The protection and security of vulnerable populations in complex emergencies using the Dadaab refugee camps in the north eastern province of Kenya as a case study

The past two decades has seen a dramatic upheaval in the international world order: the end of the Cold War, the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent 'War on Terror', increased Jihadist activities, the accelerated pace of globalization, climate change and the 2008 global financial crisis have contributed to fear, uncertainty, poverty, conflict, massive displacements of populations of asylum seekers and refugees globally and a proliferation of Protracted Refugee Situations (PRS), defined as situations in which refugees have been in exile 'for 5 years or more after their initial displacement, without immediate prospects for implementation of durable solutions. In the past two decades there has been a huge proliferation of these with more than 7.2 million refugees now trapped in these PRS, with a further 16 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) trapped in camps within their own countries. The Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya, which of as March 2012, holds over 463,000 refugees, is the most significant and extreme example in recent times of a PRS. It was established in 1991 following the collapse of the Somali Government of Dictator Siad Barre, and the disintegration of Somalia into the chaos that still exists today. PRS such as Dadaab raise particular issues about humanitarianism in terms of aid, protection, security, human rights and the actions (or inaction) of the various stakeholders on an international, national and local level. This thesis investigates these issues by the use of a case study methodology on Dadaab as a PRS, framed in the context of humanitarianism and in particular the issues that arise in terms of how the international community, the UN system and individual states provide assistance and protection to vulnerable populations. Although the refugee camps have been in existence (as of 2012) for over 20 years, there has never been such a detailed study of Dadaab (or any other PRS) undertaken to date and would be of interest to academics in the areas of international relations, refugee/migration studies and global Governance as well as practitioners in both humanitarian response and development

Spatial and energetic mode dynamics of cold atomic systems

In this thesis we relate the formal description of various cold atomic systems in the energy eigenbasis, to the observable spatial mode dynamics. Herein the `spatial mode dynamics' refers to the direction of photon emission following the spontaneous emission of an excited fermion in the presence of a same species and spin ideal anisotropic Fermi sea in its internal ground state. Due to the Pauli principle, the presence of the ground state Fermi sea renders the phase space, anisotropic and only partially accessible, thereby a ecting the direction of photon emission following spontaneous emission. The spatial and energetic mode dynamics also refers to the quantum `tunneling' interaction between localised spatial modes, synonymous with double well type potentials. Here we relate the dynamics of the wavefunction in both the energetic and spatial representations. Using this approach we approximate the relationship between the spatial and energetic representations of a wavefunction spanning three spatial and energetic modes. This is extended to a process known as Spatial Adiabatic Passage, which is a technique to transport matter waves between localised spatial modes. This approach allows us to interpret the transport of matter waves as a signature of a geometric phase acquired by the one of the internal energy eigenstates of the system during the cyclical evolution. We further show that this geometric phase may be used to create spatial mode qubit and qutrit states.

An exploratory study on the impact of an early years' preschool intervention programme in the Republic of Ireland

Early years’ education has increasingly been identified as a mechanism to alleviate educational disadvantage in areas of social exclusion. Early years’ intervention programmes are now a common government social policy for addressing social problems (Reynolds, Mann, Miedel, and Smokowski, 1997). In particular, state provided early years’ programmes such as Head Start in the United States and Early Start in Ireland have been established to combat educational disadvantage for children experiencing poverty and socio-economic inequality. The focus of this research is on the long-term outcomes of an early years’ intervention programme in Ireland. It aims to assess whether participation in the programme enhances the life course of children at-risk of educational disadvantage. It involves an in-depth analysis of one Early Start project which was included in the original eight projects established by the Department of Education and Science in 1994. The study utilises a multi-group design to provide a detailed analysis of both the academic and social progress of programme participants. It examines programme outcomes from a number of perspectives by collecting the views of the three main stakeholders involved in the education process; students who participated in Early Start in 1994/5, their parents and their teachers. To contribute to understanding the impact of the programme from a community perspective interviews were also conducted with local community educators and other local early years’ services. In general, Early Start was perceived by all participants in this study as making a positive contribution to parent involvement in education and to strengthening educational capital in the local area. The study found that parents and primary school teachers identified aspects of school readiness as the main benefit of participation in Early Start and parents and teachers were very positive about the role of Early Start in preparing children for the transition to formal school. In addition to this, participation in Early Start appears to have made a positive contribution to academic attainment in Maths and Science at Junior Certificate level. Students who had participated in Early Start were also rated more highly by their second level teachers in terms of goal-setting and future orientation which are important factors in educational attainment. Early Start then can be viewed as providing a positive contribution to the long-term social and academic outcomes for its participants.

