Academic literature on the topic 'Colin STEELE'

Some of the multifarious literary activities of Captain John Stevens have received attention from specialists. His journal of the Irish wars of 1688–91, not published until 1912, is now generally recognised as being one of the most important primary sources for the campaign. His place in the history of travel writing, as the translator into English of classical works in Spanish and Portuguese on the history, geography and ethnology of the Iberian world, has been established by Dr. Colin Steele. His major contribution to English monastic history, as the translator and continuator of Sir Thomas Dugdale, though less well known, and deserving closer study, has been recognised by David Douglas. More recently a Portuguese scholar has paid tribute to him as one of the first writers to introduce the English reader to Portuguese history and literature. English Hispanists have acknowledged his prolific output as a translator of Spanish authors, notably Cervantes and Quevedo. More controversially, in Pat Rogers’s fascinating study of the literary underclass in London during the age of Pope and Swift, he is ignominiously—and, I shall argue, unjustly—indexed under the heading ‘Dunces and their allies’.

The corrosion behavior of a Cr15 super martensitic stainless steel (Cr15 SMSS) was investigated in NaCl solutions by means of potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Effects of Cl-content, pH value and saturated CO2on corrosion were sdudied. It was found that the parameters of maintaining passivity current density (ip), the critical pitting potential (Eb) and charge transfer resistance (Rt) of Cr15 SMSS varied widely under different conditions. The corrosion resistance of Cr15 SMSS decrease with increasing Cl-concentration and lowering pH value. BothipandEbincrease for Cr15 SMSS in CO2-saturated NaCl solution, which verified that the CO2in NaCl solution can result in lower pitting sensitivity and higher uniform corrosion rate to Cr15 SMSS.

Sintering is an important production process in iron and steel metallurgy. Carbon fuel consumption accounts for about 80% of the total energy consumption in the sintering process. To enhance the efficiency of carbon fuel consumption, we need to determine the factors affecting carbon efficiency and build a model of it. In this paper, the CO/CO2is taken to be a measure of carbon efficiency, and a cascade predictive model is built to predict it. This model has two parts: the key state parameter submodel and the CO/CO2submodel. The submodels are built using particle swarm optimization-based back propagation neural networks (PSO-BPNNs). Based on the mechanism analysis, spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (SRCC) and stepwise regression analysis (SRA) are used to determine the relationship between the process parameters, in order to determine the inputs of each submodel. Finally, the results of a simulation show the feasibility of the cascade model, which will serve as the basic model for the optimization and control of the carbon efficiency of the sintering process.

Catalytic hydrogenation of CO2into fuels and chemicals is regarded as one of the most promising alternatives to reduce the concentration of CO2in the atmosphere. In this study, double-promoted Cu/ZnO catalysts were prepared on Al2O3and CNTs supports via impregnation method. The physicochemical properties of the catalysts were characterized by XPS, TEM, N2adsorption, H2-TPR and CO2-TPD analyses. Introduction of Nb and Zr promoters into the Cu-based catalysts on CNTs support resulted in smaller Cu nanoparticles and improved reducibility compared to those of the Al2O3-supported catalyst. The catalyst activity was evaluated in a fixed-bed stainless steel reactor operated at 22.5 bar and 523K. Conversion of CO2higher than 20% was achieved and product distribution was influenced by the type of catalyst supports.

Abstract Good perfusion of the bowel and a tension-free anastomosis are the two main prerequisites for an uneventful anastomotic healing in rectal surgery. This prospective cohort study investigates the noninvasive intraoperative spectrophotometric assessment of the bowel perfusion using a device called “Oxygen to See” (O2C®). Forty patients, planned for low anterior resection, were prospectively enrolled in this study to undergo an intraoperative spectrophotometric assessment of the bowel. Three different O2C® parameters were collected from the colonic and the rectal stumps before fashioning the anastomosis: SO2 (capillary venous oxygen saturation), rHb (relative hemoglobin amount), and flow (blood flow velocity). Bowel perfusion was also assessed with the cold-steel-test (CST), which involves severing the colic marginal artery of Drummond at the tip of the colon stump. The data collected from the spectrophotometric measurement and the CST were analyzed for correlation of both methods with respect to each other and to the outcome of the anastomosis. Nine patients were excluded due to different reasons, thus leaving 31 patients for statistical analysis. Three flow parameters collected at the colonic stump significantly predicted an anastomotic leak (p: 0.0057; p: 0.0250; p: 0.0404). One rHb parameter collected at the rectal stump correlated weakly with the anastomotic outcome (p: 0.0768). The CST did not correlate significantly with anastomotic leak (p: 0.1195), but showed significant correlations to some rHb values. Intraoperative noninvasive spectrophotometric measurement is feasible and could be a useful method in assessing bowel perfusion before fashioning a colorectal anastomosis.

