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China’s island building in the South China Sea has received considerable attention from scholars, the media and policy-related officials in recent years. In this article, we conduct a survey to assess the opinions of Chinese university students as it regards their views of any moves by the Chinese government to retreat from its island building and the South China Sea claims due to international pressure. Since China has laid claim to much of the South China Sea via its ‘nine-dash line’, if it were to reverse course and retreat from its man-made islands or remove military installations, how would that play out domestically? Would the Chinese government incur audience costs for doing so? We hypothesise that it would. More specifically, we find it likely that Chinese university students would seek to hold their government accountable for claims to the South China Sea that it has made recently, making it more difficult for the government to retreat from or otherwise adopt a more flexible policy on the South China Sea if it chose to do so. The findings are significant for the audience costs literature, Chinese foreign policy, and South China Sea territoriality studies, in addition to having important policy implications.

This chapter situates Niebuhr in the world of the just war theory, while offering an assessment of his likely views of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and whether or not it was consistent with a Niebuhrian/just war approach to jus ad bellum (considerations of whether it is just to launch a war). While most writers consider Niebuhr a firm Augustinian and solidly in the camp of the just warriors (as do I), some controversy has arisen around his consequentialism, coupled with his relative lack of attention to jus in bello considerations (considerations of justice in how a war is fought). If Niebuhr had been alive in 2003, this study concludes that he would have been firmly against the Iraq War because of what he would have seen as U.S. hubris, U.S. assumptions of American exceptionalism, and the fact that the war did not accord with just war theory’s jus ad bellum standards.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) may have been the most influential and insightful American thinker of the twentieth century. In dealing with the intricacies of human nature, society, politics, ethics, theology, racism, and international relations, Niebuhr the teacher, preacher, philosopher, social critic, and ethicist was highly influential and difficult to ignore during the World War II and Cold War eras because of his intellectual heft and the novel manner in which he addressed the economic, spiritual, social, and political problems of his time. This book distills Niebuhr’s disparate and now difficult-to-access work on international relations into one volume, making it more easily accessible than ever before, at the same time bringing his work into the twenty-first century. It argues that if he were alive today Niebuhr would be a champion of the United Nations, a supporter of globalization, a fierce opponent of America’s 2003 Iraq War (for all the reasons he opposed the Vietnam War), an advocate of responsibility to protect, and a pragmatic hawk on China as it rises today. This book also highlights his many contributions to international relations (IR) theory, from Realism to Liberalism to existentialism to the English School to constructivism. This is the first book that focuses exclusively on the IR thought of Reinhold Niebuhr, one of America’s most important public intellectuals and classical Realism’s most important figures, dubbed “the father of us all” by American diplomat and Realist George Kennan.

In this chapter, we consider Niebuhr’s views of the nature of the world community, the United Nations, globalization, and the potential for national transcendence, or the likelihood of nations laying down their interests for a higher international good. Niebuhr would have viewed globalization positively, as a way to advance functional cooperation between nations. A strong supporter of the United Nations, he viewed the UN Security Council veto as an important tool, allowing cooperation among the powers but blocking forward movement on issues the great powers could not agree on. Despite his liberal internationalism, he did not believe national transcendence was likely given all he said about power, moral dissonance, and groupism, nor would he have found world government attractive given the fallibility of human nature, particularly if one considers dystopian tales such as Orwell’s 1984 or Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Reinhold Niebuhr was perhaps the preeminent American intellectual of the twentieth century. He was at once teacher, preacher, philosopher, social critic, public intellectual and ethicist, applying his brand of human nature Realism in both the secular and religious worlds. He was a highly influential thinker, especially at the height of the Cold War, addressing the economic, spiritual, social, and political issues of his day. He profoundly influenced the early classical Realists such as Hans Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger, and George F. Kennan. While Niebuhr has been forgotten by some, indeed there has been a marked resurgence of interest in Niebuhr’s work both in the United States and abroad in recent years, particularly in the wake of the 911 attacks and the invasion of Iraq. As we look forward, it is helpful to look backward to Niebuhr, for his views on international relations may well guide us as we attempt to deal with the many intractable problems of the present age.

There is much more to Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought, and his impact on international relations ([IR] and IR theory) has been deeper and more profound than has been commonly acknowledged. Indeed, Niebuhr has been a seminal figure in the Realist movement, but his impact goes beyond Realism. This chapter documents his contributions in the context of the revival/recovery of classical Realism, along with a recognition of the importance of nonmaterial factors (with contemporary interpretivists and constructivists), regime type (as with neo-liberal institutionalists or democratic peace), and human nature (Rosen), among other things. There are deep strains of existentialism in Niebuhr’s work as well, which is usually associated with postmodernism/poststructuralism, as Niebuhr draws in important ways from Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche. This chapter reconsiders Niebuhr’s theoretical innovations and in the process more adequately and systematically locates his work in IR theory, considering both his influences and the influences he has had therein and thereupon.

