Middle States Research Articles

Crude Politics: The ANC, the Shipping Research Bureau and the Anti-Apartheid Oil Boycott

The workings of the anti-apartheid oil boycott have attracted little scholarly attention to date. Their symbolic importance and contribution to the significant escalation of financial cost for the Apartheid state has been noted, as has the role of Western states and multinational oil companies and Middle Eastern oil states in undermining the boycott. This article focuses on an aspect of the boycott which has received insufficient attention: the role in the boycott of the African National Congress (ANC) and of the Shipping Research Bureau (SRB), the Dutch anti-apartheid organisation specially established in 1979 to trace oil shipments to South Africa. Through a close reading of under-utilised source materials, the article analyses the ANC's handling of the SRB's identification of Middle Eastern anti-apartheid allies as the primary source of oil supplies to South Africa throughout the length of the boycott. The SRB's ‘anti-apartheid forensics’ was hamstrung by the ANC's asymmetrical emphasis on the collaboration of Western oil companies with Apartheid. Dependence on invaluable anti-Apartheid solidarities of various kinds constrained the ANC's ability to act vis-à-vis allies, who in pursuing their own interests, were in violation of the boycott.

Quality of life and its correlation between patients with malignant tumor of middle or terminal stages and their family caregivers

Objective To study the quality of life and the relationship between patients with malignant tumor of middle or terminal stages and their family caregivers. Methods Totals of 136 patients, diagnosed as malignant tumor of middle or terminal stages in Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, and their family caregivers were selected as research object, and were surveyed and analyzed by quality of life scales respectively for patients with malignant tumor of middle or terminal stages and for their family caregivers. Results Total scores of quality of life for family caregivers were positively correlated with scores of various dimensions and total scores in the scale for the patients (r=0.21~0.48, P<0.05) ; total scores of quality of life for patients with malignant tumor of middle or terminal states were positively correlated with scores of various dimensions (except the dimension of relationship) and total scores in the scale for the family caregivers (r=0.14~0.47, P<0.05) ; severity of the patients' disease were negatively correlated with their relationship with their caregivers (r=-0.16, P<0.05) . Conclusions Quality of life of patients with malignant tumor of middle or terminal stages may influence quality of life of their caregivers. Scheme of family nursing helps to improve quality of life of the patients. Key words: Neoplasm; Family caregiver; Quality of life; Relationship

Assurance of Learning and Assessment at the Business Degree Program and Major Levels

This study presents one business school’s experiences in simultaneously undergoing the accreditation processes of both the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB) and the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). AACSB International is a worldwide accreditor of business schools, while MSCHE is a regional accreditor of colleges and universities in the Middle States region of the United States and several other locations internationally. It discusses the process of assurance of learning (AOL) and assessment at the degree program level for the business school’s AACSB accreditation and at the major level for the institution’s MSCHE accreditation.

Short-Term Field Study Programs: A Holistic and Experiential Approach to Learning

ABSTRACTFor business schools, AACSB and Middle States’ call for more experiential learning is one reason to provide study abroad programs. Universities must attend to the demand for continuous improvement and employ metrics to benchmark and evaluate their relative standing among peer institutions. One such benchmark is the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE, 2013) which outlines 10 “Engagement Indicators” classified under four dimensions representing broad aspects of the student experience. These dimensions and engagement indicators are addressed in this article and may serve as a litmus test of the value and impact of study abroad programs.

The poisoned well: empire and its legacy in the Middle East

Roger Hardy offers readers a historical narrative to explain the sources of violence and breakdown in the Middle East. In ten concise chapters, he provides a background reading of the period in between the defeat and dismantling of the Ottoman empire and the emergence of postwar independent states—such as Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and their neighbours—many of which are in their turn disintegrating in front of our eyes, unleashing endless violence and bloodshed. Between the end of the First World War, when imperial powers drew up a new regional map, and the end of the Second World War, when the British and French empires collapsed and the independent Middle Eastern states emerged, is the period during which European imperialists laid the foundations of the current troubles, according to Hardy, who starts the introduction as follows: ‘The crises and conflicts of today's Middle East are rooted in the colonial past. The Israel–Palestinian dispute, radical Islamism, Iran's hostility towards the West, the fraught relationship between Turkey and Europe, and between France and Algeria—all these, and a host of other issues, have their origin in the era of European colonial rule’ (p. 1).