Caso N.º 1. Ententes: Dec.Com. 7 abril 2004, Société Air France/Alitalia Linee Aeree Italiane SpA, DO L 362 de 9 diciembre 2004 Caso N.º 2. Ententes: STJCE 29 abril 2004, C-359/01 P, British Sugar plc/Comisión Caso N.º 3. Ententes: STPI de 29 de abril de 2004, Tokai carbón Co. Ltd y otros/Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas As. T-236/01, T-239/01, T-244/01, T-245/01, T-246/01, T-251/01 y T-252/01 Caso N.º 4. Ententes: Sentencia del Tribunal de Primera Instancia 15 junio 2005, Graphites spéciaux, As. T-71/03, T-74/03, T-87/03 y T-91/03 Caso N.º 5. Ententes: STPI 8 julio 2004, Mannesmannröhren-Werke/ Comisión, T-44/00; STPI 8 julio 2004, Corus/Comisión, T-48/00; STPI 8 julio 2004, Dalmine/Comisión, T-50/00; STPI 8 julio 2004, asuntos acumulados JFE Engineering/Comisión, T-67/00, Nippon Steel/Comisión, T-68/00, JFE Steel/Comisión, T-71/00, y Sumitomo Metal Industries/ Comisión, T-78/00 Caso N.º 6. Ententes: Dec.Com. 9 diciembre 2004, Cloruro de colina, DO L 190 de 22 julio 2005. Caso N.º 7. Ententes: STJCE 28 junio 2005, Dansk Rørindustri A/S (C-189/02 P), Isoplus Fernwärmetechnik Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH y otros (C-202/02 P), KE KELIT Kunststoffwerk GmbH (C-205/02 P), LR af 1998 A/S (C-206/02 P), Brugg Rohrsysteme GmbH (C-207/02 P), LR af 1998 (Deutschland) GmbH (C-208/02 P) y ABB Asea Brown Boveri Ltd (C-213/02 P)/Comisión, Tubos de calefacción urbana (tubos preaislados), Asuntos acumulados C-189/02 P, C-202/02 P, C-205/02 P a C-208/02 P y C-213/02 P Caso N.º 8. Ententes: STPI 18 julio 2005, Scandinavian Airlines System AB/Comisión, T-241/01 Caso N.º 9. Ententes: STPI (Sala Segunda) de 27 de julio de 2005, Asuntos acumulados T-49/02 a T-51/02, Brasserie nationale SA (anteriormente Brasseries Funck-Bricher y Bofferding), Brasserie Jules Simon et Cie SCS y Brasserie Batín SNC v. Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas Caso N.º 10. Ententes: Comunicación publicada de conformidad con el artículo 27, apartado 4, del Reglamento (CE) n.º 1/2003 del Consejo, en los asuntos COMP/C2/3912-BUMA y COMP/C2/39151-SABAM (Acuerdo de Santiago-COMP/C2/38126, DO C 200 de 17 agosto 2005, pp. 11-12) Caso N.º 11. Ententes: STPI 15 septiembre 2005, DaimlerChrysler AG/ Comisión, T-325/01 Caso N.º 12. Abuso de posición dominante: Dec.Com. 24 marzo 2004, Microsoft Europe, COMP/C-3/37.792: Noción de abuso de posición dominante (la tensión entre el Derecho de la competencia y el Derecho de la propiedad intelectual) Caso N.º 13. Abuso de posición dominante: Dec. Com. 20 octubre 2004, Deutsche Post AG y RFA, COMP/38.745: Abuso de posición dominante cometido por el operador postal histórico de Alemania, por el hecho de una disposición legislativa que deberá ser modificada Caso N.º 14. Abuso de posición dominante: STPI 26 enero 2005, Piau/ Féderation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), T-193/02, Rec., p. I-1113: Posición dominante colectiva Caso N.º 15. Abuso de posición dominante: Dec.Com. 22 junio 2005, Coca-Cola, COMP/A.39.116/B2, DO L 253 de 29 septiembre 2005: Decisión compromiso (Coca-Cola se compromete a no abusar de su posición dominante y se libra de toda sanción) Caso N.º 16. Concentraciones: Decisión de la Comisión 19 julio 2004, SONY/BMG, M. 3333 Caso N.º 17. Concentraciones: Dec.Com. 15 julio 2005, Procter & Gamble/ Gillette, M. 3732 Caso N.º 18. Concentraciones: Dec.Com. 29 julio 2005, Maersk/Ponl, M. 3829 Caso N.º 19. Concentraciones: STJCE 15 febrero 2005, Tetra Laval, C-12/03P, Rec., p. I-1113. Caso N.º 20. Concentraciones: STPI 21 septiembre 2005, EDP/Comisión, T-87/05

Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)Declaring War Soon after Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the Bush Administration described its new grand strategy: the “Global War on Terror”. This underpinned the subsequent counter-insurgency in Afghanistan and the United States invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Media pundits quickly applied the Global War on Terror label to the Madrid, Bali and London bombings, to convey how Al Qaeda’s terrorism had gone transnational. Meanwhile, international relations scholars debated the extent to which September 11 had changed the international system (Brenner; Mann 303). American intellectuals adopted several variations of the Global War on Terror in what initially felt like a transitional period of US foreign policy (Burns). Walter Laqueur suggested Al Qaeda was engaged in a “cosmological” and perpetual war. Paul Berman likened Al Qaeda and militant Islam to the past ideological battles against communism and fascism (Heilbrunn 248). In a widely cited article, neoconservative thinker Norman Podhoretz suggested the United States faced “World War IV”, which had three interlocking drivers: Al Qaeda and trans-national terrorism; political Islam as the West’s existential enemy; and nuclear proliferation to ‘rogue’ countries and non-state actors (Friedman 3). Podhoretz’s tone reflected a revival of his earlier Cold War politics and critique of the New Left (Friedman 148-149; Halper and Clarke 56; Heilbrunn 210). These stances attracted widespread support. For instance, the United States Marine Corp recalibrated its mission to fight a long war against “World War IV-like” enemies. Yet these stances left the United States unprepared as the combat situations in Afghanistan and Iraq worsened (Ricks; Ferguson; Filkins). Neoconservative ideals for Iraq “regime change” to transform the Middle East failed to deal with other security problems such as Pakistan’s Musharraf regime (Dorrien 110; Halper and Clarke 210-211; Friedman 121, 223; Heilbrunn 252). The Manichean and open-ended framing became a self-fulfilling prophecy for insurgents, jihadists, and militias. The Bush Administration quietly abandoned the Global War on Terror in July 2005. Widespread support had given way to policymaker doubt. Why did so many intellectuals and strategists embrace the Global War on Terror as the best possible “grand strategy” perspective of a post-September 11 world? Why was there so little doubt of this worldview? This is a debate with roots as old as the Sceptics versus the Sophists. Explanations usually focus on the Bush Administration’s “Vulcans” war cabinet: Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who later became Secretary of State (Mann xv-xvi). The “Vulcans” were named after the Roman god Vulcan because Rice’s hometown Birmingham, Alabama, had “a mammoth fifty-six foot statue . . . [in] homage to the city’s steel industry” (Mann x) and the name stuck. Alternatively, explanations focus on how neoconservative thinkers shaped the intellectual climate after September 11, in a receptive media climate. Biographers suggest that “neoconservatism had become an echo chamber” (Heilbrunn 242) with its own media outlets, pundits, and think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and Project for a New America. Neoconservatism briefly flourished in Washington DC until Iraq’s sectarian violence discredited the “Vulcans” and neoconservative strategists like Paul Wolfowitz (Friedman; Ferguson). The neoconservatives' combination of September 11’s aftermath with strongly argued historical analogies was initially convincing. They conferred with scholars such as Bernard Lewis, Samuel P. Huntington and Victor Davis Hanson to construct classicist historical narratives and to explain cultural differences. However, the history of the decade after September 11 also contains mis-steps and mistakes which make it a series of contingent decisions (Ferguson; Bergen). One way to analyse these contingent decisions is to pose “what if?” counterfactuals, or feasible alternatives to historical events (Lebow). For instance, what if September 11 had been a chemical and biological weapons attack? (Mann 317). Appendix 1 includes a range of alternative possibilities and “minimal rewrites” or slight variations on the historical events which occurred. Collectively, these counterfactuals suggest the role of agency, chance, luck, and the juxtaposition of better and worse outcomes. They pose challenges to the classicist interpretation adopted soon after September 11 to justify “World War IV” (Podhoretz). A ‘Two-Track’ Process for ‘World War IV’ After the September 11 attacks, I think an overlapping two-track process occurred with the “Vulcans” cabinet, neoconservative advisers, and two “echo chambers”: neoconservative think-tanks and the post-September 11 media. Crucially, Bush’s “Vulcans” war cabinet succeeded in gaining civilian control of the United States war decision process. Although successful in initiating the 2003 Iraq War this civilian control created a deeper crisis in US civil-military relations (Stevenson; Morgan). The “Vulcans” relied on “politicised” intelligence such as a United Kingdom intelligence report on Iraq’s weapons development program. The report enabled “a climate of undifferentiated fear to arise” because its public version did not distinguish between chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons (Halper and Clarke, 210). The cautious 2003 National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) report on Iraq was only released in a strongly edited form. For instance, the US Department of Energy had expressed doubts about claims that Iraq had approached Niger for uranium, and was using aluminium tubes for biological and chemical weapons development. Meanwhile, the post-September 11 media had become a second “echo chamber” (Halper and Clarke 194-196) which amplified neoconservative arguments. Berman, Laqueur, Podhoretz and others who framed the intellectual climate were “risk entrepreneurs” (Mueller 41-43) that supported the “World War IV” vision. The media also engaged in aggressive “flak” campaigns (Herman and Chomsky 26-28; Mueller 39-42) designed to limit debate and to stress foreign policy stances and themes which supported the Bush Administration. When former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey’s claimed that Al Qaeda had close connections to Iraqi intelligence, this was promoted in several books, including Michael Ledeen’s War Against The Terror Masters, Stephen Hayes’ The Connection, and Laurie Mylroie’s Bush v. The Beltway; and in partisan media such as Fox News, NewsMax, and The Weekly Standard who each attacked the US State Department and the CIA (Dorrien 183; Hayes; Ledeen; Mylroie; Heilbrunn 237, 243-244; Mann 310). This was the media “echo chamber” at work. The group Accuracy in Media also campaigned successfully to ensure that US cable providers did not give Al Jazeera English access to US audiences (Barker). Cosmopolitan ideals seemed incompatible with what the “flak” groups desired. The two-track process converged on two now infamous speeches. US President Bush’s State of the Union Address on 29 January 2002, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on 5 February 2003. Bush’s speech included a line from neoconservative David Frumm about North Korea, Iraq and Iran as an “Axis of Evil” (Dorrien 158; Halper and Clarke 139-140; Mann 242, 317-321). Powell’s presentation to the United Nations included now-debunked threat assessments. In fact, Powell had altered the speech’s original draft by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was Cheney’s chief of staff (Dorrien 183-184). Powell claimed that Iraq had mobile biological weapons facilities, linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Mohamed El-Baradei, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Institute for Science and International Security all strongly doubted this claim, as did international observers (Dorrien 184; Halper and Clarke 212-213; Mann 353-354). Yet this information was suppressed: attacked by “flak” or given little visible media coverage. Powell’s agenda included trying to rebuild an international coalition and to head off weather changes that would affect military operations in the Middle East (Mann 351). Both speeches used politicised variants of “weapons of mass destruction”, taken from the counterterrorism literature (Stern; Laqueur). Bush’s speech created an inflated geopolitical threat whilst Powell relied on flawed intelligence and scientific visuals to communicate a non-existent threat (Vogel). However, they had the intended effect on decision makers. US Under-Secretary of Defense, the neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, later revealed to Vanity Fair that “weapons of mass destruction” was selected as an issue that all potential stakeholders could agree on (Wilkie 69). Perhaps the only remaining outlet was satire: Armando Iannucci’s 2009 film In The Loop parodied the diplomatic politics surrounding Powell’s speech and the civil-military tensions on the Iraq War’s eve. In the short term the two track process worked in heading off doubt. The “Vulcans” blocked important information on pre-war Iraq intelligence from reaching the media and the general public (Prados). Alternatively, they ignored area specialists and other experts, such as when Coalition Provisional Authority’s L. Paul Bremer ignored the US State Department’s fifteen volume ‘Future of Iraq’ project (Ferguson). Public “flak” and “risk entrepreneurs” mobilised a range of motivations from grief and revenge to historical memory and identity politics. This combination of private and public processes meant that although doubts were expressed, they could be contained through the dual echo chambers of neoconservative policymaking and the post-September 11 media. These factors enabled the “Vulcans” to proceed with their “regime change” plans despite strong public opposition from anti-war protestors. Expressing DoubtsMany experts and institutions expressed doubt about specific claims the Bush Administration made to support the 2003 Iraq War. This doubt came from three different and sometimes overlapping groups. Subject matter experts such as the IAEA’s Mohamed El-Baradei and weapons development scientists countered the UK intelligence report and Powell’s UN speech. However, they did not get the media coverage warranted due to “flak” and “echo chamber” dynamics. Others could challenge misleading historical analogies between insurgent Iraq and Nazi Germany, and yet not change the broader outcomes (Benjamin). Independent journalists one group who gained new information during the 1990-91 Gulf War: some entered Iraq from Kuwait and documented a more humanitarian side of the war to journalists embedded with US military units (Uyarra). Finally, there were dissenters from bureaucratic and institutional processes. In some cases, all three overlapped. In their separate analyses of the post-September 11 debate on intelligence “failure”, Zegart and Jervis point to a range of analytic misperceptions and institutional problems. However, the intelligence community is separated from policymakers such as the “Vulcans”. Compartmentalisation due to the “need to know” principle also means that doubting analysts can be blocked from releasing information. Andrew Wilkie discovered this when he resigned from Australia’s Office for National Assessments (ONA) as a transnational issues analyst. Wilkie questioned the pre-war assessments in Powell’s United Nations speech that were used to justify the 2003 Iraq War. Wilkie was then attacked publicly by Australian Prime Minister John Howard. This overshadowed a more important fact: both Howard and Wilkie knew that due to Australian legislation, Wilkie could not publicly comment on ONA intelligence, despite the invitation to do so. This barrier also prevented other intelligence analysts from responding to the “Vulcans”, and to “flak” and “echo chamber” dynamics in the media and neoconservative think-tanks. Many analysts knew that the excerpts released from the 2003 NIE on Iraq was highly edited (Prados). For example, Australian agencies such as the ONA, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Department of Defence knew this (Wilkie 98). However, analysts are trained not to interfere with policymakers, even when there are significant civil-military irregularities. Military officials who spoke out about pre-war planning against the “Vulcans” and their neoconservative supporters were silenced (Ricks; Ferguson). Greenlight Capital’s hedge fund manager David Einhorn illustrates in a different context what might happen if analysts did comment. Einhorn gave a speech to the Ira Sohn Conference on 15 May 2002 debunking the management of Allied Capital. Einhorn’s “short-selling” led to retaliation from Allied Capital, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, and growing evidence of potential fraud. If analysts adopted Einhorn’s tactics—combining rigorous analysis with targeted, public denunciation that is widely reported—then this may have short-circuited the “flak” and “echo chamber” effects prior to the 2003 Iraq War. The intelligence community usually tries to pre-empt such outcomes via contestation exercises and similar processes. This was the goal of the 2003 NIE on Iraq, despite the fact that the US Department of Energy which had the expertise was overruled by other agencies who expressed opinions not necessarily based on rigorous scientific and technical analysis (Prados; Vogel). In counterterrorism circles, similar disinformation arose about Aum Shinrikyo’s biological weapons research after its sarin gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system on 20 March 1995 (Leitenberg). Disinformation also arose regarding nuclear weapons proliferation to non-state actors in the 1990s (Stern). Interestingly, several of the “Vulcans” and neoconservatives had been involved in an earlier controversial contestation exercise: Team B in 1976. