Political strategies of external support for democratization

Political strategies of external support to democratization are contrasted and critically examined in respect of the United States and European Union. The analysis begins by defining its terms of reference and addresses the question of what it means to have a strategy. The account briefly notes the goals lying behind democratization support and their relationship with the wider foreign policy process, before considering what a successful strategy would look like and how that relates to the selection of candidates. The literature's attempts to identify strategy and its recommendations for better strategies are compared and assessed. Overall, the article argues that the question of political strategies of external support for democratization raises several distinct but related issues including the who?, what?, why?, and how? On one level, strategic choices can be expected to echo the comparative advantage of the "supporter." On a different level, the strategies cannot be divorced from the larger foreign policy framework. While it is correct to say that any sound strategy for support should be grounded in a theoretical understanding of democratization, the literature on strategies reveals something even more fundamental: divergent views about the nature of politics itself. The recommendations there certainly pinpoint weaknesses in the actual strategies of the United States and Europe but they have their own limitations too. In particular, in a world of increasing multi-level governance strategies for supporting democratization should go beyond preoccupation with just an "outside-in" approach

VERITAS Search for VHE Gamma-ray Emission from Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies

Indirect dark matter searches with ground-based gamma-ray observatories provide an alternative for identifying the particle nature of dark matter that is complementary to that of direct search or accelerator production experiments. We present the results of observations of the dwarf spheroidal galaxies Draco, Ursa Minor, Bootes 1, and Willman 1 conducted by VERITAS. These galaxies are nearby dark matter dominated objects located at a typical distance of several tens of kiloparsecs for which there are good measurements of the dark matter density profile from stellar velocity measurements. Since the conventional astrophysical background of very high energy gamma rays from these objects appears to be negligible, they are good targets to search for the secondary gamma-ray photons produced by interacting or decaying dark matter particles. No significant gamma-ray flux above 200 GeV was detected from these four dwarf galaxies for a typical exposure of ~20 hours. The 95% confidence upper limits on the integral gamma-ray flux are in the range 0.4-2.2x10^-12 photons cm^-2s^-1. We interpret this limiting flux in the context of pair annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles and derive constraints on the thermally averaged product of the total self-annihilation cross section and the relative velocity of the WIMPs. The limits are obtained under conservative assumptions regarding the dark matter distribution in dwarf galaxies and are approximately three orders of magnitude above the generic theoretical prediction for WIMPs in the minimal supersymmetric standard model framework. However significant uncertainty exists in the dark matter distribution as well as the neutralino cross sections which under favorable assumptions could further lower the limits.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, updated to reflect version published in ApJ. NOTE: M.D. Wood added as autho

Discovery of very high energy gamma rays from PKS 1424+240 and multiwavelength constraints on its redshift

We report the first detection of very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission above 140 GeV from PKS 1424+240, a BL Lac object with an unknown redshift. The photon spectrum above 140 GeV measured by VERITAS is well described by a power law with a photon index of 3.8 +- 0.5_stat +- 0.3_syst and a flux normalization at 200 GeV of (5.1 +- 0.9_stat +- 0.5_syst) x 10^{-11} TeV^-1 cm^-2 s^-1, where stat and syst denote the statistical and systematical uncertainty, respectively. The VHE flux is steady over the observation period between MJD 54881 and 55003 (2009 February 19 to June 21). Flux variability is also not observed in contemporaneous high energy observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). Contemporaneous X-ray and optical data were also obtained from the Swift XRT and MDM observatory, respectively. The broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) is well described by a one-zone synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model favoring a redshift of less than 0.1. Using the photon index measured with Fermi in combination with recent extragalactic background light (EBL) absorption models it can be concluded from the VERITAS data that the redshift of PKS 1424+240 is less than 0.66.Comment: accepted for publication, Ap

Expression of endoglin, CD105, in conjunctival melanocytic nevi: Is it suspicious like in thyroidology? Oculi plus vident quam oculus?