The conclusion argues that the time is right for a reappraisal and renewal of interest in Niebuhr’s approach to IR and U.S. foreign policy. It reviews the importance of dialectics to his work, and from a Niebuhrian perspective, comments on Putin’s Russia, the politics of Donald Trump, and the rise of the post-truth era. One of the most important aspects of Niebuhr’s contributions to IR was his recognition of the importance of dialectics. Dialectics found its way into much of Niebuhr’s writing, from his views on human nature to his views on the potential for realizing a peaceful, mutually tolerable global community, which he concluded was the “final possibility and impossibility of human life” and “will be in actuality the perpetual problem as well as the constant fulfillment of human hopes.”

This chapter focuses on Niebuhr’s views of human nature, the intellectual foundation on which his worldview is grounded. A dualistic view of human nature (a predisposition toward self-interest/evil, a potential for good) underlies all of his work. First is a discussion of the biblical conception of human nature which he embraced, starting with the notion of pride (which he viewed as the root of all human folly), which leads to insecurity (the consequence of pride), which results in will-to-power (a flawed attempt to address insecurity), from which, for Niebuhr, flow all the conflicts and wars in human history. The discussion then moves to the classical and modern conceptions of human nature, which Niebuhr ultimately rejected. In Niebuhr’s view, all of this leads to the inability of science, law, institutions, education, and rationality (among other things) to tame human nature and eradicate evil and/or ultimately conflict.

This chapter traces Niebuhr’s biography and his intellectual development through the Liberal Protestantism he embraced early in his life (as well as the reasons for his disavowal of it), to the Marxism he embraced in the face of 1930s Detroit Fordism (and the reasons he later disavowed it too), and finally his Christian Realism and the global context to which he applied that worldview, a worldview he held during his most influential years. It also charts his positions on the major foreign policy issues of his day, from U.S. policy in World War I to the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, to World War II, to the Cold War and its various episodes such as the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as his views on race and other major political issues of the time.

This chapter considers a Niebuhrian take on humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect (or R2P). Following an introduction to the evolution of the norms of humanitarian intervention and R2P, the study considers several cases from Niebuhr’s lifetime that he wrote about and that are related to what we now call humanitarian intervention and R2P. I conclude that Niebuhr would commiserate with those of us, like Samantha Power, who are saddened by the world’s cold willingness to ignore genocide and other atrocities and to stand by and do nothing in so many cases. Niebuhr would have found solace in the rise in international acceptance of the R2P principle. Niebuhr embraced the principles of what we know as R2P as a moral imperative for individuals and nations, even while recognizing the difficulty of mobilizing such goodwill and social action both socially and politically.

This chapter explores Niebuhr’s writings on China and asks what Niebuhr might have said about China’s spectacular rise as an economic power in the twenty-first century. Included are a discussion of what Niebuhr did say about China in his lifetime (1892–1971) and a consideration of Niebuhr’s views of and strategies for dealing with America’s major competitor in the last century (the USSR), followed by a discussion of what factors would be most important in considering how Westerners should view China’s rise today, from a Niebuhrian perspective. In sum, although Niebuhr was a defensive Realist like Henry Kissinger, he would be quite hawkish toward China today, parting ways with the dominant Kissingerian approach to China. This would not be because of latent material power/structures, but because of Niebuhr’s stress on human nature, ideology, and regime types, which in this case Niebuhr would argue make today’s China a potentially dangerous power.

This chapter follows Niebuhr’s logic to a discussion of collective society, the state, and international relations. Niebuhr believed that moral dualism is necessary because while moral conduct such as pacifism might be possible for individuals, it is difficult to find between human collectivities (groups, states) because groupism (nationalism in the context of states) is fundamental for any group. From this flows collective pride, which the group depends on to maintain group unity, then conflict, because groups depend on groupism and pride to maintain group cohesion. Niebuhr concluded that power is the primary motivating force in international relations (IR), key to order at home and abroad, that there must by necessity be a measure of moral ambiguity in IR because what morality we might espouse at the individual level may not be practicable at the national or international level (“turning the other cheek” is plausible with Aunt Mary, but not with Hitler).

Although at one time a Marxian thinker, Niebuhr was in his Christian Realist phase an ardent anticommunist, and his views of communism (assessed here) led naturally to his view that Washington should pursue a policy of containment and nuclear deterrence against the communist bloc. Though rather hawkish, he saw moral tension in the maintenance of nuclear weapons. He stood with a number of other Realists in energetically opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam, concluding that U.S. policymakers had succumbed to the folly of group pride and will-to-power run amok. His position cost him his status as darling of the Washington foreign policy establishment, but he had the courage to speak his mind and was more concerned about the cost of U.S. folly than he was about his reputation.