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assembled three Team B groups in order to evaluate and forecast Soviet military capabilities. One group headed by historian Richard Pipes gave highly “alarmist” forecasts and then attacked a CIA NIE about the Soviets (Dorrien 50-56; Mueller 81). The neoconservatives adopted these same tactics to reframe the 2003 NIE from its position of caution, expressed by several intelligence agencies and experts, to belief that Iraq possessed a current, covert program to develop weapons of mass destruction (Prados). Alternatively, information may be leaked to the media to express doubt. “Non-attributable” background interviews to establishment journalists like Seymour Hersh and Bob Woodward achieved this. Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange has recently achieved notoriety due to US diplomatic cables from the SIPRNet network released from 28 November 2010 onwards. Supporters have favourably compared Assange to Daniel Ellsberg, the RAND researcher who leaked the Pentagon Papers (Ellsberg; Ehrlich and Goldsmith). Whilst Elsberg succeeded because a network of US national papers continued to print excerpts from the Pentagon Papers despite lawsuit threats, Assange relied in part on favourable coverage from the UK’s Guardian newspaper. However, suspected sources such as US Army soldier Bradley Manning are not protected whilst media outlets are relatively free to publish their scoops (Walt, ‘Woodward’). Assange’s publication of SIPRNet’s diplomatic cables will also likely mean greater restrictions on diplomatic and military intelligence (Walt, ‘Don’t Write’). Beyond ‘Doubt’ Iraq’s worsening security discredited many of the factors that had given the neoconservatives credibility. The post-September 11 media became increasingly more critical of the US military in Iraq (Ferguson) and cautious about the “echo chamber” of think-tanks and media outlets. Internet sites for Al Jazeera English, Al-Arabiya and other networks have enabled people to bypass “flak” and directly access these different viewpoints. Most damagingly, the non-discovery of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction discredited both the 2003 NIE on Iraq and Colin Powell’s United Nations presentation (Wilkie 104). Likewise, “risk entrepreneurs” who foresaw “World War IV” in 2002 and 2003 have now distanced themselves from these apocalyptic forecasts due to a series of mis-steps and mistakes by the Bush Administration and Al Qaeda’s over-calculation (Bergen). The emergence of sites such as Wikileaks, and networks like Al Jazeera English and Al-Arabiya, are a response to the politics of the past decade. They attempt to short-circuit past “echo chambers” through providing access to different sources and leaked data. The Global War on Terror framed the Bush Administration’s response to September 11 as a war (Kirk; Mueller 59). Whilst this prematurely closed off other possibilities, it has also unleashed a series of dynamics which have undermined the neoconservative agenda. The “classicist” history and historical analogies constructed to justify the “World War IV” scenario are just one of several potential frameworks. “Flak” organisations and media “echo chambers” are now challenged by well-financed and strategic alternatives such as Al Jazeera English and Al-Arabiya. Doubt is one defence against “risk entrepreneurs” who seek to promote a particular idea: doubt guards against uncritical adoption. Perhaps the enduring lesson of the post-September 11 debates, though, is that doubt alone is not enough. What is needed are individuals and institutions that understand the strategies which the neoconservatives and others have used, and who also have the soft power skills during crises to influence critical decision-makers to choose alternatives. Appendix 1: Counterfactuals Richard Ned Lebow uses “what if?” counterfactuals to examine alternative possibilities and “minimal rewrites” or slight variations on the historical events that occurred. The following counterfactuals suggest that the Bush Administration’s Global War on Terror could have evolved very differently . . . or not occurred at all. Fact: The 2003 Iraq War and 2001 Afghanistan counterinsurgency shaped the Bush Administration’s post-September 11 grand strategy. Counterfactual #1: Al Gore decisively wins the 2000 U.S. election. Bush v. Gore never occurs. After the September 11 attacks, Gore focuses on international alliance-building and gains widespread diplomatic support rather than a neoconservative agenda. He authorises Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan and works closely with the Musharraf regime in Pakistan to target Al Qaeda’s muhajideen. He ‘contains’ Saddam Hussein’s Iraq through measurement and signature, technical intelligence, and more stringent monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Minimal Rewrite: United 93 crashes in Washington DC, killing senior members of the Gore Administration. Fact: U.S. Special Operations Forces failed to kill Osama bin Laden in late November and early December 2001 at Tora Bora. Counterfactual #2: U.S. Special Operations Forces kill Osama bin Laden in early December 2001 during skirmishes at Tora Bora. Ayman al-Zawahiri is critically wounded, captured, and imprisoned. The rest of Al Qaeda is scattered. Minimal Rewrite: Osama bin Laden’s death turns him into a self-mythologised hero for decades. Fact: The UK Blair Government supplied a 50-page intelligence dossier on Iraq’s weapons development program which the Bush Administration used to support its pre-war planning. Counterfactual #3: Rogue intelligence analysts debunk the UK Blair Government’s claims through a series of ‘targeted’ leaks to establishment news sources. Minimal Rewrite: The 50-page intelligence dossier is later discovered to be correct about Iraq’s weapons development program. Fact: The Bush Administration used the 2003 National Intelligence Estimate to “build its case” for “regime change” in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Counterfactual #4: A joint investigation by The New York Times and The Washington Post rebuts U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United National Security Council, delivered on 5 February 2003. Minimal Rewrite: The Central Intelligence Agency’s whitepaper “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs” (October 2002) more accurately reflects the 2003 NIE’s cautious assessments. Fact: The Bush Administration relied on Ahmed Chalabi for its postwar estimates about Iraq’s reconstruction. Counterfactual #5: The Bush Administration ignores Chalabi’s advice and relies instead on the U.S. State Department’s 15 volume report “The Future of Iraq”. Minimal Rewrite: The Coalition Provisional Authority appoints Ahmed Chalabi to head an interim Iraqi government. Fact: L. Paul Bremer signed orders to disband Iraq’s Army and to De-Ba’athify Iraq’s new government. Counterfactual #6: Bremer keeps Iraq’s Army intact and uses it to impose security in Baghdad to prevent looting and to thwart insurgents. Rather than a De-Ba’athification policy, Bremer uses former Baath Party members to gather situational intelligence. Minimal Rewrite: Iraq’s Army refuses to disband and the De-Ba’athification policy uncovers several conspiracies to undermine the Coalition Provisional Authority. AcknowledgmentsThanks to Stephen McGrail for advice on science and technology analysis.References Barker, Greg. “War of Ideas”. PBS Frontline. Boston, MA: 2007. ‹http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/newswar/video1.html› Benjamin, Daniel. “Condi’s Phony History.” Slate 29 Aug. 2003. ‹http://www.slate.com/id/2087768/pagenum/all/›. Bergen, Peter L. The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al Qaeda. New York: The Free Press, 2011. Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism. 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No End in Sight, New York: Representational Pictures, 2007. Filkins, Dexter. The Forever War. New York: Vintage Books, 2008. Friedman, Murray. The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005. Halper, Stefan, and Jonathan Clarke. America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004. Hayes, Stephen F. The Connection: How Al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Heilbrunn, Jacob. They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons. New York: Doubleday, 2008. Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Rev. ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002. Iannucci, Armando. In The Loop. London: BBC Films, 2009. Jervis, Robert. Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War. Ithaca NY: Cornell UP, 2010. Kirk, Michael. “The War behind Closed Doors.” PBS Frontline. Boston, MA: 2003. ‹http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/›. Laqueur, Walter. No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Continuum, 2003. Lebow, Richard Ned. Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations. Princeton NJ: Princeton UP, 2010. Ledeen, Michael. The War against The Terror Masters. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003. Leitenberg, Milton. “Aum Shinrikyo's Efforts to Produce Biological Weapons: A Case Study in the Serial Propagation of Misinformation.” Terrorism and Political Violence 11.4 (1999): 149-158. Mann, James. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet. New York: Viking Penguin, 2004. Morgan, Matthew J. The American Military after 9/11: Society, State, and Empire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Mueller, John. Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. New York: The Free Press, 2009. Mylroie, Laurie. Bush v The Beltway: The Inside Battle over War in Iraq. New York: Regan Books, 2003. Nutt, Paul C. Why Decisions Fail. San Francisco: Berrett-Koelher, 2002. Podhoretz, Norman. “How to Win World War IV”. Commentary 113.2 (2002): 19-29. Prados, John. Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War. New York: The New Press, 2004. Ricks, Thomas. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: The Penguin Press, 2006. Stern, Jessica. The Ultimate Terrorists. Boston, MA: Harvard UP, 2001. Stevenson, Charles A. Warriors and Politicians: US Civil-Military Relations under Stress. New York: Routledge, 2006. Walt, Stephen M. “Should Bob Woodward Be Arrested?” Foreign Policy 10 Dec. 2010. ‹http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/10/more_wikileaks_double_standards›. 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The formation of bacterial biofilms on surfaces and their subsequent biofouling pose extensive safe and healthy concerns to a variety of industries. Biofilms are ubiquitous, and the biofilm state is considered the default mode of growth for the majority of the world's bacteria population. Once mature, biofilms are difficult to remove completely and have improved resistance against antibacterial agents. Given this, there has been significant interest to mitigate or at least manage biofilm formation on surfaces. One such method has been through the material design of surfaces, and to the interest of this study, through the development of antimicrobial stainless steels. Stainless steel is not an inherently antimicrobial material. Stainless steels alloyed with small amounts of either copper (Cu) or silver (Ag), both well-known natural antimicrobial agents, have been investigated since their initial development in the late 1990's onward. This class of materials have been proven to show significant antimicrobial effect over their traditional counterparts without compromising the characteristic mechanical properties of the stainless steels. However, most of the antimicrobial assessments for these materials documented within literature are conducted over a 24-hour timeframe and do not adequately account for the biofilm mode of growth. As so, this study aimed to assess how biofilms grow on this class of antimicrobial steels over a longer duration of growth and under growth conditions which more adequately modeled the biofilm mode of life. The same strain of Escherichia coli commonly used in antimicrobial surface testing, ATCC 8739, was grown on submicron-polished coupons of a ferritic Cu-alloyed stainless steel (1.50 wt. % Cu), an austenitic Ag-alloyed stainless steel (0.042wt. % Ag), and a standard 304 series stainless steel, used as a baseline. Following ASTM-E2647-13, the E. coli/SS coupons were grown using a drip flow bioreactor under low shear conditions at either ambient temperature or 37 ± 3 degrees C with a batch phase of 6 hours and a continuous phase of 48 hours up to 96 hours. Directly after harvesting, the coupons were analyzed with an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (E-SEM) under low vacuum with a water vapor environment. The effect of surface chemistry and alloy microstructure, surface roughness, rinsing the surfaces prior to inoculation and after harvesting, temperature, and growth duration on the resulting E. coli biofilms were all investigated in some capacity. Growth on the submicron finished surfaces indicated there were no significant differences between the biofilms grown on the three different steel compositions. Bacterial attachment appeared non-preferential to surface chemistry or alloy microstructure, suggesting that E. coli interacted with the surfaces effectively the same under the given growth conditions. To account for apparent randomness in bacterial attachment, it is hypothesized that the surface features of interest were on a size scale irrelevant to the size of single bacterial cells. To account for the lack of an observed biocidal effect from the Cu- and Ag-alloyed stainless steels, it is hypothesized that an organic conditioning film which developed on the surfaces from the fluid environment may have effectively inhibited the release of Cu and Ag ions from the steel surfaces.
MS

