US Democracy Promotion from Bush to Obama. EUSpring Working Paper No. 1, 15 April 2015

Throughout the twenty-first century the United States (U.S.) has attempted to balance its traditional national security interests, whilst also seeking to promote the long-term transformation of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) towards democracy based on liberal values. With the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks providing a catalyst for policy change, the U.S. has moved away from its twentieth-century policy of pursuing a regional status quo and instinctively balking at political change. Yet, the U.S. has not abandoned its reliance on autocratic regimes that cooperate on more immediate national security interests such as counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and the free-flow energy sources into the global market. Rather, U.S. democracy promotion in the MENA has become incremental by design and is characterized by its gradualist and often-collaborative nature. U.S. foreign policy in the MENA is, therefore, depicted by a cautious evolutionary stance rather than supporting revolutionary shifts in power.

Sm-Nd isotope and Mn/Ca ratios for cleaned Neogloboquadrina pachyderma from ODP Hole 105-647A (Table 1)

The neodymium (Nd) isotope composition of ancient seawater is a potentially useful tracer of changes in continental inputs and ocean circulation on timescales of a few ka. Here we present the first Nd isotope record for seawater using sedimentary foraminifera cleaned using standard oxidative-reductive techniques. The data, along with Mn/Ca ratios, suggest that cleaned foraminifera provide a reliable record of Nd in seawater and hold out the prospect of using Nd in foraminifera to examine changes in seawater that accompany glacial-interglacial climatic cycles. The principal potential problem to be overcome with the use of forams as records of trace elements in ancient seawater is their diagenetic Fe-Mn coatings. These contain large amounts of Nd and other trace elements but can be cleaned off using highly reducing reagents. Mn(Ca ratios for the majority of the cleaned sedimentary foraminifera analysed here lie within the range (10-100 µmol/mol) that has yielded success in studies of transition elements in forams. Mass-balance modelling suggests that for residual Mn/Ca ratios <100 µmol/mol, Nd added to the foram in the coating will never shift the measured Nd isotope composition significantly away from the seawater value acquired by the foram test in the water column. Additionally, Nd concentrations measured in cleaned sedimentary foraminifera are comparable with those for a modern sample that has never encountered diagenetic fluids. Finally, core-top planktonic foraminifera for two sites have Nd isotope compositions that are identical to local surface seawater. The data we present here for Labrador Sea forams over the past 2.5 m.y. are interpreted in terms of changes in the seawater isotopic composition. The data show a pronounced shift from epsilon-Nd values of ~-12 to ~-19 in the period 2.5-1.5 Ma. This change is interpreted to result from the initiation of Northern Hemisphere glaciation and the increased derivation of Labrador Sea Nd via ice-rafting from Archaean terranes in central Canada. In combination with stable isotope and foraminiferal relative species abundance data, the new Nd data are consistent with the surface hydrography of the Labrador Sea being dominated by a fluctuating balance between cold, polar waters containing unradiogenic Nd and warm, subtropical waters containing more radiogenic Nd. The major change in Labrador Sea Nd that is observed in the past 2.5 Ma can, on its own, account for the change in the Nd isotope composition of North Atlantic Deep Water over the same time period.

(Table 1) Thermal conductivities of lithified core samples from ODP Leg 166 sites

The geothermal regime of the western margin of the Great Bahama Bank was examined using the bottom hole temperature and thermal conductivity measurements obtained during and after Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 166. This study focuses on the data from the drilling transect of Sites 1003 through 1007. These data reveal two important observational characteristics. First, temperature vs. cumulative thermal resistance profiles from all the drill sites show significant curvature in the depth range of 40 to 100 mbsf. They tend to be of concave-upward shape. Second, the conductive background heat-flow values for these five drill sites, determined from deep, linear parts of the geothermal profiles, show a systematic variation along the drilling transect. Heat flow is 43-45 mW/m**2 on the seafloor away from the bank and decreases upslope to ~35 mW/m**2. We examine three mechanisms as potential causes for the curved geothermal profiles. They are: (1) a recent increase in sedimentation rate, (2) influx of seawater into shallow sediments, and (3) temporal fluctuation of the bottom water temperature (BWT). Our analysis shows that the first mechanism is negligible. The second mechanism may explain the data from Sites 1004 and 1005. The temperature profile of Site 1006 is most easily explained by the third mechanism. We reconstruct the history of BWT at this site by solving the inverse heat conduction problem. The inversion result indicates gradual warming throughout this century by ~1°C and is agreeable to other hydrographic and climatic data from the western subtropic Atlantic. However, data from Sites 1003 and 1007 do not seem to show such trends. Therefore, none of the three mechanisms tested here explain the observations from all the drill sites. As for the lateral variation of the background heat flow along the drill transect, we believe that much of it is caused by the thermal effect of the topographic variation. We model this effect by obtaining a two-dimensional analytical solution. The model suggests that the background heat flow of this area is ~43 mW/m**2, a value similar to the background heat flow determined for the Gulf of Mexico in the opposite side of the Florida carbonate platform.