The choice facing China today is whether it will follow the precedent set by Otto von Bismarck—which appears to be its stated goal—or whether it will (intentionally or unintentionally) follow the path of another German leader, Kaiser Wilhelm, and pursue a policy of military growth, territorial and/or maritime expansionism, and a relative disregard for the concerns of its neighbors. The South China Sea will be an important test case, an arena where China's choices will impact its relations with its neighbors and other great powers like the United States.

In 2015, Harvard’s Graham Allison wrote an evocative article discussing the “Thucydides Trap” in relations between China and the United States, highlighting the danger of war between a rising power...

Schizophrenia represents the extreme end of a distribution of traits that extends well into the general population. Using a recently developed measure of psychotic-like traits in children, we examined the neural substrates of psychotic (and other psychiatric) symptoms using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Twenty-eight typically-developing children (14 males) between the ages of 6–17 years underwent a 3 T MRI scan. Parents completed the Psychiatric and Schizotypal Inventory for Children. Results revealed that caudate, amygdala, hippocampal and middle temporal gyrus volumes were associated with quantitative dimensions of psychiatric traits. Furthermore, results suggest a differential a sexually-dimorphic pattern of brain-schizotypy associations. These findings highlight brain-behavior continuities between clinical conditions such as schizophrenia and normal trait variation in typical development.

Introduction: Reducing misdiagnosis has long been a goal of medical informatics. Current thinking has focused on achieving this goal by integrating diagnostic decision support into electronic health records.Methods: A diagnostic decision support system already in clinical use was integrated into electronic health record systems at two large health systems, after clinician input on desired capabilities. The decision support provided three outputs: editable text for use in a clinical note, a summary including the suggested differential diagnosis with a graphical representation of probability, and a list of pertinent positive and pertinent negative findings (with onsets).Results: Structured interviews showed widespread agreement that the tool was useful and that the integration improved workflow. There was disagreement among various specialties over the risks versus benefits of documenting intermediate diagnostic thinking. Benefits were most valued by specialists involved in diagnostic testing, who were able to use the additional clinical context for richer interpretation of test results. Risks were most cited by physicians making clinical diagnoses, who expressed concern that a process that generated diagnostic possibilities exposed them to legal liability.Discussion and Conclusion: Reconciling the preferences of the various groups could include saving only the finding list as a patient-wide resource, saving intermediate diagnostic thinking only temporarily, or adoption of professional guidelines to clarify the role of decision support in diagnosis.

Background Genomic medicine is emerging into clinical care. Communication of genetic laboratory results to patients and providers is hampered by the complex technical nature of the laboratory reports. This can lead to confusion and misinterpretation of the results resulting in inappropriate care. Patients usually do not receive a copy of the report leading to further opportunities for miscommunication. To address these problems, interpretive reports were created using input from the intended end users, patients and providers. This paper describes the technical development and deployment of the first patient-facing genomic test report (PGR) within an electronic health record (EHR) ecosystem using a locally developed standards-based web-application interface. Methods A patient-facing genomic test report with a companion provider report was configured for implementation within the EHR using a locally developed software platform, COMPASS™. COMPASS™ is designed to manage secure data exchange, as well as patient and provider access to patient reported data capture and clinical display tools. COMPASS™ is built using a Software as a Service (SaaS) approach which exposes an API that apps can interact with. Results An authoring tool was developed that allowed creation of patient-specific PGRs and the accompanying provider reports. These were converted to a format that allowed them to be presented in the patient portal and EHR respectively using the existing COMPASS™ interface thus allowing patients, caregivers and providers access to individual reports designed for the intended end user. Conclusions The PGR as developed was shown to enhance patient and provider communication around genomic results. It is built on current standards but is designed to support integration with other tools and be compatible with emerging opportunities such as SMART on FHIR. This approach could be used to support genomic return of results as the tool is scalable and generalizable.

Intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) requires prompt diagnosis to optimize patient outcomes. We hypothesized that machine learning algorithms could automatically analyze computed tomography (CT) of the head, prioritize radiology worklists and reduce time to diagnosis of ICH. 46,583 head CTs (~2 million images) acquired from 2007–2017 were collected from several facilities across Geisinger. A deep convolutional neural network was trained on 37,074 studies and subsequently evaluated on 9499 unseen studies. The predictive model was implemented prospectively for 3 months to re-prioritize “routine” head CT studies as “stat” on realtime radiology worklists if an ICH was detected. Time to diagnosis was compared between the re-prioritized “stat” and “routine” studies. A neuroradiologist blinded to the study reviewed false positive studies to determine whether the dictating radiologist overlooked ICH. The model achieved an area under the ROC curve of 0.846 (0.837–0.856). During implementation, 94 of 347 “routine” studies were re-prioritized to “stat”, and 60/94 had ICH identified by the radiologist. Five new cases of ICH were identified, and median time to diagnosis was significantly reduced (p, A computer program that automatically analyzes brain images from patients undergoing CT scans of the head can reliably flag those with signs of hemorrhage. A team of researchers from Geisinger in Danville, Pennsylvania, USA, trained and tested a machine-learning algorithm using 46,583 computed tomography imaging studies of the head. Subsequently, they implemented the model into routine care for 3 months to help prioritize radiology worklists. Of 347 routine cases, the computer identified 94 as having an intracranial hemorrhage, two-thirds of which were confirmed by a radiologist, including five among patients who had a new diagnosis of a brain bleed. The algorithm reduced the average time in which a radiologist diagnosed these patients from around 8.5 h to just 19 min, demonstrating the positive impact of incorporating artificial intelligence into radiology workflow.

ASD and ADHD are regarded as distinct disorders in the current DSM-5. However, recent research and the RDoC initiative are recognizing considerable overlap in the clinical presentation of ASD, ADHD, and other neurodevelopmental disorders. In spite of numerous neuroimaging findings in ASD and ADHD, the extent to which either of the above views are supported remains equivocal. Here we compare structural MRI and DTI literature in ASD and ADHD. Our main findings reveal both distinct and shared neural features. Distinct expressions were in total brain volume (ASD: increased volume, ADHD: decreased volume), amygdala (ASD: overgrowth, ADHD: normal), and internal capsule (ASD: unclear, ADHD: reduced FA in DTI). Considerable overlap was noted in the corpus callosum and cerebellum (lower volume in structural MRI and decreased FA in DTI), and superior longitudinal fasciculus (reduced FA in DTI). In addition, we identify brain regions which have not been studied in depth and require more research. We discuss relationships between brain features and symptomatology. We conclude by addressing limitations of current neuroimaging research and offer approaches that account for clinical heterogeneity to better distinguish brain-behavior relationships.

Purpose To validate the use of thick-section clinically acquired magnetic resonance (MR) imaging data for estimating total brain volume (TBV), gray matter (GM) volume (GMV), and white matter (WM) volume (WMV) by using three widely used automated toolboxes: SPM ( www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/ ), FreeSurfer ( surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu ), and FSL (FMRIB software library; Oxford Centre for Functional MR Imaging of the Brain, Oxford, England, https://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl ). Materials and Methods MR images from a clinical archive were used and data were deidentified. The three methods were applied to estimate brain volumes from thin-section research-quality brain MR images and routine thick-section clinical MR images acquired from the same 38 patients (age range, 1-71 years; mean age, 22 years; 11 women). By using these automated methods, TBV, GMV, and WMV were estimated. Thin- versus thick-section volume comparisons were made for each method by using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Results SPM exhibited excellent ICCs (0.97, 0.85, and 0.83 for TBV, GMV, and WMV, respectively). FSL exhibited ICCs of 0.69, 0.51, and 0.60 for TBV, GMV, and WMV, respectively, but they were lower than with SPM. FreeSurfer exhibited excellent ICC of 0.63 only for TBV. Application of SPM's voxel-based morphometry on the modulated images of thin-section images and interpolated thick-section images showed fair to excellent ICCs (0.37-0.98) for the majority of brain regions (88.47% [306924 of 346916 voxels] of WM and 80.35% [377 282 of 469 502 voxels] of GM). Conclusion Thick-section clinical-quality MR images can be reliably used for computing quantitative brain metrics such as TBV, GMV, and WMV by using SPM. © RSNA, 2017 Online supplemental material is available for this article.

Late on June 3, 1989, and into the next day Chinese soldiers brought to an abrupt end the 7-week standoff between the Chinese state and students and citizens of Beijing. It has been common to see balance of power considerations as bringing China and the United States together in 1972 to balance against the Soviet Union, and it has been equally common to see the end of what Kissinger called the Sino-American “tacit alliance” (1972–1989) to be, naturally, the end of the Cold War and/or the breakup of the Soviet Union. Borrowing from Hopf's societal constructivism (2012) and Wendt's “cultures of anarchy” (1999) here applied at the second level of analysis, the following study concludes that June 4 was actually key to the end of the Sino-American “tacit alliance,” leading to a major shift in mutual perceptions, which caused a shift in the Sino-American dyadic culture, from that of trusted friends to that of distrusted adversaries for a season, effectively ending the “tacit alliance” between the US and China.