This thesis examines the history of Commonwealth Government higher education policy in Australia between 1958 and 1997 and its impact on the development of two groups of academic librarians: the Association of Librarians in Colleges in Advanced Education (ALCAE) and the Committee of Australian University Librarians (CAUL). Although university librarians had met occasionally since the late 1920s, it was only in 1965 that a more formal organisation, known as CAUL, was established to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information. ALCAE was set up in 1969 and played an important role helping develop a special concept of library service peculiar to the newly formed College of Advanced Education (CAE) sector. As well as examining the impact of Commonwealth Government higher education policy on ALCAE and CAUL, the thesis also explores the influence of other factors on these two groups, including the range of personalities that comprised them, and their relationship with their parent institutions and with other professional groups and organisations. The study focuses on how higher education policy and these other external and internal factors shaped the functions, aspirations, and internal dynamics of these two groups and how this resulted in each group evolving differently. The author argues that, because of the greater attention given to the special educational role of libraries in the CAE curriculum, the group of college librarians had the opportunity to participate in, and have some influence on, Commonwealth Government statutory bodies responsible for the coordination of policy and the distribution of funding for the CAE sector. The link between ALCAE and formal policy-making processes resulted in a more dynamic group than CAUL, with the university librarians being discouraged by their Vice-Chancellors from having contact with university funding bodies because of the desire of the universities to maintain a greater level of control over their affairs and resist interference from government. The circumstances of each group underwent a reversal over time as ALCAE's effectiveness began to diminish as a result of changes to the CAE sector and as member interest was transferred to other groups and organisations. Conversely, CAUL gradually became a more active group during the 1980s and early 1990s as a result of changes to higher education, the efforts of some university librarians, and changes in membership. This study is based principally on primary source material, with the story of ALCAE and CAUL being told through the use of a combination of original documentation (including minutes of meetings and correspondence) and interviews with members of each group and other key figures.

