark genes responsible for desirable traits such as growth rate and carcass quality. Transgenic Papaya Two lines of genetically-engineered papaya that are resistant to papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) have been introduced by Cornell University and the University of Hawaii. New Fermentation Facility at N.C. State N.C. State University (NCSU) has set up a new $270,000 fermentation facility, complete with a 150-liter industrial fermenter, that will enable scientists to produce large amounts of biological substances needed to advance several biotech projects. Brewing and Biotechnology Australian scientists have identified genes in barley which can control qualities of beer such as haziness. The scientists have identified genes that prevent barley from making tannins, the major cause of haze, and have improved a gene transfer mechanism into barley. Regulatory Environment Canada at Odds with Status Quo According to an article by Jim Romahn in Manitoba Cooperator, Environment Canada and its Minister Sergio Marchi are refusing to go along with the federal cabinet, which supports the status quo with regard to regulating products of biotechnology. New Cost Recovery Fees Detailed New fees covering product registrations, product approvals, and other regulatory services provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) to feed and fertilizer manufacturers are in effect. Food Inspection Agency Legislation Introduced New legislation to create the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been introduced in the House of Commons by Ralph Goodale, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Canada Accedes to Budapest Patent Treaty Canada has joined the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purpose of Patent Procedure. Legal Notes Patent for Roundup-Resistant Corn Patent on Herbicide-Tolerant Plants Events Formulation of Biocontrol Products Quantitative Genetics and Biotech Trends Accumulation of Trace Elements Studied Trace elements occur naturally in all soils. They are taken up by plants to varying degrees and can ultimately affect human health. New Materials for Environmental Control Glass has been used for more than a century to build controlled environments for horticulture. Growers are now adding a variety of new low-cost materials and techniques to extend environmental controls, including controls on temperature, moisture, weeds, and pests. Alliances Incyte Pharmaceuticals/Monsanto Golden Harvest Seeds/Monsanto/DeKalb Calgene/Kirin Brewery Co TechTransfer Gene Makes Aspens Red Bioreactor Licensed Finance Crop Development Centre Good Money in Transgenic Cotton Issues Controversial Tests Trace Adulterants in Fruit Juice US Organic Standards Exclude Biotech Draft Xenotransplantation Guidelines Available Vermont BST Law Suspension Risks Associated with Satellite RNA Genetically-Modified Foods Targeted in Europe Resources Ernst & Young Biotech Reports Available Canadian Biotech Newsletter for US Market US Biotech Information On-Line Antibody Purification Service New Publications on Biotech Ethics People Watch College of Veterinary Medicine Pulse Crop Development Board Alpha Chemical and Biomedical Saskatchewan Wheat Pool We Welcome Your Input Credits