The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border by Christopher Phillips

Reviewed by: The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border by Christopher Phillips Michael E. Woods The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border. By Christopher Phillips. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xxii, 505. $36.95, ISBN 978-0-1951-8723-6.) In her account of Eliza's escape from Kentucky to Ohio, Harriet Beecher Stowe dramatized the Ohio River as a physical and symbolic border between slavery and freedom. But Stowe's long-term residence in Cincinnati taught her that rivers connect people at least as much as they divide them. She knew about the city's bleak history of racist violence and discrimination and understood locals' personal and commercial ties to the slave states. In the conclusion to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Stowe urged northerners to confront their own complicity in slavery. Today, however, the mighty Ohio demarcates an apparently fixed regional boundary. Postcards dub Louisville, Kentucky, the gateway to the South, while historical markers on the Ohio's northern bank celebrate the gateways to freedom that fugitive slaves used. Christopher Phillips's excellent book suggests that this regional split was more a product than a cause of the Civil War, which Abraham Lincoln allegedly attributed to Stowe's novel. Phillips examines Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana as a cohesive region knitted together by familial, economic, cultural, and political ties and characterized by white residents' dedication to the Union and white supremacy alike. Before the Civil War, white people in this "middle border" region regarded themselves as westerners and heirs to a tradition of compromise emblematized by statesmen like Henry "Harry of the West" Clay. Though separated into slave and free portions, the middle border states had much in common. The Northwest Ordinance notwithstanding, bound black labor persisted north of the Ohio, particularly in southern Illinois's salt industry, and racial discrimination was pervasive. Eager to develop the region's [End Page 980] economy without inflaming political controversy, border whites gravitated toward conservative measures like colonization and assailed free black people and their abolitionist allies. Secession and the outbreak of war initially reinforced the white consensus by provoking ire against Republican crusaders and cotton state fire-eaters. Many border residents hoped for a last-ditch compromise, and some, especially in Kentucky, sought to remain neutral. But they could not keep the war and its revolutionary consequences at bay. In Missouri and Kentucky, alternate occupations by Confederate and Union troops forced white residents to juggle competing priorities and ultimately to choose sides. Could a proslavery Kentucky Unionist convince Confederates that she was a southerner? When blue-clad Yankees arrived, would it be safe to do so? Across the Ohio, free-state dissenters opposed the Lincoln administration and rejected Republicans' partisan definitions of patriotism. Neighbors turned against each other as shifting loyalties and wartime polarization provoked considerable violence, seen most famously in the guerrilla warfare that ravaged Missouri and Kentucky. Nothing did more to inflame conflict and shatter the western consensus than emancipation. Despite the border states' exemption from the Emancipation Proclamation, the radicalization of the Union war effort—including the enlistment of black soldiers—pushed some proslavery Unionists toward the Confederacy while enabling Republicans to equate loyalty with antislavery politics. On both sides of the Ohio, whites were divided over the propriety and legality of emancipation. But overall, the issue sharpened the emerging North/South binary, "splintering the moderate western consensus and driving a wedge between the middle border's free and slave states" (p. 211). An Indiana steamboat passenger's loudly stated preference for traveling alongside "'niggers'" (black Union soldiers) rather than "'rebels'" (white southern women) clarified the war's impact: racism persisted, but the prewar consensus had been demolished by sectional loyalty politics (p. 265). Wartime animosities lingered long after 1865 because the region's cultural politics replaced the old consensus. White Missourians and Kentuckians wrote themselves into the history of the Old South and the Confederacy, though most of them had worn the Union blue. White Ohioans, Indianans, and Illinoisans burnished their northern credentials by celebrating the Underground Railroad and contrasting their orderly, progressive communities with the alleged...

Theory of Negative Political Consciousness: The Case of Reliance on the Credenda and the Medieval Justification of Political Power

This paper assesses two instruments of power: the miranda and credenda of power. These instruments can be found in different power systems and regimes: in ancient Greece, Islamic medieval states or even in Modern Middle Easter states. The first approach is historical, which helps to understand the origin of the miranda and credenda of power. The second approach is theoretical, which helps to show both the miranda and credenda of power that are used to assess the claims to the justification of power. As a critique, this paper shows that semi-democracies, fascist states, theocracies, and communist regimes use these instruments excessively to justify their power. Abuse of such instrument is only possible by generating “negative political consciousness” of which aim is to make folks to become rightless and powerless. Such trend is a threat to a healthy democracy. The aim of this paper attempts to show the important role of miranda and credenda of power in justification of power.