The early years in Irish multigrade classes: trajectories of practice and identity

This study investigates how the experiences of Junior Infants are shaped in multigrade classes. Multigrade classes are composed of two or more grades within the same classroom with one teacher having responsibility for the instruction of all grades in this classroom within a time-tabled period (Little, 2001, Mason and Doepner, 1998). The overall aim of the research is to problematize the issues of early childhood pedagogy in multigrade classes in the context of children negotiating identities, positioning and power relations. A Case Study approach was employed to explore the perspectives of the teachers, children and their parents in eight multigrade schools. Concurrent with this, a nation-wide Questionnaire Survey was also conducted which gave a broader context to the case study findings. Findings from the research study suggest that institutional context is vitally important and finding the space to implement pedagogic practices is a highly complex matter for teachers. While a majority of teachers reported the benefits for younger children being in mixed-age settings alongside older children, only a minority of case study school teachers demonstrated how it is possible to promote classroom climates which were provided multiple opportunities for younger children to engage fully in classrooms. The findings reveal constraints on pedagogical practice which included: time pressures within the job, an increase in diversity in pupil population, meeting special needs, large class sizes, high pupil/teacher ratios, and planning/organisation of tasks which intensified the complexities of addressing the needs of children who differ significantly in age, cognitive, social and emotional levels. An emergent and recurrent theme of this study is the representation of Junior Infants as apprentices in their ‘communities of practice’ who contributed in peripheral ways to the practices of their groups (Lave and Wenger, 1991, Wenger, 1998). Through a continuous process of negotiation of meaning, these pupils learned the knowledge and skills within their communities of practice that empowered some to participate more fully than others. The children in their ‘figured worlds’ (Holland, Lachiotte, Skinner and Caine 1998) occupy identities which are influenced by established arrangements of resources and practices within that community as well as by their own agentive actions. Finally, the findings of the study also demonstrate how the dimension of power is central to the exercise of social relations and pedagogical practices in multigrade classes.

Bone fractures among postmenopausal patients with endocrine-responsive early breast cancer treated with 5 years of letrozole or tamoxifen in the BIG 1-98 trial.

To compare the incidence and timing of bone fractures in postmenopausal women treated with 5 years of adjuvant tamoxifen or letrozole for endocrine-responsive early breast cancer in the Breast International Group (BIG) 1-98 trial.

Bunching-induced optical nonlinearity and instability in cold atoms [Invited].

We report a new nonlinear optical process that occurs in a cloud of cold atoms at low-light-levels when the incident optical fields simultaneously polarize, cool, and spatially-organize the atoms. We observe an extremely large effective fifth-order nonlinear susceptibility of χ(⁵) = 7.6 × 10⁻¹⁵ (m/V)⁴, which results in efficient Bragg scattering via six-wave mixing, slow group velocities (∼ c/10⁵), and enhanced atomic coherence times (> 100 μs). In addition, this process is particularly sensitive to the atomic temperatures, and provides a new tool for in-situ monitoring of the atomic momentum distribution in an optical lattice. For sufficiently large light-matter couplings, we observe an optical instability for intensities as low as ∼ 1 mW/cm² in which new, intense beams of light are generated and result in the formation of controllable transverse optical patterns.

Effects of priming duration on retention over the first 1 1/2 years of life.