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression of endoglin and its correlation with histopathological and clinical findings in conjunctival nevi. Methods: The study included archival formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections of 44 patients with conjunctival nevi. Immunohistochemical staining for CD105 had been performed with monoclonal mouse antihuman CD105 antibodies. The intratumoral microvessel density for quantification of tumoral vascularization had been determined by this marker. Results: The expression of CD105 was positive in 30 (68.2%) cases. There was a statistically significant difference in the level of CD105 expression regarding the histological type of nevus (p=0.03) and intralesional cysts status (p=0.02). Spearman’s rho (ρ -0.316) revealed a significant negative correlation between the expression of endoglin and the histological type of nevus (p=0.03) and between the expression of endoglin and the presence of intralesional cysts (ρ -0.380, p=0.01). Conclusion: This study suggests that endoglin could be a useful diagnostic and prognostic marker in differentiating between benign and malignant melanocytic ocular lesions

Service value creation in supplier-buyer interactions

Tedarik Zinciri Yönetimi (TZY), imalat, yöneylem, müşteri yönetimi ve dağıtım gibi değişik disiplinlerin ilgisini çekmiştir. Küresel tedarik, zaman ve kalite temelli rekabet, teknolojik gelişmeler ve çevresel belirsizlik unsurları sonucunda, TZY akademik araştırmalar için güncel bir başlık haline gelmiştir. Artan küresel rekabet, tedarik zinciri halkalarının birbirleri ile daha yakın koordinasyon sağlamasını ve kendilerini diğer halkaların konumlarını dikkate alarak daha iyi hizalamalarını gerektirmektedir. Bu sebeple, tedarikçi-alıcı çiftlerinin yakından incelenmesi hayati önem taşımaktadır. Fiyat bir ürünün en önemli özelliği haline dönüştükçe karlılık düşmekte, rekabet avantajı azalmaktadır, buna ek olarak  bilişim teknolojilerinin tedarikçi-alıcı çiftlerinin daha yakın koordinasyonuna imkan tanımayan araçları geliştikçe, tedarikçiler ürünlerini sundukları hizmetler ile desteklemektedirler. Öyle ki, hizmet kalitesi, ürün kalitesinden daha önemli bir sipariş kazandıran olarak anılmaktadır. Ancak, hizmetler yolu ile farklılaştırma yakalanması zor bir kavramdır. Ürünlere eşlik ederek melez ürün oluşumuna katkıda bulunan hizmetler, tedarikçilerin rekabetçiliklerini daha da geliştirebilecekleri unsurlar arasında yer almaktadır. Ancak, alıcıların hizmetlere dair öznel beklentilerinin gelişimleri ve değişkenlikleri sebebi ile tedarikçiler sunumunda bulunacakları hizmet seviyesi gereklerini öngörmekte zorlanmaktadırlar. Bu çalışmanın hedeflediği amaçlar çeşitlidir. Hizmetlerin Tedarik Zinciri Yönetimi (TZY) içerisindeki önemini ortaya koyarak, tedarikçi-alıcı etkileşimlerinde katma değer yaratabilme kabiliyetlerini ortaya koymak bu amaçlardan ilkidir. Ayrıca, tedarikçilerin alıcılarının hizmet seviyesi gereklerini belirleyebilmeleri için Snell Kanunu’ndan yararlanılarak, tedarikçilere ışık tutacak bir model geliştirmek de amaçlanmaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Tedarik Zinciri Yönetimi, Tedarikçi-Alıcı etkileşimi, hizmetler, değer yaratımı.Supply chain management has attracted attention from various multi-disciplinary fields, which include manufacturing, operations management, customer management and transportation. Global sourcing, time and quality based competition, improvements in technology, and environmental uncertainties have placed supply chain management as a timely topic for academic research. Defect-free, fast and reliable delivery has almost become the necessities to be in the market, rather than competitive advantage. Ever stiff competition in the global arena calls for closer coordination and better alignment between supply chain participants. Therefore, a closer examination of supplier and buyer interactions is vital. As price becomes the most important feature of a product and reduces profitability and competitive