The social-cognitive deficits associated with several neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders have been linked to structural and functional brain anomalies. Given the recent appreciation for quantitative approaches to behavior, in this study we examined the brain-behavior links in social cognition in healthy young adults from a quantitative approach. Twenty-two participants were administered quantitative measures of social cognition, including the social responsiveness scale (SRS), the empathizing questionnaire (EQ) and the systemizing questionnaire (SQ). Participants underwent a structural, 3-T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedure that yielded both volumetric (voxel count) and asymmetry indices. Model fitting with backward elimination revealed that a combination of cortical, limbic and striatal regions accounted for significant variance in social behavior and cognitive styles that are typically associated with neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. Specifically, as caudate and amygdala volumes deviate from the typical R > L asymmetry, and cortical gray matter becomes more R > L asymmetrical, overall SRS and Emotion Recognition scores increase. Social Avoidance was explained by a combination of cortical gray matter, pallidum (rightward asymmetry) and caudate (deviation from rightward asymmetry). Rightward asymmetry of the pallidum was the sole predictor of Interpersonal Relationships and Repetitive Mannerisms. Increased D-scores on the EQ-SQ, an indication of greater systemizing relative to empathizing, was also explained by deviation from the typical R > L asymmetry of the caudate. These findings extend the brain-behavior links observed in neurodevelopmental disorders to the normal distribution of traits in a healthy sample.

While China's rising power is certainly an important variable in Sino-Japanese relations, it cannot explain either why the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute broke out anew in the fall of 2012 or why the Chinese response was so strong. China read Japan's move to nationalize the islands as an in-your-face move designed to show disrespect for China and make Japan's sovereignty over the islands a fait accompli. In this article I borrow from Robert Putnam's notion of twolevel games to argue that there are two levels of face politics going on in this case: one between domestic actors in Japan and in China, the other between the two countries. A solution to the territorial dispute can only be found when both sides' “face needs” are recognized and met at both levels of analysis.

What are the obstacles to greater cooperation in Northeast Asia and why have the nations of the region not been entirely successful in moving beyond history, toward greater cooperation? Conducting a brief survey of Northeast Asian IR and power alignment patterns from the Imperial/Dynastic era to the present, this essay utilizes the constructivist approach to assess regional alignment patterns in Northeast Asian history corresponding to six historical time periods, ranging from Ming China to the present. It does so by employing Wendt's system-level cultures of anarchy (Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian cultures) at the dyadic/second level of analysis and the regional level of analysis (level 2.5), rating the various eras as to levels of cooperation vs enmity, with an eye to identifying the reasons for today's tension points. It concludes that despite such tension points and unresolved historical issues, anarchy in Northeast Asia today is not Hobbesian (enmity), but rather Lockean (rivalry). Consequently and f...

In this work, poly(3-alkylthiophenes) films were synthesized electrochemically in acetonitrile with LiClO4 or Et4NBF4 at 5 or 18 °C. The films were deposited on platinum plates, and the polymer as-prepared was referred to as-oxidized. The as-reduced polymer was obtained by subjecting the as-oxidized product to −1.70 V for 1 min. These various products were characterized by cyclic voltammetry, reflectance UV–Vis and Raman spectroscopy, and the results were used to estimate the ionization potential (I P), electron affinity (E.A.) and energy gap (E g) parameters. This study was possible because the Raman spectra demonstrated three structures (aromatic, radical cation and dication segments) which formed the P3MT and P3OT polymer chains.

In this work, poly (3-methylthiophene) (P3MT) and poly (3-octylthiophene) (P3OT) films were synthesized electrochemically in non-aqueous media through the oxidation of the monomers, (3-methylthiophene and 3-octylthiophene), using a standard three-electrode cell in acetonitrile with 0.100 mol L-1 LiClO4. The polymeric thin films were deposited on platinum plates for optimal quality control of the process. It was observed that the material as-prepared for the anodic electropolymerization undergoes a natural process of de-protonation as a function of time. Moreover, the partial dedoped form, obtained in NH4OH solution, presents a good chemically stabilite form but, when radiated with blue light again becomes unstable. Films obtained by these methods have been characterized by cyclic voltammetry, Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Both Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectra results led to the characterization of two structures (pristine and non-pristine forms of thiophene rings) which formed the P3MT and P3OT polymer chain. These results were associated with the stabilization of pristine chains and mixed chains (non-pristine structures), radical cation and dication forms, in the polymeric film. Their bands in the Raman and PL spectra are wide and asymmetric and their adjustments by Gaussian functions were necessary, indicating that there are three distinct contributions to the vibration and two to the emission spectra in the formed polymeric material.