Study the Native Vegetation around the &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Al Hosh&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; Highway Slope in Sudan (Gezira State) as Bioengineering Method of Slope Erosion Protection

Soil erosion occurs due to rainfall intensity and soil movement had become one of the disasters faced by Al Hosh highway today. And the carelessness (Where there is no any type of protection) it has also caused occur the soil erosion due unprotected embankment side slope of the Al Hosh highway, which affect widely of the loss of human lives according to traffic accidents, the destruction of cars and large vehicles. Although the area is usually categorized as eroded area because of high rainfall intensity during the autumn season time, the Middle East states of the Sudan as Gezira state is known by the heavy rainfall. As stabilization of slopes using mechanical structures is costly to establish and maintain, biotechnical slope protection is an alternative which is more aesthetically pleasing and cost effective. Hence, in this research, an overall study on the positive impacts of the presence of native vegetation for the slope stability were studied in the Al Hosh embankment side slope. Trying to use native vegetation as the local grasses to restore the Al Hosh highway slope as a new bio-engineering method in Sudan. This paper explores the review the native vegetation and its ability to use it in protecting Al Hosh slope erosion with different slope angles by identification, categorization and studying of the salient features of them according to the soil classification for relevant slope by using both Unified Soil Classification System and US Department of Agriculture. This research recommends suitable native vegetation against soil erosion and subsequent slope failures in cut slopes.

Unusual Two–step Switchable Dielectric Behaviors and FerroelasticPhase Transition in a Simple 18‐Crown‐6 Clathrate

AbstractThe molecular multi‐sequential phase transition accompanying with perfect switchable dielectric behaviors and ferroelastic properties are seldom reported. Here we investigated unusual two‐step reversible structural phase transitions which consist of a ferroelastic phase transition and a special structural phase transition without symmetry breaking in a simple clathrate of 18‐Crown‐6 phosphofluoric acid monohydrate, (1). The further molecular dynamic by variable temperature X‐ray Single crystal diffraction and Powder X‐ray diffractions were disclosed that it was driven by two distinct rotation motions namely compass‐like rotation and windlass‐like rotation. Two pairs of distinct reversible step‐like dielectric anomalies with electrical tristabilities among high, middle and low dielectric states at 278/281 K and 292/296 K in heating/cooling runs suggest that it can be a potential switchable dielectric molecular material within a narrow temperaturespan (15 K). The DSC curves show analogous heat anomalies at the same temperatures and further confirm the reversible phase transition behaviors.

Distribution and availability for aggregated second-order semi-Markov ternary system with working time omission

Discrete repairable degradation systems can be modeled by a homogeneous discrete-time second-order semi-Markov chain with finite state space for theoretical and practical sake. In the present paper, the state space can be divided into three subclasses, namely excellent states, good states (middle states) and failure states. The transitions among states may be driven by degradations and inside shocks of the system, repair actions, self-healings, energy supplement and other recovery ways. The Z-transform is used to give distributions for some interesting problems such as distributions of an I-period (oscillation & working time) and a gap between I-periods, and instantaneous and steady availabilities of the system. Finally, some numerical examples are given to illustrate the results obtained in the paper. The work may be used in reliability and maintenance analysis of discrete time repairable systems.

Ottomanism and Neo-Ottomanism in the Travails of the ‘Serbian National Corpus’: Turkey as the Recurrent Focus of Serbian Academia

This study addresses the revival of ‘Ottomanism’, defined as a threat of ‘return’ to the cultural and political norms of the Ottoman Empire, operationalized via the links between Turkey and the local Muslim population, among the academic elites in Serbia since the late 1980s. The making of Ottomanism a relevant segment of the nation-building process in post-Yugoslav Serbia has served two goals: (1) forgetting the history of the Yugoslav Federation; and (2) affirming the ‘irreconcilable differences’ between the Yugoslav Muslims and Christians, and subsequently legitimating the violent redrawing of state boundaries. The neo-Ottomanist ‘dangers’ are presented as stemming from: (1) the apparent continuity between the expansionism of the Ottoman Empire and the current policies of Turkey in the Balkans, (2) the failure of the modernization reforms of ‘Atatürkism’, which is attributed to the fact that they were alien to the cultural-religious ‘essence’ of Turkish mentality; and (3) the link between the modernization failure and the resurgence of ‘Islamization’, which is perceived as either not been recognized by Turkey’s Western allies, or as being used by U.S. policymakers as leverage against other Middle Eastern states.