In the last years, plasmid DNA has been used as a vector for gene therapy and DNA vaccines, and for this reason, the ability to produce large quantities of plasmid DNA is important concerning the DNA vaccines production process, on an industrial scale. Thus, the objective of this research was to study the metabolism and proteome of Escherichia coli (strain VH35) during the pcDNA- FLAG-p53 biosynthesis using as alternative media agro–food industry compounds, as cheese whey, corn steep liquor and yeast extract. Combining these alternative compounds as a growth medium, and using strain VH35 as a host, the optimization of plasmid DNA production was performed in terms of yield and quality. After this optimization, it was analyzed the consumption of sugars in the fermentation medium overtime, and the proteome changes that occur due to metabolic adaptations. The developed work suggests that strain VH35 uses agro-food media as an energy source, thus consuming the lactose present in the agro-food medium, since it does not contain PTS–sugars. Due to the fact that this alteration can lead to proteome modifications in the cell, proteomic analysis was performed using two-dimensional electrophoresis, which showed that the protein composition of strain VH35 was different among the compared growth mediums. Lastly, these proteome changes were analyzed by MALDI-TOF/TOF, and it was possible to identify differentially expressed proteins, such as anthranilate synthase component 1, chaperone protein ClpB, deoxyribose-phosphate aldolase, that are related principally to metabolic pathways and nucleotides synthesis.
Nos últimos anos, o DNA plasmídico tem sido usado como um vetor em terapia génica e em vacinas de DNA, e por essa razão, a capacidade de produzir grandes quantidades de plasmídeo é importante no que diz respeito ao processo de produção de vacinas de DNA, em larga escala. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho foi o estudo metabólico e proteómico da Escherichia coli (estirpe VH35) durante a síntese de pcDNA-FLAG-p53, usando como meio de fermentação compostos alternativos provenientes da indústria agro–alimentar, como o soro de queijo, o “corn steep licor” e o extrato de levedura. Combinando estes compostos alternativos como meio de crescimento, e usando a estirpe VH35 como hospedeiro, procedeu-se então à otimização da produção de DNA plasmídeo, em termos de rendimento e qualidade. Após essa otimização, analisou-se o consumo de açúcares no meio de fermentação ao longo do tempo, e as alterações proteómicas que ocorrem devido a adaptações metabólicas. O trabalho desencolvido sugere que a estirpe VH35 utiliza meios agro-alimentares como fonte de energia, consumindo assim a lactose presente no meio, uma vez que estes meios não possuem açúcares PTS (fosfoenolpiruvato). Devido ao facto desta alteração poder levar a modificações no proteoma da célula, foi feita uma análise proteómica por eletroforese bidimensional, que revelou variações no proteoma da célula quando comparado com diferentes meios de crescimento. Por fim, essas variações proteómicas foram analisadas por MALDI-TOF/TOF, e foi possível identificar proteínas diferencialmente expressas, como por exemplo a proteína MreB, a desoxirribose fosfato – aldolase, chaperonina ClpB,as quais se encontram principalmente relacionadas com o metabolismo e a síntese de nucleótidos.