Previous studies applying automatic preprocessing methods on Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (sMRI) report inconsistent neuroanatomical abnormalities in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In this study we investigate inter-method differences as a possible cause behind these inconsistent findings. In particular, we focus on the estimation of the following brain volumes: gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and total intra cranial volume (TIV). T1-weighted sMRIs of 417 ASD subjects and 459 typically developing controls (TDC) from the ABIDE dataset were estimated using three popular preprocessing methods: SPM, FSL, and FreeSurfer (FS). Brain volumes estimated by the three methods were correlated but had significant inter-method biases; except TIVSPM versus TIVFS, all inter-method differences were significant. ASD versus TDC group differences in all brain volume estimates were dependent on the method used. SPM showed that TIV, GM, and CSF volumes of ASD were larger than TDC with statistical significance, whereas FS and FSL did not show significant differences in any of the volumes; in some cases, the direction of the differences were opposite to SPM. When methods were compared with each other, they showed differential biases for autism, and several biases were larger than ASD versus TDC differences of the respective methods. After manual inspection, we found inter-method segmentation mismatches in the cerebellum, sub-cortical structures, and inter-sulcal CSF. In addition, to validate automated TIV estimates we performed manual segmentation on a subset of subjects. Results indicate that SPM estimates are closest to manual segmentation, followed by FS while FSL estimates were significantly lower. In summary, we show that ASD versus TDC brain volume differences are method dependent and that these inter-method discrepancies can contribute to inconsistent neuroimaging findings in general. We suggest cross-validation across methods and emphasize the need to develop better methods to increase the robustness of neuroimaging findings.

In this work, poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) film was synthesized electrochemically in non-aqueous media through the oxidation of the 3-hexylthiophene monomer using a standard three-electrode cell in acetonitrile with 0.100 mol L−1 LiClO4. The polymeric thick film was deposited on platinum plates for best quality control of the process. Cyclic voltammetry of this material showed two bands of oxidation and two bands of reduction attributed to radical cation and dication segments in the polymer chain. These were characterized by reflectance and Raman spectra, of the reduced (chemically de-doped) and oxidized (electrochemically doped) films. The generated film was subjected to anodic potentials of 1.00 and 1.45 V and characterized by an in situ Raman technique, which indicated the stabilization of the radical cation segments. In addition Raman ex situ spectra of as-prepared film was obtained. The increase in the irradiation time of the sample was enough to alter the nature of the constituent species of the oxidized film, preferably favoring the aromatic chains, together with the dication segments. Photoluminescence spectra showed a larger contribution of dication than radical cation segments for the chemically de-doped sample and under this condition showed good stability, even with variation in laser power. SEM images of P3HT film with indication of the thickness and spherical shape of the sample studied were obtained. Aided by these data it was possible to verify the Stokes shift and ionization potential (I p), electron affinity (E.A.) and energy gap (E g) parameters.

This article brings an international relations perspective to the discussion of the science and policy of avoiding a Sino-US arms race in space. A blind adherence to realist and space nationalist assumptions, without considering alternative approaches such as the policy options offered here, will likely doom China and the United States to a long, expensive, and potentially dangerous arms race in space for decades to come. KEYWORDS: US-China relations, arms control, space security, Chinese military, international relations, East Asian security. "WHO CONTROLS LOW-EARTH ORBIT CONTROLS NEAR-EARTH SPACE.WHO controls near-Earth space dominates Terra [Earth and atmosphere]. Who dominates Terra dominates the destiny of humankind. . . . The United States is the morally superior choice to seize and control space" (Dolman 2002, 2005). Statements such as Everett Dolman's embody an approach to space security that makes war and conflict in space almost inevitable, and they certainly have ominous implications for the future of Sino-US relations.Most experts on space security agree that space has not been weaponized to date (O'Hanlon 2004; Moltz 2008), and while terrestrial weapons can strike space assets and while space assets are used in targeting for terrestrial weapons with terrestrial targets, there are as of yet no weapons located in space, whether those of China or the United States. Yet how long can this last?While five of the six previous articles in this collection are authored by physicists or engineers with technical expertise in matters of space weaponry (Grego, Shen, Chen, Wu, and Gubrud), this article is an attempt to bring a political science/international relations (IR) perspective to discussion of the potential and dangers of a Sino-US extraterrestrial arms race, and prospects for avoiding it. The article poses several questions. As China continues to rise economically and militarily, is an arms race or even a conflict in space between the United States and China inevitable? What role do one's theoretical lenses have regarding views of the inevitability of an extraterrestrial Sino-US arms race or conflict in the future? Is there a realistic basis for seeking common ground between the United States and China on these issues, so that an arms race and conflict in space might be avoided? The Very Real Potential of a Sino-US Extraterrestrial Arms Race The Imbalance of Capabilities To begin the discussion, it should be noted that the possibility of a Sino- US arms race in space is related to the larger phenomenon of the rise of China and the transmutability of economic power into political and military power. In 2010 China surpassed Japan as the world's secondlargest economy, behind only the United States. In the last couple of years, China has also become the world's largest new car market, surpassing the United States, and the world's number-one producer of greenhouse gases. Although China has the world's largest population, comparing its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita with the United States put things in a more realistic perspective-based on 2011 figures from the International Monetary Fund, US GDP per capita is $48,655 and China's is $7,519-there is little doubt that the most significant international relations story of the twenty-first century is the rise of China as a global power and the manner in which the world's reigning superpower, the United States, reacts to that new reality. Given the growing importance of space to both countries, the way in which they manage their presence there will be a fundamental part of their relationship in coming decades. Presently, the United States has an undeniable and almost unchallenged position of space primacy. For example, at the time of writing (June 2011), according to Union of Concerned Scientists data, of the 957 operating satellites in orbit around the Earth, 436 (45.6 percent) are from the United States, 100 (10.4 percent) are from Russia, and 69 (7. …