Tunisian Exceptionalism Or Constitutional Timing: A Comparison Of Democratic Transitions In The Middle East

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Abstract:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; The protest movements of the Arab Spring prompted a major reevaluation amongst policymakers and academics alike about authoritarian regime stability in the Middle East. Counter to the euphoria that greeted the protests, continued instability, sectarianism, and extreme violence in several Middle Eastern states have sparked concerns that the dictators who ruled before may have been the better of two bad options. These concerns detract from the significant political transformation that Tunisia has undergone, from one of the most repressive dictatorships in the region to its sole genuine democracy. While Tunisia’s successful democratic transition looks like an anomaly in its current regional environment, Egypt did achieve a significant historic milestone when it elected President Morsi in free and fair elections. However his tenure did not last long, and Egypt’s broader failure to democratize prompts questions as to how democratic transitions succeed after dictatorships. By comparing the democratic transition processes in Tunisia and in Egypt, we can begin to elucidate the causes of the different outcomes of the protests in these two similar states. New political actors and certain ancien régime institutions played critical roles in ousting the dictators, but the timeline of whether democratic elections took place before or after new constitutions were adopted, was paramount in determining the success of the democratic transition. This is because constitutional timing structured whether the country’s political design would be determined by dialogue and deliberation or ad-hoc by the political actor with the greatest popularity. &lt;/p&gt;

The David Effect: Underdogs and Investment Arbitrator

The legitimacy of investor-state dispute settlement or ‘ISDS’ is fiercely contested. Chiefly, scholars argue this arbitration mechanism empowers investors from developed states over governments of developing host states. In response, investors (mostly) from developed states argue that without adequate protections, including investor-state arbitration, they would be unable to prevent and resist opportunistic actions like expropriations by developing host states with weak rule of law and institutions. In the resulting setting, developing states facing claims by investors seem to have limited ability to improve their standing in litigation. Based on an experiment conducted on 266 arbitrators, we argue that one potential avenue is for developing host states to exploit their ‘underdog’ status. Our results show that arbitrators may be prone to the ‘David Effect’ — a bias to favor the perceived weaker party in the arbitration. Surveyed arbitrators were more likely to award low income respondent states reimbursement of their legal costs compared to middle income states. Likewise, investors from less developed economies were also more likely to have their costs reimbursed when they win compared to investors from wealthy economies. Our study suggests that the legitimacy of legal regimes depends, in the minds of decision-makers, on a minimum expectation of fairness. This hints at the importance of arbitrators’ beliefs about the distribution of power among litigants in explaining the functioning of the investor-state arbitration system.

Soliton synchronization in the focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation.

The focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) describes propagation of quasimonochromatic waves in weakly nonlinear media. The aim of this study is to determine conditions of soliton synchronization in the NLSE in terms of the solitons' position and phase parameters. For this purpose, the concept of asymptotic middle states of solitons in the NLSE is first introduced. With soliton solutions of the NLSE, it is shown that soliton synchronization can be achieved by synchronizing the asymptotic middle states of the solitons, and conditions of soliton synchronization in terms of the solitons' position and phase parameters are given. Although the interaction of the solitons is nonlinear, the conditions are linear equations. Then, aided with the synchronization conditions, simple initial conditions are presented for producing synchronized interaction of solitons without the need to obtain analytic expressions for the synchronized interaction of the solitons. The initial conditions are summations of fundamental solitons with no mutual overlap, so they might be convenient to implement in applicative contexts.

Understanding Higher Education Accreditation for the HTM Field.

