Hand-held cow horn: resurgence of an old arm or a potential terrorist weapon

A 23 year old man presented with intestinal evisceration from stab injury to the left side of the abdomen with a hand-held cow horn at a local night party. He complained of severe abdominal pain and bleeding at the site of injury. He was hemodynamically stable. At emergency exploration, the eviscerated bowel was viable with no adjacent mesenteric tear. Other intra abdominal organs were normal. The eviscerated bowel was lavaged and reduced into the abdomen through the 7 cm anterior abdominal wall laceration. The laceration was repaired and abdomen closed in layers. Post operative recovery was uneventful. The hand-held cow horn can easily be concealed and may pass through security checks undetected. It should be added to the ever increasing list of weapons of small scale terror.     

Security threat: a reality or right-wing political discourse phenomenon

Asia Europe Journal - This article studies the potential paradigm shift in Europe linking refugees’ influx with the security phenomenon through the works of intellectuals belonging to...     

Quelques aspects du management du Ministère des Affaires extérieures du Canada

Sommaire. Cet article a pour objet de démontrer l'interdépendance de la politique étrangère du Canada et de la structure administrative mise en place pour atteindre les objectifs de cette politique. Il met en relief la complexité des activités du Canada à l'étranger et les difficultés de coordination de cette structure administrative qui en dérive. En effet, une question se pose et à laquelle il faut trouver une réponse dam les plus brefs délais; il s'agit de savoir comment un gouvernement qui voit ses activités à l'étranger se multiplier avec une rapidité croissante, peut-il trouver une formule de coordination qui tout en recherchant à atteindre des objectifs gouvernementaux, permettra également à toutes ces activités de se réaliser d'une façon efficace. A cette fin, on explicitera le mandat de l'icer concernant l'intégration des services de soutien pour les opérations à l'étranger. Il est question également du comité de gestion au niveau de chaque mission et l'application du ppbs. Au niveau organisationnel, nous trouvons des distorsions dans la délégation d'autorité et la répartition des responsabilités. Les répartitions des catégories géographiques et économiques étaient un peu confuses. La nouvelle organisation caractérisée par un regroupement de la plupart des directions en «bureaux», soit régionaux, soit fonctionnels est mise en évidence et évaluée. Par ailleurs, le système ppb de programme par pays est également analysé et nous démonterons ses points faibles. En fonction des éléments d'analyse de cette situation, une conclusion nous permet de suggérer une idée sur la recherche de solution au problème de la coordination des activités internationales du Canada. Abstract. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the interdependence of Canada's foreign policy and the administrative structure set up to reach the objectives of that policy. The complexity of Canada's activities abroad as well as the difficulty of co-ordinating the administrative structures they generate are emphasized. A question is now being raised to which an answer will have to be found as rapidly as possible: how can a government whose activities abroad are multiplying at an increasing ace find a formula for both the attainment of governmental goals and the efficient implementation of all its activities. To this end, the terms of reference of the icer regarding the integration of supporting services for operations abroad will be clarified. The management committee at the level of individual missions and the application of ppbs will also be discussed. At the organizational level, we find distortions in the delegation of authority and in the sharing of responsibility, as well as confusion in the distribution of geographic and economic categories. The new organization, caracterized by a regrouping of most management activities into boards, either regional or functional, is emphasized and assessed. On the other hand, the ppb system of individual programs for each country is also analysed and we show its weaknesses. In conclusion, we suggest a possible avenue of inquiry in the search for a solution to the problem of co-ordinating Canada's international activities.     

SYNERGY FOR A SHARED FUTURE

正I came to China six years ago to try to understand the foreign policy perspectives of China, and the epochal shifts taking place in the global community. Asia’s rise is a reality, and the shifts the world is experiencing in a post-colonialist and post-imperialist age require a re-evaluation of definitions and perceptions.     

Is the Median Voter a Clear-Cut Winner?: Comparing theMedian Voter Theory and Competing Theories in Explaining LocalGovernment Spending

This paper attempts to test the power of the median model againstthe respective strength of other alternate models based onredistributive, political-institutional and interest group theoriesin explaining the demand for public spending in New York statecounties during 1990, 1980 and 1970. To execute the comparison ofthe performance of median voter model with that of each of thenonmedian voter ones, various nonnested tests such as J and JAtests, N-tilde, W and encompassing tests have been employed.Results of the study show that although the median voter model hasa marginal edge over the rival models based on the alternativetheories, it may not be relied upon solely when many otherinstitutional, redistributive and interest group factors are alsorelevant for explaining public spending. The results of this studydiffer from those in Congleton and Bennett (1995). We do not findthat interest group models are substantially weaker than the medianvoter model.     