Increased relevance of biomedical applications of plasmid DNA (pDNA) to induce therapeutic effects has having a great impact on industry and biopharmaceutical research. Gene therapy and DNA vaccines are a new approach for treating genetic diseases such as cancer. These new therapies are based on delivery systems of drugs based on nucleic acids that act at the level of the target cell, correcting or deleting the affected cells. Escherichia coli (E. coli) is the most used host system in the production of pDNA, due to their high growth in minimal media and its easy genetic manipulation. In this paper we used E. coli VH35, a variant with genetic modifications that minimize the accumulation of acetate. Several studies have been performed in different steps of production and purification of plasmid DNA into E. coli in order to increase the yield and productivity of this biomolecule. However, despite several optimization achieved, commercial substrates are used as culture media to produce this biomolecule, taking into account that the final yield of pDNA make the whole production process quite expensive. In order to overcome this problem, the commercial substrates may be supplemented or replaced by industrial wastes resulting in a pDNA yield very similar compared to commercial substrates, via a more economical process. In this paper we used the CSL ("corn step liquor") and the CWPS ("Cheese whey power solution") as alternative substrates in culture media for production of pDNA in E. coli.
O aumento da relevância da aplicabilidade biomédica do DNA plasmídico (pDNA) para induzir efeitos terapêuticos tem tido um grande impacto na indústria e pesquisa biofarmacêutica. A terapia génica e as vacinas de DNA são uma nova abordagem no tratamento de doenças genéticas, como o cancro. Estas novas terapêuticas têm por base a entrega de fármacos baseados em ácidos nucleicos, que atuam ao nível das células alvo, corrigindo ou destruindo as células afetadas. A Escherichia coli (E. coli) é o sistema hospedeiro mais utilizado na produção de pDNA, dado o seu elevado crescimento em meios mínimos e a sua fácil manipulação genética. No presente trabalho é utilizada a E. coli VH35, uma variante com modificações genéticas que minimizam a acumulação de acetato. Diversos estudos têm sido efetuados nas diferentes etapas de produção e purificação de DNA plasmídico em E. coli, com a finalidade de aumentar o rendimento e produtividade final desta biomolécula. No entanto, apesar de diversas otimizações alcançadas, os substratos comerciais utilizados como meios de cultura para produzir esta biomolécula, tendo em conta o rendimento final, tornam todo o processo de produção de pDNA bastante dispendioso. De modo a superar este problema, os substratos comerciais podem ser suplementados ou substituídos por excedentes industriais, obtendo-se uma produtividade de pDNA bastante semelhante comparativamente aos substratos comerciais, através de um processo muito mais económico. No presente trabalho é utilizado o CSL (“corn step liquor”) e o CWPS (“Cheese whey poder solution”) como substratos alternativos em meios de cultura para a produção de pDNA em E. coli.