Exposing individuals to an isolated component (a prime) of a prior event alleviates its forgetting. Two experiments with 120 human infants between 3 and 18 months of age determined the minimum duration of a prime that can reactivate a forgotten memory and how long the reactivated memory persists. Infants learned an operant task, forgot it, were exposed to the prime, and later were tested for renewed retention. In Experiment 1, the minimum duration of an effective prime decreased logarithmically with age, but was always longer than the duration of a mere glance. In Experiment 2, the reactivated memory was forgotten twice as fast after a minimum-duration prime as after a full-length one, irrespective of priming delay and infant age. These data reveal that the minimum effective prime duration psychophysically equates the accessibility of forgotten memories. We conclude that priming is perceptually based with effects that are organized on a ratio (log) scale.

Three Hundred Years in Annapolis: Phase III Archaeological Investigations of the Anne Arundel County Courthouse Site (18AP63), Annapolis, Maryland

During the summer of 1994, Archaeology in Annapolis conducted archaeological investigations of the city block bounded by Franklin, South and Cathedral Streets in the city of Annapolis. This Phase III excavation was conducted as a means to identify subsurface cultural resources in the impact area associated with the proposed construction of the Anne Arundel County Courthouse addition. This impact area included both the upper and lower parking lots used by Courthouse employees. Investigations were conducted in the form of mechanical trenching and hand excavated units. Excavations in the upper lot area yielded significant information concerning the interior area of the block. Known as Bellis Court, this series of rowhouses was constructed in the late nineteenth century and was used as rental properties by African-Americans. The dwellings remained until the middle of the twentieth century when they were demolished in preparation for the construction of a Courthouse addition. Portions of the foundation of a house owned by William H. Bellis in the 1870s were also exposed in this area. Construction of this house was begun by William Nicholson around 1730 and completed by Daniel Dulany in 1732/33. It was demolished in 1896 by James Munroe, a Trustee for Bellis. Excavations in the upper lot also revealed the remains of a late seventeenth/early eighteenth century wood-lined cellar, believed to be part of the earliest known structure on Lot 58. After an initially rapid deposition of fill around 1828, this cellar was gradually covered with soil throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century. The fill deposit in the cellar feature yielded a mixed assemblage of artifacts that included sherds of early materials such as North Devon gravel-tempered earthenware, North Devon sgraffito and Northem Italian slipware, along with creamware, pearlware and whiteware. In the lower parking lot, numerous artifacts were recovered from yard scatter associated with the houses that at one time fronted along Cathedral Street and were occupied by African- Americans. An assemblage of late seventeenth century/early eighteenth century materials and several slag deposits from an early forge were recovered from this second area of study. The materials associated with the forge, including portions of a crucible, provided evidence of some of the earliest industry in Annapolis. Investigations in both the upper and lower parking lots added to the knowledge of the changing landscape within the project area, including a prevalence of open space in early periods, a surprising survival of impermanent structures, and a gradual regrading and filling of the block with houses and interior courts. Excavations at the Anne Arundel County Courthouse proved this to be a multi-component site, rich in cultural resources from Annapolis' Early Settlement Period through its Modern Period (as specified by Maryland's Comprehensive Historic Preservation Plan (Weissman 1986)). This report provides detailed interpretations of the archaeological findings of these Phase III investigations.

One hundred years of forgetting: A quantitative description of retention

A sample of 210 published data sets were assembled that (a) plotted amount remembered versus time, (b) had 5 or more points, and (c) were smooth enough to fit at least 1 of the functions tested with a correlation coefficient of .90 or greater. Each was fit to 105 different 2-parameter functions. The best fits were to the logarithmic function, the power function, the exponential in the square root of time, and the hyperbola in the square root of time. It is difficult to distinguish among these 4 functions with the available data, but the same set of 4 functions fit most data sets, with autobiographical memory being the exception. Theoretical motivations for the best fitting functions are offered. The methodological problems of evaluating functions and the advantages of searching existing data for regularities before formulating theories are considered.

Natural hybridization between genera that diverged from each other approximately 60 million years ago.