advantage, and as information technology tools that help in a closer coordination with buyer and supplier emerge, suppliers get engaged in providing services around their products. Moreover, service quality is referred as a more important order winner than the product quality. Yet differentiation via services dimension is not an easy concept to grasp. Firms often perform services according to the norms they have established over years of experience. Though, the breadth of experience commonly varies from one firm to another. Therefore, norms adopted for services vary, too. A norm considered for a specific service in one company might not exist at another company, or even if exist could be underestimated. When placed in the context of complex supply chains, this presents a supplier with often buyers that have different services' norms. A certain aspect of a supplier's service might be deemed superior at one buyer, while normal or even inferior at another buyer. Therefore, provision of services in supply chain management presents a promising research area. There is a need to understand if supplier's provision of services is capable of generating superior or inferior perceived buyer value. For a firm to gain and retain value additive beneficial relationships with its buyers, its offer should often involve some social values (something that will make buyer's life a better one) either by clearly identifying the needs of its buyers or by outperforming what other suppliers already do. Suppliers demand more information on sophisticated norms and specifications of their buyers to formulate their services. This research attempts to shed the light on the issues discussed, and also uncover the possible causes of superior perceived buyer value creation upon supplier's provision of services in supply chain. An exploratory research model has been developed by the aid of an analogy from Snell's Law of the physics as services creation of value has an instantaneous nature like that of the passage of a beam of light from one medium to another one. Two propositions had stemmed from the exploratory research. Firstly, lower operational medium on supply side is likely to cause inferiority in perceived buyer value for an encounter. Secondly, higher operational medium on supply side is likely to cause superiority in perceived buyer value for an encounter. A panel of experts had been devised to confirm usefulness and meaningfulness of the developed model. The research process for the panel of experts was a qualitative technique based on an interpretive orientation. Participants included 9 provincial individuals. In all, there were 19 interviews, involving 9 individuals. In four instances more than one person participated in an interview. Thirteen of the interviews were face-to-face, and three were conducted by telephone. Interviewees confirmed the model by the practices they are involved within the industry, as well as with the exemplifying issues they have presented. No changes were requested for the developed exploratory model. The main contribution of this research endeavor to academia is the developed exploratory model, which explains creation of superior perceived buyer value via provision of services in a supplier-buyer interaction. Therefore, reference disciplines, including supply chain management and services have received contribution. High levels of services are often costly for suppliers to adopt for the entire buyer base due to two major reasons: the unnecessary high costs incurred for buyers who were not necessarily expecting such high services for value creation, and the dramatically raised expectations which will set the base for all forthcoming services of the supplier that'll force the supplier to perform an ever higher levels of services. Developed model facilitates detection of possible opportunities to improve service levels through which a supplier can create superior perceived buyer value. Keywords: Supply chain management, supplier-buyer interaction, services, value creation