Steven Yelton, PE, AS, BSEE, is a professor in the Electrical Engineering Technologies Department at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in Cincinnati, OH. Email: steven.yelton@ cincinnatistate.edu Over time, the healthcare technology management (HTM) field has seen an expansion in the education credentials for certain positions. However, getting a college degree can be challenging for many professionals, even with extensive experience in the field and a previous college degree. One problem is that accreditation mismatches may exist between institutions, which often is a surprise for employees and employers. A thorough understanding of institutional accreditation is critical for successful career development. To begin, here is an important fact: Every one of the thousands of colleges and universities in this country is accredited (with a tiny number of exceptions, mainly religious schools). Accreditation is designed to ensure academic quality, ensure public confidence, and most importantly, serve as a gatekeeper for federal financial aid (Title IV funds). Because many students use financial support to pay for college, institutions need accreditation for enrollment to start to happen. An accreditation credential granted to institutions is associated with one of two bodies: the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) or the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). CHEA is a nongovernmental organization that recognizes five regional groups (Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges Western Association of Schools and Colleges, Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Higher Learning Commission, New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges) surveying about 3,000 schools. Colleges or universities with this accreditation type are deemed “regionally accredited.” Academic credits earned at one of the schools are transferrable to another regionally accredited school. (Of note, while regional accreditation ensures the transfer of courses between institutions, it does not guarantee that courses will meet the specific degree requirements.) The transfer of courses between institutions is a complicated and challenging process that also involves program accreditation (discussed later). A database of regionally accredited schools is accessible at www.chea.org. Approximately 85% of colleges have regional accreditation, including all public (state or federally supported) institutions. The other accreditation credential option comes from one of about 52 private agencies. The USDE has provided “deemed status” to this diverse group to accredit colleges and universities, many of which are faith-based (e.g., Association of Advanced Rabbinical and Talmudic Schools) or focused on specialty training (e.g., Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine). Institutions accredited by one of these We Hear You! Our Complete Standards Collection Is Now Digital. Includes the current version of every standard and guidance document

Bilaterals, Trilaterals and G2: Pragmatic Hedging Between Great Powers and the Role of the Middle Powers and Small States in Northeast Asia

Trilateral diplomacy offers an opportunity for Northeast Asian leaders to meet and talk in a business-like manner, rather than having the region risk skirmishes between maritime coastguards and fishermen, helicopter landings by politicians on disputed islands and icy-cold poses during leadership summits. In such conversations, the United States remains the most acceptable common denominator for other large states and middle powers in the international community.

Out-of-plane three-stable-state ferroelectric switching: Finding the missing middle states

By realizing a nonvolatile third intermediate ferroelectric state through anisotropic misfit strain, we demonstrate electrical switching among three stable out-of-plane polarizations in bismuth ferrite thin films grown on ${(110)}_{\mathrm{pc}}$-oriented gadolinium scandate substrates (where pc stands for pseudocubic) by the use of an asymmetric external electric field at the step edge of a bottom electrode. We employ phenomenological Landau theory, in conjunction with electrical poling experiments using piezoresponse force microscopy, to understand the role of anisotropic misfit strain and an in-plane electric field in stabilization of multiple ferroelectric states and their competition. Our finding provides a useful insight into multistep ferroelectric switching in rhombohedral ferroelectrics.

Statelessness in a world of nation-states: the cases of Kurdish diasporas in Sweden and the UK

ABSTRACTMass displacement in the Middle East is a major political challenge for contemporary Middle Eastern and Western states. As a consequence, statelessness has emerged as one of the central political issues in relation to the collapse and weakening of the states in the Middle East. Through deploying a qualitative inquiry and interviews with 50 Kurdish immigrants, this article investigates how members of Kurdish diasporas in Sweden and the UK conceive and experience statelessness in a world of unequal nation-states and hierarchical citizenship. Since diasporas are important non-state actors in nation-building processes, it is important to analyse their diasporic visions and the ways they challenge or reinforce the power of the nation-state in the context of migration. While from a legal or a right-based approach, the solution to statelessness is found in acquisition of a nationality/citizenship, I posit that in a world structured by the political normativity of the nation-state, nations without states will continue to be in search of national self-determination, political autonomy and sovereignty in the international comity of sovereign nations.

Using Text Analysis to Assess Qualitative Student Works, Deal with Inter-rater Reliability, and Simultaneously Comply with AACSB Standard 8 and Middle States Standard V

The purpose of this research is to determine if the analytical process of text analysis or text mining can be adapted successfully as a tool to help automate assessment of student works related to ways in which they demonstrate progress in meeting institutional and accreditation standards. Student works in this case are assignments from graduate and undergraduate courses in business. An electronic library with six dictionaries was built containing Jesuit and Catholic keywords, phrases, concepts and synonyms so text analysis has the ability to identify these institutional learning goals within student work products. Conclusions from this study are that text mining can be adapted successfully as an automated solution for assessing large volumes of student works without involvement of large numbers of assessors and therefore without the problem of inter-rater reliability that comes from using multiple human assessors.

Using Text Analysis to Assess Qualitative Student Works, Deal with Inter-rater Reliability, and Simultaneously Comply with AACSB Standard 8 and Middle States Standard V Web Appendix

Using Text Analysis to Assess Qualitative Student Works, Deal with Inter-rater Reliability, and Simultaneously Comply with AACSB Standard 8 and Middle States Standard V Web Appendix