(Table T3) Vitrinite reflection of samples obtained from ODP Leg 180 sites

Seventy-one samples from Ocean Drilling Program Leg 180 sites were analyzed for vitrinite reflectance and organic type. The objective was to define maximum paleotemperatures across the western Woodlark Basin as a function of depth. The organic matter is of early Pliocene to Holocene age and was recovered from drilled depths of 4.5 to 851.3 meters below seafloor. Organic matter is generally restricted to woody fragments within the sediment, although in a number of fine-grained samples, organic matter is dispersed throughout the sample. Virtually all samples contain vitrinite, part of which may be derived from drifted logs. One sample was found to be barren of organic matter, and two contain only fusinite and semifusinite. Variation of vitrinite reflectance is not systematic with either depth or location, and it appears that formation temperatures have been insufficient to cause an increase in vitrinite reflectance levels. Textural variations within the vitrinite show better correlation with depth. Samples of hypautochthonous peats represent either a terrestrial phase of sedimentation or large peat intraclasts within the section, possibly produced by forest fires in the source areas of the organic matter. The vitrinite and peat-derived samples appear to come from eucalyptus forest settings away from the coastline. Liptinite is not abundant in most of the samples (excluding suberinite associated with woody tissues). Marine liptinite is rare to absent, although many of the samples contain abundant foraminiferal tests. Pyrite is abundant in many of the wood fragments, and some pyritization of woody tissues has taken place.

Absolute abundances of benthic foraminifers and stable isotopes from the Alvin dives 3709-3712

The presence of gas hydrates on the Blake Ridge diapir, northeastern Atlantic Ocean, offers an opportunity to study the impact of methane seepage on the ecology and geochemistry of benthic foraminifera in the late Holocene. Three push cores, covering a time span of ~ 1000 yrs, were retrieved from three distinct microhabitats at the top of the diapir at a water depth of ~ 2150 m: (i) sediments away from seepage (control core), (ii) sediments overlain by clusters of methanotrophic and thiotrophic bivalves, and (iii) chemoautotrophic microbial mats. The foraminiferal assemblages at the two seep sites are marked by a reduction in benthic foraminiferal species diversity, coupled with a near-absence of agglutinated species. However, an opportunistic population rise in CH4- or H2S-tolerant calcareous species (e.g., Globocassidulina subglobosa and Cassidulina laevigata) that utilize the abundant trophic resources at the seeps has led to an increase in the overall assemblage density there. The delta18O and delta13C values of three species of benthic foraminifera - Gyroidinoides laevigatus, Globocassidulina subglobosa, and Uvigerina peregrina - and the planktonic species Globorotalia menardii were acquired from all three cores. The benthic species from methane seeps yield delta13C values of 0.1 to - 4.2 (per mil VPDB), that are distinctly more 13C-depleted relative to the delta13C of 0.4 to - 1.0 (per mil VPDB) at the control (off seep) site. The species from a mussel-bed site exhibit more negative delta13C values than those from microbial mats, possibly reflecting different food sources and higher rate of anaerobic oxidation of methane. The positive delta13C values in the paired planktonic species suggest that authigenic carbonate precipitation did not overprint the observed 13C depletions. Hence the probable cause of negative delta13C of benthic foraminifera is primary calcification from Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC) containing mixed carbon fractions from (a) highly 13C-depleted, microbially-oxidized methane and (b) a seawater source.