Service value creation in supplier-buyer interactions

Tedarik Zinciri Yönetimi (TZY), imalat, yöneylem, müşteri yönetimi ve dağıtım gibi değişik disiplinlerin ilgisini çekmiştir. Küresel tedarik, zaman ve kalite temelli rekabet, teknolojik gelişmeler ve çevresel belirsizlik unsurları sonucunda, TZY akademik araştırmalar için güncel bir başlık haline gelmiştir. Artan küresel rekabet, tedarik zinciri halkalarının birbirleri ile daha yakın koordinasyon sağlamasını ve kendilerini diğer halkaların konumlarını dikkate alarak daha iyi hizalamalarını gerektirmektedir.  Bu sebeple, tedarikçi-alıcı çiftlerinin yakından incelenmesi hayati önem taşımaktadır. Fiyat bir ürünün en önemli özelliği haline dönüştükçe karlılık düşmekte, rekabet avantajı azalmaktadır, buna ek olarak  bilişim teknolojilerinin tedarikçi-alıcı çiftlerinin daha yakın koordinasyonuna imkan tanımayan araçları geliştikçe, tedarikçiler ürünlerini sundukları hizmetler ile desteklemektedirler. Öyle ki, hizmet kalitesi, ürün kalitesinden daha önemli bir sipariş kazandıran olarak anılmaktadır. Ancak, hizmetler yolu ile farklılaştırma yakalanması zor bir kavramdır. Ürünlere eşlik ederek melez ürün oluşumuna katkıda bulunan hizmetler, tedarikçilerin rekabetçiliklerini daha da geliştirebilecekleri unsurlar arasında yer almaktadır. Ancak, alıcıların hizmetlere dair öznel beklentilerinin gelişimleri ve değişkenlikleri sebebi ile tedarikçiler sunumunda bulunacakları hizmet seviyesi gereklerini öngörmekte zorlanmaktadırlar. Bu çalışmanın hedeflediği amaçlar çeşitlidir. Hizmetlerin Tedarik Zinciri Yönetimi (TZY) içerisindeki önemini ortaya koyarak, tedarikçi-alıcı etkileşimlerinde katma değer yaratabilme kabiliyetlerini ortaya koymak bu amaçlardan ilkidir. Ayrıca, tedarikçilerin alıcılarının hizmet seviyesi gereklerini belirleyebilmeleri için Snell Kanunu’ndan yararlanılarak, tedarikçilere ışık tutacak bir model geliştirmek de amaçlanmaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Tedarik zinciri yönetimi, tedarikçi-alıcı etkileşimi, hizmetler, değer yaratımı.Supply chain management has attracted attention from various multi-disciplinary fields, which include manufacturing, operations management, customer management and transportation. Global sourcing, time and quality based competition, improvements in technology, and environmental uncertainties have placed supply chain management as a timely topic for academic research. Defect-free, fast and reliable delivery has almost become the necessities to be in the market, rather than competitive advantage. Ever stiff competition in the global arena calls for closer coordination and better alignment between supply chain participants. Therefore, a closer examination of supplier and buyer interactions is vital. As price becomes the most important feature of a product and reduces profitability and competitive advantage, and as information technology tools that help in a closer coordination with buyer and supplier emerge, suppliers get engaged in providing services around their products. Moreover, service quality is referred as a more important order winner than the product quality. Yet differentiation via services dimension is not an easy concept to grasp. Firms often perform services according to the norms they have established over years of experience. Though, the breadth of experience commonly varies from one firm to another. Therefore, norms adopted for services vary, too. A norm considered for a specific service in one company might not exist at another company, or even if exist could be underestimated. When placed in the context of complex supply chains, this presents a supplier with often buyers that have different services' norms. A certain aspect of a supplier's service might be deemed superior at one buyer, while normal or even inferior at another buyer. Therefore, provision of services in supply chain management presents a promising research area. There is a need to understand if supplier's provision of services is capable of generating superior or inferior perceived buyer value. For a firm to gain and retain value additive beneficial relationships with its buyers, its offer should often involve some social values (something that will make buyer's life a better one) either by clearly identifying the needs of its buyers or by outperforming what other suppliers already do. Suppliers demand more information on sophisticated norms and specifications of their buyers to formulate their services. This research attempts to shed the light on the issues discussed, and also uncover the possible causes of superior perceived buyer value creation upon supplier's provision of services in supply chain. An exploratory research model has been developed by the aid of an analogy from Snell's Law of the physics as services creation of value has an instantaneous nature like that of the passage of a beam of light from one medium to another one. Two propositions had stemmed from the exploratory research. Firstly, lower operational medium on supply side is likely to cause inferiority in perceived buyer value for an encounter. Secondly, higher operational medium on supply side is likely to cause superiority in perceived buyer value for an encounter. A panel of experts had been devised to confirm usefulness and meaningfulness of the developed model. The research process for the panel of experts was a qualitative technique based on an interpretive orientation. Participants included 9 provincial individuals. In all, there were 19 interviews, involving 9 individuals. In four instances more than one person participated in an interview. Thirteen of the interviews were face-to-face, and three were conducted by telephone. Interviewees confirmed the model by the practices they are involved within the industry, as well as with the exemplifying issues they have presented. No changes were requested for the developed exploratory model. The main contribution of this research endeavor to academia is the developed exploratory model, which explains creation of superior perceived buyer value via provision of services in a supplier-buyer interaction. Therefore, reference disciplines, including supply chain management and services have received contribution. High levels of services are often costly for suppliers to adopt for the entire buyer base due to two major reasons: the unnecessary high costs incurred for buyers who were not necessarily expecting such high services for value creation, and the dramatically raised expectations which will set the base for all forthcoming services of the supplier that'll force the supplier to perform an ever higher levels of services. Developed model facilitates detection of possible opportunities to improve service levels through which a supplier can create superior perceived buyer value. Keywords: Supply chain management, supplier-buyer interaction, services, value creation