This paper argues the popular black spots of Turkey, which are really few, initially serve as a political instrument to construct and deepen the national identity. Gallipoli, Anitkabir, National Park for Commander-in-chief, the deathbed of Ataturk, Ulucanlar Prison, and Sakarya Earthquake Museum are well-known black spots in Turkey which could be addressed to improve this argument. The discourse of sterile interior designs, introductory brochures, official web pages, digital presentation and the quantitative gap between domestic and foreign visitors are some proofs, supporting the claim. On the other side of the coin, however, the construction of realms of memory, belonging to the “others” is continuously is suspended and included in official ideology through normalization processes. Diyarbakir Prison, Madimak Hotel Askale are the discursive given “darker sites,” exemplifying the counter-discursive black spots in this sense. So, it can be concluded that the initial function of few samples of dark tourism sites in Turkey is mainly political rather than being economic or cultural.

No and yes. The skin, oropharynx, upper airways, gastrointestinal tract, and lower female genital tract are full of bacteria, with the highest concentration being in the colon and in dental plaque. Overall, humans are made up of slightly more bacterial cells than human cells; about 40 versus 30 trillion respectively. Although much less prominent, fungi and viruses are also present. In addition to these endogenous microbes, humans come into contact with numerous others on a daily basis—they are inhaled, ingested with food and drink, and picked up on the skin from the environment. Some of these remain in and on the human body for periods of time, while others slough off or die. In contrast to this, there are certain areas of the body where microbial agents are not expected to occur under normal circumstances. These are called sterile sites and include: major organs and their surrounding fluids and capsules; blood and body fluids other than faeces and saliva (yes, including urine!); bone, bone marrow, and joint fluid; subcutaneous tissue, fat, muscle, and tendons; the lower respiratory tract; and some of the genital tract. Microbes only enter these protected sterile sites through various breaches in physical and immunological defences. Again— no and yes. This is a question that has posed much debate over the centuries and seems to evolve as understanding of both humans and microbes expands. Early understanding of infectious diseases was based on the idea that the microbe was an aggressor and the host a passive victim. Currently there is a better understanding of the relationship between microbe and host, which is more of a dance than a war. In order to express an understanding of the relationships between host humans and microbes, a language is required that describes this confusing and complex interaction, especially considering that knowledge in this field is still evolving. The bacteria that reside in or on human bodies on a semi- permanent basis are called normal flora, or indigenous microbiome. Each person has a relatively unique set of fairly stable microbes likely determined by early experience, and continued exposures and diets.

We study a protein that responds to mechanical force in most striking manner. We demonstrate that Escherichia coli bacteria need shear stress to bind to certain tissues and model surfaces; they bind strongest precisely when the body tries to wash them off. We have determined that the protein responsible for this behavior is FimH, a ubiquitous adhesion protein in intestinal bacteria that mediates adhesion to host cells via the carbohydrate mannose. Although mechanical force noramlly decreases bond lifetimes, we have shown that the bond betweeen FimH and simple mono-mannose receptors is s “catch-bond” that lasts longer under shear stress. In contrast, structural variations in either FimH or the receptor cause a stronger mode of adhesion in static conditions with little or no activation under force. We derive a structural for how mechanical force switches FimH to a strong binding mode by using steered molecular dynamics simulations, and validate the predictions with subsequent site-directed mutagenesis. The physiological consequences as well as the engineering principles suggested by the structural model will be discussed.

From acidic NiP electroless bath, the co-deposition of TiNi nanoparticles in the NiP matrix to form novel NiP-TiNi nanocomposite coatings (NCCs) on top of API X100 carbon steel using several concentrations of TiNi nanoparticles (0.2, 0.4 and 0.8 g L-1 in the bath) is successfully achieved. The influence of the TiNi nanoparticles on the composition, deposition rate, thickness, and morphology of the NiP coating are investigated before and after annealing at 400 oC. The addition of TiNi nanoparticles into the NiP matrix led to the transform of the amorphous structure of the as-plated NiP into a semi-crystalline one. The microhardness of the composite coating significantly enhances with increasing TiNi concentration up to 0.4 g L-1 and further improvement takes place after heat treatment. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and the colony counting method are carried out to assess the corrosion protection and antibacterial properties, respectively, of the as-deposited and the annealed coatings. The results demonstrate that there is an optimum concentration for the addition of TiNi (0.4 g L-1), which offers the composite coating with the highest corrosion protection that reaches to about 98 %. Below and beyond this concentration as well as after heat treatment, the improvement in the corrosion protection of the composite coatings slightly decreases. Besides, the NiP–TiNi NCCs have effective antibacterial properties as it decreased the cell viability of Escherichia coli from 100 to 19%.

Flexible endoscopy, a procedure during which an operator pushes a semi-rigid endoscope through a patient’s gastrointestinal tract, has been the gold-standard screening method for colon cancer screening (colonoscopy) for over 50 years. Owing to the large amounts of tissue stress that result from the need for transmitting a force to the tip of the endoscope while the device wraps through the bowel, implementing a front-actuated endoscopy system has been a popular area of research [1]. The pursuit of such a concept was accelerated by the advent of ingestible capsule endoscopes, which, since then, have been augmented by researchers to include therapeutic capabilities, modalities for maneuverability, amongst other diagnostic functions [2]. One of the more common approaches investigated has been the use of magnetic fields to apply forces and torques to steer the tip of an endoscope [3]. Recent efforts in magnetic actuation have resulted in the use of robot manipulators with permanent magnets at their end effectors that are used to manipulate endoscopes with embedded permanent magnets. Recently, we implemented closed loop control of a tethered magnetic capsule by using real-time magnetic localization and the linearization of a magnetic wrench applied to the capsule by the actuating magnet [4]. This control was implemented in 2 degrees-of-freedom (DoF) in position (in the horizontal plane) and 2 DoF in orientation (panning and tilting). One DoF in position is lost owing to the tethered capsule being actuated in air and thus lacking a restoring force to counter the high field gradient. The 3rd orientation DoF is lost owing to the axial symmetry of the permanent magnet in the capsule; this prevents the application of torque in the axial direction and thus controlled roll and introduces a singularity in the capsule’s actuation. Although another dipole could be used to eliminate this singularity, this would complicate both the actuation and localization methods. In this manuscript, we consider the consequences of the embedded magnet (EM) being radially offset from the center of the capsule while being manipulated by an external actuating magnet (AM). We have developed a tethered capsule endoscope that contains a cylindrical EM (11.11 mm in length and diameter) with a residual flux density of 1.48 T that is offset by 1.85 mm from the center of the capsule; a distance that is less than 10% of the capsule diameter. Our investigation into the topic results from repeated observation of the capsule’s preference to align such that the internal magnet is closest to the actuating magnet (AM). The AM is a cylindrical magnet (101.6 mm in length and diameter) with a residual flux density of 1.48 T that is mounted at the end effector of a 6 DoF manipulator, as seen in Figure 1. In this manuscript, we evaluate the torqueing effects of the presence of this magnet offset with the goal of determining whether the torque effect is negligible, or impacts capsule motion and thus can potentially be used for the benefit of endoscope manipulation. A concept schematic of this effect is shown in Figure 2. A discussion of how to use this torque is beyond the scope of this manuscript. To the authors’ knowledge, the use of such concept in permanent-magnet based control has not been investigated.