Grain size composition of sediment cores from the Weddell Sea, Antarctica

Sedimentary processes in the southeastern Weddell Sea are influenced by glacial-interglacial ice-shelf dynamics and the cyclonic circulation of the Weddell Gyre, which affects all water masses down to the sea floor. Significantly increased sedimentation rates occur during glacial stages, when ice sheets advance to the shelf edge and trigger gravitational sediment transport to the deep sea. Downslope transport on the Crary Fan and off Dronning Maud and Coats Land is channelized into three huge channel systems, which originate on the eastern-, the central and the western Crary Fan. They gradually turn from a northerly direction eastward until they follow a course parallel to the continental slope. All channels show strongly asymmetric cross sections with well-developed levees on their northwestern sides, forming wedge-shaped sediment bodies. They level off very gently. Levees on the southeastern sides are small, if present at all. This characteristic morphology likely results from the process of combined turbidite-contourite deposition. Strong thermohaline currents of the Weddell Gyre entrain particles from turbidity-current suspensions, which flow down the channels, and carry them westward out of the channel where they settle on a surface gently dipping away from the channel. These sediments are intercalated with overbank deposits of high-energy and high-volume turbidity currents, which preferentially flood the left of the channels (looking downchannel) as a result of Coriolis force. In the distal setting of the easternmost channel-levee complex, where thermohaline currents are directed northeastward as a result of a recirculation of water masses from the Enderby Basin, the setting and the internal structures of a wedge-shaped sediment body indicate a contourite drift rather than a channel levee. Dating of the sediments reveals that the levees in their present form started to develop with a late Miocene cooling event, which caused an expansion of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and an invigoration of thermohaline current activity.

Learning Models of Gene Expression from Synthetic DNA Sequences

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Quantum states far from the energy eigenstates of any local hamiltonian

What quantum states are possible energy eigenstates of a many-body Hamiltonian? Suppose the Hamiltonian is nontrivial, i.e., not a multiple of the identity, and L local, in the sense of containing interaction terms involving at most L bodies, for some fixed L. We construct quantum states psi which are far away from all the eigenstates E of any nontrivial L-local Hamiltonian, in the sense that parallel topsi-Eparallel to is greater than some constant lower bound, independent of the form of the Hamiltonian.

Assigning dates to thin gneissic veins in high-grade metamorphic terranes: A cautionary tale from Akilia, southwest Greenland

A granodiorite from Akilia, southwest Greenland, previously suggested to date putative life-bearing rocks to greater than or equal to3.84 Ga, is re-investigated using whole-rock major and trace-element geochemistry, and detailed cathodoluminescence image-guided secondary ion mass spectrometer analyses of zircon U-Th-Pb and rare earth elements. Complex zircon internal structure reveals three episodes of zircon growth and/or recrystallization dated to c. 3.84 Ga, 3.62 Ga and 2.71 Ga. Rare earth element abundances imply a significant role for garnet in zircon generation at 3.62 Ga and 2.71 Ga. The 3.62 Ga event is interpreted as partial melting of a c. 3.84 Ga grey gneiss precursor at granulite facies with residual garnet. Migration of this 3.62 Ga magma (or melt-crystal mush) away from the melt source places a maximum age limit on any intrusive relationship. These early Archaean relationships have been complicated further by isotopic reworking in the 2.71 Ga event, which could have included a further episode of partial melting. This study highlights a general problem associated with dating thin gneissic veins in polyphase metamorphic terranes, where field relationships may be ambiguous and zircon inheritance can be expected.

I-Spi: innovative shared practical ideas: a support guide for literacy and numeracy in the early years of schooling, for home tutor/supervisors in distance education

Innovative Shared Practical Ideas (I-Spi) is a guide to help you and your children learn together. It is designed to affirm, support and strengthen your role as home tutor/supervisors in your daily learning sessions with your children. In this guide particular emphasis is given to the value of talk, formal and informal early literacy and numeracy practices (including ideas from distance school lessons, from home tutor/supervisors, research, and beyond), assessment of these practices together with informal assessment ideas for gauging your children’s literacy and numeracy progress, and stepping in and building on strategies

Evaluating the motives of informal entrepreneurs: some lessons from Ukraine

To understand entrepreneurs' motivations, it has become increasingly common to distinguish between those driven by necessity (or pushed) and those driven by opportunity (or pulled) into entrepreneurship. Until now, entrepreneurs operating wholly or partially in the informal economy have been widely assumed to be necessity-driven, pushed into this enterprise as a survival strategy in the absence of alternatives. To evaluate whether this is indeed the case, this paper reports one of the first surveys of informal entrepreneurs' motives. Reporting face-to-face interviews conducted in Ukraine during 2005–06 with 298 informal entrepreneurs, the finding is although most identified themselves as necessity entrepreneurs when initially asked whether they were either pushed or pulled, subsequent questions reveal in the vast majority of cases, there were not only both push and pull factors driving their original decision to start-up informal enterprises, but also a clear shift among these entrepreneurs as their business became established away from necessity-oriented motivations and toward more opportunity-oriented motivations. The outcome is a call for a transcendence of a static either/or approach and the adoption of a dynamic both/and approach that recognizes the coexistence of necessity- and opportunity-drivers as well as the fluidity of entrepreneurs' motivations.