Designing Approximations of Practice: The Case of Teacher Noticing

As a core practice, teacher noticing of students\u27 mathematical thinking is foundational to other teaching practices. Yet, this practice is difficult for preservice teachers (PSTs), particularly the component of interpreting students\u27 thinking (e.g., Teuscher et al., 2017). We report on a study of our design of a specific approximation of teacher noticing task with the overarching goal of conceptualizing how to design approximations of practice that support PSTs\u27 learning to notice student thinking in technology-mediated environments with a specific focus on interpreting students\u27 mathematical thinking. Drawing on Grossman et al.\u27s (2009) Framework for Teaching Practice (i.e., pedagogies of practice), we provided decomposed opportunities for PSTs to engage with the practice of teacher noticing. We analyzed how our design choices led to different evidence of the PSTs\u27 interpretations through professional development design study methods. Findings indicate that the PSTs frequently interpret what students understood. Yet, they were more challenged by interpreting what students did not yet understand. Furthermore, we found that providing lesson goals and asking the PSTs to respond to a prompt of deciding how to respond had the potential to elicit PSTs\u27 interpretations of what the students did not yet understand. The study highlights the interplay between task design, prompt wording, and PSTs\u27 interpretations, which emphasizes the complexity of developing teacher noticing

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci colonization in patients with hematological malignancies: screening and its cost-effectiveness

Background and objective: We evaluated the rates of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) colonization and VRE related bacteremia in patients with hematological malignancies in terms of routine screening culture and its cost-effectiveness.Materials and Methods: All patients of the hematology department who were older than 14 years of age and who developed at least one febrile neutropenia episode during chemotherapy for hematological cancers between November 2010 and November 2012 were evaluated retrospectively.Results: We retrospectively analyzed 282 febrile episodes in 126 neutropenic patients during a two-year study period. The study included 65 cases in the first study-year and 78 cases in the second study-year. The numbers of colonization days and colonized patient were 748 days of colonization in 29 patients (44%) in the first study-year and 547 colonization days in 21 patients (26%) in the second study-year, respectively. Routine screening culture for VRE cost $4516,4 (427 cultures) in the first study-year,$5082,7 (504 cultures) in the second study-year depending on the number of patients and their length of stay.Conclusion: In line with our study results, routine screening of hematological patients for VRE colonization is not costeffective. Routine surveillance culture for VRE should be considered with respect to the conditions of health care setting.Keywords: Hematological patients, febrile neutropenia, vancomycin-resistant enterococci, vancomycin-sensitive enterococci, bacteremia, colonization

Papillary microcarcinomas of the thyroid gland and immunohistochemical analysis of expression of p53 protein in papillary microcarcinomas

BACKGROUND: Thyroid papillary microcarcinoma (TPM) is defined according to WHO criteria as a thyroid tumor smaller than 1–1.5 cm. TPMs are encountered in 0.5–35.6 % of autopsies or surgical specimens where carcinoma had been unsuspected. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate patients who had TPMs in terms of clinical findings, histopathological features and immunohistochemical evidence of expression of the tumor suppressor gene p53. METHODS: A total of 44 patients with TPMs less than 1.0 cm in diameter were included in the study. The patients were evaluated clinically and the tumors were evaluated in terms of their histopathological and immunohistochemical features, including expression of p53. RESULTS: The female/male ratio was 2.8/1, and the median age at time of diagnosis was 49 years (range 20–71 years). The maximum diameter of the smallest focus was 0.1 mm, and that of the largest was 10 mm microscopically. The mean diameter of all tumors was 5.7 mm. There was no correlation between tumor size and age or gender. Of the TPMs, 72 % were found in the right lobe, 24 % in the left lobe and 4 % in the isthmus. Fine-needle aspiration biopsy provided the diagnosis of TPM in only 43.2 % of the patients. All patients were treated with surgery, with 20 undergoing conservative surgery, i.e. lobectomy or isthmusectomy, and 24 undergoing total thyroidectomy. Frozen section provided the diagnosis of TPM in only 56.8 % of the patients. We found lymphocytic thyroiditis in 13.6% of patients, follicular variants in 11.9%, capsular invasion in 26.8%, lymph node involvement in 11.9%, soft tissue metastases in the neck in 12.1% and multifocality in 31.7 %, and none of these were related to age or gender (p > 0.05). No distant metastases were observed during approximately 10 years of follow up. We found p53 positivity in 34.5 % of TPM tumors. However, p53 expression was not statistically related to age or gender. CONCLUSION: Our findings imply that TPMs may not be entirely innocent since they are associated with signs of poor prognosis such as capsular invasion, multifocal presentation, lymph node involvement and p53 positivity. Therefore, TPMs should be evaluated and followed like classical papillary cancers