While Sino-Japanese relations are quite stable presently, it was as recent as 2004–2005 that the two nations slid into the worst bilateral quagmire in decades. When in 2007 Japan was China’s third largest trading partner and China surpassed the US to become Japan’s largest trading partner, what is eating these two otherwise very pragmatic traders? History, nationalism and face, enabled by recent changes in the strategic environment, are the factors that have been most salient in bringing about the plunge in Sino-Japanese relations in 2004–05 and though Sino-Japanese relations have been much better since, these factors hang like a storm front over Sino-Japanese relations today.

Risk-taking behaviors involve increased motor activity and reduced anxiety in humans. Total sleep deprivation (SD) in animals produces a similar change in motor and fear behaviors. Investigators studied region-specific brain levels of glutamate in rats after TSD, an animal model of risk-taking behavior. We investigated the effects of sleep deprivation on these behaviors and associated levels of brain glutamate. Compared to the controls, the sleep-deprived rats spent a significantly greater percentage of time in the open arms of the elevated plus maze (EPM), demonstrating reduced fear-like and increased risk-taking behaviors. Additionally, sleep deprivation was associated with a significant increase in glutamate levels in the hippocampus and thalamus. An inverse relationship between glutamate in the medial prefrontal cortex and risk taking in the EPM and a positive association between the ratio of glutamate in the hippocampus to medial prefrontal cortex and risk taking was revealed. The role of sleep deprivation-induced changes in brain glutamate and its relationship to anxiety, fear, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is discussed.

In 1999 Sino-American relations experienced intense strain as a result of NATO’s Kosovo intervention, and in particular by the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by an American B-2 bomber. Why did the bombing of China’s embassy in Belgrade in the spring of 1999 touch such a raw nerve among the Chinese people and leadership? With the coming of the tenth anniversary of these events, what still needs to be explained is how Chinese and Americans could draw such divergent conclusions about that which they’ve never disagreed on—the incontestable fact of the embassy’s demolition—and how the fact that what Americans called “a mistake” could almost completely derail Sino-American relations, which President Clinton in his very successful visit to China a year before had called a “strategic partnership.” Based on a series of semistructured interviews the author did in Beijing and Washington with 28 Chinese and 30 American experts, this research draws a number of important conclusions in this regard. First, intensifying and even defining the conflict were a number of important perceptual gaps. Second, given the dispute over the intentionality of the embassy bombing, the conflict boiled down not to clashing interests, per se, but rather to issues of trust and beliefs about motives and intentions. Third, poor handling of the embassy bombing by both governments deepened the conflict and the alienation both sides felt. Fourth, underlying the lack of trust and the perceptual gaps between the two sides was “Fundamental Attribution Error.”