From co-operative to competitive localism? The changing balance between equity and efficiency in local government under the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition

This paper considers whether there has been a shift in the balance between equity and efficiency in respect of decentralised public policy in England since the election of the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010. Drawing on the literature on policy decentralisation and fiscal federalism from both Political Science and Economics, reasons are discussed why a trade-off between equity and efficiency might be expected. The context of English local government then outlined, and consideration is then given to four areas of policy: business rate localisation, the ‘New Homes Bonus’, council tax benefit and social housing, and regional economic development. In each case, some shift in the balance away from concern with equity towards one with efficiency is discerned: whether or not this is desirable will prove a matter of political and moral, as well as scientific judgement.

The impact of the post-1993 economic reforms on Chinese state-owned enterprises:evidence from the electronics industry

Since 1979, China has embarked on a series of economic reform programmes, leading its socialist economy away from a Soviet planning model towards a much greater reliance on the market. In the course of the last twenty years, the Chinese economy has enjoyed a phenomenally high economic growth rate. However, earlier research suggests that Chinese state-owned enterprises remain a financial 'black hole' for the Chinese economy, in spite of various enterprise reform measures. This thesis tries to assess the impact of the reforms after 1993, especially the so-called Modern Enterprise System, on the behaviour and management practices of state firms. The central research question is whether the new rounds of economic reform have changed state firms into commercial entities operating according to market signals, as intended. In order to explore this question, an institutional approach is employed. More specifically, the thesis examines how the behaviour and management practices of state enterprises have changed with changes in the institutional environmental resulting from the introduction of new reform measures and especially the MES. The main evidence used in this research comes from the Chinese electronics industry (CEI). Non-state firms, namely collectives and joint ventures, are involved in the study to provide a benchmark against which changes in the behaviour of state firms in the mid and late 1990s are compared. A comparative statistical analysis shows that state-owned firms, both traditional and corporatised ones, still lag behind collectives and joint ventures in terms of both labour and total factor productivity. The further empirical work of this research consists of a questionnaire survey and case studies that are based on interviews with senior managers of 17 firms in the CEI. The findings of these analyses suggest that there has been little fundamental change in the behaviour pattern of state firms in the 1990s, despite the introduction of the Modern Enterprise System, and that the economic reforms after 1993 so far seem to have failed to transform the state firms into commercial entities operating according to market signals.

'Compliance or contradiction'? Teaching 'History' in the 'New' Ukraine. A view from Ukraine's Eastern borderlands

Whilst much academic rigour has been devoted to analysing the ‘contents’ of historical textbooks in Ukraine, this article examines the teacher's role in the ‘transfer’ of the state's message to schoolchildren. This article demonstrates that in Ukraine's eastern borderlands teachers are highly active in negotiating the new historical narrative. Teachers are found to subtly change the accent or focus away from the ‘nationalist’ stance towards Russia, as found in the school history textbooks, to a more tolerant stance which aims to promote rather than negate Ukraine's historical interactions with Russia. Thus, this simultaneously reinforces a particular ‘regional’ understanding of historical events.

Graphene layers produced from carbon nanotubes by frication

Graphene layers have been produced from multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) bulk materials by friction when polished on ground-glass, offering a novel and effective method to produce graphene layers, which, more importantly, could be transferred to other substrates by rubbing. Field emission scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and selected area electron diffraction confirmed the formation of graphene layers. They were thought to be peeled away from the MWCNT walls due to friction. The reflection spectra showed that absorption of as-produced graphene layers decreased with wavelength in the range of 250–400 nm, compared to the MWCNT bulk material having strong absorption at 350 nm. Nanoscratch test was used to determine the mechanical properties of graphene films, suggesting the tolerance of as-produced graphene film to flaws introduced by scratch.