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The White House Budget proposal for 2018, if approved, could lead to a drastic cut in US funding of UN activities in the coming years. Since the US is the largest contributor to the regular budget, peacekeeping operations, agencies and programmes, its decision could have major implications on the organisation’s workings. Besides well-founded queries about what the US actually stands to gain by suc

The upcoming election of a new Secretary-General can be a potential turning point for the UN in its efforts to achieve a more transparent, inclusive and gender-balanced administration of its affairs. For this, however, the Security Council should recommend to the General Assembly at least two of the officially nominated candidates, including women, following meetings with each of them and well in

There is an urgent need to address in a comprehensive manner the problem of systematic and flagrant violations of international humanitarian and human-rights law in ongoing conflicts, including its sources and implications. More specifically, possible lines of action to counter the growing importance of non-state armed actors and the use of explosives in populated areas must be discussed. A Global

In a UN Security Council meeting (UNSC) on the role of regional organisations and sub-regional arrangements held on 9 March 2015, the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) held that the UN is unable to tackle current security threats on its own. The complexity of these threats requires that it work more closely with regional organisations, including the EU, through improved cooperation and partnerships in s

A method for the electrochemical synthesis of palladium nanowires, using porous alumina templates with diameters of 25 nm and 40 nm, is presented. Through an electrochemical barrier layer thinning step, pulsed electrodeposition can take place directly into the anodized aluminum; without need for extra removal, pore opening, and metal contact coating steps. A digital oscilloscope is used to record

Cardiac output, regional tissue and arterial tumor blood flow were studied in rats, with 99Tcm labelled microspheres using a reference sample simultaneously drawn as the spheres were injected. Both cardiac output and regional blood flow can be estimated in absolute values (ml x min-1 x g-1). Cardiac output and normal tissue blood flow were not affected by tumor growth in the liver or subcutaneousl

THE search for 242mAm (t1/2=152 yr) in environmental samples has involved detection of its daughter 242Cm (t 1/2=163 d) (refs 1-3). These samples were contaminated by transuranium nuclides either from a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant or from a thermonuclear test fallout. A logical consequence was then to analyse global fallout-contaminated samples for 242Cm and 244Cm to establish the present dist

Different methods of trapping radioactive xenon are reviewed. Trapping by adsorption on activated charcoal has the advantage of being simple and cheap and also makes it possible to recycle the xenon. An activated charcoal trapping system is described which can extract 133Xe from 100l of expired air in 10 min from patients undergoing diagnostic pulmonary or circulation studies. Details of the const

Attenuation curves and photopeak ratios of 159 keV and 28 keV phtons emitted in the decay of 123I have been studied using a scintillation camera equipped with an extra ADC for recording the pulse height distribution of the energy signal. Cavities of various sizes containing 123I-solution were placed at different depths in a water phantom in order to vary the effective depth, i.e., the thickness of

A detailed study has been made of the method for labeling plasmin (NOVO Indstri A/S Denmark) with 99mTc in order to prepare a radioactive indicator for early scintigraphic visualization of thrombi and tumors. The best method found for preparing 99mTc-plasmic involved the reduction of 2.5 ml 99mTc-pertechnetate solution with 0.5 ml of 4 mM SnCl2, 2 M NaCl and 70 mM HCl. This mixture was then added

Image quality, resolution and sensitivity of a scintillation camera equipped with various collimators have been investigated using high purity 123I. Pulse height distributions of 123I from a thyroid phantom partly in air and partly immersed in water demonstrated the substantial septa penetration of the 440 and 529 keV gamma rays of 123I with high resolution collimators. Line spread functions were

(99m)Tc labelled macroaggregated albumin particles prepared from a commercial 'kit' have been tested in detail. With the introduction of the method of gel chromatography column scanning it became possible to make fast and simple quantitative measurements of the radiochemical purity. This was found to be the only reliable method for quantitative determination of non aggregated (99m)Tc labelled albu