A fern from the French Pyrenees-×Cystocarpium roskamianum-is a recently formed intergeneric hybrid between parental lineages that diverged from each other approximately 60 million years ago (mya; 95% highest posterior density: 40.2-76.2 mya). This is an extraordinarily deep hybridization event, roughly akin to an elephant hybridizing with a manatee or a human with a lemur. In the context of other reported deep hybrids, this finding suggests that populations of ferns, and other plants with abiotically mediated fertilization, may evolve reproductive incompatibilities more slowly, perhaps because they lack many of the premating isolation mechanisms that characterize most other groups of organisms. This conclusion implies that major features of Earth's biodiversity-such as the relatively small number of species of ferns compared to those of angiosperms-may be, in part, an indirect by-product of this slower "speciation clock" rather than a direct consequence of adaptive innovations by the more diverse lineages.

Humoral and B-cell memory responses in children five years after pertussis acellular vaccine priming.

The resurgence of pertussis suggests the need for greater efforts in understanding the long-lasting protective responses induced by vaccination. In this paper we dissect the persistence of humoral and B-cell memory responses induced by primary vaccination with two different acellular pertussis (aP) vaccines, hexavalent Hexavac(®) vaccine (Hexavac) (Sanofi Pasteur MSD) and Infanrix hexa(®) (Infanrix) (GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals). We evaluated the specific immune responses in the two groups of children, 5 years after primary vaccination by measuring the persistence of IgG and antibody secreting cells (ASC) specific for vaccine antigens. Part of the enrolled children received only primary vaccination, while others had the pre-school boost dose. A similar level of antigen-specific IgG and ASC was found in Infanrix and Hexavac vaccinated children. The mean IgG levels were significantly higher in children that received the pre-school boost as compared with children that did not receive the boost dose. A longer persistence after the pre-school boost of IgG-Pertussis Toxin (PT) and IgG-pertactin levels was observed in Infanrix primed children, but it was not statistically significant. More than 80% of children presented a positive ASC B memory response. Around 50% of children still presented protective IgG-PT levels which are reduced to 36% in no-boosted children. The pre-school booster dose restores the percentage of protected children above 50%. In conclusion our data underline the importance of giving a booster dose 5 years after primary vaccination and suggest the need for a new vaccine able to induce a long lasting protective response.

Thyroid volumes and urinary iodine in Swiss school children, 17 years after improved prophylaxis of iodine deficiency

Salt iodine content in Switzerland was raised from 7.5 to 15 mg per kg in 1980, and since then dietary iodine intake has been considered to be sufficient, even though a slight decrease due to imported food has recently been reported. The aim of this study was to establish normal values for thyroid volumes of school children who can be assumed to have had a sufficient iodine intake all their lifetime. Moreover, the present investigation was undertaken to verify that iodine sufficiency had been achieved equally in two regions each served by one of the two Swiss salt producers. Mean iodine concentration in urine spot samples from school children was 16.1 μg/dl, and it was identical in both the city of Lausanne (n=215) and the city of Solothurn (n=208). Thus it can be stated that in both cities (served by two different salt producers) iodine intake is equal and sufficient. Accordingly, thyroid volumes measured by ultrasound in school children aged 6 to 16 years were the same in both Lausanne (n=202) and Solothurn (n=207). Moreover, the age-adjusted median volumes at the 97th percentiles closely agree with and validate provisional international reference values recently proposed by the World Health Organisation and by the International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency Disease.

On the modelling of the thermal interactions between a spray curtain and an impinging cold gas cloud

A mixed Lagrangian-Eulerian model of a Water Curtain barrier is presented. The heat, mass and momentum processes are modelled in a Lagrangian framework for the dispersed phase and in an Eulerian framework for the carrier phase. The derivation of the coupling source terms is illustrated with reference to a given carrier phase cell. The turbulent character of the flow is treated with a single equation model, modified to directly account for the influence of the particles on the flow. The model is implemented in the form of a 2 D incompressible Navier Stokes solver, coupled to an adaptive Rung Kutta method for the Lagrangian sub-system. Simulations of a free standing full cone water spray show satisfactory agreement with experiment. Predictions of a Water Curtain barrier impacted by a cold gas cloud point to markedly different flow fields for the upward and downward configurations, which could influence the effectiveness of chemical absorption in the liquid phase.