Evaluation of maxillary sinus dimensions in gender determination using helical CT scanning

Gender determination is an important step in identification in forensic medicine. CT measurements of maxillary sinuses may be useful to support gender identification. This study was undertaken to study the accuracy and reliability of maxillary sinus dimensions measurement in gender classification through the use of reconstructed helical CT images. Eighty-eight patients (43 men and 45 women) with age range from 20 to 49 years were selected in this study. The width, length, and height of the maxillary sinuses in addition to the total distance across both sinuses were measured. Data were subjected to discriminant analysis for gender using multiple regression analysis. Maxillary sinus height was the best discriminant parameter that could be used to study sexual dimorphism with an overall accuracy of 71.6%. Using multivariate analysis, 74.4% of male sinuses and 73.3% of female sinuses were sexed correctly. The overall percentage for sexing maxillary sinuses correctly was 73.9%. It can be concluded that reconstructed CT image can provide valuable measurements for maxillary sinuses and could be used for sexing when other methods of sexing are not conclusive.     

Patella sex determination by 3D statistical shape models and nonlinear classifiers

Sex determination is one of the essential steps in personal identification of an individual from skeletal remains. Most elements of the skeleton have been subjected to discriminant function analysis for sex estimation, but little work has been done in terms of the patella. This paper proposes a new sex determination method from the patella using a novel automated feature extraction technique. A dataset of 228 patellae (95 females and 133 males) was amassed from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection from the University of Tennessee and was subjected to noninvasive high resolution computed tomography (CT). After the CT data were segmented, a set of features was automatically extracted, normalized, and ranked. The segmentation process with surface smoothing minimizes the noise from enthesophytes and ultimately allows our methods to distinguish variations in patellar morphology. These features include geometric features, moments, principal axes, and principal components. A feature vector of dimension 45 for each subject was then constructed. A set of statistical and supervised neural network classification methods were used to classify the sex of the patellar feature vectors. Nonlinear classifiers such as neural networks have been used in previous research to analyze several medical diagnosis problems, including quantitative tissue characterization and automated chromosome classification. In this paper, different classification methods were compared. Classification success ranged from 83.77% average classification rate using labels from a Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering step, to 90.3% for linear discriminant classification (LDC). We obtained results of 96.02% and 93.51% training and testing classification rates, respectively, using feed-forward backpropagation neural networks (NN). These promising results using newly developed features and the application of nonlinear classifiers encourage the usage of these methods in forensic anthropology for identifying the sex of an individual from incomplete skeletons retaining at least one patella.     

The university technology transfer revolution in Saudi Arabia

This paper explains why and how a technology transfer revolution is taking place in Saudi Arabia to meet the mandate that Saudi Arabia become globally competitive as a knowledge-based innovative economy. The paper explains and identifies the new policies and institutions that have been introduced and developed to facilitate technology transfer and knowledge spillovers from the universities for commercialization and ultimately innovative activity and economic growth. The paper finds that a technology transfer revolution in Saudi Arabia is taking place, with the goal of leapfrogging from the factor-based stage of economic development to the innovation-based stage of economic development, while bypassing the intermediary efficiency-based stage of economic development.     

Efficacy of Think Tanks in Influencing Public Policies: The Case of Bangladesh

Abstract

This article analyzes contextual and organizational challenges and constraints faced by think tanks in Bangladesh. It argues that while think tanks have been visible in the policy discourse through fostering policy debates and advocating policy proposals, their direct impact on policy outcomes remains limited. Think tanks’ research findings are often interpreted through the prism of politics. A number of think tanks are institutionally weak and face challenges in funding, attracting researchers, and retaining research focus. Think tanks can potentially focus attention to the wider policy community, and emphasize intermediate influences, such as, building capacity, wider networking and interacting with a broader base of policy-makers, in order to be effective and relevant in the policy discussions.     

Evaluation of Skin Surface as an Alternative Source of Reference DNA Samples: A Pilot Study

An acceptable area for collecting DNA reference sample is a part of the forensic DNA analysis development. The aim of this study was to evaluate skin surface cells (SSC) as an alternate source of reference DNA sample. From each volunteer (n = 10), six samples from skin surface areas (forearm and fingertips) and two traditional samples (blood and buccal cells) were collected. Genomic DNA was extracted and quantified then genotyped using standard techniques. The highest DNA concentration of SSC samples was collected using the tape/forearm method of collection (2.1 ng/μL). Cotton swabs moistened with ethanol yielded higher quantities of DNA than swabs moistened with salicylic acid, and it gave the highest percentage of full STR profiles (97%). This study supports the use of SSC as a noninvasive sampling technique and as a extremely useful source of DNA reference samples among certain cultures where the use of buccal swabs can be considered socially unacceptable.