Objective Recent molecular, preclinical, and preliminary clinical studies suggest that the therapeutic effects of mood stabilizers may be mediated by modulating expression of potent neurotrophic and neuroprotective factors having the potential to reverse impairments of cellular resilience, reductions in brain volume, and cell death or atrophy. Our main goal was to investigate the potential clinical significance of these findings in relation to bipolar disorder. Method The longitudinal effect of lithium on brain gray matter volume was investigated in well-characterized (DSM-IV criteria) bipolar depressed subjects (N = 28) at baseline (medication-free) and after lithium administration (4 weeks). Total brain gray matter, prefrontal gray matter, and left subgenual prefrontal gray matter volumes were determined using validated semiautomated segmentation and region of interest methodology. The study was conducted from November 1997 until April 2004 at Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Mich. Results Significant increases in total brain gray matter volume in bipolar subjects were observed after 4 weeks of lithium administration (p = .0043). Moreover, regional analyses in the bipolar subjects revealed significant differences between responders (>50% decrease in Hamilton Depression Rating Scale total score) and nonresponders; only responders showed a significant increase in gray matter volume in the prefrontal cortex (p = .003) and an increase at trend level in the left subgenual prefrontal cortex volume (p = .0786). Conclusion The increase in gray matter volume in these areas, which various neuroimaging and postmortem neuropathology studies have implicated in the neuropathophysiology of bipolar disorder, suggests that the observed effects may be linked to clinical response. The findings also support the notion that future treatments that more directly target molecules in critical central nervous system pathways that regulate cellular plasticity hold promise as novel, improved, long-term treatments for mood disorders as well as some neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease. Trial registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00870311.

Background Abnormalities in the amygdala and hippocampus have been implicated in the pathogenesis of major depressive disorder (MDD). To our knowledge, no prior study has examined amygdala-hippocampus anatomy in pediatric patients with familial MDD (at least one first degree relative with MDD). Methods Thirty-two psychotropic-naive patients with familial MDD, aged 8–21 years (12 males and 20 females), and 35 group-matched healthy participants (13 males and 22 females) underwent volumetric magnetic resonance imaging in order to evaluate hippocampal and amygdala volumes. Results Patients with familial MDD had significantly smaller left hippocampal ( p = .007, effect size [d] = .44) and right hippocampal volumes ( p = .025, d=.33) than controls. No differences were noted in amygdala volumes between groups (right: p > .05, left: p > .05). No correlations between hippocampal or amygdala volumes and demographic or clinical variables were noted. Conclusions Reduced hippocampal volume may be suggestive of a risk factor for developing MDD.

America's North Korea nuclear policy has been a failure. Instead of achieving its goal of preventing North Korea from possessing and proliferating nuclear weapons, it has had the opposite effect. This failure was a result of the George W. Bush administration's blanket rejection of the previous administration's approach to North Korea, the tendency to ignore the advice of experts, neoconservative influence on foreign policy, and divisions within the administration resulting in an inconsistent approach. This article suggests a bold new approach in which the United States offers North Korea full diplomatic recognition and a formal end to the Korean War as first steps toward the goals established in the 2007 Six Party Talks on North Korea, i.e., that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapons programs, and cease its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Taking these moves as a starting point rather than a reward for compliance will deepen North Korea's commitment to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation by removing its gravest external security threat-the United States. Key words: U.S. foreign policy in East Asia, North Korea, nuclear weapons, multilateral security - East Asia The Failure of U.S. Policy There can be no denying that America's North Korea nuclear policy since 2000 has been a failure. U.S. policy goals regarding North Korea's nuclear programs have focused primarily on deterring North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, and preventing North Korea from proliferating technology, knowhow, or materials related to its nuclear program to other states. Yet since 2000, North Korea has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), ejected international inspectors from its plutonium processing facilities and removed monitoring devices, and declared itself a nuclear-weapons club member by testing with marginal success a rudimentary nuclear device. It has shown itself not only willing to proliferate nuclear technology and materials, as well as the missile hardware and technology to potentially deliver them, but to have already done so to Iran, Pakistan, and Syria.1 In short, the administrations of both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have failed to deter North Korea from developing and testing nuclear weapons, and have failed to keep North Korea from proliferating nuclear weapons technology and materials to states of concern to the United States. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill's recent attempts via bilateral meetings within the Six Party Talks (6PT) to draw North Korea into a bilateral agreement with the United States have been admirable. Moreover, U.S. flexibility, shown in the 2007 agreement that has been reached with North Korea, and the October 2008 removal of North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, are goodfaith efforts on Washington's part, and are certainly moves in the right direction. Unfortunately, they are still too little, too late. As has been the case with U.S. policy toward Cuba, the United States has preferred to isolate North Korea rather than pursue the path followed with China in the 1970s, i.e., recognizing and engaging constructively with it. Despite its imperfections today, China and Chinese foreign-policy behavior have changed remarkably since the change in U.S. policy toward it. This is not true of Cuba, however, nor is it true of North Korea, which begs the question, why doesn't the United States try something truly novel in its dealings with North Korea? In this sense, today's U.S. policy makers have much to learn from Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who exhibited fortitude and creativity in forging a radically new policy toward China in the early 1970s during the height of the Vietnam War and the cold war. This article will first provide a brief overview of U.S. policy toward the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) regarding the recent nuclear standoff and the 6PT. …