The representation of the world in national Arab news agencies: an exploration of (trans)national networks in the official Arab media

The purpose of this paper is to draw a map of the representation of the world and of Arab states as reflected by the countries of the region. To do so, we have analysed the news (4,093 news randomly collected on February and August 2005) produced by the governments of the Arab states through their national news agencies. Several regional and world maps had been constructed to show the official Arab representation of the World, the Arab countries conflict agenda, the persistence of colonial ties (with the European metropolis) and the emergence of new relationships (Asian countries). The representation of the world that appeared in the analysis focuses its interest on the USA, the war in Iraq, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the United Kingdom, France, and Iran. The Arab regional powers organise the flow of information (Saudi Arabia and Egypt) and the colonial past determines the current structure of communication (French-speaking bloc and English-speaking bloc).

Magnetic nanoparticles supported oxime palladacycle as a highly efficient and separable catalyst for room temperature Suzuki–Miyaura coupling reaction in aqueous media

A novel magnetic nanoparticle-supported oxime palladacycle catalyst was successfully prepared and characterized. The magnetically recoverable catalyst was evaluated in the room temperature Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction of aryl iodides and bromides in aqueous media. The catalyst was shown to be highly active under phosphine-free and low Pd loading (0.3 mol%) conditions. The catalyst could be easily separated from the reaction mixture using an external magnet and reused for six consecutive runs without significant loss of activity.

Gold Nanoparticles Supported on Polyacrylamide Containing a Phosphorus Ligand as an Efficient Heterogeneous Catalyst for Three-Component Synthesis of Propargylamines in Water

Gold nanoparticles supported on a polyacrylamide containing a phosphinite ligand have been synthesized and characterized using different techniques such as TEM, SEM, EDX, XPS, and solid UV analyses. The new material was successfully applied as a heterogeneous catalyst for the three-component A3 coupling of amines, aldehydes, and alkynes to give propargylamines. Reactions are performed in neat water at 80 °C with only 0.05 mol% catalyst loading. The heterogeneous catalyst is recyclable during seven consecutive runs with small decrease in activity.

Accelerating wide-angle converging waves in the near field

We show that a wide-angle converging wave may be transformed into a shape-preserving accelerating beam having a beam-width near the diffraction limit. For that purpose, we followed a strategy that is particularly conceived for the acceleration of nonparaxial laser beams, in contrast to the well-known method by Siviloglou et al (2007 Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 213901). The concept of optical near-field shaping is applied to the design of non-flat ultra-narrow diffractive optical elements. The engineered curvilinear caustic can be set up by the beam emerging from a dynamic assembly of elementary gratings, the latter enabling to modify the effective refractive index of the metamaterial as it is arranged in controlled orientations. This light shaping process, besides being of theoretical interest, is expected to open up a wide range of broadband application possibilities.